Search results for " Quality"
showing 10 items of 3133 documents
Reviving the lost spaces under urban highways and bridges: an empirical study
2019
Purpose The fast development of urban movement infrastructures has created neglected urban places in cities. This study aims to provide users’ preferences for designing lost spaces that are a by-product of elevated urban highways (UHs) and bridges to develop a conceptual model for better environmental design. Design/methodology/approach This research is conducted by a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first phase, to explore the citizen’s environmental preferences based on the Q-sort technique and in-depth interviews, the ideas of 50 users were considered up to data saturation. The preferences of people for designs under urban bridges were extracted by conten…
Institutions and Innovation as Driving Forces Towards a Smart City and Sustainable Territorial Development
2018
The aim of the chapter is the analysis of innovation and institution as key-elements for reaching a higher social welfare and for improving environmental quality. To determine a social optimum or a Pareto improvement, we consider the interaction between institution and firm in the short and in the medium/long run. Using a static comparative analysis, the interaction of these two agents, institution and market, is examined. Within the market an entrant and an incumbent firm are present, and the entrant firm radically innovates. Even if in the short run results show that the market alone is able to realize a Pareto improvement, an institution action through an innovation adoption is a prefera…
Struggle over joint audit: on behalf of public interest?
2012
International audience; European Commission (EC 2011) has recently suggested joint audit - broadly defined as an audit where two independent auditors are jointly liable for the audit report - as a way a way to increase audit quality after the financial crisis and to mitigate audit market concentration, by enlarging the audit offer. Big 4 audit firms have fought this proposal by arguing its unbearable cost while 2nd Tier audit firms have supported it by arguing its added quality. This conflicting position leads us to question their claim of public interest concern. As group-interest economic regulation theories predict that the absence of any effect of a new regulation (here: joint audit) is…
Messages beyond the phone: Processing variable message signs while attending hands-free phone calls.
2021
We examined the effects of different types of cognitive distraction coming from a hands-free phone conversation on the processing of information provided by variable message signs (VMS), on driving performance indicators, and on a physiological index of mental effort (heart rate). Participants drove a route in a driving simulator and had to respond to VMS messages under three conditions: no-distraction, visuospatial distraction (attending phone calls with questions inducing visuospatial processing), and conceptual distraction (attending phone calls with questions requiring semantic memory). Results showed more errors responding to VMS messages in the visuospatial distraction condition. In a…
Would New Zealand adolescents cycle to school more if allowed to cycle without a helmet?
2018
Abstract Introduction The effectiveness of bicycle helmet use in preventing head injuries has been well documented. Mandatory helmet-use legislation is present in multiple countries including New Zealand. However, studies examining the correlates of adolescents' perception that they would cycle to school more often if helmet legislation was repealed are scant. This study examined these correlates in a sample of New Zealand adolescents. Methods Adolescents (n = 774; age: 13–18 years) from all 12 secondary schools in Dunedin, New Zealand, completed an online questionnaire about their cycling to school and cycling in general behaviours and perceptions and opinions about bicycle helmet use as a…
Spatial analysis of traffic accidents near and between road intersections in a directed linear network.
2019
Although most of the literature on traffic safety analysis has been developed over areal zones, there is a growing interest in using the specific road structure of the region under investigation, which is known as a linear network in the field of spatial statistics. The use of linear networks entails several technical complications, ranging from the accurate location of traffic accidents to the definition of covariates at a spatial micro-level. Therefore, the primary goal of this study was to display a detailed analysis of a dataset of traffic accidents recorded in Valencia (Spain), which were located into a linear network representing more than 30 km of urban road structure corresponding t…
Investigation of the consequences of the modifiable areal unit problem in macroscopic traffic safety analysis: A case study accounting for scale and …
2019
Abstract Traffic safety analysis at the macroscopic level usually relies on previously defined areal traffic analysis zones (TAZs) that are used as the units of investigation. Hence, statistical inference is made on the basis of such units, implying that the consideration of a certain TAZ configuration may influence the results and conclusions achieved. Regarding this, the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) is a well-known issue in the field of spatial statistics, which refers to the effects that arise in statistical properties and estimations when there is a change in areal units of analysis. In this paper, the consequences of MAUP have been investigated through a dataset of traffic cras…
Who designs the classroom’s images? Study of visual culture diversity at three Valencian schools
2021
The research reported on here elaborated on the effects that images displayed on the walls have in schools as a variable in evaluating the educational quality. Mixed methods were used to analyse the images displayed on the walls of 27 classrooms to determine their provenance and authorship. The results show quantitative, qualitative and aesthetical values of the school visual culture, thanks to the numerous photographic series (resembling in graphs) which are a testimony of each classroom. After the typologies of the displayed images at the schools had been documented, it was demonstrated that images mostly come from the school products industry and from faculty members.i The kind of analy…
Examining the role of religion in a family setting: religious attitudes and quality of life among parents and their adolescent children
2016
The study examined the role of religion in a family setting by evaluating relationships between religious attitudes and quality of life among parents and their adolescent children. Previous research suggested that religious beliefs and behavior play an important role in shaping family relations and their members’ well-being. The group of 465 parents and adolescents completed four scales measuring religiousness, quality of life, and satisfaction with life. Results using correlational analyses and cluster comparisons showed that religiousness had a significant effect on both subjective quality of life dimensions and satisfaction with life among parents and adolescents. Individuals characteriz…
The Complex Interaction Between the Major Sleep Symptoms, the Severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, and Sleep Quality
2021
Introduction: Little information exists in the general population whether clinical presentation phenotypes of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) differ in terms of sleep quality and comorbidities.Aim: The purpose of our study was to assess possible differences between symptomatic and asymptomatic OSA patients concerning syndrome's severity, patients' sleep quality, and comorbidities.Subjects and methods: First, in a nationwide, stratified, epidemiological survey, 4,118 Cypriot adult participants were interviewed about sleep habits and complaints. In the second stage of the survey, 264 randomly selected adults underwent a type III sleep study for possible OSA. Additionally, they completed the Gre…