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The purpose of this paper is to focus on the availability and demanded locations of health care services in a rural context. The authors analyse subjective experiences because mobility and other individual factors influence the availability of public services.

Results from a mail survey in southeastern Finland are presented. Data collection was conducted using a random sample of 3,000 people from age 60 to 90 years. A total of 1,121 valid responses were received.

The acceptable distance to service sites depends on learned behaviour where differences exist between suburban and rural residents. The authors found that service networks can be sparser in rural areas if the service sites are located in the daily activity space of the residents and travel burdens caused by distance and time are adequately solved. However, continuous downscaling of the provision may lead to the loss of health benefits which is harmful for individuals and expensive for society.

Further research should assess a broader variety of residential areas from the perspective of service availability. The results presented do not enable a direct comparison of the service availability between cities and sparsely populated rural areas.

The paper contributes to the debate on access barriers to public service in rural regions. The question of availability of public services is topical because increasing overall demand requires urgent productivity improvements in public services. Currently this is solved by centralisation to search economies of scale.

In any critical system, high‐availability of software components like web services has so far been achieved through replication. Three replication strategies known as active, passive, and hybrid, describe for example how many replicas are needed, where to locate replicas, and how replicas interact with the original web service and among themselves if needed. The purpose of this paper is to show how replicates could be substituted with components that are similarly functional to the component that needs back‐up in case of failure.

After examination of the different existing replication strategies, it was decided to test the suitability of the proposed web services high‐availability approach based on communities for each strategy. To this end, the specification of web services using two behaviors, namely control and operational, was deemed appropriate.

The active replication strategy is the only strategy that could support the development of a web services high‐availability approach based on communities of web services.

The proposed approach has been validated in practice by deploying a JXTA‐based testbed. The experimental work has implemented the active replication strategy.

Software component high‐availability could be achieved by components that are similarly functional to this component, which permits the common limitations of existing replication strategies to be addressed.

The purpose of the paper is to define the best deployment alternatives for a public protection and disaster relief (PPDR) mobile network service – the implementation alternatives being either a dedicated network, a commercial network or a hybrid of the two network types. The selection criteria are based on the social benefits that the PPDR mobile service is expected to bring to society. The critical parameters are population density and service availability, which both directly relate to the socioeconomic benefits achieved by providing broadband (BB) mobile services in various demographic areas.

A causal loop model has been developed to define the socioeconomic benefits of the PPDR network, the parameters being population density, service availability, socioeconomic value of the service and the costs of the network. The network solution alternatives are studied using the Finnish PPDR network as a reference – analysing various areas of the country with differing population densities from remote, rural and more densely populated suburban and urban areas.

Socioeconomic value is a common measure for assessing the value of governmental investments; population density has a strong impact on the optimum deployment alternatives as the socioeconomic value is directly proportional to this variable. The flat nationwide fee of the mobile users means that the users are subsidised in sparsely populated areas – and overcharged in densely populated areas. This is the main reason why the commercial network seems to be most feasible in rural areas, whereas the dedicated network works best in urban areas. Based on the case study, the commercial network is most preferable up to the point when the population density reaches 50-125 persons/km². After that point, the dedicated network becomes more appropriate. Proposals are being made to improve the availability of the commercial networks enabling them to serve as a PPDR network: ensuring priority functionality and a protected power supply; allowing PPDR subscribers the exclusive use of one of the 700 MHz spectrum bands in restricted, critical areas; and extending use of the existing narrowband PPDR network in areas where communication availability is crucial.

On the one hand, the financing of BB PPDR mobile networks is an unresolved issue in many countries. On the other hand, the ability of commercial BB networks to provide better quality of service is improving, making viable the alternative to subscribe for radio service from a commercial operator. Therefore, the feasibility study on how to provide an optimum mobile BB service for PPDR organisations is of real value at this time.

The rapid proliferation of mobile context aware applications has resulted in an increased research interest towards developing specialized context data management strategies for mobile entities. The purpose of this paper is to aim to develop a new way to model mobile entities and manage their contexts accordingly.

This paper proposes the concept of “Mobile Space” to model mobile entities and presents strategies to manage the various contexts associated therein. To handle availability related issues, two system services are designed: the “Availability Updating Service” which is an identifier based mechanism and is designed to keep track of mobile objects and handle availability related issues, and the “Application Callback Service” which is a publish/subscribe based mechanism to handle application disruptions and interruptions arising due to mobility.

The paper presents a detailed study of the proposed framework and a description of the underlying services and the components therein to validate the framework. Experimental results carried out in WiFi and 3G environments indicate that the proposed techniques can support mobile applications and minimize application disruptions with minimal overhead.

The proposed context management framework is generic in nature and is not designed for a specific class of applications. Any mobile context aware application can leverage on the framework and utilize the provided functionalities to manage application disruptions. Also, the decoupling of mobile application layer and the underlying context data management layer renders context data management layer transparent to the application design.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the sub-components of network externalities (NE), investigates the mediating role of the perception of innovation characteristics and explores the potential moderating effects of technology anxiety within an integrative framework using the theories of diffusion of innovation (DOI) and NE on the behavioural intention of mobile banking services. NE theory explains the impact of an increase in number of users and complementary services on perceived value of product innovation.

This study clarifies the relationship between the sub-components of NE, investigates the mediating role of the perception of innovation characteristics and explores the potential moderating effects of technology anxiety within an integrative framework using the theories of DOI and NE on the behavioural intention of mobile banking services. NE theory explains the impact of an increase in number of users and complementary services on perceived value of product innovation.

Empirical results support the positive relationship between perceived number of users and availability of complementary services. The results lend support to the hypothesized mediating role of perceived compatibility and perceived complexity on the influence of indirect NE on the intention to use mobile banking. Finally, technology anxiety did not moderate any of the paths postulated in the hypothesized model.

The findings suggest that the willingness to adopt mobile banking may be increased by providing and promoting a wide range of complementary services because the availability of complementary services gives the impression that mobile banking is easy to use and is compatible with their lifestyles.

This study contributes to the literature on DOI by using NE theory, a theory borrowed from Economics to explain an underlying motivation to adopt an innovation. This is an original study which tests the proposition that NE may influence the perception of innovation characteristics and intention to adopt an innovation.

The adaptation of emerging building designs for single room occupancy in off-campus university student housing during the COVID-19 pandemic is evolving. However, assessing its effects on student satisfaction to compensate for COVID-19-associated impacts is missing. As a result, the study examines the satisfaction of students with emerging building designs in single-room off-campus student housing in Ghana.

The study is quantitatively based on positivist philosophical thinking. A purposive sample of 202 purpose-built student housing facilities was selected across public and private universities in Ghana. Using systematic stratified sampling, the study sampled 1,212 student residents through a survey. A principal component method (PCM) was used to assess the availability of 10 emerging building design and basic building services variables across the study location. Multiple regression was employed to determine the satisfaction and predict potential variables for policy formulation.

The analysis revealed that private space for social distancing, the availability of hands-free fittings in the toilet and bathroom, and the availability of hands-free fixtures in the kitchen unit was common single-room self-occupancy support systems. However, there is a huge gap in the availability of key emerging building designs and basic building services and their associated effects on students' satisfaction across the study locations. Therefore, relevant proposals to serve as fundamental requirements for developing an off-campus student housing model during pandemics were indicated.

It is seen that emerging building designs across the housing sector are equally evolving among off-campus student housing. The study helped to understand that student satisfaction with emerging building designs and basic services is a motivational need for students. However, the preparedness of student housing owners to adopt and satisfy the requirements of these design require further studies.

While COVID-19 and its associated effect keep evolving in building design requirements, it is equally relevant to assess the students' satisfaction with these designs and services among single room occupancy-made off-campus student housing. This research is limited to Africa.

Technological developments and new customer expectations of immediacy have driven businesses to adopt on-demand service models. The purpose of this paper is to study the characteristics of a range of on-demand services in order to better understand the meaning of “on-demand” and its implications for service management. This enables the on-demand service logic to be applied to other service contexts, where it may add value for customers.

The study starts with a focused literature review and continues with a multiple case study methodology, as the on-demand service concept is in the early stages of theory development. Seven cases were studied, based on a maximum variation sampling strategy.

The results show that on-demand services are characterized by three interrelated characteristics: being highly available, responsive and scalable. Analysis further reveals that on-demand services display differences within the conceptual boundaries of these characteristics, i.e. they vary in terms of their availability, responsiveness and scalability.

Drawing on these findings, the study contributes to the service literature by being the first to specifically conceptualize and define the on-demand services concept and reveal three key characteristics that clarify the distinctive nature of this service type. Accordingly, on-demand services are clearly differentiated from other services. Additionally, the paper discusses the variety within on-demand services and develops an on-demand service continuum that gives detailed insights into the conceptual variations within such services.

An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.

This study aims to explore under which institutional and organizational conditions the national e-government reform efforts of EU member states lead to very high availability of e-services.

Following e-government literature of information systems and public administration research, this study applies an analytical framework encompassing characteristics of the national politico-administrative system (state structure, government capacity, managerial innovation orientation and civil service system) to understand why a common policy framework does not lead to convergence but great variety in the degree of e-service availability. A comparative case study approach using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is applied to systematically compare e-service availability in the former 28 EU member states.

Three configurations of sufficient conditions are identified: government capacity in conjunction with either bureaucratic human resource practices, centralized state structure or managerial innovation orientation. Three country clusters are derived: effective bureaucrats, effective centralists and effective managers.

The results demonstrate the importance of administrative effectiveness for the digital transformation. Rather than mimicking best practices, countries are advised to learn from better performing countries that are most similar in terms of institutional and organizational characteristics of the politico-administrative system.

Cloud computing provides a dynamic, heterogeneous and elastic environment by offering accessible ‘cloud services’ to end-users. The tasks involved in making cloud services available, such as matchmaking, selection and composition, are essential and closely related to each other. Integration of these tasks is critical for optimal composition and performance of the cloud service platform. More efficient solutions could be developed by considering cloud service tasks collectively, but the research and academic community have so far only considered these tasks individually. The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated QoS-based approach for cloud service matchmaking, selection and composition using the Semantic Web.

In this paper, the authors propose a new approach using the Semantic Web and quality of service (QoS) model to perform cloud service matchmaking, selection and composition, to fulfil the requirements of an end user. In the Semantic Web, the authors develop cloud ontologies to provide semantic descriptions to the service provider and requester, so as to automate the cloud service tasks. This paper considers QoS parameters, such as availability, throughput, response time and cost, for quality assurance and enhanced user satisfaction.

This paper focus on the development of an integrated framework and approach for cloud service life cycle phases, such as discovery, selection and composition using QoS, to enhance user satisfaction and the Semantic Web, to achieve automation. To evaluate performance and usefulness, this paper uses a scenario based on a Healthcare Decision-Making System (HDMS). Results derived through the experiment prove that the proposed prototype performs well for the defined set of cloud-services tasks.

As a novel concept, our proposed integrated framework and approach for cloud service matchmaking, selection and composition based on the Semantic Web and QoS characterisitcs (availability, response time, throughput and cost), as part of the service level agreement (SLA) will help the end user to match, select and filter cloud services and integrate cloud-service providers into a multi-cloud environment.