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This is a conceptual paper. Its purpose is to compare the performance measurement of manufacturing and tourism industries from a value chain perspective.

The paper achieves its objective by reviewing the relevant literature from both manufacturing and tourism fields. It compares and contrasts the particular characteristics of both industries as well as the work done in these fields with respect to performance measurement and management in their value chains.

The paper finds that in the manufacturing industry the latest thinking in supply chain management, and consequently value chain management, has led to the development of performance measurement frameworks for the entire supply chain – such as the SCOR model. The tourism industry, on the other hand, consists of various players and tourism demand is met by the joint efforts of these players. Consequently, the interdependency of tourism organizations is high. Although recent works demonstrate an increasing interest towards performance measurement in the tourism industry, it is still an immature area. The paper demonstrates the usability of SCOR‐like frameworks in the tourism industry to manage and measure the value chain processes.

The paper shows mapping of existing thinking on performance measurement against the proposed tourism value chain model reveals gaps for further research, such as: the need to study the tourism industry as an end‐to‐end value chain; the need for understanding and measuring the performance of front‐end win‐order and pre‐delivery‐support processes; and the need for managing the delivery process as a whole, rather than as two or three unrelated services.

The paper demonstrates the potential benefits of taking a value‐chain approach to the tourism industry as well as conceptually demonstrating how performance of such a value chain may be managed through a framework of performance measures.

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the familiarity and use of reference management software (RMS) by library and information science (LIS) faculties in Iran, and aims to identify the possible factors that lead to the application and choice of this software.

This is a descriptive survey. Data collected by a Web-based questionnaire include both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. The questionnaires were distributed among LIS discussion groups and were sent to the e-mails of LIS faculties.

Results reveal that over half of the respondents had a good familiarity with the various citation software packages and knew how to use them; 35 per cent of respondents have learned how to use these packages through formal education. “Endnote” is the most popular software among respondents. Respondents confirm the need to offer some educational programs on how to use these software packages to bachelor students, and nominated the “Academic Writing” course as the proper place for teaching this topic.

If due attention is given to the importance of referencing in academic writing and to establishing criteria for the acceptance of papers for publication, teaching students how to carry out referencing and how to use RMS packages for this purpose will aid the promotion of scientific products. To determine whether LIS educators are able to teach the use of RMS packages, it is necessary to examine the extent to which they are familiar with these programs.

Rural poverty remains high in many developing countries, Ghana inclusive. This has implications for healthcare affordability and utilization, and thus the attainment of universal health coverage. Nonfarm diversification is seen as a means by which rural farm households can increase incomes and smooth consumption including healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of nonfarm enterprise participation on healthcare expenditure among farm households in rural Ghana.

Using nationally representative household data from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6), the paper employs endogenous switching regression and propensity score matching techniques to account for potential selectivity bias.

Results indicate that households that participate in nonfarm enterprises earn higher incomes and expend more on healthcare. Total household income and region of residence are significant determinants of healthcare expenditure among farm households in rural Ghana. In addition, while in nonfarm enterprise nonparticipating households the marital status of the head of household is important, for participating households the head having at least secondary education significantly influences healthcare expenditure.

Promoting nonfarm activities and hence raising the incomes of households in rural areas of Ghana has the potential of increasing health capital through increased investments in health. It will also positively impact access to and utilization of healthcare and ultimately contribute towards increased farm and non-farm productivity.

Previous studies have only examined the determinants of nonfarm enterprise participation or its impact on household welfare, poverty, inequality, food security and agricultural investments. While evidence abounds on the positive impact of rural nonfarm enterprise participation on household income, which in turn has implications for household health expenditure, the potential positive link between rural nonfarm enterprise participation and household healthcare expenditure remains unexamined.

This paper aims to analyze the elastic-plastic delamination fracture behaviour of multilayered functionally graded four-point bending beam configuration.

The mechanical response of beam is described by a power-law stress-strain relation. The fracture is studied analytically in terms of the strain energy release rate by considering the beam complimentary strain energy. The beam can have an arbitrary number of layers. Besides, each layer may have different thickness and material properties. Also, in each layer, the material is functionally graded along the beam width. A delamination crack is located arbitrary between layers. Thus, the crack arms have different thickness.

The analysis developed is used to elucidate the effects of crack location, material gradient and non-linear behaviour of material on the delamination fracture. It is found that the material non-linearity leads to increase in the strain energy release rate. Therefore, the non-linear behaviour of material should be taken into account in fracture mechanics-based safety design of structural members and components made of multilayered functionally graded materials. The analysis revealed that the strain energy release rate can be effectively regulated by using appropriate material gradients in the design stage of multilayered functionally graded constructions.

Delamination fracture behaviour of multilayered functionally graded four-point bending beam configuration is studied in terms of the strain energy release rate by taking into account the material non-linearity.

The purpose of this study was to see the impact of increased out-of-pocket expenditure oh health care exerting budget pressure on households, which leads to change in dietary consumption.

It was a hospital-based cross-sectional study comprising 414 patients with a chronic or major illness attending a large tertiary care public hospital at Delhi, India. Each patient represented a household with total number of family members of 2,550 in the study. Questionnaire was used to gather data on factors responsible for changes in consumption of 12 major food items.

Moderate decrease in food consumption of a household after major illness is associated with: rural residence (p < 0.001), decrease in savings (p < 0.001), more number of household items sold (p < 0.001), education of the children affected (p < 0.001), upper socio-economic status (SES) (p < 0.001) and children started working after illness in family (p = 0.043). In addition to decrease in food items, there was also deterioration in quality of food preparation. More than 80% of the families did not change the intake of cereals (rice and wheat), pulses and sugar. Food items that were decreased by most families were fruits, followed by milk and its products, vegetables, meat and egg, oils and ghee.

This study is a subset of other two studies previously published. The authors had not been able to cover this aspect fully in those two studies but understood the importance of impact of expenditure on illness on food consumption. The authors studied change in food consumption pattern (not amount) in subjects after illness. The impact of weather changes in food consumption on the impacted nutritional status of family has not been studied. The authors only collected cross-sectional, observational data and recall bias cannot be completely ruled out and corrected. With such data, only associations could be concluded, not causality. The illness condition of a household was measured by presence of chronic disease and inpatient treatment. Such measures did not take into account the types of illness and number of episodes. Data of this study cannot capture whether food intake of family prior to illness was sufficient/in excess/deficient. The Kuppuswamy scale, mostly used in urban and peri-urban settings, was also used for rural subjects in the study, which might have resulted in impaired capture of rural SES. The authors did not assess whether families were allocated food grains by schemes like public distribution system, which might have resulted in biased decrease in food consumption. Questionnaire used was not validated.

This study demonstrates the various factors that act as barriers to proper food consumption, including non-financial factors. The policy of user fee in government is hitting poorer section, and equity and access to health are compromised. Health expenditure should be increased by public sector policies to implement uniform healthcare. There is need for more studies to identify measures that could be put in place when designing policies and interventions for the uniform distribution of benefits.

The policy of user fee in government is hitting poorer section, and equity and access to health are compromised. Health expenditure should be increased by public-sector policies to implement uniform healthcare.

Major or chronic illness affects money acquisition and priorities of expenditure, resulting in deterioration in quality of food consumption and by a household.

Equity in access to and use of healthcare resources is a global development agenda. Policymakers’ knowledge of the sources of differences in household healthcare spending is crucial for effective policy. This paper aims to investigate the differences in the determinants of household healthcare expenditure across space and along selected quantiles of healthcare expenditure in Ghana. The determinants of rural-urban healthcare expenditure gap are also explored.

Data was obtained from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6) conducted in 2013. An unconditional quantile regression (UQR) and a decomposition technique based on UQR, adjusted for sample selection bias, were applied.

The results indicate that differences in the determinants of household healthcare expenditure across space and along quantiles are driven by individual-level variables. Besides, the rural-urban health expenditure gap is greatest among households in the lower quantiles and this gap is largely driven by differences in household income per capita and percentage of household members enrolled on health insurance policies.

The findings show that there are differences in the determinants of household health expenditure along with the income distribution, as well as between rural and urban localities, which would call for targeted policies to address these inequalities.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of environmental factors in open-plan offices with the same characteristics but with different workstation partition heights (1.10, 1.40 and 1.65 m) on perceptual evaluations of office employees.

In this research, the effects of environmental factors on employees’ perceptual evaluations in open-plan offices at the Gölbaşı Region of Ankara were measured with a detailed questionnaire. The research data were obtained from 81 employees who agreed to fill out the questionnaire and who use open-plan offices.

It was found that the office environments with 1.65 m workstation partition heights were more favorably assessed for each of the items of planning and of privacy that form the dependent variables compared to the office environments with 1.10  and 1.40 m partition heights. On the other hand, the office environments with the 1.10 and 1.40 m partition heights were more favorable for lighting items than the 1.65 m partition height office environments. In addition, young employees had a more positive tendency toward the perceptions of environmental factors, including different workstation partition heights in open-plan offices, compared to older employees.

Results of this research provide a fundamental contribution for the impact of various partition heights that have substantial implications on the perceptions of open-plan office environments. At this point, as open-plan offices have important effects on the quality of employees’ work experiences, the influence of various partition heights on the performance of employees should be emphasized in future studies. The diversity of performance (reading comprehension, calculation, design, drawing, etc.) will be an important decision.

The significant contribution of this research is that it provides valid data and makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge in open-plan office design.

Turkish Ministry of Health (MoH) has Health Transformation Program (HTP). The purpose of this program has been to modify the structure of the current system in order to enhance health system productivity, quality, and access in the Turkish health system. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To measure the productivity, a data envelopment analysis-based Malmquist index approach was employed.

Results showed that the overall HTP have had a considerable positive impact on the productivity of general hospitals.

The limitation is the availability of some data that might not be collected or reported to the MoH in Turkey.

This research’s findings will have an impact on reforming the health care system in Turkey to be competitive and efficient as possible.

The research will have implication on reducing cost and provide value to the Turkish population.

This is one of the very few articles that targeted the efficiency of hospital system in Turkey.

The main purpose of this study is to measure financial literacy of individual pension system customers in Ankara and to find out factors affecting financial literacy while acquiring additional information on financial decisions of individual pension system customers. The results show that the self-financial knowledge evaluation of individual pension system customers and their financial literacy are not compatible. Besides, the financial literacy levels of the customers who make their investment themselves and customers who leave investment decision to the individual pension system company are found not to be statistically significant although self-investors believe they have higher financial knowledge. In addition to this, the effects of financial literacy level in terms of renewable energy investments are also evaluated. Individuals with an increasing level of financial literacy may turn to renewable energy sources and investments because of their low-cost and high-return potential.