Search results for: retail network

Authors: Sidra Shabbir, Ayesha Manzoor, Mehreen Sirshar

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The use of the network communication has imposed serious threats to the security of assets over the network. Network security is getting more prone to active and passive attacks which may result in serious consequences to data integrity, confidentiality and availability. Various cryptographic techniques have been proposed in the past few years to combat with the concerned problem by ensuring quality but in order to have a fully secured network; a framework of new cryptosystem was needed. This paper discusses certain cryptographic techniques which have shown far better improvement in the network security with enhanced quality assurance. The scope of this research paper is to cover the security pitfalls in the current systems and their possible solutions based on the new cryptosystems. The development of new cryptosystem framework has paved a new way to the widespread network communications with enhanced quality in network security.

Keywords: cryptography, network security, encryption, decryption, integrity, confidentiality, security algorithms, elliptic curve cryptography

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Authors: Feng-jie Xie, Jian-hong Yan

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Based on the complex network theory, we construct the air cargo network of the Belt and Road area, analyze its regional distribution and structural characteristics, measure the robustness of the network. The regional distribution results show that Southeast Asia and China have the most prominent development in the air cargo network of the Belt and Road area, Central Asia is the least developed. The structure characteristics found that the air cargo network has obvious small-world characteristics; the degree distribution has single-scale property; it shows a significant rich-club phenomenon simultaneously. The network robustness is measured by two attack strategies of degree and betweenness, but the betweenness of network nodes has a greater impact on network connectivity. And identified 24 key cities that have a large impact on the robustness of the network under the two attack strategies. Based on these results, recommendations are given to maintain the air cargo network connectivity in the Belt and Road area.

Keywords: air cargo, complex network, robustness, structure properties, The Belt and Road

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Authors: Zofija Tupikovskaja-Omovie, David Tyler, Sam Dhanapala, Steve Hayes

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The UK is leading in online retail and mobile adoption. However, there is a dearth of information relating to mobile apparel retail, and developing an understanding about consumer browsing and purchase behavior in m-retail channel would provide apparel marketers, mobile website and app developers with the necessary understanding of consumers’ needs. Despite the rapid growth of mobile retail businesses, no published study has examined shopping behaviour on fashion mobile websites and apps. A mixed method approach helped to understand why fashion consumers prefer websites on mobile devices, when mobile apps are also available. The following research methods were employed: survey, eye-tracking experiments, observation, and interview with retrospective think aloud. The mobile gaze tracking device by SensoMotoric Instruments was used to understand frustrations in navigation and other issues facing consumers in mobile channel. This method helped to validate and compliment other traditional user-testing approaches in order to optimize user experience and enhance the development of mobile retail channel. The study involved eight participants - females aged 18 to 35 years old, who are existing mobile shoppers. The participants used the Topshop mobile app and website on a smart phone to complete a task according to a specified scenario leading to a purchase. The comparative study was based on: duration and time spent at different stages of the shopping journey, number of steps involved and product pages visited, search approaches used, layout and visual clues, as well as consumer perceptions and expectations. The results from the data analysis show significant differences in consumer behaviour when using a mobile app or website on a smart phone. Moreover, two types of problems were identified, namely technical issues and human errors. Having a mobile app does not guarantee success in satisfying mobile fashion consumers. The differences in the layout and visual clues seem to influence the overall shopping experience on a smart phone. The layout of search results on the website was different from the mobile app. Therefore, participants, in most cases, behaved differently on different platforms. The number of product pages visited on the mobile app was triple the number visited on the website due to a limited visibility of products in the search results. Although, the data on traffic trends held by retailers to date, including retail sector breakdowns for visits and views, data on device splits and duration, might seem a valuable source of information, it cannot explain why consumers visit many product pages, stay longer on the website or mobile app, or abandon the basket. A comprehensive list of pros and cons was developed by highlighting issues for website and mobile app, and recommendations provided. The findings suggest that fashion retailers need to be aware of actual consumers’ behaviour on the mobile channel and their expectations in order to offer a seamless shopping experience. Added to which is the challenge of retaining existing and acquiring new customers. There seem to be differences in the way fashion consumers search and shop on mobile, which need to be explored in further studies.

Keywords: consumer behavior, eye-tracking technology, fashion retail, mobile app, m-retail, smart phones, topshop, user experience, website

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Authors: Jin Xu

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5G network developers need to satisfy the necessary requirements of additional capacity from massive users and spectrally efficient wireless technologies. Therefore, the significant amount of underutilized spectrum in network is motivating operators to combine long-term evolution (LTE) with intelligent spectrum management technology. This new LTE intelligent spectrum management in unlicensed band (LTE-U) has the physical layer topology to access spectrum, specifically the 5-GHz band. We proposed a new intelligent cloud RAN for 5G.

Keywords: cloud radio access network, wireless network, cloud computing, multi-agent

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Authors: V. Andal Priyadharshini, Anumalasetty Yashwanth Nath

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Network automation has evolved into a solution that ensures efficiency in all areas. The age-old technique to configure common software-defined networking protocols is inefficient as it requires a box-by-box approach that needs to be repeated often and is prone to manual errors. Network automation assists network administrators in automating and verifying the protocol configuration to ensure consistent configurations. This paper implemented network automation using Python and Ansible to configure different protocols and configurations in the container lab virtual environment. Ansible can help network administrators minimize human mistakes, reduce time consumption, and enable device visibility across the network environment.

Keywords: Python network automation, Ansible configuration, container lab deployment, software-defined networking, networking lab

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Authors: Nashrawan Naser Taha, Andrew M. Cox

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In a multi-cultural learning context, where ties are weak and dynamic, combining qualitative with quantitative research methods may be more effective. Such a combination may also allow us to answer different types of question, such as about people’s perception of the network. In this study the use of observation, interviews and photos were explored as ways of enhancing data from social network questionnaires. Integrating all of these methods was found to enhance the quality of data collected and its accuracy, also providing a richer story of the network dynamics and the factors that shaped these changes over time.

Keywords: mixed methods, social network analysis, multi-cultural learning, social network dynamics

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Authors: Mohsen Dourandish

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Iran has a huge pipeline network in every state of country which is the longest and vastest pipeline network after Russia and USA (360,000 Km high pressure pipelines and 250,000 Km distribution networks). Furthermore in recent years National Iranian Gas Company is planning to develop natural gas network to cover all cities and villages above 20 families, in a way that 97 percent of Iran population will be gas consumer by 2020. In this condition, network resiliency will be the first priority of NIGC and due to that several planning for increasing resiliency of gas network is under construction. The most important strategy of NIGC is converting tree form pattern network to loop gas networks and developing underground gas storage near main gas consuming centers. In this regard NIGC is planning for construction of over 3500 km high-pressure pipeline and also 10 TCM gas storage capacities in UGSs.

Keywords: Iranian gas network, peak shaving, resiliency, underground gas storage

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Authors: Burcin Basyazici

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The history of urban regeneration in Istanbul dates to the 1980s and has been generated by various reasons, from political state-based decisions to cultural migrations and/or translocations and economical private sector-based reasons. However, one of the latest regeneration areas in Fikirtepe that have been still under construction for ten years becomes dissimilar to other regeneration areas in Istanbul. The region is located very close to Kadıkoy's downtown area but was still considered a slum due to its inhabitants -who mostly belong to lower-income immigrants. The process begun in 2011 with the decision of the government, and the settlement has been emptied and demolished also by the government -together with the investors and construction companies. Although there has been much research on the process of deconstruction and the relocation of landlords, there hasn’t been any research on what happened after the regeneration. While many high-rise luxurious gated communities were constructed and inhabited in five years, many constructions have stopped due to the latest economic devastation in Turkey. Then the region stayed as an unfinished construction area with its new upper-income and upper-middle-income residents and old low-income landlords. This situation has also changed the commercial activities in Fikirtepe. While some new retail facilities have been offered for new residents, some of the oldest ones have also survived in new-Fikirtepe. This study aims to investigate the urban everyday life of Fikirtepe with relation to its retail-based regeneration with the help of the theories of Bourdieu called cultural capital and cultural omnivorousness. To achieve this aim, after presenting the historical background of urban regeneration in Istanbul, Bourdieu’s conceptualism of cultural capital, habitus, and the consumption tendencies related to those are introduced and discussed within the scope of the Fikirtepe case. To represent the retail-based regeneration in the area, the current situation of retail premises is mapped by comparing to its pre-situation before urban gentrification. To better understand the change of cultural capital and the consumption tendencies of the new residents, eighteen semi-structured in-depth interviews have been conducted with twelve inhabitants from three different luxurious gated communities and six shop owners containing the new ones after regeneration and old ones before it. The interview questions have been structured to understand the motivation of change and/or inhibition of retail premises and the consumption tendencies of the new residents. In conclusion, the study shows that even though the cultural capital has been changed in Fikirtepe, the new residents also tend to act as culturally omnivorous by referring to Bourdieu's theories on multi-cultural tendencies of the upper-class and upper-middle-class societies, that should be questioned regarding the cultural regeneration in in-town urban regeneration areas in metropoles.

Keywords: bourdieu, cultural omnivorousness, fikirtepe, urban regeneration in istanbul

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Authors: Motonobu Hattori

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In neural networks, when new patters are learned by a network, they radically interfere with previously stored patterns. This drawback is called catastrophic forgetting. We have already proposed a biologically inspired dual-network memory model which can much reduce this forgetting for static patterns. In this model, information is first stored in the hippocampal network, and thereafter, it is transferred to the neocortical network using pseudo patterns. Because, temporal sequence learning is more important than static pattern learning in the real world, in this study, we improve our conventional dual-network memory model so that it can deal with temporal sequences without catastrophic forgetting. The computer simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed dual-network memory model.

Keywords: catastrophic forgetting, dual-network, temporal sequences, hippocampal

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Authors: Guilan Huang

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In 2013 and 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) collected data from selected fast food restaurants and full service restaurants for tracking changes in the occurrence of foodborne illness risk factors. This paper discussed how we customized spatial random sampling method by considering financial position and availability of FDA resources, and how we enriched restaurants data with location. Location information of restaurants provides opportunity for quantitatively determining random sampling within non-government units (e.g.: 240 kilometers around each data-collector). Spatial analysis also could optimize data-collectors’ work plans and resource allocation. Spatial analytic and processing platform helped us handling the spatial random sampling challenges. Our method fits in FDA’s ability to pinpoint features of foodservice establishments, and reduced both time and expense on data collection.

Keywords: geospatial technology, restaurant, retail food risk factor study, spatially random sampling

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Authors: Min Jindong, Wang Mingxia

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With the widespread use of artificial intelligence in life, computer vision, especially deep convolutional neural network models, has developed rapidly. With the increase of the complexity of the real visual target detection task and the improvement of the recognition accuracy, the target detection network model is also very large. The huge deep neural network model is not conducive to deployment on edge devices with limited resources, and the timeliness of network model inference is poor. In this paper, knowledge distillation is used to compress the huge and complex deep neural network model, and the knowledge contained in the complex network model is comprehensively transferred to another lightweight network model. Different from traditional knowledge distillation methods, we propose a novel knowledge distillation that incorporates multi-faceted features, called M-KD. In this paper, when training and optimizing the deep neural network model for target detection, the knowledge of the soft target output of the teacher network in knowledge distillation, the relationship between the layers of the teacher network and the feature attention map of the hidden layer of the teacher network are transferred to the student network as all knowledge. in the model. At the same time, we also introduce an intermediate transition layer, that is, an intermediate guidance layer, between the teacher network and the student network to make up for the huge difference between the teacher network and the student network. Finally, this paper adds an exploration module to the traditional knowledge distillation teacher-student network model. The student network model not only inherits the knowledge of the teacher network but also explores some new knowledge and characteristics. Comprehensive experiments in this paper using different distillation parameter configurations across multiple datasets and convolutional neural network models demonstrate that our proposed new network model achieves substantial improvements in speed and accuracy performance.

Keywords: object detection, knowledge distillation, convolutional network, model compression

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Authors: Gunasekaran Raja, Ramkumar Jayaraman, Rajakumar Arul, Kottilingam Kottursamy

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Broadband Wireless Network (BWN) is the promising technology nowadays due to the increased number of smartphones. Buffering scheme using network coding considers the reliability and proper degree distribution in Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) multi-hop network. Using network coding, a secure way of transmission is performed which helps in improving throughput and reduces the packet loss in the multicast network. At the outset, improved network coding is proposed in multicast wireless mesh network. Considering the problem of performance overhead, degree distribution makes a decision while performing buffer in the encoding / decoding process. Consequently, BuS (Buffer Scheme) based on network coding is proposed in the multi-hop network. Here the encoding process introduces buffer for temporary storage to transmit packets with proper degree distribution. The simulation results depend on the number of packets received in the encoding/decoding with proper degree distribution using buffering scheme.

Keywords: encoding and decoding, buffer, network coding, degree distribution, broadband wireless networks, multicast

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Authors: Iliya Musa Adamu

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This paper seeks to develop an expert system that would troubleshoot computer network and evaluate the network system performance so as to reduce the workload on technicians and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of solutions proffered to computer network problems. The platform of the system was developed using ASP.NET, whereas the codes are implemented in Visual Basic and integrated with SQL Server 2005. The knowledge base was represented using production rule, whereas the searching method that was used in developing the network troubleshooting expert system is the forward-chaining-rule-based-system. This software tool offers the advantage of providing an immediate solution to most computer network problems encountered by computer users.

Keywords: expert system, forward chaining rule based system, network, troubleshooting

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Authors: Zhaojunfeng

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Driven by the national policy of "East Data and Western Calculation", the computing first network will attract a new wave of development. As the foundation of the development of the computing first network, the computing force bearer network has become the key direction of technology research and development in the industry. This article will analyze typical computing force application scenarios and bearing requirements and sort out the SLA indicators of computing force applications. On this basis, this article carries out research and discussion on the key technologies of computing force bearer network in a slice packet network, and finally, gives evolution policy for SPN computing force bearer network to support the development of SPN computing force bearer network technology and network deployment.

Keywords: component-computing force bearing, bearing requirements of computing force application, dual-SLA indicators for computing force applications, SRv6, evolution strategies

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Authors: Abdelhadi Lotfi, Abdelkader Benyettou

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In this work, a training algorithm for probabilistic neural networks (PNN) is presented. The algorithm addresses one of the major drawbacks of PNN, which is the size of the hidden layer in the network. By using a cross-validation training algorithm, the number of hidden neurons is shrunk to a smaller number consisting of the most representative samples of the training set. This is done without affecting the overall architecture of the network. Performance of the network is compared against performance of standard PNN for different databases from the UCI database repository. Results show an important gain in network size and performance.

Keywords: classification, probabilistic neural networks, network optimization, pattern recognition

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Authors: Anca Radulescu, Danae Evans

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The relationship between a network’s hardwiring and its emergent dynamics are central to neuroscience. We study the principles of this correspondence in a canonical setup (in which network nodes exhibit well-studied complex quadratic dynamics), then test their universality in biological networks. By extending methods from discrete dynamics, we study the effects of network connectivity on temporal patterns, encapsulating long-term behavior into the rich topology of network Mandelbrot sets. Then elements of fractal geometry can be used to predict and classify network behavior.

Keywords: canonical model, complex dynamics, dynamic networks, fractals, Mandelbrot set, network connectivity

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Authors: Mohamed Raouf Benmakrelouf, Wafa Karouche, Joseph Rynkiewicz

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In this paper, we propose an alternative method to construct a Bayesian Network (BN). This method relies on a convolutional neural network (CNN classifier), which determinates the edges of the network skeleton. We train a CNN on a normalized empirical probability density distribution (NEPDF) for predicting causal interactions and relationships. We have to find the optimal Bayesian network structure for causal inference. Indeed, we are undertaking a search for pair-wise causality, depending on considered causal assumptions. In order to avoid unreasonable causal structure, we consider a blacklist and a whitelist of causality senses. We tested the method on real data to assess the influence of education on the voting intention for the extreme right-wing party. We show that, with this method, we get a safer causal structure of variables (Bayesian Network) and make to identify a variable that satisfies the backdoor criterion.

Keywords: Bayesian network, structure learning, optimal search, convolutional neural network, causal inference

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Authors: Christopher Godwin Udomboso, Angela Unna Chukwu, Isaac Kwame Dontwi

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In selecting a Statistical Neural Network model, the Network Information Criterion (NIC) has been observed to be sample biased, because it does not account for sample sizes. The selection of a model from a set of fitted candidate models requires objective data-driven criteria. In this paper, we derived and investigated the Adjusted Network Information Criterion (ANIC), based on Kullback’s symmetric divergence, which has been designed to be an asymptotically unbiased estimator of the expected Kullback-Leibler information of a fitted model. The analyses show that on a general note, the ANIC improves model selection in more sample sizes than does the NIC.

Keywords: statistical neural network, network information criterion, adjusted network, information criterion, transfer function

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Authors: Navaneeth Krishnan, Chandan N. Bhagwat, Aparajit P. Utpat

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Cloud Computing provides us a means to upload data and use applications over the internet. As the number of devices connecting to the cloud grows, there is undue pressure on the cloud infrastructure. Fog computing or Network Based Computing or Edge Computing allows to move a part of the processing in the cloud to the network devices present along the node to the cloud. Therefore the nodes connected to the cloud have a better response time. This paper proposes a method of moving the computation from the cloud to the network by introducing an android like appstore on the networking devices.

Keywords: cloud computing, fog computing, network devices, appstore

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Authors: M. Kollar, A. Zieba

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In this paper, we present a method for a time synchronization between the two eNodeBs (eNBs) in E-UTRAN (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access) network. The two eNBs are cooperating in so-called inter eNB CA (Carrier Aggregation) case and connected via asymmetrical IP network. We solve the problem by using broadcasting signals generated in E-UTRAN as synchronization signals. The results show that the time synchronization with the proposed method is possible with the error significantly less than 1 ms which is sufficient considering the time transmission interval is 1 ms in E-UTRAN. This makes this method (with low complexity) more suitable than Network Time Protocol (NTP) in the mobile applications with generated broadcasting signals where time synchronization in asymmetrical network is required.

Keywords: IP scheduled throughput, E-UTRAN, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network, NTP, Network Time Protocol, assymetric network, delay

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Authors: Kolesnik Nadezda A.

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The research aims to elaborate inter-organizational network relationships management model to maximize value co-creation. We propose a network management framework that requires evaluation of network partners with respect to their position and role in network; and elaboration of appropriate relationship development strategy with partners in network. Empirical research and approval is based on the case study method, including structured in-depth interviews with the companies from b2b market.

Keywords: inter-organizational networks, value co-creation, model, B2B market

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Authors: Sourour Ramzi, Claudia Sarrico

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Little has been done on network DEA in education, and nobody has attempted to model the whole education supply chain using network DEA. As such the contribution of the present paper is to propose a model for measuring the efficiency of education supply chains using network DEA. First, we use a general survey of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to establish the emergent themes for research in DEA, and focus on the theme of Network DEA. Second, we use a survey on two-stage DEA models, and Network DEA to write a state of the art on Network DEA, particularly applied to supply chain management. Third, we use a survey on DEA applications to establish the most influential papers on DEA education applications, in order to establish the state of the art on applications of DEA in education, in general, and applications of DEA to education using network DEA, in particular. Finally, we propose a model for measuring the performance of education supply chains of different education systems (countries or states within a country, for instance). We then use this model on some empirical data.

Keywords: supply chain, education, data envelopment analysis, network DEA

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Authors: Sandeep Singh Waraich

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Wireless sensor network (WSN ) consists of a large number of sensor nodes. The disparity in their energy consumption usually lead to the loss of equilibrium in wireless sensor network which may further results in an energy hole problem in wireless network. In this paper, we have considered the inclusion of orphan nodes which usually remain unutilized as intermediate nodes in multi-hop routing. The Orphan Node Inclusion (ONI) Protocol lets the cluster member to bring the orphan nodes into their clusters, thereby saving important resources and increasing network lifetime in critical applications of WSN.

Keywords: wireless sensor network, orphan node, clustering, ONI protocol

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Authors: Jonathan Ogwal, Louis H. Kamulegeya, John M. Bwanika, Davis Musinguzi

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Introduction: Community retail Pharmacy drug distribution points (CRPDDP) were implemented in the Lango sub-region as part of the Ministry of Health’s response to improving access and adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART). Clients received their ART refills from nearby local pharmacies; as such, the need for continuous engagement through mobile phone appointment reminders and health messages. We share learnings from the implementation of mobile text reminders and voice call follow-ups among ART clients attending the CRPDDP program in northern Uganda. Methods: A retrospective data review of electronic medical records from four pharmacies allocated for CRPDDP in the Lira and Apac districts of the Lango sub-region in Northern Uganda was done from February to August 2022. The process involved collecting phone contacts of eligible clients from the health facility appointment register and uploading them onto a messaging platform customized by Rapid-pro, an open-source software. Client information, including code name, phone number, next appointment date, and the allocated pharmacy for ART refill, was collected and kept confidential. Contacts received appointment reminder messages and other messages on positive living as an ART client. Routine voice call follow-ups were done to ascertain the picking of ART from the refill pharmacy. Findings: In total, 1,354 clients were reached from the four allocated pharmacies found in urban centers. 972 clients received short message service (SMS) appointment reminders, and 382 were followed up through voice calls. The majority (75%) of the clients returned for refills on the appointed date, 20% returned within four days after the appointment date, and the remaining 5% needed follow-up where they reported that they were not in the district by the appointment date due to other engagements. Conclusion: The use of mobile text reminders and voice call follow-ups improves the attendance of community retail pharmacy refills.

Keywords: antiretroviral treatment, community retail drug distribution points, mobile text reminders, voice call follow-up

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Authors: Surinder Singh, Meenakshi

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In this paper MZI-FBG based optical add drop multiplexer is designed and its performance is analyzed in the ring network. In the ring network nodes are composed of optical add drop multiplexer, transmitter and receiver. OADM is used to add or drop any frequency at intermediate nodes without affecting other channels. In this paper the performance of the ring network is carried out by varying various kinds of fiber with or without amplifiers.

Keywords: OADM, ring network, MZI-FBG, transmitter

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Authors: Raja Kannusamy

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The research focuses on reducing food waste in the restaurant industry. A study has been conducted on the chain of retail restaurant outlets. It has been observed that the food wastages are due to the inefficient inventory management systems practiced in the restaurant outlets. The major food items which are wasted more in quantity are being selected across the retail chain outlets. A moving average forecasting method has been applied for the selected food items so that their future demand could be predicted accurately and food wastage could be avoided. It has been found that the moving average prediction method helps in predicting forecasts accurately. The demand values obtained from the moving average method have been compared to the actual demand values and are found to be similar with minimum variations. The inventory optimization technique helps in reducing food wastage in restaurant supply chain outlets.

Keywords: food wastage, restaurant supply chain, inventory optimisation, demand forecasting

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Authors: Belbahi Ahlam

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With the phenomenal growth in the Internet, network security has become an integral part of computer and information security. In order to come up with measures that make networks more secure, it is important to learn about the vulnerabilities that could exist in a computer network and then have an understanding of the typical attacks that have been carried out in such networks. The first half of this paper will expose the readers to the classical network attacks that have exploited the typical vulnerabilities of computer networks in the past and solutions that have been adopted since then to prevent or reduce the chances of some of these attacks. The second half of the paper will expose the readers to the different network security controls including the network architecture, protocols, standards and software/ hardware tools that have been adopted in modern day computer networks.

Keywords: network security, attacks and controls, computer and information, solutions

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Authors: DEVASHISH KHULBE, MANU PATHAK

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The rise in popularity of major social media platforms have enabled people to share photos and textual information about their daily life. One of the popular topics about which information is shared is food. Since a lot of media about food are attributed to particular locations and restaurants, information like spatio-temporal popularity of various cuisines can be analyzed. Tracking the popularity of food types and retail locations across space and time can also be useful for business owners and restaurant investors. In this work, we present an approach using off-the shelf machine learning techniques to identify trends and popularity of cuisine types in an area using geo-tagged data from social media, Google images and Yelp. After adjusting for time, we use the Kernel Density Estimation to get hot spots across the location and model the dependencies among food cuisines popularity using Bayesian Networks. We consider the Manhattan borough of New York City as the location for our analyses but the approach can be used for any area with social media data and information about retail businesses.

Keywords: Web Mining, Geographic Information Systems, Business popularity, Spatial Data Analyses

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Authors: Yong Xue, Daniel A. Menascé

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Automated and end-to-end network resource management and provisioning for virtual service networks in a multiple autonomous systems (a.k.a multi-AS) environment is a challenging and open problem. This paper proposes a novel, scalable and interoperable high-level architecture that incorporates a number of emerging enabling technologies including Software Defined Network (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Autonomic Computing. The proposed architecture can be used to not only automate network resource management and provisioning for virtual service networks across multiple autonomous substrate networks, but also provide an adaptive capability for achieving optimal network resource management and maintaining network-level end-to-end network performance as well. The paper argues that this SDN and autonomic computing based architecture lays a solid foundation that can facilitate the development of the future Internet based on the pluralistic paradigm.

Keywords: virtual network, software defined network, virtual service network, adaptive resource management, SOA, multi-AS, inter-domain

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Authors: Rosilyn Sanders

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This qualitative study examined the impact of hiring people with intellectual disabilities (ID). The research questions were: What defines a disability? What accommodations are needed to ensure the success of a person with a disability? As a leader, what benefits do people with intellectual disabilities bring to the organization? What are the benefits of hiring people with intellectual disabilities in retail organizations? Moreover, how might people with intellectual disabilities contribute to the organizational culture of retail organizations? A narrative strength approach was used as a theoretical framework to guide the discussion and uncover the benefits of hiring individuals with intellectual disabilities in various retail organizations. Using qualitative interviews, the following themes emerged: diversity and inclusion, accommodations, organizational culture, motivation, and customer service. These findings put to rest some negative stereotypes and perceptions of persons with ID as being unemployable or unable to perform tasks when employed, showing instead that persons with ID can work efficiently when given necessary work accommodations and support in an enabling organizational culture. All participants were recruited and selected through various forms of electronic communication via social media, email invitations, and phone; this was conducted through the methodology of snowball sampling with the following demographics: age, ethnicity, gender, number of years in retail, number of years in management, and number of direct reports. The sample population was employed in several retail organizations throughout Arkansas and Texas. The small sample size for qualitative research in this study helped the researcher develop, build, and maintain close relationships that encouraged participants to be forthcoming and honest with information (Clow & James, 2014 ). Participants were screened to ensure they met the researcher's study; and screened to ensure that they were over 18 years of age. Participants were asked if they recruit, interview, hire, and supervise individuals with intellectual disabilities. Individuals were given consent forms via email to indicate their interest in participating in this study. Due to COVID-19, all interviews were conducted via teleconferencing (Zoom or Microsoft Teams) that lasted approximately 1 hour, which were transcribed, coded for themes, and grouped based on similar responses. Further, the participants were not privy to the interview questions beforehand, and demographic questions were asked at the end, including questions concerning age, education level, and job status. Each participant was assigned random numbers using an app called ‘The Random Number Generator ‘to ensure that all personal or identifying information of participants were removed. Regarding data storage, all documentation was stored on a password-protected external drive, inclusive of consent forms, recordings, transcripts, and researcher notes.

Keywords: diversity, positive psychology, organizational development, leadership

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