Search results for: healthcare resource allocation
664 Development of a Health Literacy Scale for Chinese-Speaking Adults in Taiwan
Authors: Frank C. Pan, Che-Long Su, Ching-Hsuen Chen
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Background, measuring an individual-s Health Literacy is gaining attention, yet no appropriate instrument is available in Taiwan. Measurement tools that were developed and used in western countries may not be appropriate for use in Taiwan due to a different language system. Purpose of this research was to develop a Health Literacy measurement instrument specific for Taiwan adults. Methods, several experts of clinic physicians; healthcare administrators and scholars identified 125 common used health related Chinese phrases from major medical knowledge sources that easy accessible to the public. A five-point Likert scale is used to measure the understanding level of the target population. Such measurement is then used to compare with the correctness of their answers to a health knowledge test for validation. Samples, samples under study were purposefully taken from four groups of people in the northern Pingtung, OPD patients, university students, community residents, and casual visitors to the central park. A set of health knowledge index with 10 questions is used to screen those false responses. A sample size of 686 valid cases out of 776 was then included to construct this scale. An independent t-test was used to examine each individual phrase. The phrases with the highest significance are then identified and retained to compose this scale. Result, a Taiwan Health Literacy Scale (THLS) was finalized with 66 health-related phrases under nine divisions. Cronbach-s alpha of each division is at a satisfactory level of 89% and above. Conclusions, factors significantly differentiate the levels of health literacy are education, female gender, age, family members of stroke victims, experience with patient care, and healthcare professionals in the initial application in this study..Keywords: Health literacy, health knowledge, REALM, THLS.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2495663 Development of a Roadmap for Assessment the Sustainability of Buildings in Saudi Arabia Using Building Information Modeling
Authors: Ibrahim A. Al-Sulaihi, Khalid S. Al-Gahtani, Abdullah M. Al-Sugair, Aref A. Abadel
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Achieving environmental sustainability is one of the important issues considered in many countries’ vision. Green/Sustainable building is widely used terminology for describing a friendly environmental construction. Applying sustainable practices has a significant importance in various fields, including construction field that consumes an enormous amount of resource and causes a considerable amount of waste. The need for sustainability is increased in the regions that suffering from the limitation of natural resource and extreme weather conditions such as Saudi Arabia. Since buildings designs are getting sophisticated, the need for tools, which support decision-making for sustainability issues, is increasing, especially in the design and preconstruction stages. In this context, Building Information Modeling (BIM) can aid in performing complex building performance analyses to ensure an optimized sustainable building design. Accordingly, this paper introduces a roadmap towards developing a systematic approach for presenting the sustainability of buildings using BIM. The approach includes set of main processes including; identifying the sustainability parameters that can be used for sustainability assessment in Saudi Arabia, developing sustainability assessment method that fits the special circumstances in the Kingdom, identifying the sustainability requirements and BIM functions that can be used for satisfying these requirements, and integrating these requirements with identified functions. As a result, the sustainability-BIM approach can be developed which helps designers in assessing the sustainability and exploring different design alternatives at the early stage of the construction project.
Keywords: Green buildings, sustainability, BIM, rating systems, environment, Saudi Arabia.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 860662 Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pregnant Women toward Antenatal Care at Public Hospitals in Sana'a City-Yemen
Authors: Abdulfatah Al-Jaradi, Marzoq Ali Odhah, Abdulnasser A. Haza’a
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Background: Antenatal care can be defined as the care provided by skilled healthcare professionals to pregnant women and adolescent girls to ensure the best health conditions for both mother and baby during pregnancy. The components of Antenatal Care (ANC) include risk identification; prevention and management of pregnancy-related or concurrent diseases; and health education and health promotion. The aim of this study: to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant women regarding ANC. Methodology: A descriptive knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) study was conducted in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. The study population included all pregnant women that intended to the prenatal department and clinical outpatient department; the final sample size was 371 pregnant women. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data, statistical package for social sciences SPSS was used to data analysis. The results: Most (79%) of pregnant women had correct answers in total knowledge regarding ANC, and about two-thirds (67%) of pregnant women had performance practice regarding ANC and two-third (68%) of pregnant women had a positive attitude. Conclusions: More than three quarter of pregnant women had good knowledge level, most of pregnant women had moderate practice level, and more than two-thirds of pregnant women had a positive attitude regarding antenatal care. There was a statistically significant association between overall knowledge and practice level toward ANC and demographic characteristics of pregnant women, at P-value ≤ 0.05. Recommendations: we recommended more education and training courses, lecturers, and education sessions in clinical facilitators focused on ANC, which relies on evidence-based interventions provided to women during pregnancy by skilled healthcare providers such as midwives, doctors, and nurses.
Keywords: Antenatal care, knowledge, practice, attitude, pregnant women.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 661661 Health Hazards among Healthcare Workers and Associated Factors in Public Hospitals, Sana'a-Yemen
Authors: Makkia, Ahmad, Al-Falahi, Abdullah Abdelaziz Muharram
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Healthcare workers (HCWs) in Yemen are exposed to a myriad of occupational health hazards, including biological, physical, ergonomic, chemical and psychosocial hazards. HCWs operate in an environment that is considered to be one of the most hazardous occupational settings. The current study aimed to assess sng the prevalence of occupational health hazards among Health care workers and associated risk factors in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. Descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized; out of 5443 totals of HCWs 396 were selected by multistage sampling technique was carried out in the public hospitals in Sana'a city, Yemen. More the half (60.6%) of HCWs were aged between 20-30 years, 50.8% were males, 56.3% were married, and 45.5% had a diploma qualification, while 65.2% of HCWs had less than 6 years of experience. The results show a high prevalence of occupational hazards (99%); ergonomic hazards (93.4%), biological hazards (87.6%), psychosocial (86.65%), physical hazards (83.3%), and chemical hazards (73.5%). There were no statistically significant differences between demographic characteristics and the prevalence of occupational hazards (p > 0.05). The study revealed that occupational hazards were highly prevalent among the participants. The most common biological hazard was exposure to sharp-related injuries, while the predominant physical hazard was slip, trip, and fall incidents. Ergonomic hazards manifested as back or neck pain during work. Chemical hazards were represented by allergic reactions to medical gloves powder. Psychosocial hazards included experiencing verbal and physical harassment. In conclusion, the study emphasized the importance of raising awareness among HCWs and conducting training courses to prevent occupational hazards.
Keywords: Health workers, occupational hazard, prevalence, risk factors.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 112660 Oral Cancer Screening Intentions of Residents in Eastern Taiwan
Authors: Chi-Shan Chen, Mao-Chou Hsu, Feng-Chuan Pan
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The incidence of oral cancer in Taiwan increased year by year. It replaced the nasopharyngeal as the top incurrence among head and neck cancers since 1994. Early examination and earlier identification for earlier treatment is the most effective medical treatment for these cancers. Although the government fully subsidized the expenses with tremendous promotion program for oral cancer screening, the citizen-s participation remained low. Purpose of this study is to understand the factors affecting the citizens- behavior intensions of taking an oral cancer screening. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study adopted four distinctive variables in explaining the captioned behavior intentions.700 questionnaires were dispatched with 500 valid responses or 71.4% returned by the citizens with an age 30 or above from the eastern counties of Taiwan. Test results has shown that attitude toward, subjective norms of, and perceived behavioral control over the oral cancer screening varied from some demographic factors to another. The study proofed that attitude toward, subjective norms of, and perceived behavioral control over the oral cancer screening had positive impacts on the corresponding behavior intention. The test concluded that the theory of planned behavior was appropriate as a theoretical framework in explaining the influencing factors of intentions of taking oral cancer screening. This study suggested the healthcare professional should provide high accessibility of screening services other than just delivering knowledge on oral cancer to promote the citizens- intentions of taking the captioned screening. This research also provided a practical implication to the healthcare professionals when formulating and implementing promotion instruments for lifting the screening rate of oral cancer.Keywords: Theory of planned behavior, oral cancer, cancer screening
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1936659 An Optimization Model for Natural Gas Supply Chain through a Cost Approach under Uncertainty
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Natural gas, as one of the most important sources of energy for many of the industrial and domestic users all over the world, has a complex, huge supply chain which is in need of heavy investments in all the phases of exploration, extraction, production, transportation, storage and distribution. The main purpose of supply chain is to meet customers’ need efficiently and with minimum cost. In this study, with the aim of minimizing economic costs, different levels of natural gas supply chain in the form of a multi-echelon, multi-period fuzzy linear programming have been modeled. In this model, different constraints including constraints on demand satisfaction, capacity, input/output balance and presence/absence of a path have been defined. The obtained results suggest efficiency of the recommended model in optimal allocation and reduction of supply chain costs.
Keywords: Cost Approach, Fuzzy Theory, Linear Programming, Natural Gas Supply Chain.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2507658 The Current Home Hemodialysis Practices and Patients’ Safety Related Factors: A Case Study from Germany
Authors: Ilyas Khan. Liliane Pintelon, Harry Martin, Michael Shömig
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The increasing costs of healthcare on one hand, and the rise in aging population and associated chronic disease, on the other hand, are putting increasing burden on the current health care system in many Western countries. For instance, chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a common disease and in Europe, the cost of renal replacement therapy (RRT) is very significant to the total health care cost. However, the recent advancement in healthcare technology, provide the opportunity to treat patients at home in their own comfort. It is evident that home healthcare offers numerous advantages apparently, low costs and high patients’ quality of life. Despite these advantages, the intake of home hemodialysis (HHD) therapy is still low in particular in Germany. Many factors are accounted for the low number of HHD intake. However, this paper is focusing on patients’ safety-related factors of current HHD practices in Germany. The aim of this paper is to analyze the current HHD practices in Germany and to identify risks related factors if any exist. A case study has been conducted in a dialysis center which consists of four dialysis centers in the south of Germany. In total, these dialysis centers have 350 chronic dialysis patients, of which, four patients are on HHD. The centers have 126 staff which includes six nephrologists and 120 other staff i.e. nurses and administration. The results of the study revealed several risk-related factors. Most importantly, these centers do not offer allied health services at the pre-dialysis stage, the HHD training did not have an established curriculum; however, they have just recently developed the first version. Only a soft copy of the machine manual is offered to patients. Surprisingly, the management was not aware of any standard available for home assessment and installation. The home assessment is done by a third party (i.e. the machines and equipment provider) and they may not consider the hygienic quality of the patient’s home. The type of machine provided to patients at home is similar to the one in the center. The model may not be suitable at home because of its size and complexity. Even though portable hemodialysis machines, which are specially designed for home use, are available in the market such as the NxStage series. Besides the type of machine, no assistance is offered for space management at home in particular for placing the machine. Moreover, the centers do not offer remote assistance to patients and their carer at home. However, telephonic assistance is available. Furthermore, no alternative is offered if a carer is not available. In addition, the centers are lacking medical staff including nephrologists and renal nurses.
Keywords: Home hemodialysis, home hemodialysis practices, patients’ related risks in the current home hemodialysis practices, patient safety in home hemodialysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 790657 Space Time Processing with Adaptive STBC-OFDM Systems
Authors: F. Sarabchi, M. E. Kalantari
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In this paper, Optimum adaptive loading algorithms are applied to multicarrier system with Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) scheme associated with space-time processing based on singular-value decomposition (SVD) of the channel matrix over Rayleigh fading channels. SVD method has been employed in MIMO-OFDM system in order to overcome subchannel interference. Chaw-s and Compello-s algorithms have been implemented to obtain a bit and power allocation for each subcarrier assuming instantaneous channel knowledge. The adaptive loaded SVD-STBC scheme is capable of providing both full-rate and full-diversity for any number of transmit antennas. The effectiveness of these techniques has demonstrated through the simulation of an Adaptive loaded SVDSTBC system, and the comparison shown that the proposed algorithms ensure better performance in the case of MIMO.Keywords: OFDM, MIMO, SVD, STBC, Adaptive Loading.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1954656 Model of Multi-Criteria Evaluation for Railway Lines
Authors: Juraj Camaj, Martin Kendra, Jaroslav Masek
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The paper is focused to the evaluation railway tracks in the Slovakia by using Multi-Criteria method. Evaluation of railway tracks has important impacts for the assessment of investment in technical equipment. Evaluation of railway tracks also has an important impact for the allocation of marshalling yards. Marshalling yards are in transport model as centers for the operation assigned catchment area. This model is one of the effective ways to meet the development strategy of the European Community's railways. By applying this model in practice, a transport company can guarantee a higher quality of service and then expect an increase in performance. The model is also applicable to other rail networks. This model supplements a theoretical problem of train formation problem of new ways of looking at evaluation of factors affecting the organization of wagon flows.Keywords: Railway track, multi-criteria methods, evaluation, transportation model.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2202655 Application of GAMS and GA in the Location and Penetration of Distributed Generation
Authors: Alireza Dehghani Pilehvarani, Mojtaba Hakimzadeh, Mohammad Jafari Far, Reza Sedaghati
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Distributed Generation (DG) can help in reducing the cost of electricity to the costumer, relieve network congestion and provide environmentally friendly energy close to load centers. Its capacity is also scalable and it provides voltage support at distribution level. Hence, DG placement and penetration level is an important problem for both the utility and DG owner. DG allocation and capacity determination is a nonlinear optimization problem. The objective function of this problem is the minimization of the total loss of the distribution system. Also high levels of penetration of DG are a new challenge for traditional electric power systems. This paper presents a new methodology for the optimal placement of DG and penetration level of DG in distribution system based on General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA).
Keywords: Distributed Generation, Location, Loss Reduction, Distribution Network, GA, GAMS.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2621654 An Efficient Approach for Optimal Placement of TCSC in Double Auction Power Market
Authors: Prashant Kumar Tiwari, Yog Raj Sood
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This paper proposes an investment cost recovery based efficient and fast sequential optimization approach to optimal allocation of thyristor controlled series compensator (TCSC) in competitive power market. The optimization technique has been used with an objective to maximizing the social welfare and minimizing the device installation cost by suitable location and rating of TCSC in the system. The effectiveness of proposed approach for location of TCSC has been compared with some existing methods of TCSC placement, in terms of its impact on social welfare, TCSC investment recovery and optimal generation as well as load patterns. The results have been obtained on modified IEEE 14-bus system.Keywords: Double auction market, Investment cost recovery, Optimal location, Social welfare, TCSC
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2240653 Optimal Risk Reduction in the Railway Industry by Using Dynamic Programming
Authors: Michael Todinov, Eberechi Weli
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The paper suggests for the first time the use of dynamic programming techniques for optimal risk reduction in the railway industry. It is shown that by using the concept ‘amount of removed risk by a risk reduction option’, the problem related to optimal allocation of a fixed budget to achieve a maximum risk reduction in the railway industry can be reduced to an optimisation problem from dynamic programming. For n risk reduction options and size of the available risk reduction budget B (expressed as integer number), the worst-case running time of the proposed algorithm is O (n x (B+1)), which makes the proposed method a very efficient tool for solving the optimal risk reduction problem in the railway industry.
Keywords: Optimisation, railway risk reduction, budget constraints, dynamic programming.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2158652 OPTIMAL Placement of FACTS Devices by Genetic Algorithm for the Increased Load Ability of a Power System
Authors: A. B.Bhattacharyya, B. S.K.Goswami
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This paper presents Genetic Algorithm (GA) based approach for the allocation of FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission System) devices for the improvement of Power transfer capacity in an interconnected Power System. The GA based approach is applied on IEEE 30 BUS System. The system is reactively loaded starting from base to 200% of base load. FACTS devices are installed in the different locations of the power system and system performance is noticed with and without FACTS devices. First, the locations, where the FACTS devices to be placed is determined by calculating active and reactive power flows in the lines. Genetic Algorithm is then applied to find the amount of magnitudes of the FACTS devices. This approach of GA based placement of FACTS devices is tremendous beneficial both in terms of performance and economy is clearly observed from the result obtained.Keywords: FACTS Devices, Line Power Flow, OptimalLocation of FACTS Devices, Genetic Algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4113651 Iterative Joint Power Control and Partial Crosstalk Cancellation in Upstream VDSL
Authors: H. Bagheri, H. Emami, M. R. Pakravan
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Crosstalk is the major limiting issue in very high bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) systems in terms of bit-rate or service coverage. At the central office side, joint signal processing accompanied by appropriate power allocation enables complex multiuser processors to provide near capacity rates. Unfortunately complexity grows with the square of the number of lines within a binder, so by taking into account that there are only a few dominant crosstalkers who contribute to main part of crosstalk power, the canceller structure can be simplified which resulted in a much lower run-time complexity. In this paper, a multiuser power control scheme, namely iterative waterfilling, is combined with previously proposed partial crosstalk cancellation approaches to demonstrate the best ever achieved performance which is verified by simulation results.
Keywords: iterative waterfilling, partial crosstalk cancellation, run-time complexity, VDSL.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1385650 Application-Specific Instruction Sets Processor with Implicit Registers to Improve Register Bandwidth
Authors: Ginhsuan Li, Chiuyun Hung, Desheng Chen, Yiwen Wang
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Application-Specific Instruction (ASI ) set Processors (ASIP) have become an important design choice for embedded systems due to runtime flexibility, which cannot be provided by custom ASIC solutions. One major bottleneck in maximizing ASIP performance is the limitation on the data bandwidth between the General Purpose Register File (GPRF) and ASIs. This paper presents the Implicit Registers (IRs) to provide the desirable data bandwidth. An ASI Input/Output model is proposed to formulate the overheads of the additional data transfer between the GPRF and IRs, therefore, an IRs allocation algorithm is used to achieve the better performance by minimizing the number of extra data transfer instructions. The experiment results show an up to 3.33x speedup compared to the results without using IRs.Keywords: Application-Specific Instruction-set Processors, data bandwidth, configurable processor, implicit register.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1529649 Cross Layer Optimization for Fairness Balancing Based on Adaptively Weighted Utility Functions in OFDMA Systems
Authors: Jianwei Wang, Timo Korhonen, Yuping Zhao
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Cross layer optimization based on utility functions has been recently studied extensively, meanwhile, numerous types of utility functions have been examined in the corresponding literature. However, a major drawback is that most utility functions take a fixed mathematical form or are based on simple combining, which can not fully exploit available information. In this paper, we formulate a framework of cross layer optimization based on Adaptively Weighted Utility Functions (AWUF) for fairness balancing in OFDMA networks. Under this framework, a two-step allocation algorithm is provided as a sub-optimal solution, whose control parameters can be updated in real-time to accommodate instantaneous QoS constrains. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves high throughput while balancing the fairness among multiple users.Keywords: OFDMA, Fairness, AWUF, QoS.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1817648 Atmosphere Water Vapour As Main Sweet Water Resource in the Arid Zones of Central Asia
Authors: S.I.Nikolaeva, Yu.V. Petrov, L.Ye.Skipnikova
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It has been shown that the solution of water shortage problem in Central Asia closely connected with inclusion of atmosphere water vapour into the system of response and water resources management. Some methods of water extraction from atmosphere have been discussed.
Keywords: potable water, water resources, water problems, water scarcity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1544647 The Cloud Systems Used in Education: Properties and Overview
Authors: Agah Tuğrul Korucu, Handan Atun
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Diversity and usefulness of information that used in education are have increased due to development of technology. Web technologies have made enormous contributions to the distance learning system especially. Mobile systems, one of the most widely used technology in distance education, made much easier to access web technologies. Not bounding by space and time, individuals have had the opportunity to access the information on web. In addition to this, the storage of educational information and resources and accessing these information and resources is crucial for both students and teachers. Because of this importance, development and dissemination of web technologies supply ease of access to information and resources are provided by web technologies. Dynamic web technologies introduced as new technologies that enable sharing and reuse of information, resource or applications via the Internet and bring websites into expandable platforms are commonly known as Web 2.0 technologies. Cloud systems are one of the dynamic web technologies that defined as a model provides approaching the demanded information independent from time and space in appropriate circumstances and developed by NIST. One of the most important advantages of cloud systems is meeting the requirements of users directly on the web regardless of hardware, software, and dealing with install. Hence, this study aims at using cloud services in education and investigating the services provided by the cloud computing. Survey method has been used as research method. In the findings of this research the fact that cloud systems are used such studies as resource sharing, collaborative work, assignment submission and feedback, developing project in the field of education, and also, it is revealed that cloud systems have plenty of significant advantages in terms of facilitating teaching activities and the interaction between teacher, student and environment.
Keywords: Cloud systems, cloud systems in education, distance learning, e-learning, integration of information technologies, online learning environment.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1007646 The Future of Hospitals: A Systematic Review in the Field of Architectural Design with a Disruptive Research and Development Approach
Authors: María Araya Léon, Ainoa Abella, Aura Murillo, Ricardo Guasch, Laura Clèries
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This article aims to examine scientific theory framed within the term hospitals of the future from a multidisciplinary and cross-sectional perspective. To understand the connection that the various cross-sectional areas, we studied have with architectural spaces and to determine the future outlook of the works examined and how they can be classified into the categories of need/solution, evolution/revolution, collective/individual, and preventive/corrective. The changes currently taking place within the context of healthcare demonstrate how important these projects are and the need for companies to face future changes. A systematic review has been carried out focused on what will the hospitals of the future be like in relation to the elements that form part of their use, design, and architectural space experience, using the WOS database from 2016 to 2019. The large number of works about sensoring & big data and the scarce amount related to the area of materials is worth highlighting. Furthermore, no growth concerning future issues is envisaged over time. Regarding classifications, the articles we reviewed address evolutionary and collective solutions more, and in terms of preventive and corrective solutions, they were found at a similar level. Although our research focused on the future of hospitals, there is little evidence representing this approach. We also detected that, given the relevance of the research on how the built environment influences human health and well-being, these studies should be promoted within the context of healthcare. This article allows to find evidence on the future perspective from within the domain of hospital architecture, in order to create bridges between the productive sector of architecture and scientific theory. This will make it possible to detect R&D opportunities in each analyzed cross-section.
Keywords: Hospitals, trends, architectural space, disruptive approach.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 256645 A Survey on the Requirements of University Course Timetabling
Authors: Nurul Liyana Abdul Aziz, Nur Aidya Hanum Aizam
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Course timetabling problems occur every semester in a university which includes the allocation of resources (subjects, lecturers and students) to a number of fixed rooms and timeslots. The assignment is carried out in a way such that there are no conflicts within rooms, students and lecturers, as well as fulfilling a range of constraints. The constraints consist of rules and policies set up by the universities as well as lecturers’ and students’ preferences of courses to be allocated in specific timeslots. This paper specifically focuses on the preferences of the course timetabling problem in one of the public universities in Malaysia. The demands will be considered into our existing mathematical model to make it more generalized and can be used widely. We have distributed questionnaires to a number of lecturers and students of the university to investigate their demands and preferences for their desired course timetable. We classify the preferences thus converting them to construct one mathematical model that can produce such timetable.Keywords: University course timetabling problem, integer programming, preferences, constraints.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1814644 Association of Selected Biochemical Markers and Body Mass Index in Women with Endocrine Disorders
Authors: M. Mydlárová Blaščáková, J. Bernasovská, J. Poráčová, I. Boroňová
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Obesity is frequent attendant phenomenon of patients with endocrinological disease. Between BMI and endocrinological diseases is close correlation. In thesis we focused on the allocation of hormone concentration – PTH and TSH, CHOL a mineral element Ca in a blood serum. The examined group was formed by 100 respondents (women) aged 36 – 83 years, who were divided into two groups – control group (CG), group with diagnosed endocrine disease (DED). The concentration of PTH and TSH, Ca and CHOL was measured through the medium of analyzers Cobas e411 (Japan); Cobas Integra 400 (Switzerland). At individuals was measured body weight as well as stature and thereupon from those data we enumerated BMI. On the basis of Student T-test in biochemical parameter of PTH and Ca we found out significantly meaningful difference (p<0,05) between CG and DED. In CG we made a founding the association between BMI and PTH by means of correlation analysis.
Keywords: Biochemical markers, hormones, obesity, women.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2100643 An Intelligent WSN-Based Parking Guidance System
Authors: Sheng-Shih Wang, Wei-Ting Wang
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This paper designs an intelligent guidance system, based on wireless sensor networks, for efficient parking in parking lots. The proposed system consists of a parking space allocation subsystem, a parking space monitoring subsystem, a driving guidance subsystem, and a vehicle detection subsystem. In the system, we propose a novel and effective virtual coordinate system for sensing and displaying devices to determine the proper vacant parking space and provide the precise guidance to the driver. This study constructs a ZigBee-based wireless sensor network on Arduino platform and implements the prototype of the proposed system using Arduino-based complements. Experimental results confirm that the proposed prototype can not only work well, but also provide drivers the correct parking information.
Keywords: Arduino, Parking guidance, Wireless sensor network, ZigBee.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2177642 Virtual Machines Cooperation for Impatient Jobs under Cloud Paradigm
Authors: Nawfal A. Mehdi, Ali Mamat, Hamidah Ibrahim, Shamala K. Syrmabn
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The increase on the demand of IT resources diverts the enterprises to use the cloud as a cheap and scalable solution. Cloud computing promises achieved by using the virtual machine as a basic unite of computation. However, the virtual machine pre-defined settings might be not enough to handle jobs QoS requirements. This paper addresses the problem of mapping jobs have critical start deadlines to virtual machines that have predefined specifications. These virtual machines hosted by physical machines and shared a fixed amount of bandwidth. This paper proposed an algorithm that uses the idle virtual machines bandwidth to increase the quote of other virtual machines nominated as executors to urgent jobs. An algorithm with empirical study have been given to evaluate the impact of the proposed model on impatient jobs. The results show the importance of dynamic bandwidth allocation in virtualized environment and its affect on throughput metric.Keywords: Insufficient bandwidth, virtual machine, cloudprovider, impatient jobs.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1663641 An Interference Reduction Strategy for TDD-OFDMA Cellular Systems
Authors: Koudjo M. Koumadi, Kester Quist-Aphetsi, Robert A. Sowah, Amevi Acakpovi
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Downlink/Uplink (DL/UL) time slot allocation (TSA) in time division duplex (TDD) systems is generally uniform for all the cells. This TSA however is not efficient in case of different traffic asymmetry ratios in different cells. We first propose a new 3-coordinate architecture to identify cells in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system where each cell is divided into three sectors. Then, this coordinate system is used to derive a TSA for symmetric traffic. Mathematical analysis and simulations are used to show that the proposed TSA outperforms the traditional all uniform type of TSA in terms of total intercellular interference, even under uniform symmetrical traffic. Two adaptation strategies are further proposed to adjust the proposed TSA to asymmetrical traffic with different DL/UL traffic ratios in different cells. Further simulation results show that the adaptation strategies also yield higher signal-to-interference ratio (SIR).
Keywords: Crossed TSA, different-entity interference, same-entity interference, uniform TSA
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2221640 The Resource-Base View of Organization and Innovation: Recognition of Significant Relationship in an Organization
Authors: Francis Deinmodei W. Poazi, Jasmine O. Tamunosiki-Amadi, Maurice Fems
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In recent times the resource-based view (RBV) of strategic management has recorded a sizeable attention yet there has not been a considerable scholarly and managerial discourse, debate and attention. As a result, this paper gives special bit of critical reasoning as well as top-notch analyses and relationship between RBV and organizational innovation. The study examines those salient aspects of RBV that basically have the will power in ensuring the organization's capacity to go for innovative capability. In achieving such fit and standpoint, the paper joins other relevant academic discourse and empirical evidence. To this end, a reasonable amount of contributions in setting the ground running for future empirical researches would have been provided. More so, the study is guided and built on the following strength and significance: Firstly, RBV sees resources as heterogeneity which forms a strong point of strength and allows organisations to gain competitive advantage. In order words, competitive advantage can be achieved or delivered to the organization when resources are distinctively utilized in a valuable manner more than the envisaged competitors of the organization. Secondly, RBV is significantly influential in determining the real resources that are available in the organization with a view to locate capabilities within in order to attract more profitability into the organization when applied. Thus, there will be more sustainable growth and success in the ever competitive and emerging market. Thus, to have succinct description of the basic methodologies, the study adopts both qualitative as well as quantitative approach with a view to have a broad samples of opinion in establishing and identifying key and strategic organizational resources to enable managers of resources to gain a competitive advantage as well as generating a sustainable increase and growth in profit. Furthermore, a comparative approach and analysis was used to examine the performance of RBV within the organization. Thus, the following are some of the findings of the study: it is clear that there is a nexus between RBV and growth of competitively viable organizations. More so, in most parts, organizations have heterogeneous resources domiciled in their organizations but not all organizations as it was specifically and intelligently adopting the tenets of RBV to strengthen heterogeneity of resources which allows organisations to gain competitive advantage. Other findings of this study reveal that of managerial perception of RBV with respect to application and transformation of resources to achieve a profitable end. It is against this backdrop, the importance of RBV cannot be overemphasized; the study is strongly convinced and think that RBV view is one focal and distinct approach that is focused on internal to outside strategy which engenders sourcing or generating resources internally as well as having the quest to apply such internally sourced resources diligently to increase or gain competitive advantage.
Keywords: Competitive advantage, innovation, organisation, recognition, resource-based view.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2135639 Transmission Pricing based on Voltage Angle Decomposition
Authors: M. Oloomi-Buygi, M. Reza Salehizadeh
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In this paper a new approach for transmission pricing is presented. The main idea is voltage angle allocation, i.e. determining the contribution of each contract on the voltage angle of each bus. DC power flow is used to compute a primary solution for angle decomposition. To consider the impacts of system non-linearity on angle decomposition, the primary solution is corrected in different iterations of decoupled Newton-Raphson power flow. Then, the contribution of each contract on power flow of each transmission line is computed based on angle decomposition. Contract-related flows are used as a measure for “extent of use" of transmission network capacity and consequently transmission pricing. The presented approach is applied to a 4-bus test system and IEEE 30-bus test system.Keywords: Deregulation, Power electric markets, Transmission pricing methodologies, decoupled Newton-Raphson power flow.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1639638 PP-FSM: Peer to Peer File Share for Multimedia
Authors: Arsalan Ali Shah, Zafar I. Malik, Shaukat Ali
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Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is a self-organizing resource sharing network with no centralized authority or infrastructure, which makes it unpredictable and vulnerable. In this paper, we propose architecture to make the peer-to-peer network more centralized, predictable, and safer to use by implementing trust and stopping free riding.
Keywords: File Share, Free Riding, Peer-to-Peer, Trust.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2033637 The Study of Managing the Personal Consent in the Electronic Healthcare Environment
Authors: Yi-Yun Ko, Der-Ming Liou
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The Electronic Health Record (EHR) system is very general and we should pay more attention to a patient-s privacy. The patient-s consent is one of the elements when dealing with privacy topics. This study focuses on the creating and managing of patient consent. The integration of the HL7 standards and the IHE BPPC profile provides a base for the creation of patient consent. Establishing the platform offers the patients a way to create, revoke or update their consents. Through this platform, they can manage their consents in an easier manner.Keywords: consent, EHR, HL7, IHE
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1320636 A Systematic Review on the Integration of Project Management with Organizational Flows
Authors: Maurício Covolan Rosito, Ricardo Melo Bastos
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Software projects are very dynamic and require recurring adjustments of their project plans. These settings can be understood as reconfigurations in the schedule, in the resources allocation and other design elements. Yet, during the planning and execution of a software project, the integration of specific activities in the projects with the activities that take part in the organization-s common activity flow should be considered. This article presents the results from a systematic review of aspects related to software projects- dynamic reconfiguration emphasizing the integration of project management with the organizational flows. A series of studies was analyzed from the year 2000 to the present. The results of this work show that there is a diversity of techniques and strategies for dynamic reconfiguration of software projects-. However, few approaches consider the integration of software project activities with the activities that take part in the organization-s common workflow.Keywords: Dynamic Reconfiguration, Organizational workflows, Project Management, Systematic Review
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1722635 Weight Functions for Signal Reconstruction Based On Level Crossings
Authors: Nagesha, G. Hemantha Kumar
Abstract:
Although the level crossing concept has been the subject of intensive investigation over the last few years, certain problems of great interest remain unsolved. One of these concern is distribution of threshold levels. This paper presents a new threshold level allocation schemes for level crossing based on nonuniform sampling. Intuitively, it is more reasonable if the information rich regions of the signal are sampled finer and those with sparse information are sampled coarser. To achieve this objective, we propose non-linear quantization functions which dynamically assign the number of quantization levels depending on the importance of the given amplitude range. Two new approaches to determine the importance of the given amplitude segment are presented. The proposed methods are based on exponential and logarithmic functions. Various aspects of proposed techniques are discussed and experimentally validated. Its efficacy is investigated by comparison with uniform sampling.
Keywords: speech signals, sampling, signal reconstruction, asynchronousdelta modulation, non-linear quantization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1639