4101 research outputs found
Sort by
Case Study Analysis on Readiness of 3PL Industry in Fruit Distribution Company
No full textThe research aims to examine the level of readiness among third-party logistics in Malaysia in fruits distributors. Z-Fruit Ltd is selected as the case study for this research. Z-Fruit Ltd faces insufficient resources in dealing with their market expansion into East Malaysia as well as the South East Asia region. Through a literature review, this study examined the characteristics of fresh fruits logistics and determine how third-party logistics may possibly assist in solving their supply chain problems. A quantitative research method was used for this research study. Survey data were collected from 150 registered members of Federation of Malaysia Freight Forwarders (FMFF). The collected research data has revealed that 40% of third-party industry in Malaysia are not ready to handle the fresh perishable logistics. Through the research data, it showed that the criterion of Z-Fruit Ltd set towards the third-party is available and practicable in the existing market, however it is considered as pretty niche among the industry standards. This can be seen with most third-party vendors providing warehousing and consolidate freight services but not the temperature-controlled service in avoiding any operation complexity and business risk. In short, outsourcing is the most strategic method for Z-Fruit Ltd to solve their insufficient resources at the current stage. The conducted research study provides Z-Fruit Ltd a selection criterion in searching for a dependable third-party logistics partner
Athlete, coach and practitioner knowledge and perceptions of post-exercise cold-water immersion for recovery: a qualitative and quantitative exploration
No full text10.1007/s11332-021-00839-3
Sport Sciences for Healt
Therapeutic gaming for adolescent anxiety: development and evaluation of a mobile intervention
No full textAnxiety disorders (AD) are the most prevalent of the mental health conditions and are associated with significant and long-lasting burden of disease both for affected individuals and healthcare systems designed to support them. Despite this, barriers to traditional interventions mean less than half of adolescents experiencing ADs seek-treatment, with less than 20% of treatment-seekers ultimately receiving a scientifically validated intervention. Therapeutic games show significant potential to help reduce AD in adolescents, with some concerns remaining over their abilities to engage users, particularly over time. The chapter presents two studies relating to the development of a new mobile gamified intervention for adolescents with AD. This includes a user-feedback study on currently available games for anxiety and depression, followed by a user-feedback, acceptability, and intention-to-use study of a development version of the new intervention
Tackling pandemics in smart cities using machine learning architecture
No full textWith the recent advancement in analytic techniques and the increasing generation of healthcare data, artificial intelligence (AI) is reinventing the healthcare system for tackling pandemics securely in smart cities. AI tools continue register numerous successes in major disease areas such as cancer, neurology and now in new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) detection. Covid-19 patients often experience several symptoms which include breathlessness, fever, cough, nausea, sore throat, blocked nose, runny nose, headache, muscle aches, and joint pains. This paper proposes an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that predicts the rate of likely survivals of Covid-19 suspected patients based on good immune system, exercises and age quantiles securely. Four algorithms (Naïve Bayes, Logistic Regression, Decision Tree and k-Nearest Neighbours (kNN)) were compared. We performed True Positive (TP) rate and False Positive (FP) rate analysis on both positive and negative covid patients data. The experimental results show that kNN, and Decision Tree both obtained a score of 99.30% while Naïve Bayes and Logistic Regression obtained 91.70% and 99.20%, respectively on TP rate for negative patients. For positive covid patients, Naïve Bayes outperformed other models with a score of 10.90%. On the other hand, Naïve Bayes obtained a score of 89.10% for FP rate for negative patients while Logistic Regression, kNN, and Decision Tree obtained scores of 93.90%, 93.90%, and 94.50%, respectively
"Hybrid" medical leadership emergency medicine training for international medical graduates
No full textPurpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the "Hybrid" "International" Emergency Medicine (HIEM) programme, which is an ethical pathway for the recruitment, employment and training of Emergency Medicine doctors; with a rotation through the NHS on a two-year medical training initiative with a Tier 5 visa, "earn, learn and return" programme. The HIEM programme offers an advantage to the Tier 2 visa by combining training, education and employment resulting in new learning to help improve the health system in Nepal and provide continued cultural support, clinical and leadership development experience in the UK NHS. Finally, this programme also provides a Return on Investment to the NHS.
Design/methodology/approach
A shortage of doctors in the UK, combined with a need to develop Emergency Medicine doctors in Nepal, led to a UK Emergency Medicine Physician (PS) to facilitate collaboration between UK/Nepal partners. A mapping exercise of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine curriculum with the competencies for the health system and quality improvement leaders and partners with patients produced a "HIEM programme". The HIEM programme aims to develop first-class doctors to study in Emergency Departments in the UK NHS while also building trainee capability to improve the health system in Nepal with a research thesis.
Findings
The HIEM programme has 12 doctors on its programme across years one and two, with the first six doctors working in the UK NHS and progressing well. There are reports of high levels of satisfaction with the trainees in their transition from Nepal to the UK and the hospital is due to save 720,000 pound (after costs) over two years. Each trainee will earn 79,200 pound over two years which is enough to pay back the 16,000 pound cost for the course fees. Nepal as a country will benefit from the HIEM programme as each trainee will submit a health system improvement Thesis.
Research limitations/implications
The HIEM programme is in its infancy as it is two years through a four-year programme. Further evaluation data are required to assess the full impact of this programme. In addition, the HIEM programme has only focussed on the development of one medical speciality which is Emergency Medicine. Further research is required to evaluate the impact of this model across other medical and surgical specialties.
Practical implications
The HIEM programme has exciting potential to support International Medical Graduates undertake a planned programme of development while they study in the UK with a Tier 5 visa. IMGs require continuous support while in the UK and are required to demonstrate continued learning through continuous professional development (CPD). The HIEM programme offers an opportunity for this CPD learning to be structured, meaningful and progressive to enable new learning. There is also specific support to develop academic and research skills to undertake a thesis in an area that requires health system improvement in Nepal.
Originality/value
This is the first time an integrated clinical, leadership, quality improvement and patient partnership model curriculum has been developed. The integrated nature of the curriculum saves precious time, money and resources. The integrated nature of this "hybrid" curriculum supports the development of an evidence-based approach to generating attitudes of collaboration, partnership and facilitation and team building in medical leadership with patient engagement.
This "hybrid" model gives hope for the increased added value of the programme at a time of global austerity and challenges in healthcare
Exploring the Role of Identity in Motivating Walking Netball Participants
No full textThis paper examines the experiences of participants (n = 12) on the England Netball, ‘Walking Netball’ (WN) programme. Previous research has sought to explore participant experiences on programmes similar to WN, suggesting greater social engagement and an increase in desire for life were positive consequences from participation. Semi structured interviews explored the motivations held for participation in the programme with regards to social identity and the affective consequence of participation. Four themes emerged from data analysis; (1) WN as a form of physical activity, (2) collaborative identity, (3) group inclusion, and (4) regulatory routine. Findings suggest that participants on England Netball’s WN programme, are primarily motivated to continue attending WN by the collective identity they experience through being involved in the programme. Further research however on the construction of collective group identity is required to further enable project funders and deliverers in ensuring projects can effectively meet the motivations of their participants. Keywords: Physical activity, identity, relatednes
Distributed Ledger Technologies for Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading
No full textThe increasing integration of prosumers and smart metering devices into the energy distribution network, is transforming the traditional energy market to a community energy trading that requires peer-to-peer (P2P) interactions. Such P2P interactions result in complex data exchanges among prosumers, utility grid, and market operators. This inevitably introduces control complexity, security, and privacy challenges in the existing power system. The application of distributed ledger technology (DLT) has seen an increase in solving security challenges in the power network, specifically, in P2P energy exchanges. Thus, this study explores different DLT structures including blockchain and IOTA usage in energy P2P trading. A smart contract for managing trust and transactions is designed and implemented on IBM hyperledger fabric platform. In addition, we evaluated the performance of interconnected internet of things devices for energy transactions with IOTA protocol, which uses the directed acyclic graph as its DLT structure, against the Ethereum-based blockchain structure. It is shown that the end-to-end transaction delay with the IOTA DLT is lower than the Ethereum-based DLT implementation
Final destination
No full textChange is always possible, say Lisa Ogilvie and Jerome Carson, as they share their own journeys to recovery
Barriers to integrating building information modelling (BIM) and lean construction practices on construction mega-projects: a Delphi study
No full textPurpose The construction industry encounters substantial challenges in its evolution towards sustainable development and in the adoption of building information modelling (BIM) technology and lean construction (LC) practices on construction mega-projects. This research aims to investigate the critical barriers encountered by key construction stakeholders in their efforts to integrate BIM and LC in the construction mega-projects. Design/methodology/approach A two-round Delphi survey shaped the foundation of aggregating consensus between an expert panel that examined a set of 28 barriers resulting from a detailed analysis of the extant literature. Descriptive and inferential statistical tests were exploited for data analysis, and interrater agreement analysis was used to elaborated and validate results. Findings The research concluded that the key barriers by descending order of significance are lack of mandatory BIM and LC industry standards and regulations by the government, resistance of the industry to change from traditional practices to LeanBIM, high cost of software licenses and training and running of BIM. Originality/value The research findings and the proposed mitigation strategy will enhance the application of BIM and LC practices in construction mega-projects and allow project key stakeholders to place emphasis on tackling the crucial challenges and barriers identified in this research
Sensitivity of Irrigation Water Requirement to Climate Change in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions towards Sustainable Management of Water Resources
No full textThis study aimed to assess the spatiotemporal sensitivity of the net irrigation water requirement (NIWR) to changes in climate, for sixteen crops widely cultivated in four irrigation projects located in arid and semi-arid regions of Iraq. Using LARS-WG and five GCMs, the minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation were projected for three periods from 2021-2080 with 20-year steps (P1, P2, and P3) under representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5. Weather data available for a reference period from 1990-2019 in four representatives' meteorological stations were used. The climate variables and other required data were inserted into the CROPWAT 8 NIWR tool. Findings revealed that the increase in the NIWR for the considered crops due to climate change falls in the range 0.1-42.4%, 1.8-44.5%, 1.2-25.1%, and 0.7-14.7% for the North Jazeera Irrigation Project (NJIP), Kirkuk Irrigation Project (KRIP), Upper Khalis Irrigation Project (UKIP), and Dalmaj Irri-gation Project (DLIP), respectively. Barley is more susceptible to changes in climate, whereas maize, potato, soybean, and millet are found to withstand changes in climate better than others. The novel outcomes of this study support optimal spatiotemporal allocation of irrigation water requirement and the sustainable management of water resources in a changing climate in arid and semi-arid regions