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43rd International Society of Travel & Tourism Educators (ISTTE) annual conference, “Changing paradigms in hospitality/tourism education and research,” Hong Kong, October 14-16, 2024
No full textBarriers to the Adoption of Smart Building Technology in Developing Countries: An Empirical Survey
Get PDFSmart building technology (SBT) has been a prominent practical and academic topic in the built environment due to adopting sustainable development and digitization to maximize energy efficiency, reduce CO2 emissions, and maximize thermal comfort. While the construction industry is currently adopting smart building technology (SBT), numerous obstacles have prevented its widespread use. Thus, this study aims to examine the significant barriers underlying the adoption of SBT from the perspective of construction professionals. A systematic literature review of 30 articles and a well-structured questionnaire via quantitative research was adopted to collect pertinent information from 244 construction professionals. The collected data were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis’s test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The study found that all the 22 identified barrier factors significantly affect the adoption of SBT. Furthermore, the high material and equipment costs for smart buildings, inadequate power supply, poor maintenance culture and inadequate well-trained staff are the five topmost barriers affecting the adoption of SBT. The factor analysis categorized the industry-relevant barriers into four groups: Awareness, Economics, human, and Management. Finally, the structural equation modelling revealed that human-related and management-related barriers are the most significant, with path coefficients of β 0.395 and 0.309, respectively. Therefore, it is imperative that the authorities of various professional organizations actively participate in the crucial implementation of smart building technology. The analysis highlighted smart building adoption opportunities and practical strategies for overcoming barriers. These findings provide evidence that building professionals should develop strategies to prevent the identified barriers from hindering the adoption and deployment of smart building technologies
Pharmacological management of endometriosis pain
No full textEndometriosis is a chronic, neuro-inflammatory disease that occurs when endometrial tissue, normally confined to the uterus, spreads to other areas within the pelvic cavity and beyond. When severe, it can invade the abdominal, peritoneal and thoracic cavity. It is estimated to affect up to 10% of reproductive-aged women, causing debilitating pain, affecting daily activities and can have a significant adverse effect on quality of life. This review describes the presentation and associated symptom of endometriosis before considering current treatment modalities, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological
National Energy Generation Capacity and Stock Market Development
No full textAcross the globe, stock markets provide mechanisms for allocating funds from surplus units to deficit units, thereby offering numerous benefits to economic agents. Despite these benefits, the current low level of African stock market development inhibits the continent’s growth. It hampers the rapid realisation of its potential, thereby compelling investigation into the factors that mitigate or motivate development in the stock market. Consequently, this paper evaluates the impact of national energy generation capacity on stock market development in Africa. The findings suggest that a reduction in the incidence of poor energy generation has a positive effect on stock market development. The empirical analyses also reveal that this relationship is more pronounced for Sub-Saharan African countries and African countries with low GDP per capita. In effect, by increasing power generation, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa can stimulate interest and participation in their stock markets. Our study contributes to the call for additional policy interventions to address the deplorable state of power generation and distribution across most of Africa
A new dynamic probabilistic broadcast in IPv6-based low-power and lossy networks for the internet of things
No full textDue to its attractive features, such as simplicity and ease of implementation, probabilistic broadcast has been widely investigated in IEEE 802.11-based networks. In contrast, hardly any research has investigated its merits in IEEE 802.15.4-based networks, which are also widely referred to as Low-power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). Motivated by this observation, this study is the first to investigate the performance merits of Dynamic Probabilistic Broadcast (DPB) in IPv6-based LLNs. In our proposed approach, upon message arrival, a node leverages the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) to dynamically set the rebroadcast probability combined with a counter-based optimization that is compliant with the Radio Duty Cycle (RDC) specifications of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard to enhance its rebroadcast decisions. Simulation results demonstrate that the new DPB offers desirable performance tradeoffs compared to existing state-of-the-art broadcast solutions such as the well-known Trickle Multicast (TM), Stateless Multicast RPL Forwarding (SMRF), Bidirectional Multicast RPL Forwarding (BMRF), and Blind Flooding (BF). DPB achieves the highest message delivery ratio, nearing 97%, while maintaining acceptable message retransmissions, broadcast latency, and energy consumption
Carnival of Lies
No full text'Brilliant' – Ian RankinVenice. Winter, 1539.When Cesare Aldo learns of a conspiracy to assassinate Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, he is hired to protect the ruler of Florence – with his life, if necessary. The deadly attack that follows leads to bodies, bloodshed . . . and something far more dangerous.Those behind the plot obtain a journal of the duke’s containing explosive secrets that – in the wrong hands – could destroy all of Florence. Aldo must hunt down those responsible and reclaim the journal, or face banishment from the city and everyone he loves.The trail leads him towards the one place Aldo has sworn to never return, a city of masks and lies where he has no allies and far too many enemies: Venice.The fate of a dynasty rests on his shoulders – if he can make it out alive...Carnival of Lies is the fifth Cesare Aldo mystery by D. V. Bishop, preceded by A Divine Fury, City of Vengeance, The Darkest Sin and Ritual of Fire.'A brilliantly entertaining historical thriller that twists and turns like the very calli and canali of Venice itself' – Philip Gwynne Jones, author of the Nathan Sutherland Venice mysterie
Examining the impact of environmental and socio-economic factors in countries with high and low child mortality: the role of electricity, healthcare, and industrialization
Get PDFThis study explores the relationships between electricity consumption, healthcare spending, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, GDP growth, industrialization, urbanization, fertility rates, and child mortality rates in ten countries with the highest and lowest child mortality rates, using Driscoll-Kraay’s standard error approach (DKSE). The DKSE regression results show that in countries with high child mortality, the mortality declines significantly with electricity access, health expenditures, urbanization, and GDP growth, and increases with CO2 emissions and fertility rates. In countries with low child mortality rates, the mortality declines significantly with health expenditures, GDP, and urbanization, and rises with industrialization. Electricity access, CO2 emissions, and fertility rates do not impact child mortality in these countries. The study emphasizes the importance of electricity access, health expenditures, GDP, and tailored urbanization and industrialization strategies in child welfare and the need for comprehensive global policies
A novel transformer-based explainable AI approach using SHAP for intrusion detection in vehicular ad hoc networks
Get PDFVehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs)— a technology to connect autonomous vehicles to enhance the safety and decision-making on the road by enabling wireless communication and sharing of traffic information between sensors, vehicles, and other infrastructure. The dynamic nature of VANETs makes them vulnerable to several security threats, including false message attacks from within the network. Traditional misbehavior detection methods often fail in vehicular security due to the dynamic movement of vehicles. This research paper presents an efficient and accurate transformer-based approach for intrusion detection in VANETs to identify false positional information transmitted by misbehaving nodes and to analyze safety messages utilizing the Vehicular Reference Misbehavior (VeReMi) extension dataset. Moreover, the proposed approach utilizes SHAP, an Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) technique, to enhance model transparency by providing insights into feature importance, making the model’s predictions more interpretable and trustworthy for practical use in VANET environments. Performance analysis using both multi-class and binary classification demonstrates that the model outperforms various deep learning and machine learning-based intrusion detection systems, achieving 96.15% accuracy in multi-class and 98.28% in binary classification. The model excels in metrics like Accuracy, F1 Score, Recall, and Precision. In addition, the reliability parameters, i.e., Matthews Correlation Coefficient and Cohen’s Kappa coefficient, have been calculated to assess the quality of the classification and to measure the agreement between the predicted and original classifications, validating the model’s effectiveness in practical scenarios
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