Modeling IoT enablers for humanitarian supply chains coordination

Disaster relief operations rely on reliable real-time information sharing during disasters to coordinate scarce resources and save lives. The Internet of Things (IoT) has recently been regarded as an important technology for enhancing information sharing in disaster response operations to achieve effective coordination, accurate situational awareness, and comprehensive visibility of operational resources. Despite its relevance, its adaptation and implementation have been fraught with complexity. This research aims to understand the IoT enablers of humanitarian supply chain coordination. Seven dimensional enablers have been formulated by reviewing the literature and validating with practitioners’ opinions. A structural model is then developed using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique that addresses the interdependencies of IoT enablers in humanitarian supply chain coordination. Finding provides insights into the interplay between management support, IT infrastructures, and third-party logistics service providers as key enablers towards adaptation and implementation of IoT in humanitarian supply chains. Results provide important implications and insight to decision-makers in international humanitarian organizations toward adaptation and implementation of IoT systems in humanitarian supply chains

Wi-Fi For Indoor Device Free Passive Localization (DfPL): An Overview

The world is moving towards an interconnected and intercommunicable network of animate and inanimate objects with the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) concept which is expected to have 50 billion connected devices by 2020. The wireless communication enabled devices play a major role in the realization of IoT. In Malaysia, home and business Internet Service Providers (ISP) bundle Wi-Fi modems working in 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio band with their internet services. This makes Wi-Fi the most eligible protocol to serve as a local as well as internet data link for the IoT devices. Besides serving as a data link, human entity presence and location information in a multipath rich indoor environment can be harvested by monitoring and processing the changes in the Wi-Fi Radio Frequency (RF) signals. This paper comprehensively discusses the initiation and evolution of Wi-Fi based Indoor Device free Passive Localization (DfPL) since the concept was first introduced by Youssef et al. in 2007. Alongside the overview, future directions of DfPL in line with ongoing evolution of Wi-Fi based IoT devices are briefly discussed in this paper

A Qualitative Study of Various Aspects of the Application of IoT in Disaster Management

Considering the vital issue of disaster management and the requirement of its additional development due to the increase in the rate of disasters over the recent years, using new technologies in all stages of disaster management including preparation stages for pre-disaster periods, reaction to disaster during its occurrence as well as the post-disaster reconstruction is very important. Therefore, the capacity of IoT in creating intelligence in objects to investigate different environmental parameters, the capacity of analyzing information, the intelligence required to predict some events and consequently, responding timely to any event and even proposing programs and systems for human performance are very effective in managing disasters. The existing resources for investigating the usages of Internet of Things (IoT) in disaster management could each address a particular aspect of this application. This paper has attempted to present a comprehensive view regarding the different dimensions of application of IoT in disaster management. The advantages and disadvantages of this application are mentioned, some instances of previous systems and models have also been discussed. The novelty of this work is the extent of examined dimensions and also addressing what can be done in different kinds of disasters