Personal State and Emotion Monitoring by Wearable Computing and Machine Learning

One of the major scientific undertakings over the past few years has been exploring the interaction between humans and machines in mobile environments. Wearable computers, embedded in clothing or seamlessly integrated into everyday devices, have an incredible advantage to become the main gateway to personal health management. Current state of the art devices are capable in monitoring basic physical or physiological parameters. Traditional health systems procedures depend on the physical presence of the patient and a medical specialist that not only is a reason of overall costs but also reduces the quality of patients' lives, particularly elderly patients. Usually, patients have to go through the following steps for the traditional procedure: Firstly, patients need to visit the clinic, get registered at reception, wait for the turn, go to the lab for the physiological measurement, wait for the medical experts call, to finally receive feedback from the medical expert. In this work, we examined how to utilize existing technology in order to develop an e-health monitoring system especially for heart patients. This system should support the interaction between the patient and the physician even when the patient is not in the clinic. The supporting wearable health monitoring system WHMS should recognize physical activities, emotional states and transmit this information to the physician along with relevant physiological data; in this way patients do not need to visit the clinic every time for the physician's feed-back. After the discussion with medical experts, we identified relevant physical activities, emotional states and physiological data needed for the patients' examinations. A prototype of this concept for a health monitoring system of the proposed solution was implemented taking into account physical activities, emotional states and physiological data

The Long-run Relationship among Money, Income and the Price Level in Pakistan

This paper explores whether a significant long-run relationship exists between money, price level and GDP in the Pakistani economy. We apply time-series econometric techniques to quarterly data for the Pakistan economy for 1972: I to 2003: IV. An important feature of our analysis is the use of tests for unit roots and ARDL and ECM. ARDL has a numerous advantages over the traditional approaches of causality and Cointegration. Certain characteristics of the Pakistani experience suggest that there is a stable long run relationship. Radical changes in monetary policy have significantly affected the movement of the macroeconomy. We find that a long-run relationship exists between money supply (M1), GDP and the CPI

Total quality management and sustainability in the public service sector : the mediating effect of service innovation

Purpose This study aims to critically investigate the structural relationships between total quality management (TQM), service innovation and sustainability performance in the public service sector of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach The study employed an online survey to collect data from 400 employees working in eight selected UAE public service sector organisations located in Abu Dhabi. The collected data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to empirically examine whether TQM practices improve service innovation and, subsequently, sustainability performance in the UAE's public service sector. Findings The results show that TQM has a significant impact on service innovation and sustainability performance in the UAE's public service sector. Additionally, service innovation partially mediates the relationship between TQM and sustainability performance. Practical implications The public service sector's TQM practices and service innovation in the UAE have a much greater impact on social and environmental sustainability than on economic sustainability performance. Adopting five dimensions of TQM (following the Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance [ADAEP] model) across the UAE's public organisations will enable government departments to deliver innovative services to its beneficiaries. Originality/value This study provides a substantial contribution by addressing the gaps in the literature. Very few studies have empirically investigated the possible association between TQM, service innovation and sustainability performance in public sector organisations, particularly in developing countries such as the UAE, where the increasing efforts in TQM practices are still in their emerging stages, mainly targeting innovative service offerings and sustainable performance.©2022 Emerald Publishing Limited. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY–NC 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Green knowledge management: A key driver of green technology innovation and sustainable performance in the construction organizations

The primary objective of this research is to examine the effects of green knowledge management (GKM) on green technological innovation (GTI) and sustainable performance in construction firms. The study also investigates the role of artificial intelligence (AI) as a moderator of the relationship between GKM and green human capital (GHC). A survey questionnaire was used to obtain data from 309 construction firms in Pakistan, and the AMOS-24 and SPSS PROCESS macro software packages were used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that GKM had significant positive impacts on GTI and long-term performance. Aspects of GIC (e.g., green structural capital, green relational capital, and green human capital) were found to be significant mediators of GKM and GTI interactions and correlations between GKM and sustainable performance. Furthermore, the study showed that AI significantly influenced the relationship between GKM and GHC. The study's findings have important theoretical and practical implications for organizations and governments. The study theoretically contributes to the knowledge-based view of the firm by providing empirical evidence of the role of various GIC characteristics as mediators in the interactions between GKM, GTI, and sustainable performance. In practice, the findings suggest that firms can improve GTI and sustainable performance by investing in GKM and GIC

Reduction in Packaging Wastes Through Identification of Lean Wastes to Deliver Efficient Waste Controlling Techniques for a Pharmaceutical Industry

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method of reducing material and time waste during packaging in the pharmaceutical industry. This is done by means of identifying the four major lean wastes i.e., motion, inadequate processing, waiting, and defects. These wastes are identified and reduced by means of using lean tools and proposing other cost-effective solutions that would increase process efficiency. Material waste is dealt with through selecting optimal requirements under the constraint limits of ergonomics, engineering, and machine space availability. Along with reduction in change over time, a strategy ensuring improvement in the primary packaging area was developed. The validity of this research has been brought about by means of a case study of a multinational pharmaceutical company. The proposed system proves to be highly beneficial in ensuring wastage and time reduction in changeovers. This strategy provides improved results without any new costs introduced and the production targets were met faster. There is also a special consideration given to the ergonomic aspect of the production processes

Inventory Management and Its Effects on Customer Satisfaction

This study examines how inventory management puts positive impact on customer satisfaction and how easily we can check the performance. It also helps retailers to put their inventories in proper order which tells them about demand and supply of their inventories. Proper inventory management system reduces the risk of short of inventories which reduce the cost of lost customers. The objective of the study is to minimize the risk of dissatisfaction of customers and found how to sustain customer satisfaction with the help of proper inventories system. This paper also outlines significant relationship between Customer needs, Quality with variable of prime interest. Poor association has been found between performance and customer satisfaction

DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW HYBRID MULTI CRITERIA DECISION-MAKING METHOD FOR A CAR SELECTION SCENARIO

Increasing competition in the automobile industry has led to a vast variety of choices when buying a car thus making car selection a tedious task. The objective of this research is to develop a new hybrid multi-criteria decision-making technique, with accuracy greater than that of the already existing methods, in order to help the people in decision-making while buying a car. Hence, considering a broader spectrum, this study aims at easing the process of multi-criteria decision-making problems in different fields. To achieve the objective, seven different alternatives were evaluated with respect to the enlisted evaluation criteria, which were selected after analyzing the secondary data obtained from Pak wheels based on style, fuel economy, price, comfort and performance. These criteria were then analyzed using the proposed Full Consistency Fuzzy TOPSIS method. As the name tells, this method is a unique combination of two techniques. The Full Consistency method is used to calculate the weights of the criteria while the Fuzzy TOPSIS approach is applied to rank the alternatives according to their scores in the selected criteria. The outcomes demonstrate an increase in the consistency ratio of the weight coefficients due to which the ranking of the alternatives by the FCF-TOPSIS is more accurate than the TOPSIS and the Analytical Hierarchy Process. The novelty of the method lies in the fact that this combination has not been used for an alternative selection scenario before. In addition to this, it can be used in various industries where a choice between the available alternatives arises based on a set of evaluation criteria

Vasodilator effect of 1-trifluoromethoxyphenyl-3-(1- propionylpiperidin-4-yl) urea is predominantly mediated through activation of voltage-dependent K+ channels

Purpose: To determine the mechanism of vasorelaxant effect of 1-trifluoromethoxyphenyl – 3 -(1-propionylpiperidin–4-yl) urea (TPPU) in cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension.Methods: Isolated rat thoracic aortic tissue preparations were mounted in an organ bath set up integrated with isometric transducer and a Power Lab assembly. TPPU (0.3 - 100 μM) was tested for vasorelaxant effect against low K+ (25 mM) and high K+ (80 mM)-induced contractions and its mechanism was determined in the presence of different antagonists (glibenclamide, 4- aminopyridine and tetraethyl ammonium).Results: In rat aortic preparations, TPPU showed a concentration-dependent (0.3 – 100 μM) and significant (p < 0.001) inhibition of low K+ induced contractions with complete inhibition obtained at 100 μM. TPPU produced significant (p < 0.05) inhibition of high K+ induced contractions with maximum relaxation of 15.36 ± 1.95 % and 15.85 ± 3.35 % at 30 and 100 μM, respectively. Glibenclamide (Gb,10 μM) pretreatment partially inhibited the vasorelaxant effect of TPPU against low K+ in a concentration range of 1 - 30 μM. 4-Aminopyridine (4-AP, 1 mM) and tetraethyl ammonium (TEA, 10 mM), markedly inhibited the vasorelexant effect of TPPU against low K+ induced contractions with maximum relaxation of 20.09 ± 2.40 and 21.67 ± 0.88 %, respectively, at 100 μM.Conclusion: TPPU possesses marked vasorelaxant properties which provides sound pharmacological evidence for its use as a potential drug candidate in the management of hypertension.Keywords: 1-Trifluoromethoxyphenyl-3-(1-propionylpiperidin-4-yl) urea, Hypertension, vasodilator, K+- channel activation, Ca+- channel antagonis