A Priority-based Fair Queuing (PFQ) Model for Wireless Healthcare System

Healthcare is a very active research area, primarily due to the increase in the elderly population that leads to increasing number of emergency situations that require urgent actions. In recent years some of wireless networked medical devices were equipped with different sensors to measure and report on vital signs of patient remotely. The most important sensors are Heart Beat Rate (ECG), Pressure and Glucose sensors. However, the strict requirements and real-time nature of medical applications dictate the extreme importance and need for appropriate Quality of Service (QoS), fast and accurate delivery of a patient’s measurements in reliable e-Health ecosystem. As the elderly age and older adult population is increasing (65 years and above) due to the advancement in medicine and medical care in the last two decades; high QoS and reliable e-health ecosystem has become a major challenge in Healthcare especially for patients who require continuous monitoring and attention. Nevertheless, predictions have indicated that elderly population will be approximately 2 billion in developing countries by 2050 where availability of medical staff shall be unable to cope with this growth and emergency cases that need immediate intervention. On the other side, limitations in communication networks capacity, congestions and the humongous increase of devices, applications and IOT using the available communication networks add extra layer of challenges on E-health ecosystem such as time constraints, quality of measurements and signals reaching healthcare centres. Hence this research has tackled the delay and jitter parameters in E-health M2M wireless communication and succeeded in reducing them in comparison to current available models. The novelty of this research has succeeded in developing a new Priority Queuing model ‘’Priority Based-Fair Queuing’’ (PFQ) where a new priority level and concept of ‘’Patient’s Health Record’’ (PHR) has been developed and integrated with the Priority Parameters (PP) values of each sensor to add a second level of priority. The results and data analysis performed on the PFQ model under different scenarios simulating real M2M E-health environment have revealed that the PFQ has outperformed the results obtained from simulating the widely used current models such as First in First Out (FIFO) and Weight Fair Queuing (WFQ). PFQ model has improved transmission of ECG sensor data by decreasing delay and jitter in emergency cases by 83.32% and 75.88% respectively in comparison to FIFO and 46.65% and 60.13% with respect to WFQ model. Similarly, in pressure sensor the improvements were 82.41% and 71.5% and 68.43% and 73.36% in comparison to FIFO and WFQ respectively. Data transmission were also improved in the Glucose sensor by 80.85% and 64.7% and 92.1% and 83.17% in comparison to FIFO and WFQ respectively. However, non-emergency cases data transmission using PFQ model was negatively impacted and scored higher rates than FIFO and WFQ since PFQ tends to give higher priority to emergency cases. Thus, a derivative from the PFQ model has been developed to create a new version namely “Priority Based-Fair Queuing-Tolerated Delay” (PFQ-TD) to balance the data transmission between emergency and non-emergency cases where tolerated delay in emergency cases has been considered. PFQ-TD has succeeded in balancing fairly this issue and reducing the total average delay and jitter of emergency and non-emergency cases in all sensors and keep them within the acceptable allowable standards. PFQ-TD has improved the overall average delay and jitter in emergency and non-emergency cases among all sensors by 41% and 84% respectively in comparison to PFQ model

RISK-FREE INTERNAL GAINS – BLACK AND SCHOLES RE-EXAMINED

In this paper we first show that if a not-necessarily-self-financing portfolio has instantaneously riskless internal gains, then on an infinitesimal time-interval, the increase in the internal gains on the portfolio is the same as the change in the price of that amount of bonds which has the same wealth as the portfolio has. Then, using this result, we re-examine the original derivation of the Black-Scholes formula, and conclude that contrary to common belief, the argument of Black and Scholes can be made completely rigorous, employing the same ?-hedge portfolio that they used and keeping all their mathematical formulas; but the explanations they gave to support their formulas must be replaced by others.mathematical finance, Black-Scholes formula, internal gains, Wiener process, self-financing portfolio

Cost management in the conditions of the actual world financial crisis

In this article we outlined the importance of the costs of providing the necessary information to the management in order to take the best decisions in crisis conditions. We considered the following objectives that an enterprise should have in the conditions of an unfavourable economic environment: the importance of the costs with the wages in the cost structure of the enterprise, the analysis of the hidden costs, the investment policy in crisis conditions, the expenses with financing on short term, the readjustment of the commercial contracts and limiting the expenses with external labour conscription, the sales growth policy by diminishing the advertising expenses.Managerial accounting, internal transfer prices, hidden costs.

COST MANAGEMENT AND COST CONTROL IN DECISIONAL PROCESS OF ORGANIZATIONS

In this article we wanted to show the importance of the costs of providing the necessaryinformation to the management in order to take the best decisions in crisis conditions. Under thedouble-effect of the pressure coming from the competition and the world financial crisis, theenterprises feel the need to understand better their costs in order to determine with maximumprecision the selling prices and the limits that can be achieved for each product. It’s not only aboutprevision, there should also be considered the necessary ways in order to achieve the goals. That’show we can explain the development of the today’s managerial control and of its favourite instrument,the analytic accounting of which no enterprise in Romania or Europe could be spared, and this isbecause behind the demand and offer of all price-competition there lies, indirectly, the cost-competition.managerial accounting, internal transfer prices, hidden costs

Alternate pedagogy for developing transformational leadership

As the growing concern for educational reforms worldwide is on developing transformational leadership that is responsive to the needs of the local as well as the global contexts, teacher educators are still searching for pedagogies, which could help them to develop transformational leaders. This paper offers some scope to teacher educators to critically analyze current teaching learning pedagogies while preparing transformational leaders for the 21st Century. Utilizing the allegoric approach as an alternate pedagogy for developing transformational leadership, this paper deliberates upon the relevance and efficacy of the role of aesthetic tradition of learning in leadership development programmes. The paper argues that aesthetic approaches such as allegories, parables, metaphors, pictorial images, poetry, etc., have power, which help leadership learners to internalize principles and values in a language, which appeals to the whole of their being. Allegories engage learners in critical discourses, which help them to reconceptualise their roles and responsibilities as transformational leaders. However, current pedagogical approaches in most instances, while theorizing transformational leadership, devote time and efforts in discussing thoughts and literature developed and designed as a result of conventional‐rational paradigms rooted in scientific tradition of learning. Aesthetic traditions of learning offer a great source of wisdom to this newly emerging field of educational leadership with particular contribution in the process of professional development of transformational leaders in education

Navigating with trust: A proposal for transforming public sector schools towards learning organizations in Pakistan

While working with teachers, teacher educators, educational leaders and principals of schools and teacher education colleges throughout the country, I am informed that the most significant factor for transforming public sector schools is winning the trust of teachers. Teachers, no matter how they are recruited and what their current competencies are, have become part of the work-force in public sector schools. It is observed that the school administrators have exhausted their trust and treat all kinds of teachers including good and committed teachers, with the same administrative approach which places them in odd situations, wherein they start losing their own trust to remain present in their classes which results in a sheer wastage of resources in education. The present proposal critically examines as to why navigation with trust is essential at this point of time and how, through appreciative processes, the public sector schools could be transformed towards learning organizations in Pakistan

Students' Perception of Using the Internet to Develop Reading Habits: A Case Study at the English Education Department of Universitas Kristen Indonesia

The internet ubiquity in education has flooded the teaching and learning process with digital tools and drastically changed many aspects of academic life, including students' reading habits.  This study aimed at exploring students' perceptions of using the internet to develop reading habits. The study employed the qualitative descriptive method with survey design and involved 43 students of the English department of Universitas Kristen Indonesia Jakarta. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire consisting of 20 items. The results showed that 43% of the respondents had a positive perception that the internet developed their reading habits. However, the majority of them regarded reading as merely an activity for getting information to finish school assignments. They viewed the internet as the main source of information they needed to finish their learning assignments. Since about one-fifth of them preferred paper-based reading, it was concluded that not the whole of Generation Z members totally ignored printed reading materials