Games-Based Online Course Design: Prototype of Gamification for Online Tutors

With the ubiquity of interactive games in students’ lives and the rise of gamified experiences across the web and mobile applications, online tutors and practitioners of technology enhanced learning have been inspired to incorporate games-based elements. This paper introduces a prototype of an online application that helps online tutors to embed gaming to design their online course. We developed a framework for online course leaders which explains how Wikis (as an online learning platform) can support students’ learning, interaction, and sharing of knowledge in the online community. We are presenting a metaphor for the course design in a gameboard like “snakes and ladders”. This metaphoric game enables online tutors to elaborate online interaction among their students. The game methodological design approach for this metaphoric game merges different pedagogical theories such as (socio-constructivism) with practice in online learning (Wiki) and gives the online tutor an idea about what theory/approach is used when selecting any technological tool or moving forward in the game. This framework could help tutors, educational institutions and students to use a common language with students to describe their teaching and learning activities. Primarily, it helps tutors to make decisions about learning activities, facilitate, guide and support students’ communication and collaboration

Survey: energy efficient protocols using radio scheduling in wireless sensor network

An efficient energy management scheme is crucial factor for design and implementation of any sensor network. Almost all sensor networks are structured with numerous small sized, low cost sensor devices which are scattered over the large area. To improvise the network performance by high throughput with minimum energy consumption, an energy efficient radio scheduling MAC protocol is effective solution, since MAC layer has the capability to collaborate with distributed wireless networks. The present survey study provides relevant research work towards radio scheduling mechanism in the design of energy efficient wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The various radio scheduling protocols are exist in the literature, which has some limitations. Therefore, it is require developing a new energy efficient radio scheduling protocol to perform multi tasks with minimum energy consumption (e.g. data transmission). The most of research studies paying more attention towards to enhance the overall network lifetime with the aim of using energy efficient scheduling protocol. In that context, this survey study overviews the different categories of MAC based radio scheduling protocols and those protocols are measured by evaluating their data transmission capability, energy efficiency, and network performance. With the extensive analysis of existing works, many research challenges are stated. Also provides future directions for new WSN design at the end of this survey

Medical education research remains the poor relation

The requirement that clinical practice should be based on the best available evidence has been paralleled by calls for medical education to become more evidence based.1-3 This has resulted, among other initiatives, in the establishment of the Best Evidence for Medical Education (BEME) Collaboration4 and the Campbell Collaboration, an off-shoot of the Cochrane Collaboration. The BEME initiative includes dissemination of best evidence to support medical education and the encouragement of a culture capable of nurturing more rigorous and better funded research

Tsunami vertical-evacuation planning in the U.S. Pacific Northwest as a geospatial, multi-criteria decision problem

AbstractTsunami vertical-evacuation (TVE) refuges can be effective risk-reduction options for coastal communities with local tsunami threats but no accessible high ground for evacuations. Deciding where to locate TVE refuges is a complex risk-management question, given the potential for conflicting stakeholder priorities and multiple, suitable sites. We use the coastal community of Ocean Shores (Washington, USA) and the local tsunami threat posed by Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes as a case study to explore the use of geospatial, multi-criteria decision analysis for framing the locational problem of TVE siting. We demonstrate a mixed-methods approach that uses potential TVE sites identified at community workshops, geospatial analysis to model changes in pedestrian evacuation times for TVE options, and statistical analysis to develop metrics for comparing population tradeoffs and to examine influences in decision making. Results demonstrate that no one TVE site can save all at-risk individuals in the community and each site provides varying benefits to residents, employees, customers at local stores, tourists at public venues, children at schools, and other vulnerable populations. The benefit of some proposed sites varies depending on whether or not nearby bridges will be functioning after the preceding earthquake. Relative rankings of the TVE sites are fairly stable under various criteria-weighting scenarios but do vary considerably when comparing strategies to exclusively protect tourists or residents. The proposed geospatial framework can serve as an analytical foundation for future TVE siting discussions

HRM readjustment dynamics of an industrial transplant: The case of Toyota in India

This paper uses a case study of Toyota to analyse the transfer and hybridisation of lean production in a major motor vehicle manufacturing company located in India. Particular emphasis is placed on the dynamics of re-adjustment in relation to HRM practices. Using primary and secondary data in the form of interviews and company documentation, the paper traces the transplantation trajectory of the company over the ten year period between 1999 and 2009. Findings reveal that due to a range of contradictions in the initial configuration of the transplant the company undertook a sequential range of re-adjustment measures involving four strategies: localisation, imitation, hybridisation, and customisation. Several propositions are advanced with the aim of hypothesising which strategies are more likely to be successful in certain contextual situations

Transferring the Toyota Production System into India: A Case Study

This study argues that the success of international transference of Japanese lean manufacturing practices in general, and the Toyota Production System (TPS) in particular, is in varying degrees contingent upon the socio-cultural, historical, and environmental context of the host nations into which such transfer occurs. It contends that TPS is not simply a set of concepts, techniques, and methods that can be implemented by command and control. The specific cultural and environmental factors within Japan were central to the conceptualization, acceptance, and development of TPS in that country. In the course of transplantation of TPS practices from Japan into overseas affiliates, either an absence of due consideration, or disregard for a host nation’s unique socio-cultural and environmental factors (and the compatibility of these factors with the specific needs of TPS) could lead to unproductive organizational outcomes for the parent company. This theme is explored through an analysis of the decade-old association between the automobile industry giant Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) Japan, and its affiliate in India, Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM), at Bidadi near Bangalore, India