ABSTRACT
The impacts of COVID-19 are expected to shutter business performance globally. Though, very little early evidence on the impacts is recorded currently. Small business owners are expected to be hugely impacted compared to larger business counterparts. This is a result of limitations in financial capabilities, skills, and human resources. Small and Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in the resilience and sustainability of economic growth globally. An early-stage loss to business activity as a result of COVID-19 has significant implications for future economic inequality, income losses, and policy. This has triggered research into sustainability measures suitable for business maturity and to improve operational performance. Research is addressing issues ranging from developing a digital platform suitable for the collection of systems and automating its processes. This study complements publications that develop a technological and digital landscape by further expatiating on digital transformation issues and smart operational implementations in the context of SMEs. This study initiates by systematically identifying relevant contemporary publications on SME digitalization using the Scopus database. The documents are then reviewed by focusing on the crucial factors and current systems that influence the process of digital transformations for SMEs. The results facilitate sustainable business value and are crucial as a reference document that guides SMEs for future smart operational implementations. Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2022.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the necessity for pervasive data and system interoperability to manage healthcare information and knowledge. There is an urgent need to better understand the role of interoperability in improving the societal responses to the pandemic. This paper explores data and system interoperability, a very specific area that could contribute to fighting COVID-19. Specifically, the authors propose a unified health information system framework to connect data, systems, and devices to increase interoperability and manage healthcare information and knowledge. A blockchain-based solution is also provided as a recommendation for improving the data and system interoperability in healthcare.
ABSTRACT
Disease is one of the major threats to human life and health, and historically there have been many cases which threatened human life due to infectious diseases. In almost all cases, specific triggers for the emergence of disease can be identified, so there is an urgent need for effective detection and identification of most diseases, including infectious diseases. Therefore, this article proposes biochip systems as a tool for disease detection and risk assessment, and explains why they are effective in detecting disease, in terms of their working mechanisms, advantages and disadvantages, specific application scenarios and future trends.
ABSTRACT
The artificial lighting condition in which humans are exposed have been proven as a harmful factor on their well-being, which is regulated mainly by circadian rhythm. Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, where external factors forced the society to adapt into new standards when it comes to their jobs and regular activities, lockdowns and work-from-home made most people start spending a portion of their life exposed to artificial sources of light. Technological advances have made lights more efficient and improved their intensity. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs), for example, generally produce high-intensity bluish tone light, which may affect the circadian rhythm. However, it is possible to create lighting systems able to vary the intensity and correlated color temperature (CCT) of the lighting. This work proposes a lighting system that allows adjusting the intensity and CCT of light via remote control on a smartphone application synchronized with time, following a pattern that aims avoid the undesirable artificial lighting effects on circadian rhythm. Using two LED arrays containing 10 LEDs each, suitable results were reached, presenting maximum difference of 3.35 % for CCT and 5.57 % for luminous flux in comparison with reference values.
ABSTRACT
As malaria cases continue to decline in Asia, an integrated service delivery approach is ever more urgent to ensure that no malaria and fever cases are missed, and that malaria health workers continue contributing to broader infectious disease control efforts. However, despite its perceived merit, translating integrated surveillance into practice poses several systemic challenges. This article aims to identify what is hindering improved processes for integrating diagnostic and surveillance services for febrile illnesses. Data from peer‐reviewed and grey literature were reviewed using a systems approach based on the World Health Organisation health systems building blocks to fully understand the connections between different elements and system implications of integration. We include snippets from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia and Nepal, highlighting expanded diagnostic integration best practices. This review provides a foundation for ‘integration roadmaps’ that can be adapted to different contexts and guide national stakeholders on the operational and political steps for a successful integration model. Such a model can support malaria elimination efforts and serve as a public health tool in the context of disease surveillance and regional health security.
ABSTRACT
The use of e-learning in higher education has been known since the late 90's albeit its development and adoption remained a slow process in higher education institutions. The adoption of e-learning is gaining traction as the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world in 2019 and become a necessity for all educational institutions. Although today the institutions have opted for e-learning as an alternative way to carry out the learning process, many are still not ready and facing difficulties in implementing, managing, and using it. This research aimed to investigate the issues and challenges of e-learning implementation during the Covid-19 pandemic at Universitas Esa Unggul. This research was conducted using exploratory research method by conducting literature study, observation, interview, and survey to examine the lecturer's and student's experiences and perspectives of the e-learning system. The questionnaire was adapted from an Information Technology Service Management perspective to gain data of e-learning satisfaction, availability of e-learning facilities, e-learning ease of use, availability of guidelines, availability of system supports, and to get feedbacks from the student and the lecturer. Based on the study, we identify the following seven e-learning issues: 1) e-learning infrastructure, 2) e-learning system integration, 3) e-learning policy, 4) e-learning support, 5) individual workload, 6) timeliness, and 7) interactivities. E-learning infrastructure is a dominant challenge for Universitas Esa Unggul that requires special attention to improve on its support and regulation. This finding gives implications that improving e-learning service is essential to provide a better learning experience. The e-learning service includes the infrastructure, the system integration, the policy and regulation, IT support, the lecturer, and the interactivity. This research could contribute to the design of an effective model of e-learning service by giving more structured guidance on how to do readiness self-assessment and factors to be focused on. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
In modern conditions, when the IT industry is developing much more dynamically than most industries, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies from traditional sectors of the economy to follow the current trends and tendencies on the IT services market. Along with fundamental factors, the development of the IT services market is accelerated by the current negative socio-economic processes associated with the coronavirus pandemic. This factor projects stagnation in many industries and sectors of the economy. The object of this research is the dynamics and prospects of the Russian IT services market. The main purpose is to analyze the current state of the IT services market, assess risks and potential development opportunities for models and the market as a whole. The article presents the results of a statistical analysis of the time series of the IT services market, some data of econometric analysis. The results of the correlation and regression analysis are presented to determine the relationship between the GDP and the IT services market proved by the calculation of the correlation coefficients, elasticityand β-coefficient. The article shows preliminary calculations of the forecast dynamics of the IT services market. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
With the expansion of COVID-19 outbreaks, the lecture environment has changed dramatically. Various activities have been held by distance learning, however, the style of online learning and hybrid learning is also popular. The key to these lectures is the web conferencing tool. The key factor to success in new age lectures is how the web conferencing tool can be adapted to the existing information system. Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) has developed full online courses from the first semester (spring semester) in April 2020. However, the increase of the infection has remained constant, and TUAT will continue to provide online courses using the web conferencing tool from the second semester (fall semester) in October 2020, and hybrid courses that combine face-to-face teaching. To support this, a campus-wide license was purchased that enables the use of three different web conferencing tools including Zoom Meeting, Cisco Webex, and Google Meet in the suitable applications. For the start of the second semester, the Information Media Center (IMC) has developed a system to integrate with the existing authentication system to enable use of the these three tools. Since we didn't have enough time to implement the system integration, we need to take less than a month (about 3 weeks) from the contract to the start of service. In this presentation, we explain in detail how we designed the system and how it was implemented in order to deploy these systems in a very short time period. We will also mention the implementation issues we faced. By explaining the ideal and reality of the system, we would like to discuss together with the SIGUCCS community how the system should be designed for the unusual situation. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Given the prospect of low birth rate and aging population among developed countries, which further resulted in the shortage of workforces, service robots have been gradually applied to real-life from past academic research. This paper introduces the development of a service robot that is designed for food service in fast-food restaurants with the innovative improvement of mapping, localization, and navigation. Moreover, this research took the initiative of integrating 3D point cloud map and 2D occupancy grid map (OGM) in order to build a PC-OGM. In another word, using the sensory fusion method allows the service robot to adapt to a more complicated environment as well as enhance its positioning. In terms of its navigation function, the adaptive motion controller is refined so the service robot could navigate through narrow aisles smoothly. Finally, friendly contact-free food service robots were evaluated at fast-food restaurants in order to gain feedback from diners and waiters. Their feedback was broken down into 3 categories, availability, reliability, and satisfaction, for further analysis. As COVID-19 assails the world, we also look into future possibilities of food service robot deployment among restaurants to keep food and surface free from the virus. Author
ABSTRACT
Various technology innovations and applications have been developed to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic also has implications for the design, development, and use of technologies. There is an urgent need for a greater understanding of what roles information systems and technology researchers can play in this global pandemic. This paper examines emerging technologies used to mitigate the threats of COVID-19 and relevant challenges related to technology design, development, and use. It also provides insights and suggestions into how information systems and technology scholars can help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper helps promote future research and technology development to produce better solutions for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics.
ABSTRACT
We report on data and debriefing observations in the context of an immersive simulation conducted to (a) train clinicians and (b) test new protocols and kits, developed in table-top exercises without prior clinical experience to fit anticipated clinical encounters in the setting of the rapidly expanding COVID-19 pandemic. We simulated scenarios with particular relevance for anesthesiology, perioperative and critical care, including (1) cardiac arrest, (2) emergency airway management, (3) tele-instruction for remote guidance and supervision, and (4) transporting an intubated patient. Using a grounded theory approach, three authors (MHA, DLR, EHS) developed emergent themes. First alone and then together, we sought consensus in uncovering overarching themes and constructs from the debriefings. We thus performed an informal qualitative thematic analysis based in a critical realist epistemological position - the understanding that our findings, while real, are affected by situational variables and the observer's perspective[1,2]. We compared data from videos and triangulated the data by member checking. All participants and course instructors volunteered to participate in this educational project and contributed as co-authors to this manuscript. During debriefing, we applied crisis resource management concepts including situation awareness, prioritization of tasks, and clear communication practices, conducting the debriefing with emphasis on current TeamStepps 2.0 terminology and concepts. [3,4] In addition, we re-evaluated formerly familiar processes, as shortcomings of protocols, kits, and interdisciplinary cooperation became apparent. The data provide detailed observations on how immersive simulation and debriefing among peers mitigated the unfamiliarity of individual clinicians and the organization at large with the demands of an unprecedented healthcare crisis. We also observed and report on the anxiety caused by resource constraints, risk to clinicians in the face of limited personal equipment, and the overall uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. We began to summarize, interpret, critique, and discuss our data and debriefing observations in a rapid co-publication in the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia. [Healthcare Simulation to Prepare for the COVID-19 Pandemic][5].