C. Chellappan and G. Vijayalakshmi
The aim of this study is to demonstrate that hybrid redundancy systems are superior to the conventional N‐modular redundancy (NMR) systems.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to demonstrate that hybrid redundancy systems are superior to the conventional N‐modular redundancy (NMR) systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The hybrid redundancy system is a synthesis of the NMR system and the standby redundancy. Each module of the NMR has access to k cold spares (k<N) and a repair facility. A semi‐Markov model for the hybrid redundancy system is developed and transient analysis is performed.
Findings
Some dependability measures such as availability, reliability, mean time to failure and steady‐state availability are obtained.
Originality/value
This paper presents the transient analysis of the hybrid redundancy systems. The results obtained will be useful to reliability engineers and reliability practitioners.
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Ahmed Patel, Wei Qi and Mona Taghavi
Mobile agent‐based e‐marketplace is one type of business application that has been developed as a flexible and efficient approach to help companies or corporations to extend their…
Abstract
Purpose
Mobile agent‐based e‐marketplace is one type of business application that has been developed as a flexible and efficient approach to help companies or corporations to extend their businesses to outreach larger markets without regional and continental boundaries. However, every distributed system is unable to avoid the security problems due to the open internet environment. Mobile agent‐based e‐marketplaces are no exception. Thus, the security of mobile agents is a crucial factor in the design of mobile agent‐based e‐marketplaces. To overcome this kind of problem, the purpose of this paper is to design and implement a framework and system of secure and trustworthy mobile agent based e‐marketplace.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents the system design for the system implementation based on the designed framework. It includes three major aspects: the design issues, system design and development environment and tools for system implementation. The system architecture, use case diagram and use case specifications are presented in the system design section.
Findings
The system design is an essential step that is required before a prototype system is implemented. The system is designed based on the described and outlined requirements and evaluation criteria, therefore, to support a secure and trustworthy trading environment. The paper is concluded by discussing and highlighting further research work.
Originality/value
This paper presents the system design for implementing a secure and trustworthy mobile agent‐based e‐marketplace system by using the latest version of UML modeling tool and techniques.
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Lyubov Zech and Glenn Pederson
This study investigates important factors that should be used by lenders in risk‐rating their farm customers. These factors predict actual farm performance and debt repayment…
Abstract
This study investigates important factors that should be used by lenders in risk‐rating their farm customers. These factors predict actual farm performance and debt repayment ability. Linear and logistic regression models are used to identify the debt‐to‐asset ratio as a major predictor of repayment ability. In addition, the rate of asset turnover and family living expenses are strong predictors of farm performance. The results are tested over several time periods to verify the robustness of the predictors.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the investment pattern, adoption behaviour, attitude of farmers towards conservation compliance programmes and the extent of participation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the investment pattern, adoption behaviour, attitude of farmers towards conservation compliance programmes and the extent of participation of farmers in soil conservation projects in the Western Ghats of India.
Design/methodology/approach
For the present study, multistage purposive sampling was followed. The sample respondents were identified for the survey in all the five categories of watersheds (very high, high, medium, low and very low priority watersheds) in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu at the rate of 50 farm respondents in each category. Since the investment among the five categories of watersheds did not show any significant differences, the sample farmers were post stratified as marginal, small, medium and large farmers based on farm size for further analysis.
Findings
The investment analysis showed a benefit cost ratio (BCR) of 1.03 for staggered trenches for tea to 1.40 for bench terrace for carrot. For annual crops, the BCR for bench terrace varied from 1.03 for cabbage to 1.32 for carrot. Among the soil conservation technologies, in tea plantation, stone wall had the highest net present value (NPV) of Rs. 74,335. Staggered trench had the lower NPV Rs. 19,237 among all conservation structures. The results of the contingent valuation showed that cropped area, farm size, on-farm income positively and significantly influenced the willingness to pay (WTP) towards soil conservation. Family size and age of the farmer negatively influenced the WTP of the respondents significantly. The multinomial logit model indicated that staggered trench had direct impact on productivity. In tea plantation, staggered trench adoption was influenced by area under plantation crops, farm size, educational level and land slope. The participation index was very low (<30), indicating the poor participation of farmers in soil conservation programmes.
Research limitations/implications
The results of the study reveal the appropriateness of the soil conservation technologies for the select soil type as well as the specific socioeconomic conditions of the farmers undertaking conservation compliance programs in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. Understanding the farmer’s perceptions and adoption behaviour is important in making the whole programme a successful one. Hence the results of the study may not be generalized for other study zones, unless otherwise, the agro-ecological zone is similar to the site where the study was conducted.
Practical implications
The study suggested that adoption of conservation technologies should be promoted in a big way to conserve natural resources like soil and enhance economic returns. It is also advocated that institutions should provide only guidance for community participation not on community governance and the role should be involving the real stakeholders/beneficiaries under participatory mode to achieve the goal of soil conservation. The bottom-up approach should be adopted to address the real issues involved in conservation compliance programmes.
Social implications
The outcome of the study advocates the economic viability of conservation technologies adopted by the crop farmers. The project results also advised the farmers, institutions and the enforcements authorities, the strategies to be adopted to minimize soil loss and increase crop productivity by adopting the appropriate conservation compliance programs. The results also revealed that conservation of soil and water not only conserved the precious natural resources but also had far reaching effect on the yield of croplands, which would be reflected on the food and nutritional securities of the local communities at the micro level and the nation as a whole at the macro level.
Originality/value
The research outcome is based on the field level research done by the authors in the Western Ghats of India. The primary data collected from the respondents were analysed and used for drawing inferences and conclusions.
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Menaka Radhakrishnan, Vinitha Joshy Premkumar, Viswanathan Balasubramanian Prahaladhan, Baskaran Mukesh and Purushothaman Nithish
Globally, postnatal women endure a prominent issue caused by midline separation of abdominal recti muscles, characterized by a sagging and pouch-like appearance of the belly…
Abstract
Purpose
Globally, postnatal women endure a prominent issue caused by midline separation of abdominal recti muscles, characterized by a sagging and pouch-like appearance of the belly termed as Diastasis Recti Abdominis (DRA). The necessity of ensuring the efficacy of rehabilitative workouts for individuals with DRA cannot be overstated, as inaccurate exercises can exacerbate the condition and deteriorate the health of affected women. The purpose of these exercises is to specifically focus on the rectus abdominis muscles to facilitate the reapproximation of the linea alba. The primary aim of this research work is to assess the effectiveness of rehabilitation exercises for DRA women obtained from Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and Electromyography (EMG) sensors.
Design/methodology/approach
Convolutional neural networks (CNN) employs convolutional activation functions and pooling layers. Recently, 1D CNNs have emerged as a promising approach used in various applications, including personalized biomedical data classification and early diagnosis, structural health monitoring and anomaly detection. Yet another significant benefit is the feasibility of a real-time and cost-effective implementation of 1D CNN. The EMG and IMU signals serve as inputs for the 1D CNN. Features are then extracted from the fully connected layer of the CNN and fed into a boosting machine learning algorithm for classification.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that a combination of sensors provides more details about the exercises, thereby contributing to the classification accuracy.
Practical implications
In real time, collecting data from postnatal women was incredibly challenging. The process of examining these women was time-consuming, and they were often preoccupied with their newborns, leading to a reluctance to focus on their own health. Additionally, postnatal women might not be fully aware of the implications of DRA and the importance of rehabilitation exercises. Many might not realize that neglecting DRA can lead to long-term issues such as back pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, and compromised core strength.
Social implications
During our data collection camps, there were educational sessions to raise awareness about the DRA problem and the benefits of rehabilitation exercises. This dual approach helped in building trust and encouraging participation. Moreover, the use of wearable sensors in this study provided a non-invasive and convenient way for new mothers to engage in rehabilitation exercises without needing frequent visits to a clinic, which is often impractical for them.
Originality/value
The utilization of discriminating features retrieved from the output layer of 1D CNN is a significant contribution to this work. The responses of this study indicate that 1D convolutional neural network (1D CNN) and Boosting algorithms used in a transfer learning strategy produce successful discrimination between accurate and inaccurate performance of exercises by achieving an accuracy of 96%.
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Nihar Gonsalves, Omobolanle Ruth Ogunseiju and Abiola Abosede Akanmu
Recognizing construction workers' activities is critical for on-site performance and safety management. Thus, this study presents the potential of automatically recognizing…
Abstract
Purpose
Recognizing construction workers' activities is critical for on-site performance and safety management. Thus, this study presents the potential of automatically recognizing construction workers' actions from activations of the erector spinae muscles.
Design/methodology/approach
A lab study was conducted wherein the participants (n = 10) performed rebar task, which involved placing and tying subtasks, with and without a wearable robot (exoskeleton). Trunk muscle activations for both conditions were trained with nine well-established supervised machine learning algorithms. Hold-out validation was carried out, and the performance of the models was evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall and F1 score.
Findings
Results indicate that classification models performed well for both experimental conditions with support vector machine, achieving the highest accuracy of 83.8% for the “exoskeleton” condition and 74.1% for the “without exoskeleton” condition.
Research limitations/implications
The study paves the way for the development of smart wearable robotic technology which can augment itself based on the tasks performed by the construction workers.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the research on construction workers' action recognition using trunk muscle activity. Most of the human actions are largely performed with hands, and the advancements in ergonomic research have provided evidence for relationship between trunk muscles and the movements of hands. This relationship has not been explored for action recognition of construction workers, which is a gap in literature that this study attempts to address.
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Xiao‐song Zhang, Ting Chen, Chun‐xiang Xu, Xiao‐hui Pan and Xue‐yang Wu
Nowadays, proactive P2P worm (PRWORM) poses a latent threat to internet infrastructure and common users for the fatal vulnerabilities in homogeneous P2P software. It is more…
Abstract
Purpose
Nowadays, proactive P2P worm (PRWORM) poses a latent threat to internet infrastructure and common users for the fatal vulnerabilities in homogeneous P2P software. It is more difficult to contain PRWORM because of its fast spread speed. Current techniques are not adequate to quarantine PRWORM, mainly because of their inaccuracy and slow response to attacks. The purpose of this paper is to propose an accurate and real‐time approach for PRWORM containment.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the authors present a new methodology to contain PRWORM via proper authentication of initiators of P2P communications. Second, three simple network protocols are proposed to fulfill automatic authentication.
Findings
Both simulations and strictly mathematical proof by Strand Space Model represent that the authors' work is able to accurately quarantine PRWORM in real time. Furthermore, proof shows the three network protocols are resistant to popular attacks such as man‐in‐the‐middle attack and replay attack.
Originality/value
First, the authors propose an authentication based method to contain proactive P2P worm and second, use strand space model to proof the effectiveness and security of the method.
Details
Keywords
In wireless sensor network (WSN), user authentication plays as a vital role in which data sensing, as well as sharing, will be spoiled by hackers. To enhance user security, user…
Abstract
Purpose
In wireless sensor network (WSN), user authentication plays as a vital role in which data sensing, as well as sharing, will be spoiled by hackers. To enhance user security, user authentication must be focused.
Design/methodology/approach
In previous works, for secured authentication, Enhanced User Authentication Protocol (EUAP) is presented. On the other hand, the user free password generation is permitted in the previous technique.
Findings
Here, password leakage may cause a malevolent user's contribution to the WSN environment. By presenting the Flexible and Secured User Authentication Protocol (FSUAP), this is solved in the presented technique in which secured as well as reliable sharing of data contents via unsecured wireless sensor devices was accomplished.
Originality/value
The foremost objective of the present technique is to device the protocol that would verify the users beforehand letting them access the sensor devices situated in various sites. The use of a sensor device could be reduced in a significant way. Three-factor authentication protocols are presented in place of two-factor authentication protocol in the presented technique that could deal with and safeguard the environment from a brute force attack in an effective manner.
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Priyanka Gupta, Sanjeev Prashar and Chandan Parsad
This study differentiates pure impulse buying behaviour from suggestive impulse buying behaviour in using mobile shopping applications (apps). This study aims to assess the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study differentiates pure impulse buying behaviour from suggestive impulse buying behaviour in using mobile shopping applications (apps). This study aims to assess the moderating effects of instant discount and cashback promotional offers along with the mediating effects of impulse buying intention (IBI) and user satisfaction (US), using the app stimuli (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, layout, atmosphere, privacy and security).
Design/methodology/approach
The study was done in three stages: analysis of variance, followed by structural equation modelling (SEM) and paired t-tests.
Findings
The results showed that instant discounts and cashback offers are different from each other for the mediating variable IBI. The SEM results for pure impulse buying showed that, except for layout, the remaining variables have a positive relationship with IBI. For suggestive impulse buying, effort expectancy and layout were significantly related to both the mediating variables. Finally, pure and suggestive impulse buying behaviour showed significant differences.
Originality/value
Previous studies have looked into impulse buying in its generic sense and not through the “types” of impulse buying they were measuring. As impulse buying behaviour is a predominant theme for discussion today, marketing professionals and researchers must comprehend the impact of app stimuli in the context of select types of impulse buying behaviour.
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Wencheng Ni, Hui Li, Zhihong Jiang, Bainan Zhang and Qiang Huang
The purpose of this paper is to design an exoskeleton robot and present a corresponding rehabilitation training method for patients in different rehabilitation stages.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to design an exoskeleton robot and present a corresponding rehabilitation training method for patients in different rehabilitation stages.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a lightweight seven-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) cable-driven exoskeleton robot that is wearable and adjustable. After decoupling joint movement caused by a cable-driven mechanism, active rehabilitation training mode and passive rehabilitation training mode are proposed to improve the effect of rehabilitation training.
Findings
Simulations and experiments have been carried out, and the results validated the feasibility of the proposed mechanism and methods by a fine rehabilitative effect with different persons.
Originality/value
This paper designed a 7-DOF cable-driven exoskeleton robot that is suitable for patients of different body measurements and proposed the active rehabilitation training mode and passive rehabilitation training mode based on the cable-driven exoskeleton robot.