R. Harikrishnan, Avinash Shivdas and S. Ananthu
This paper aims to delve into the critical aspect of supplier selection in the healthcare sector, emphasizing the significance of strategic sourcing in enhancing operational…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to delve into the critical aspect of supplier selection in the healthcare sector, emphasizing the significance of strategic sourcing in enhancing operational efficiency and quality of services. The primary aim is to develop a comprehensive framework for supplier evaluation that aligns with the unique requirements of hospitals, ultimately improving procurement processes and patient care outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The study leverages the renowned Carter’s 7 C model as a foundational framework for supplier assessment, supplemented by insights gathered from interviews with experts in the New Product Introduction, Purchasing and Procurement departments of a leading hospital in India. Data collection involved a combination of primary interactions through Google Forms and secondary data extraction from Purchase Inquisition Brochures and Hospital Information Systems. The weighted average method was employed to determine the significance of various criteria based on expert recommendations, ensuring a fair and consensus-driven evaluation process.
Findings
Through the synthesis of expert inputs and data analysis, the study unveils a nuanced set of criteria weights that guide supplier selection decisions in the healthcare setting. The research highlights the dynamic nature of supplier evaluation criteria, underscoring the importance of tailoring assessments to suit the specific needs of each hospital. By emphasizing effective communication, technological advancements and collaborative supplier relationships, the study underscores the potential for strategic supplier selection to optimize supply chains, drive innovation and enhance patient care delivery in the healthcare sector.
Research limitations/implications
The framework for supplier selection in the healthcare sector has limitations, including limited generalizability, subjectivity in expert opinions and a static framework. The framework assumes the constant importance of selection criteria over time, which could be affected by dynamic changes in the industry. Its focus on the healthcare sector may require adaptation to other sectors.
Practical implications
For hospitals, it also supports cost optimization by focusing on critical variables like cost efficiency and quality. For suppliers, the framework provides clear expectations, performance benchmarking and collaborative growth. It encourages performance benchmarking and encourages collaboration between the hospital and its supply chain partners. The framework is a replicable model that can be adapted by other hospitals or organizations to optimize supplier selection processes. It promotes standardization in supplier evaluation, fostering consistency across the sector. For patients, the framework improves care delivery by ensuring reliable access to high-quality supplies and services.
Originality/value
This research intends to provide a novel framework for the classification of suppliers in the healthcare sector for operational excellence which enhances the strategic sourcing decision in the domain.
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Ghoulemallah Boukhalfa, Sebti Belkacem, Abdesselem Chikhi and Said Benaggoune
This paper presents the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm in conjuction with the fuzzy logic method in order to achieve an optimized tuning of a proportional integral…
Abstract
This paper presents the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm in conjuction with the fuzzy logic method in order to achieve an optimized tuning of a proportional integral derivative controller (PID) in the DTC control loops of dual star induction motor (DSIM). The fuzzy controller is insensitive to parametric variations, however, with the PSO-based optimization approach we obtain a judicious choice of the gains to make the system more robust. According to Matlab simulation, the results demonstrate that the hybrid DTC of DSIM improves the speed loop response, ensures the system stability, reduces the steady state error and enhances the rising time. Moreover, with this controller, the disturbances do not affect the motor performances.
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R. Hari Krishnan and S. Pugazhenthi
Wheelchair users face great difficulty in transferring themselves from one surface to another, for example from wheelchair to a toilet commode. In such cases, mostly a caregiver’s…
Abstract
Purpose
Wheelchair users face great difficulty in transferring themselves from one surface to another, for example from wheelchair to a toilet commode. In such cases, mostly a caregiver’s assistance may be required, but it affects one’s dignity. The purpose of this paper is to develop a robotic self-transfer device, which is aimed at offering privacy and independence to people with lower limb disabilities in performing daily activities.
Design/methodology/approach
The device, attached to a powered wheelchair, is useful in transferring a user from a wheelchair to a toilet commode or any other surface following simple and natural transfer procedure without the need of any caregiver. The user can achieve transfer by operating joysticks. The device employs two linear actuators and a motor to accomplish the transfer. Trials were carried out to test the performance of the device by involving potential beneficiaries.
Findings
The device could successfully transfer the participants from a wheelchair to a chair with less effort in less than a minute. The results of the trials show that the participants felt comfortable in using the device. It was also found that the device is superior to other existing transfer systems in terms of comfort and operation.
Originality/value
The existing self-transfer systems are alternative solutions that serve the purpose of mobility coupled with self-transfer. Instead of developing an alternative mobility solution, this paper proposes a novel design of a self-transfer device that can be used as an attachment to wheelchair.
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Siti Maisurah Mohd Hassan, Mohd Azmi Ismail, Nazif Emran Farid, Norman Fadhil Idham Muhammad and Ahmad Ismat Abdul Rahim
The purpose of this paper is to design and implement a fully integrated low‐phase noise and large tuning range dual‐band LC voltage‐controlled oscillator (VCO) in 0.13 μm…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to design and implement a fully integrated low‐phase noise and large tuning range dual‐band LC voltage‐controlled oscillator (VCO) in 0.13 μm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology.
Design/methodology/approach
Two parallel‐connected single‐band VCOs are designed to implement the proposed VCO. Adopting a simple and straight‐forward architecture, the dual‐band VCO is configured to operate at two frequency bands, which are from 1.48 GHz to 1.78 GHz and from 2.08 GHz to 2.45 GHz. A band selection circuit is designed to perform band selection process based on the controlling input signal.
Findings
The proposed VCO features phase noise of −104.7 dBc/Hz and −108.8 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency for both low corner and high corner end of the low‐band operation. For high‐band operation, phase‐noise performance of −101.1 dBc/Hz and −110.4 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency are achieved. The measured output power of the dual‐band VCO ranges from −8.4 dBm to −5.8 dBm and from −9.6 dBm to −8.0 dBm for low‐band and high‐band operation, respectively. It was also observed that the power differences between the fundamental spectrum and the nearby spurious tone range from −67.5 dBc to −47.7 dBc.
Originality/value
The paper is useful to both the academic and industrial fields since it promotes the concept of multi‐band or multi‐standard system which is currently in demand in the telecommunication industry.
Details
Keywords
- Oscillators
- Integrated circuits
- Complementary metal oxide semiconductor
- Radio frequency
- Wireless communication
- Voltage‐controlled oscillator
- Dual‐band voltage‐controlled oscillator
- Reconfigurable voltage‐controlled oscillator
- Switchable voltage‐controlled oscillator
- LC‐tank oscillator
- Current‐mode logic circuit
Manesh Muraleedharan and Alaka Omprakash Chandak
The substantial increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is considered a major threat to developing countries. According to various international organizations and…
Abstract
Purpose
The substantial increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is considered a major threat to developing countries. According to various international organizations and researchers, Kerala is reputed to have the best health system in India. However, many economists and health-care experts have discussed the risks embedded in the asymmetrical developmental pattern of the state, considering its high health-care and human development index and low economic growth. This study, a scoping review, aims to explore four major health economic issues related to the Kerala health system.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic review of the literature was performed using PRISMA to facilitate selection, sampling and analysis. Qualitative data were collected for thematic content analysis.
Findings
Chronic diseases in a significant proportion of the population, low compliance with emergency medical systems, high health-care costs and poor health insurance coverage were observed in the Kerala community.
Research limitations/implications
The present study was undertaken to determine the scope for future research on Kerala's health system. Based on the study findings, a structured health economic survey is being conducted and is scheduled to be completed by 2021. In addition, the scope for future research on Kerala's health system includes: (1) research on pathways to address root causes of NCDs in the state, (2) determine socio-economic and health system factors that shape health-seeking behavior of the Kerala community, (3) evaluation of regional differences in health system performance within the state, (4) causes of high out-of-pocket expenditure within the state.
Originality/value
Given the internationally recognized standard of Kerala's vital statistics and health system, this review paper highlights some of the challenges encountered to elicit future research that contributes to the continuous development of health systems in Kerala.
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Guodong Sun, Hua Zhu and Cong Ding
AISI 52100-AISI 1045 specimens were used as the ring-on-disc tribopairs in the experiments to investigate the stability of friction process.
Abstract
Purpose
AISI 52100-AISI 1045 specimens were used as the ring-on-disc tribopairs in the experiments to investigate the stability of friction process.
Design/methodology/approach
The coefficient of friction (COF) signals were measured throughout the friction process and the recurrence plots (RPs) and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) are adapted to analyze the stability of the tribosystem.
Findings
The results show that the COF time-series acquired from different tests possess the same dynamic evolution laws. The evolution of RPs follows the rules of “disrupted-homogeneous-disrupted,” which corresponds to the “running-in, steady-state and increasing stages” of friction process. Additionally, the evolution laws of RQA measures LAM, Vmax and TT accord with the “bathtub curve.” Therefore, both RPs and RQA measures can inform quantitative interpretations of tribological behaviors and friction process identification.
Originality/value
The both RPs and RQA are capable of characterizing the tribological behaviors and can depict the various stages of friction process.
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Kinjal Bhargavkumar Mistree, Devendra Thakor and Brijesh Bhatt
According to the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC), India has approximately 300 certified human interpreters to help people with hearing loss. This paper…
Abstract
Purpose
According to the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC), India has approximately 300 certified human interpreters to help people with hearing loss. This paper aims to address the issue of Indian Sign Language (ISL) sentence recognition and translation into semantically equivalent English text in a signer-independent mode.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents an approach that translates ISL sentences into English text using the MobileNetV2 model and Neural Machine Translation (NMT). The authors have created an ISL corpus from the Brown corpus using ISL grammar rules to perform machine translation. The authors’ approach converts ISL videos of the newly created dataset into ISL gloss sequences using the MobileNetV2 model and the recognized ISL gloss sequence is then fed to a machine translation module that generates an English sentence for each ISL sentence.
Findings
As per the experimental results, pretrained MobileNetV2 model was proven the best-suited model for the recognition of ISL sentences and NMT provided better results than Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) to convert ISL text into English text. The automatic and human evaluation of the proposed approach yielded accuracies of 83.3 and 86.1%, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
It can be seen that the neural machine translation systems produced translations with repetitions of other translated words, strange translations when the total number of words per sentence is increased and one or more unexpected terms that had no relation to the source text on occasion. The most common type of error is the mistranslation of places, numbers and dates. Although this has little effect on the overall structure of the translated sentence, it indicates that the embedding learned for these few words could be improved.
Originality/value
Sign language recognition and translation is a crucial step toward improving communication between the deaf and the rest of society. Because of the shortage of human interpreters, an alternative approach is desired to help people achieve smooth communication with the Deaf. To motivate research in this field, the authors generated an ISL corpus of 13,720 sentences and a video dataset of 47,880 ISL videos. As there is no public dataset available for ISl videos incorporating signs released by ISLRTC, the authors created a new video dataset and ISL corpus.
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Eloy Gil-Cordero, Pablo Ledesma-Chaves, Rocío Arteaga Sánchez and Ari Melo Mariano
The aim of this study is to examine the behavioral intention (BI) to adopt the Coinbase Wallet by Spanish users.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to examine the behavioral intention (BI) to adopt the Coinbase Wallet by Spanish users.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was administered to individuals residing in Spain between March and April 2021. There were 301 questionnaires analyzed. This research applies a new predictive model based on technology acceptance model (TAM) 2, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, the theory of perceived risk and the commitment trust theory. A mixed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)/fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) methodology was employed for the modeling and data analysis.
Findings
The results showed that all the variables proposed have a direct and positive influence on the intention to use a Coinbase Wallet. The findings present clear directions for traders, investors and academics focused on improving their understanding of the characteristics of these markets.
Originality/value
First, this study addresses important concerns relating to the adoption of crypto-wallets during the global pandemic. Second, this research contributes to the existing literature by adding electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), trust, web quality and perceived risk as new drivers of the intention to use the Coinbase Wallet, providing unique and innovative insights. Finally, the study offers a solid methodological contribution by integrating linear (PLS) and nonlinear (fsQCA) techniques, showing that both methodologies provide a better understanding of the problem and a more detailed awareness of the patterns of antecedent factors.
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Prema P. Nedungadi, Rajani Menon, Georg Gutjahr, Lynnea Erickson and Raghu Raman
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an Inclusive Digital Literacy Framework for vulnerable populations in rural areas under the Digital India program. Key challenges…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an Inclusive Digital Literacy Framework for vulnerable populations in rural areas under the Digital India program. Key challenges include addressing multiple literacies such as health literacy, financial literacy and eSafety for low-literate learners in low-resource settings with low internet bandwidth, lack of ICT facilities and intermittent electricity.
Design/methodology/approach
This research implemented an educational model based on the proposed framework to train over 1,000 indigenous people using an integrated curriculum for digital literacies at remote settlements. The model uses mobile technology adapted for remote areas, context enabled curriculum, along with flexible learning schedules.
Findings
The education model exemplifies a viable strategy to overcome persistent challenges by taking tablet-based digital literacies directly to communities. It engages different actors such as existing civil societies, schools and government organizations to provide digital literacy and awareness thereby improving both digital and life skills. It demonstrates the potential value of a comprehensive Digital Literacy framework as a powerful lever for Digital Inclusion.
Practical Implications
Policy makers can use this transformational model to extend the reach and effectiveness of Digital Inclusion through the last mile enhancing existing training and service centers that offer the traditional model of Digital Literacy Education.
Originality/value
This innovative mobile learning model based on the proposed Digital Framework for Inclusion instilled motivation, interest and confidence while providing effective digital training and conducting exams directly in the tribal settlements for low-literate learners in remote settings. Through incorporating multiple literacies, this model serves to empower learners, enhance potential, improve well-being and reduce the risk of exploitation.
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Ananthajit Ajaya Kumar and Ashwani Assam
Deep-learning techniques are recently gaining a lot of importance in the field of turbulence. This study focuses on addressing the problem of data imbalance to improve the…
Abstract
Purpose
Deep-learning techniques are recently gaining a lot of importance in the field of turbulence. This study focuses on addressing the problem of data imbalance to improve the performance of an existing deep learning neural network to infer the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solution, proposed by Thuerey et al. (2020), in the cases of airfoils with high wake formation behind them. The model is based on a U-Net architecture, which calculates pressure and velocity solutions for fluid flow around an airfoil.
Design/methodology/approach
In this work, we propose various methods for training the model on selectively generated data with different distributions, which would be representative of the under-performing test samples. The property we chose for selectively generating data was the fraction of negative x-velocity in the domain. We have used Grad-CAM to compare the layer activations of different models trained using the proposed methods.
Findings
We observed that using our methods, the average performance on the samples with high wake formation (i.e. flow over airfoils at high angle of attack) has improved. Using one of the proposed methods, an average performance improvement of 15.65% was observed for samples of unknown airfoils compared to a similar model trained using the original method.
Originality/value
This work demonstrates the use of imbalanced learning in the field of fluid mechanics. The performance of the model is improved by giving significance to the distribution of the training data without changes to the model architecture.