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The purpose of the study is to design and develop an pervasive and smart Internet of Things (IoT)-based sensor system to monitor he real-time intravenous (IV) fluid bag level.

This paper investigates such issue and performs several experiments to develop a non-invasive, semi-automatic system to monitor IoT-based IV fluid level in real-time.

The outcome of this study is a prototype hardware that includes an ESP8266 based embedded Web server to disseminate the fluid exhaust status flag to its connected users. Nurses can get the prompt intimation about the status of IV fluid bag whether it is about to get empty.

IoT is the backbone of the proposed system. Multi-master system need to be studied in future.

Non-invasive and real-time IoT-based novel technique is developed with power-efficient and cost-effective pervasive sensors.

This is applicable for pervasive and assistive e-health-care services by care givers and medical professionals.

The deployed system is controlled by ATtiny85 with help of LM35 temperature sensor. The results show a promising future of the proposed development in enhancing IoT-based smart health-care service in the coming days.

Background: Every so often, one experiences different physically unstable situations which may lead to possibilities of suffering through vicious physiological risks and extents. Dynamic physiological activities are such a key metric that they are perceived by means of measuring galvanic skin response (GSR). GSR represents impedance of human skin that frequently changes based on different human respiratory and physical instability. Existing solutions, paved in literature and market, focus on the direct measurement of GSR by two sensor-attached leads, which are then parameterized against the standard printed circuit board mechanism. This process is sometimes cumbersome to use, resulting in lower user experience provisioning and adaptability in livelihood activities. The purpose of this study is to validate the novel development of the cost-effective GSR sensing system for affective usage for smart e-healthcare.

This paper proposes to design and develop a flexible circuit strip, populated with essential circuitry assemblies, to assess and monitor the level of GSR. Ordinarily, this flexible system would be worn on the back palm of the hand where two leads would contact two sensor strips worn on the first finger.

The system was developed on top of Pyralux. Initial goals of this work are to design and validate a flexible film-based GSR system to detect an individual’s level of human physiological activities by acquiring, amplifying and processing GSR data. The measured GSR value is visualized “24 × 7” on a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone via a pre-incorporated application. Conclusion: The proposed sensor-system is capable of raising the qualities such as adaptability, user experience, portability and ubiquity for possible application of monitoring of human psychodynamics in a more cost-effective way, i.e. less than US$50.

Several novel attributes are envisaged in the development process of the GSR system that made it different from and unique as compared to the existing alternatives. The attributes are as follows: (i) use of reproductive sensor-system fabrication process, (ii) use of flexible-substrate for hosting the system as proof of concept, (iii) use of miniaturized microcontroller, i.e. ATTiny85, (iv) deployment of energy-efficient passive electrical circuitry for noise filtering, (v) possible use case scenario of using CR2032 coin battery for provisioning powering up the system, (vi) provision of incorporation of internet of things (IoT)-cloud integration in existing version while fixing related APIs and (vii) incorporation of heterogeneous software-based solutions to validate and monitor the GSR output such as MakerPlot, Arduino IDE, Fritzing and MIT App Inventor 2.

This paper is a revised version R1 of the earlier reviewed paper. The proposed paper provides novel knowledge about the flexible sensor system development for GSR monitoring under IoT-based environment for smart e-healthcare.

The purpose of the experimental investigation was to optimize the process parameters of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. The optimization of the process was performed to identify the relationship between the chosen factors and the tensile strength of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and carbon fiber polylactic acid (PLA) thermoplastic material, FDM printed specimens. The relationship was demonstrated by using the linear experimental model analysis, and a prediction expression was established. The developed prediction expression can be used for the prediction of tensile strength of selected thermoplastic materials at a 95% confidence level.

The Taguchi L9 experimental methodology was used to plan the total number of experiments to be performed. The process parameters were chosen as three at three working levels. The working range of chosen factors was the printing speed (60, 80 and 100mm/min), 40%, 60% and 80% as the infill density and 0.1mm, 0.2mm and 0.3mm as the layer thickness. The fused deposition modeling process parameters were optimized to get the maximum tensile strength in FDM printed ABS and carbon fiber PLA thermoplastic material specimens.

The optimum condition was achieved by the process optimization, and the desired results were obtained. The maximum desirability was achieved as 0.98 (98%) for the factors, printing speed 100mm/min, infill density 60mm and layer thickness 0.3mm. The strength of the ABS specimen was predicted to be 23.83MPa. The observed strength value was 23.66MPa. The maximum desirability was obtained as 1 (100%) for the factors, printing speed 100mm/min, infill density 60mm and layer thickness 0.2mm. The strength of the carbon fiber PLA specimen was predicted to be 26.23MPa, and the obtained value was 26.49MPa.

The research shows the useful process parameters and their suitable working conditions to print the tensile specimens of the ABS and carbon fiber PLA thermoplastics by using the fused deposition modeling technique. The process was optimized to identify the most influential factor, and the desired optimum condition was achieved at which the maximum tensile strength was reported. The produced prediction expression can be used to predict the tensile strength of ABS and carbon fiber PLA filaments.

The results obtained from the experimental investigation are useful to get an insight into the FDM process and working limits to print the parts by using the ABS and carbon fiber PLA material for various industrial and structural applications.

The results will be useful in choosing the suitable thermoplastic filament for the various prototyping and structural applications. The products that require freedom in design and are difficult to produce by most of the conventional techniques can be produced at low cost and in less time by the fused deposition modeling technique.

The process optimization shows the practical exposures to state an optimum working condition to print the ABS and carbon fiber PLA tensile specimens by using the FDM technique. The carbon fiber PLA shows better strength than ABS thermoplastic material.

This paper aims to test for spatial convergence in financial inclusion across major Indian states and union territories.

After initially building an Index of Financial Inclusion (IFI) for major Indian states between 2003 and 2016, exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) is employed to draw inferences about mean and variance of IFI. The paper then seeks to confirm the ESDA results through spatial panel regression techniques. Finally, spatial results are correlated with results from aspatial convergence measures.

The study finds that there is no evidence of spatial convergence in financial inclusion over the study period, suggesting that those states that were relatively less financially included remained so through the study period. The study also asserts the relevance of certain important determinants, namely, per capita income, infrastructure, industrialization and gender.

This study has two limitations. First, only banking institutions are considered in measuring financial inclusion. Second, due to lack of a consistent indicator of gender participation across states, we had to employ sex ratio as a proxy.

The study suggests that policies to expand financial inclusion in Indian states, especially those with low inclusion levels are likely to benefit neighbouring states also, thereby accelerating the financial inclusion drive across states.

The study is a first in the Indian context to estimate the spatial dependence of financial inclusion and provides relevant implications for policymakers and bankers to target financial inclusion schemes in backward states.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship of female participation in labor force with the cybersecurity maturity of nations and the enabling role of e-government development in moderating the same.

The authors have conducted fixed-effects regression using archival data for 149 countries taken from secondary sources. Furthermore, the authors have grouped the sample countries into four levels of cybersecurity maturity (unprepared, reactive, anticipatory and innovative) using clustering techniques, and studied the influence of their interest variables for individual groups.

Results show that female participation in labor force positively influences national cybersecurity maturity, and e-government development positively moderates the said relationship, thereby enabling the empowerment of women.

Encouraging broader participation of women in the labor force and prioritizing investments in e-government development are essential steps that organizations and governments may take to enhance a country’s cybersecurity maturity level.

This study empirically demonstrates the impact of the nuanced interplay between female participation in labor force and the e-government development of a nation on its cybersecurity maturity.

Electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) symposium is one of the major international activities of Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), and its objectives provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge and skills relevant to ETD students, professors and information professionals. This symposium offers an opportunity to put forward innovative plans, debate on ideas and promote closer cooperation internationally. This report is a summary of selected events held during ETD international symposium 2016 on the theme “Data and Dissertations”, with a focus on the handling of research data.

It is a concise review of selected presentations during 19th electronic theses and dissertation annual symposium in University of Lille, France.

ETD 2016 meeting held in Lille was attended by nearly 100 attendees from 28 countries. This report includes a summary of selected presentations on research data, open-access and embargo policies, augmented ETDs and French system for ETDs. It is useful to managers of organizations, teachers and educators, librarians, open-access protagonists and members of information provider communities. The personal interaction with the participants from different countries enriched the author’s ideas about the ETD development.

The author, who was also a speaker, provides an overview of the selected presentations on the initiatives, namely, research data development, copyright laws, augmented digital theses, plagiarism, etc. The important events such as sight-seeing tours to a national museum, informal get-together are covered which may be useful to the audience who are not able to attend but interested to know about ETD 2016.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a robust macroeconomic performance (MEP) index of the State economies of an emerging market economy, i.e. India.

Two variants of data envelopment analysis (DEA) models – radial and non‐radial – are proposed to construct the macroeconomic policy performance of 22 Indian State economies in the post‐economic reforms era covering the period: 1994‐1995 to 2001‐2002, using three macroeconomic indicators: growth in gross state domestic product, price stability, and fiscal deficit.

The authors' three broad empirical findings are: first, the radial and non‐radial DEA models yield significantly different rankings of State economies in terms of their MEP index scores; second, as against the use of only growth in gross state domestic product and price stability for MEP measure, the inclusion of fiscal deficit as an additional indicator yields a noticeable improvement not only in the State MEP index scores, but also in their rankings, thus providing the evidence of relatively successful attempt by the Indian States in reducing fiscal deficit, in general, and legislating FRBM bill, in particular; and third, a positive significant correlation between foreign direct investment (FDI) and MEP indicates that a State's overall macroeconomic policy performance does matter to attract FDI.

Since the DEA models employed in this study ignore the possibility of asymmetric shocks, the MEP results might be questioned in this deterministic setting. However, the study period has been smooth and has not been subject to any major changes in the State economic policies. Therefore, the MEP results might not be susceptible such changes. However, further research is desired on examining the macroeconomic policy performance behavior of Indian States using bootstrapping DEA.

None of the past Indian studies were able to give a comprehensive picture concerning the MEP behavior of Indian State economies, since the methodologies adopted in those studies were not suitable to take into consideration all the macro indicators at a time. Therefore, this present study is considered the first of its kind in assessing the MEP index of the Indian State economies by simultaneously considering all the macro indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to support total productive maintenance implementers by providing a roadmap for autonomous maintenance (AM) preparation phase.

The authors use the axiomatic design (AD) methodology with lean philosophy as a paradigm.

This is an exploratory research to find the most important factors in AM preparation phase. A decoupled AD design ensures an effective usage of training within industry (TWI) and the introduction of standardized work (SW). TWI provides value in importance it assigns to leaders, with its “train the trainers” approach and in preparing a training program. Besides being an effective training method, TWI job instruction (TWI JI) provides needed information infrastructure to front load operators SW and equipment trainings.

Although AD, TWI and lean artifacts are generally field proven, the research is limited due to the lack of an industrial application.

In many real-life projects, companies do not know where to start and how to proceed, which leads to costly iterations. The proposed roadmap minimizes iterations and increases the chance of project success.

The authors apply AD for the first time to AM preparation phase despite it is used in the analysis of lean manufacturing. AD permits to structure holistically the most relevant lean manufacturing solutions to obtain a risk free roadmap. TWI has emerged as a training infrastructure; TWI JI-based operator SW training and the adaptation of JI structure to equipment training are original additions.

Drawing on theories of development economics and sustainable tourism, this research explores the differences between sovereign and nonsovereign small island tourism economies (SITEs) and identifies the antecedents and effects of overtourism in the Caribbean.

The research design is based on a comparative case study of selected Caribbean SITEs. Case study research involves a detailed empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context. The main purpose of a case study is to provide a contextual analysis of the conditions and processes involved in the phenomenon under study. A comparative case study is an appropriate research methodology to explore new multi-faceted concepts with limited empirical evidence.

The results confirm previous studies that nonsovereign SITEs have a distinctive overdrive toward tourism specialization. Moreover, the findings indicate that overtourism is driven by both global and domestic policy factors and generates significant economic volatility, social inequality and ecological stress. The paper discusses the tourism policy implications of the evolving economic disconnectedness, environmental decay and social tensions in SITEs in the Caribbean.

Policy recommendations are presented for transitioning toward a more inclusive development and strengthening the resilience of small island tourism development in the Caribbean.