Search results

A wireless body area network (WBAN) plays a crucial role in the health-care domain. With the emergence of technologies like the internet of things, there is increased usage of WBAN for providing quality health services. With wearable devices and sensors associated with human body, patient’s vital signs are captured and sent to doctor. The WBAN has number of sensor nodes that are resource constrained. The communications among the nodes are very crucial as human health information is exchanged. The purpose of this paper aims to have Quality of Service (QoS) with energy aware and control overhead aware. Maximizing network lifetime is also essential for the improved quality in services. There are many existing studies on QoS communications in WBAN.

In this paper, with the aim of energy-efficient WBAN for QoS, a cross-layer routing protocol is designed and implemented. A cross-layer routing protocol that is ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV)-based, energy and control overhead-aware (AODV-ECOA) is designed and implemented for energy-efficient routing in WBAN. The cross-layer design that involves multiple layers of open systems interconnection reference model, which will improve energy efficiency and thus QoS.

Implementation is simulated using the network simulator tool, i.e. NS-2. The proposed cross-layer routing protocol AODV-ECOA shows least bandwidth requirement by control packets, leading to less control overhead, highest packet delivery ratio and energy efficiency. The experimental results revealed that AODV-ECOA shows better performance over existing protocols such as AODV and POLITIC.

An efficient control overhead reduction algorithm is proposed for reducing energy consumption further and improves performance of WBAN communications to realize desired QoS.

CONFERENCES are like committee meetings: everyone says his piece, sits clown satisfied at his own oratory and convinced that right (by which he means what he has advocated) will prevail, and then as a general rule at least, all go home and the ripples fade and nothing is done.

Continual cost reduction of overhead costs of building projects can realign the concept of post-contract cost control towards value-driven construction projects and stakeholders’ satisfaction. This study synthesised and analysed the viable continuous improvement measures critical for waste reduction during the execution phase of a building project.

A review of existing literature facilitated a list of continuous improvement measures. This literature review findings enabled a Likert-scale questionnaire which was administered to two-hundred and fifty (250) small- and medium-scale construction companies (SMSCC) in Nigeria. Multiple linear regression statistical tests deduced the significant cost reduction measure from which a causal loop diagram was designed to indicate continuous improvement measures during the execution phase of a building project.

Cogent construction activities associated with overhead costs were deduced from the statistical tests as being payment of suppliers and sub-contractors and purchase orders. An all-inclusive casual loop model for cost reduction through waste minimisation in construction projects as a viable oriented mechanism for meeting clients' requirements was developed.

The causal loop continuous improvement model recognised external and internal factors which are crucial for SMSCC to focus on for their organisational growth and performance enhancement.

A focus on non-physical waste in construction organisations potentially addresses behavioural challenges for continuous improvement.

Sees the objective of teaching financial management to be to help managers and potential managers to make sensible investment and financing decisions. Acknowledges that financial theory teaches that investment and financing decisions should be based on cash flow and risk. Provides information on payback period; return on capital employed, earnings per share effect, working capital, profit planning, standard costing, financial statement planning and ratio analysis. Seeks to combine the practical rules of thumb of the traditionalists with the ideas of the financial theorists to form a balanced approach to practical financial management for MBA students, financial managers and undergraduates.

A key success factor for any organisation is the effective management and control of its overhead resources and costs. Direct costs usually receive close management scrutiny – especially labour costs, which typically account for only 10 per cent of total costs, compared with 40 per cent attributable to overhead costs. Similarly, capital expenditure proposals are closely scrutinised, with detailed evaluation of costs/benefits. Indirect costs, however, are often seen as inflexible and unchangeable, largely because budget information fails to reveal necessary information about them which would enable managers to decide on priorities. But by using the technique of zero‐based budgeting, overheads can be analysed and understood – thus their costs can be controlled. The methodology and implementation of zero‐based budgeting is described and its success in a UK motor‐industry company is illustrated.

A RECENT ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ television episode portrayed a Time and Motion consultant in a very unfavourable light. The script writers did not attempt to explain his work, being too intent on creating credible circumstances for an attempted murder. All they needed was to build up a situation which made the workers' hostility to his activities obvious. It is to be hoped that homicide is not now an added occupational risk of consultants or Work Study men!

The results of five experiments on design of work stations are discussed. The first two experiments investigated the effects of work surface height on performance, the third investigated eye‐hand coordination at two heights and directions of movement, the fourth investigated both height and direction of movement, and the fifth studied the effect of angle and direction (in versus out) of movement. It was found that the optimum height is about one inch below the elbow. The effect of angle at a height is important: the best moves for a right‐hand movement are at 45 degrees.

TODAY, Britain, like the whole of the rest of the world, is providing education up to graduate standard to be available to anybody that shows the slightest sign of being able to benefit from it. The position here is rapidly becoming like it was in Germany some 30 years ago when people there insisted on calling everyone “Doctor.” He was an engineer, so of course he must be a D.Ing. or its English equivalent.

DURING some comments on the brain drain last month it was remarked that work study technologists stood on the periphery. Suddenly they have been moved right to the centre as the result of a communication from Dr. Robert N. Lehrer. He is among the six American work study experts best known to the profession in this country, ranking with Barnes and Mundel as having contributed much to a right appreciation of the subject's value and its techniques.

The case for stock reduction in manufacturing has been argued by engineers who emphasise the productive benefits. Western management accounting does not provide an adequate indication of the costs of holding stock. This article constructs a framework for identifying and measuring the financial benefits of stock reduction. Within this framework, the financial benefits of stock reduction in Japanese manufacturing in the 1960s are estimated and the productive preconditions for successful stock reduction are identified. The case of British manufacturing where stock levels have not been reduced is considered. Financial savings from stock reduction cannot be realised in Britain because the productive preconditions are not satisfied when output growth is slow and management has poor control over the production process.