State of the Art of Smart Technologies

Smart cities rely on smart technologies in all their possible forms; hence, this chapter is focusing on the state of the art of smart technologies. It describes these smart devices in all their ways and forms. In addition, techniques of software applications that are embedded in these smart devices are described along with their capabilities to adapt automatically and modify behavior to fit a user's environment. A smart city paradigm is also presented that focuses on sensors, smart devices, smart service provider subsystems, and smart sector infrastructure. A broader model of smart cities is discussed, and the chapter provides concrete goals, infrastructure, domains, and constituents. The chapter concludes by examining operation features such as the industrial setting, ubiquity, throughput, channels, and interoperability.

Analysing developing countries approaches of supply chain resilience to COVID-19

PurposeThe Covid-19 pandemic has made it essential to explore the resilience factors specific to developing regions, not only because they pose threats of extreme poverty and offer a novel context but also because they play an important role in globalisation.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method approach was undertaken to address this novel pandemic situation. First, an open-ended structured questionnaire was developed, and data were collected from three neighbouring emerging economies: Pakistan, India and Iran. Experts' perspectives on vulnerabilities, response measures, resilience and restoration of supply chain activities, and the role of social capital were collected. Second, building upon the findings from phase one of the studies, a quantitative structured questionnaire using the supply chain operational reference (SCOR) model was used to collect data in a structured manner. This quantitative data were further analysed using frequency and contingency analysis.FindingsThe findings from the first phase of the study inductively derive 36 resilience categories. Later, the contingency findings show that supply chain (SC) disruption is a major vulnerability for emerging economies, whereas solutions offered to combat it lay in the reconfiguration of resources, such as financial, technological, human, information and material. Additionally, supply network structure and social capital play an integral part in making SCs resilient against disruption.Research limitations/implicationsThe respondents comprise the academics/SC researchers, which make the findings interesting though they lack the industrial experts' perspectives, directly. Nevertheless, the propositions can be tested in industrial settings to see whether the results are limited to a specific industrial setting or are rather generalised.Practical implicationsSimilarly, practitioners and policy makers can incorporate the SCOR metrics/factors outlined in this study into their performance measurement systems and ensure continuous monitoring for firm's resilience.Originality/valueThe study offers a holistic understanding of the developing regions' approaches to Covid-19. The paper also takes a social capital perspective to explain firms' resilience in these emerging economies.

Integration of image segmentation and fuzzy theory to improve the accuracy of damage detection areas in traffic accidents

In the next decade, machine vision technology will have an enormous impact on industrial works because of the latest technological advances in this field. These advances are so significant that the use of this technology is now essential. Machine vision is the process of using a wide range of technologies and methods in providing automated inspections in an industrial setting based on imaging, process control, and robot guidance. One of the applications of machine vision is to diagnose traffic accidents. Moreover, car vision is utilized for detecting the amount of damage to vehicles during traffic accidents. In this article, using image processing and machine learning techniques, a new method is presented to improve the accuracy of detecting damaged areas in traffic accidents. Evaluating the proposed method and comparing it with previous works showed that the proposed method is more accurate in identifying damaged areas and it has a shorter execution time.

X-ray Emission Hazards from Ultrashort Pulsed Laser Material Processing in an Industrial Setting

Interactions between ultrashort laser pulses with intensities larger than 1013 W/cm2 and solids during material processing can lead to the emission of X-rays with photon energies above 5 keV, causing radiation hazards to operators. A framework for inspecting X-ray emission hazards during laser material processing has yet to be developed. One requirement for conducting radiation protection inspections is using a reference scenario, i.e., laser settings and process parameters that will lead to an almost constant and high level of X-ray emissions. To study the feasibility of setting up a reference scenario in practice, ambient dose rates and photon energies were measured using traceable measurement equipment in an industrial setting at SCHOTT AG. Ultrashort pulsed (USP) lasers with a maximum average power of 220 W provided the opportunity to measure X-ray emissions at laser peak intensities of up to 3.3 × 1015 W/cm2 at pulse durations of ~1 ps. The results indicate that increasing the laser peak intensity is insufficient to generate high dose rates. The investigations were affected by various constraints which prevented measuring high ambient dose rates. In this work, a list of issues which may be encountered when performing measurements at USP-laser machines in industrial settings is identified.

Raising Awareness about Cloud Security in Industry through a Board Game

Today, many products and solutions are provided on the cloud; however, the amount and financial losses due to cloud security incidents illustrate the critical need to do more to protect cloud assets adequately. A gap lies in transferring what cloud and security standards recommend and require to industry practitioners working in the front line. It is of paramount importance to raise awareness about cloud security of these industrial practitioners. Under the guidance of design science paradigm, we introduce a serious game to help participants understand the inherent risks, understand the different roles, and encourage proactive defensive thinking in defending cloud assets. In our game, we designed and implemented an automated evaluator as a novel element. We invite the players to build defense plans and attack plans for which the evaluator calculates success likelihoods. The primary target group is industry practitioners, whereas people with limited background knowledge about cloud security can also participate in and benefit from the game. We design the game and organize several trial runs in an industrial setting. Observations of the trial runs and collected feedback indicate that the game ideas and logic are useful and provide help in raising awareness of cloud security in industry. Our preliminary results share insight into the design of the serious game and are discussed in this paper.

Who Is a Migrant? Understanding Migrant’s Identity in a North Indian Industrial Setting

The question of ‘identity’ is being questioned and debated in modern social theory. One way of life is giving one identity and another way of life is giving another identity, which leads to the identity crisis. The formation and transformation of identity is really a matter of concern and introspection in today’s world. As Mercer (1990, Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, 43–71, London: Lawrence & Wishart), observes ‘Identity only becomes an issue when it is in crisis, when something assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experience of doubt and uncertainty’. The identities of a migrant and to identify who is a migrant are to be answered and analysed in different contexts. Also, it extends the idea of life world of migrants hinting at the complex identity in a new space like Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the migrant employees’ perception and construction of multiple identities for each other in their everyday life. Their everyday negotiation and confrontation with respect to identity constructions have been focused on and discussed.

Understanding UX Better: A New Technique to Go beyond Emotion Assessment

User experience (UX) is a quality aspect that considers the emotions evoked by the system, extending the usability concept beyond effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Practitioners and researchers are aware of the importance of evaluating UX. Thus, UX evaluation is a growing field with diverse approaches. Despite various approaches, most of them produce a general indication of the experience as a result and do not seek to capture the problem that gave rise to the bad UX. This information makes it difficult to obtain relevant results to improve the application, making it challenging to identify what caused a negative user experience. To address this gap, we developed a UX evaluation technique called UX-Tips. This paper presents UX-Tips and reports two empirical studies performed in an academic and an industrial setting to evaluate it. Our results show that UX-Tips had good performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, making it possible to identify the causes that led to a negative user experience, and it was easy to use. In this sense, we present a new technique suitable for use in both academic and industrial settings, allowing UX evaluation and finding the problems that may lead to a negative experience.

Serum peptidome: diagnostic window into pathogenic processes following occupational exposure to carbon nanomaterials

Background Growing industrial use of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers (CNT/F) warrants consideration of human health outcomes. CNT/F produces pulmonary, cardiovascular, and other toxic effects in animals along with a significant release of bioactive peptides into the circulation, the augmented serum peptidome. While epidemiology among CNT/F workers reports on few acute symptoms, there remains concern over sub-clinical CNT/F effects that may prime for chronic disease, necessitating sensitive health outcome diagnostic markers for longitudinal follow-up. Methods Here, the serum peptidome was assessed for its biomarker potential in detecting sub-symptomatic pathobiology among CNT/F workers using label-free data-independent mass spectrometry. Studies employed a stratified design between High (> 0.5 µg/m3) and Low (< 0.1 µg/m3) inhalable CNT/F exposures in the industrial setting. Peptide biomarker model building and refinement employed linear regression and partial least squared discriminant analyses. Top-ranked peptides were then sequence identified and evaluated for pathological-relevance. Results In total, 41 peptides were found to be highly discriminatory after model building with a strong linear correlation to personal CNT/F exposure. The top-five peptide model offered ideal prediction with high accuracy (Q2 = 0.99916). Unsupervised validation affirmed 43.5% of the serum peptidomic variance was attributable to CNT/F exposure. Peptide sequence identification reveals a predominant association with vascular pathology. ARHGAP21, ADAM15 and PLPP3 peptides suggest heightened cardiovasculature permeability and F13A1, FBN1 and VWDE peptides infer a pro-thrombotic state among High CNT/F workers. Conclusions The serum peptidome affords a diagnostic window into sub-symptomatic pathology among CNT/F exposed workers for longitudinal monitoring of systemic health risks. Graphical abstract

A Proposed Method for Improving Ergonomic Risk in Maintenance Jobs

In today’s industrial setting, maintenance employees are expected to perform a wide variety of tasks. Maintenance functions change all the time and have a wide variety of physical requirements. Job descriptions and Physical Demands Analyses (PDAs) can describe and provide a general view of the physical nature of the job, but typically do not focus on the myriad of detailed physical job requirements required by maintenance employees. This paper describes a method to fill in the gaps of ergonomic risk factors that may not be detailed in the PDA and provide a job planning tool to anticipate and reduce MSD type risk factors in maintenance jobs or tasks.