Human Interaction and Emerging Technologies

This study aimed to develop and evaluate an application scenario for the use of a social robot, following a human-centered design approach. The social robot, which assisted the reception desk staff of a hotel by answering simple, repetitive and time-consuming questions (e.g. parking information, directions), was perceived predominantly positive by employees and guests of the hotel. However, the results suggested that to effectively reduce the employees’ workload and to provide a reliable source of information for the guest, the robot had to work on a high level of autonomy and technological stability. Additionally, the use of a social robot may estrange guests and employees alike, as they prefer human interaction or are fearful of job loss, respectively. An early inclusion of the employees in the design process has shown to reduce fears and increase acceptance towards the social robot and its integration into the workforce.

Building from a survey specifically developed to address the rising concerns of highly autonomous virtual assistants; this paper presents a multi-level taxonomy of accountability levels specifically adapted to virtual assistants in the context of Human-Human-Interaction (HHI). Based on research findings, the authors recommend the integration of the variable of accountability as capital in the development of future applications around highly automated systems. This element inserts a sense of balance in terms of integrity between users and developers enhancing trust in the interactive process. Ongoing work is being dedicated to further understand to which extent different contexts affect accountability in virtual assistants.

In this paper, we evaluate managing huge sets of visual content as we know handling large image collections has always been a challenge for technologists. With the rise of various social media platforms that aggregate a vast amount visual data it causes new implications not only for the computer scientists but also for curators, designers, social scientists, statisticians and end users: how to navigate the data efficiently, access to new levels of exploration and visualize the content without too many details being lost. With more and more such platforms, the bigger this challenge is going to get. In 22 semi structured surveys in Oslo (Norway), we find that a set of factors intermix to inform perceptions about large image collections - including how often they look-over large image collections.

In this explorative study, we focused on the number of levels of driving automation as part of the mental model, using a newly created online questionnaire and analyzing results using Principal Component Analysis. The online questionnaire consisted of 20 automated driving functions that were described in short sentences. The 247 participants subjectively rated the degree of automation of the 20 functions on a 7-point rating scale. Using Principal Component Analysis, the ratings were summarized into groups represented by the components based on correlative relationships. The results yielded three components, which can be interpreted as three levels of driving automation. These three levels differ from the well-established taxonomies, showing that users do not differentiate between five or six levels of driving automation.

Conditionally automated driving (CAD) allows the driver to deal with non-driving related activities (NDRA) whenever the automation is active. We have analyzed video data from a one hour driving simulator study with free naturalistic NDRA. Most time was spent watching videos on a pre-installed tablet, looking at the surrounding traffic and landscape, listening to music and using the phone for multiple activities. The latter was undertaken by 75% of the participants, followed by reading books and magazines (60%) and browsing the tablet (50%). There was a wide variety of observed activities and also a high variance in both total time spent on such activities and their mean duration. Participants engaged in NDRA about 2 min after switching on the automation. Older participants spent significantly more time looking at the surrounding traffic and less time using their phone or playing video games.

An investigation was performed of the characteristics of real-time, virtually present, contextual inquiry between automobile drivers and automotive designers. 28 participants were remotely interviewed while they were in one of two contexts: either sitting in a bare isolated meeting room or when operating a driving simulator. Open questions of the type involved in concept design were used as the basis of the real time interview. The interview transcripts were analysed by means of discourse analysis, thematic analysis and evaluations of degree of creativity. The results revealed that the real time automotive interview context provided richer information in terms of the quantity of the words expressed, the variety of the words expressed, and in terms of the judged degree of creativity of the statements.

This paper presents a multi-level taxonomy of reparation levels specifically adapted to virtual assistants in the context of Human-Human-Interaction (HHI) with a specific focus on maintaining trust in the system. This taxonomy ranges from current models of apology to the newly integrated compensation area via a range of case studies specifically developed to address the rising concerns of unsupervised interactions in the context of Virtual Assistants (VA). Based on preliminary research, the author recommends the integration of reparation strategies as a fundamental variable in the ongoing development of VAs, as this element inserts a sense of balance in terms of vulnerability between users and developers to enhance trust in the interactive process. Present and future work is being dedicated to further understand how different contexts may affect integrity in highly automated virtual assistants.

The idea of Hume’s guillotine contains the argument that one cannot derive values from facts. As intelligent systems operate with facts, Hume’s famous dilemma seems to contradict the very idea of being able to create ethical intelligent systems. In a closer look, ethics is a system of rules guiding actions. Actions always have factual or cognitive aspects, as well as evaluative or emotional aspects. Therefore, Hume’s juxtaposition of facts and norms is not well-founded. Instead of separating the facts and norms it should rather ask what kinds of facts are associated to what kinds of norms. Consequently, Hume’s guillotine sets no limits in processing ethical information, as one can combine facts and values while constructing information processes. However, intelligent machines cannot process ethical information independently of the human mind, as one cannot discuss ‘relevance’ in any formal language. Intelligent systems can be given descriptions of ethical situations and related norms, but machines cannot initiate ethical rules themselves.

The accelerating evolution of workplace technologies and employees’ changing demands pose an increasing challenge for management to implement technologies and improve the motivation potential of jobs. In this paper, we examine technological opportunities in workplace design based on the Job Characteristics Model. For a holistic understanding, we chose a qualitative approach with interviews and case studies. Our results show various effects of technology application based on employees’ perception. Especially the characteristics skill variety and autonomy can be affected by technology selection and workplace design.

This paper introduces ‘3DPix’ a new Project Oriented training method that integrates and interacts between personal 3D printer and design thinking processes, when using grafting method as a creative platform for innovative product design. The integration of personal 3D orienting praxis with Insertix model enrich ideation processes with varied alternatives. Through detailed prototype designer can examine well function and form in his output along creative process. 3DPix offers hundreds by hundreds of “jumping together” stimulus that helps ideates from human-center design and advance technology gap by embracing personal and cultural perspectives as well.

In the field of parts production of highly stressed components, qualification concepts are absolutely necessary. Process planners, foremen, workers and other actors ought to be sensitized to and purposefully trained in the topic of resource-oriented production. According to the current state and depending on the respective work task, employees should develop and improve their skills and knowledge through motivation, methodological guidance, computer-aided models of selected equipment and manufacturing processes. Within the ESF junior research project “MoQuaRT - models and qualification concepts for resource-efficient parts production” a qualification concept was exemplary developed. In addition to the fundamental possibilities for saving resources, the concept focuses on the topics of energy, material and time resource savings. Among other things, an energetic comparison of different production variants, based on models for the energy demand forecast, is embedded. Thus, this topic makes a significant contribution to saving resources in chipping production.

Successful communication between children with complex communication needs and their partners often relies on selecting appropriate augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools and strategies to fit their opportunity. Mobile apps are powerful AAC tools for presenting visual aids with synthesized voice. However, special needs school teachers sometimes do not use these apps actively even they recognize the usefulness. The purpose of this study is to examine the teacher’s selection process of AAC tools and strategies at special needs schools for children with intellectual disabilities. We had developed STalk2 mobile app and unstructured focus group interviews were conducted at the end of 8–11 months of STalk2 trial use. The results suggest that teachers select AAC tools and strategies for interaction with their students based on characteristics of communication tools and strategies, environments, and/or knowledge and experience on the use of communication tools and strategies.

The present work introduces a prototype intelligent cognitive assistant that continuously learns the decision pattern of the user online, instantly recognizes deviations from that pattern as potential errors and then alerts the user accordingly. We investigated the potential of this prototype system using a human-in-the-loop experiment designed to assess impacts on decision making performance, workload and trust in the decision support capability. Study participants interacted with a naval air-defence testbed to classify radar contacts as friendly, uncertain or hostile based on track parameters displayed on screen. The between-group experimental design included a control condition and two decision support conditions (with system reliability provided either offline or online). Results showed that both decision support conditions significantly improved task accuracy compared to the control condition. The advisory system was successful at improving human performance without burdening the user with excessive additional workload, even when providing reliability information in real time.

The article deals with current problems of IT deployment in different segments of human activities. In the introduction the similarity of Industrial Revolution in 18 century and IT revolution today are compared. Following chapter deals with the impact of broad deployment of IT on human mental and decision process. Following chapter discuss changes in capability of human to memorize information and to judge based on information memorized and impact of IT on these abilities. The filtering model of human information processing introduce simple novelty approach using two separated filters – the knowledge filter and emotional filter. The conclusion emphasizes the thread of changes in people way of information processing, especially impact on people attitude and simple perception management.

Today, identity and social status are increasingly being manifested by housing typologies. The massive construction industry that has mushroomed in the Gulf region and parts of Asia is being supported by a large population of workers requiring accommodation. In the Industrial City, on the mainland of Abu Dhabi (ICAD) labor housing conglomerated on a large scale with a capacity of 40,000 workers, with other camps on a smaller scale existing on the islands of Yas and Al-Reem. One of the challenges is the design and sustainability of such building stocks. This article studies the design of vernacular architecture in the industrial areas of Abu Dhabi as representations of urban enclaves, continuity and discontinuity from tradition. It also highlights the importance of safety guidelines in spaces where multi-cultural communities co-exist.

The amazing endeavors of space missions on 1960s and 70s pushed the human knowledge and technology beyond the physical threshold of our planet, seemingly opening to infinite possibilities. With the ingress of private developers in space business, the exploration of outer space seems resurged to a new vitality in public opinion. Usually paired with aerospace engineering and advanced sciences, the new space business is asking today also for new competencies and expertise. In this view, disciplines associated with study programs in architecture and design seem particularly appropriated, offering the requested multidisciplinary education to shape high talented skills in a highly regulated environment. Space Architecture has the full potential to become a discipline of study within the usual curriculum in ‘terrestrial’ architecture, filling a gap in between the engineering approach of system design for space vehicles and habitats, and the interdisciplinary complexity associated to human oriented design. This paper explores the potentialities of Space Architecture as discipline, and definition of the field of study in which architects’ education can offer a fundamental contribution towards a better integration between human crew and a sounding reliable spacecraft.

Traditional safety evaluation methods, most of which rely on the experience of experts and managers to draw conclusions, lack of scientific. In this paper, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is used to establish a campus security valuation index system. Firstly, the analytic hierarchy process is used to calculate the single factor evaluation decision matrix, and calculate the weight of each factor in different levels. Secondly, using fuzzy evaluation method, membership function, fuzzy operator and linguistic variables for security evaluation. Finally, we conclude that the school’s students, front-line teachers, and managers have a higher overall security awareness according to the evaluation of the maximum membership degree principle. Therefore, it is recommended that schools further strengthen students’ security awareness through security education lectures and other training lessons.

A simple thermal model is used to simulate the heat load received by an idealized room incorporating climatological factors and daily weather patterns in the Philippine setting. The model provides diurnal temperature variation of the idealized room with varying wall materials situated in Quezon City during the cool-dry and hot-dry seasons in the country. The model was used to calculate the heat load to keep the temperature of the room less than 25 °C. Rooms with walls made of bamboo and oak were demonstrated to perform better than those which are made of concrete, bricks and sandstone. The room with oak walls were shown to provide up to 3 × savings in terms of computed daily energy consumption during the hot-dry season. This study can help us provide design and structural considerations in relation to energy utilization and possibly conservation.

With increasing automation, the work in manufacturing industry is getting knowledge intensive: workers need to solve complex problems to keep systems running. The knowledge needed in these situations often cannot be found in ready-made manuals but it is tacit knowledge possessed by co-workers. This paper presents a user study of a knowledge sharing platform. The platform integrates production information and social media features, thus connecting discussions to specific machine states or error situations. The platform was evaluated with factory workers in a workshop. The results show that integration of production information and social media features such as messaging is valuable, as it proactively provides practical solutions to the problem at hand. The results also show that the use of social media features in industrial environment requires changes in organizational policies, processes and culture. The findings of this study can be considered when developing social media applications for industrial use.

Remote aerodrome operation is a new type of airport tower operation. To introduce this type of a new technology for the tower operation, we considered user interface design is also an important element to perform as effective systems. In this research, we discuss about the practical design process for developing user interfaces based on Human Centered Design (HCD) approach for applying the remote airport traffic control operation. We discuss about how we introduced human centered approach to specialized and complicated work process. After that, we show an result of analysis. We also examined to create a prototype interface design concept for the future systems derived from the result of task analysis.

Many musicians such as guitarists have to practice in very unnatural positions for several hours while making repetitive movements. Specific for guitar players, problems can occur in the long term, at the wrists, shoulders, neck, and low back. Based on user feedback, questionnaires and observations, two types of ergonomic adaptations have been proposed and implemented by (semi) professional instrument builders, while maintaining the original sound quality. The aim of this study is to assess the differences in body kinematics (neck, shoulder, right and left wrist) playing three different kinds of guitars (classical guitar and two adapted guitars) in order to monitor the ergonomic effect on two different players preventing injuries and a decrease of performance. The 3D human movements of two professional guitar players (more than 40 years of experience), one female (age: 53y, body height: 1.64 m) and one male (age: 60y, body height: 1.77 m), were measured using a Vicon motion capturing system while playing the same piece two times on three different guitars (one normal and the two ergonomic adapted guitars).Results indicate that guitars need to be ergonomically adapted for each player, considering gender and anthropometry. Future studies should address ergonomic adaptation using inertial system together with Vicon and video recording.

The objective of this research is to investigate how many users are needed in usability testing to identify psychophysiological pain points (PPP) experienced by users during a human-computer interaction (HCI). Fifteen subjects were tested in a new user training context and results show that out of 15 participants, 82% of the total PPP were experienced after 9 participants. Calculations using 1000 trials of random orders were then performed to demonstrate the independence of the order. This research provides guidelines about what could be an ideal sample size for user test using psychophysiological measures.

In order to generate a hybrid and ubiquitous approach to integrating multiple visualization modalities within spatial settings, it is essential to understand how small group users select and adapt technology and spatial settings to generate co-located visualization. Insights are needed to guide the design of spatial-visualization hybrid technologies that are ubiquitous, and user intuitive to adjustable to group size as scalable displays interfaces. This study examines the constructed visualization formats of small groups in a library learning commons to understand the visual and social affordances of group generated visualization formats.

The way in which a person with visual weakness interacts with a device in a local environment provides useful information to study the processes that he requires in the mental construction of the object. The analysis of these processes can originate valuable information about those patterns that promote a sensory equivalence and thereby understand the origin of the attention in the process of interaction with a Work System (WS). A determinant factor is the correct spatial location of the hands of a Weak visual person (Wvp) in the WS because each device used by a Wvp implies a dishabituation to the system. Likewise, it has been found that the processes of construction of mental models differ in a Wvp and a Normal visual person (Nvp) by the use of equivalent systems (When a damage exist in the motor limbs, there is a spontaneous reorganization. They are replaced by other motor systems that they had not previously associated [1].) however, there is a correspondence of data in the mental models obtained and a variability in levels of attention.

For elderly or people with special needs, caring plants is a good practice to reinforce an optimistic aspect of view. Unfortunately, similar tasks often require physical strength and senses to work fine. This paper reports exactly on the effort of students of Agricultural Engineering to bridge this gap, through the exploitation of innovative hardware along with speech and voice recognition techniques. Into this context, the paper describes methods to combine speech- based applications, relying on either cloud or local services, with smart phones and similar innovative systems, ranging from arduino to raspberry pi ones, to trigger plant caring actions or to query the values of several plant-related parameters. Plants are converted into speaking entities. The derived software and hardware configurations are evaluated. Furthermore, students “demystify” the potential of the recently appeared “exotic” devices and techniques that have been introduced in the modern agriculture.

The article describes an approach to determining the cost characteristics of human-oriented production systems and products (mainly machines) at the conceive stages. The cost characteristics are determined on the basis of an estimate of the probability of a trouble-free operation of the machine during operation. At the same time, actuarial models and the Bayes formula are used, and the cost of ensuring safety in the production system or in the product is assumed to equal to the insurance fund to overcome the consequences of accidents. It has been established that it is expedient to organize work on the design of human-oriented production systems and machines at the stages of conceive, as well as concept design and detailed design, based on the AGILE-ideology.

The three-level theory of emotional design put forward by Donald A. Norman is highly recognized and respected by designers and researchers. Based on this theory, this study uses 2000 design award-winning works as materials. Through the extraction of typical emotional words in product design, the labeling of emotions in design, and the statistical analysis of design emotions, researchers try to explore the method of emotional integration into product design. This research finds that high-level emotions can hardly be decoded and realized in emotional design. It proposes design methods based on five senses, design experience process and human needs to generate high-level emotions.

In recent years, Innovation and entrepreneurship have been a heatedly discussed topic and become a development philosophy of many cities and regions. Maker spaces and incubators are blossoming all over the world. However, many obstacles emerge from the mechanism, such as lacking vitality, limiting resource sharing and knowledge flow, hindering interdisciplinary collaboration. This paper proposed a hypothesis that online co-creation platform can help bridge these gaps. Then we use qualitative research methods to discuss the issues. A preliminary conclusion was drawn that the online co-creation design method can link stakeholders, establish sharing mechanisms and promote entrepreneurial communities building. This study proposed that an online entrepreneurial community with a co-creation approach has a good effect on breaking through information barriers and improving the full flow of knowledge, technology, human resources, and investment. Finally, based on all the research findings and analysis, a set of design strategies are proposed that the online entrepreneurial community should follow.

In the digital era, Information-Technology (IT) based learning tools have gained prominence to capture the interest of the millennial generation. Their thirst for knowledge has increased multifold due to IT tools in K-12 education. India has over 250 million children in the age group of 6 to 18 years. The industry has been working on developing educational robotics laboratory programs, to help in STEM outcomes in grades 6 through 10. However, this study shows that the robotics laboratory programs have an unintended effect of improving skills in the Arts domain too, possibly due to group activity and communication skills being integral to the robotics program. The skills have been quantitatively measured through marks improvement in the robotics program group. The control group against which this improvement is studied are students that have no or less than 6 months exposure to the robotics program. Thus a new term is coined here - STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) as against STEM, with Arts also included as a considered domain. Data also shows that students exposed to the robotics laboratory program experience improved motivation towards overall studies, causing significant improvement in grades, and learning outcomes.

An endoscopy unit refers to a dedicated area where medical procedures are performed with endoscopes, which are cameras used to visualize structures within the body, such as the digestive tract. There is a lack of studies about designing such a unit. Therefore, this study attempted to evaluate the waiting space design of the endoscopy unit, and identify the problems which the patients and the medical staff meet there. We focused on what the patients hope from their endoscopy experience. For care to be patients centered, we should respect patients’ views on how they wish to be managed, see them as partners in shared healthcare decision making—the basis of “no decision about me without me”. The authors discussed the following: usability and attractiveness of space. To carry out this study, different design methods were used to capture people’s subjective experience, including an emotional evaluation method which is called Kansei sheet.

Conventional human-robot interaction is usually limited to a set of commands a professional human operator is supposed to use, and/or teleoperation capabilities. The paper explores capabilities a robot could use to communicate more naturally with a human, support for a range of hardware configurations is provided. The capabilities developed for interaction toolkit include speech and face recognition. Finally, a use case for such a toolkit and performance with respect to different hardware configurations are discussed.

Recently, many catastrophic accidents are becoming more and more frequently. In order to reduce the incidences of accidents in an enterprise, studies have shown that behavior-based safety (BBS) is closely related to people’s safety awareness. In order to improve the overall safety awareness of enterprise employees, this paper adopts the form of questionnaire to interview employees in Shandong oilfield, and uses the knowledge learned in complex systems to model and study. To study the behavioral enterprise security system by using Structural Equation Model (SEM), SPSS.19 and LISREL software are used for data processing and path simulating, so as to reduce the incidences of accidents.

There’s an intimate link between language and ideology, and social relations are mediated through language. The lexicographical treatment of cultural loaded lexical item has a direct influence on the dictionary users’ perception of the world, the conceptualization of categories in that world and how the user will act in future. This paper seeks to analyze how gender differences are presented in learners’ dictionaries from a society-oriented cross-linguistic perspective, and finally we find there is an observable “anthropological turn” in the treatment of the example sentences in some distinguished English learners’ dictionaries.

Data-driven fuzzy control techniques suffer from the flat structure problem, i.e. the number of fuzzy rules grows exponentially as the input dimension increases. The consequence is greater complexity and poorer interpretability. In this article, we present a solution to the above-mentioned problem by proposing a novel data-driven fuzzy controller. Its unique features are: (1) A new type of membership function is used; (2) It helps to identify few and important fuzzy rules; (3) These rules cover the whole input space; (4) Dombi operators (usually the conjunctive) are employed to generate a higher dimensional control surface; (5) The designed fuzzy controller is based on fuzzy arithmetic operations; (6) Defuzzification is single step calculation. Due to the small number of fuzzy rules, the complexity of the fuzzy model decreases and it becomes interpretable. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated using the data-driven based control of vehicle lateral dynamics.

The assignment of hardware computer engineers to the various departments is often done manually in most universities. An efficient software is needed for scheduling the hardware computer engineers and system technicians to reach the High quality satisfaction. A newly proposed algorithm is implemented for scheduling the hardware computer engineers for satisfy the professors over the time window. This paper suggest a heuristic fuzzy algorithm for hardware engineer’s assignment in university sectors. By taking the advantage of the group structure of the given problem the proposed algorithm uses the genetic approach across the hardware engineer’s schedules and within each hardware engineers and technicians in a university. The proposed approach shows the effective experimental results.

Safety in production is the premise of sustainable development of enterprises. To better protect the safety of employees in enterprises, the enterprise security early warning system is established. Internet of things technology is introduced into the enterprise security early warning system. The connection between employee groups and enterprise safety early warning system can be realized by making employees wear the safety card. In this paper, the early warning rules of unsafe behavior are set up, the early warning processes of unsafe behavior are established. The enterprise safety early warning system is used to monitor and analyze employees’ unsafe behavior, so as to give warning to employees before accidents occur. Therefore, the safety card undertake the function of warning employees. Based on three aspects of human, material and environment, the enterprise safety early warning system can minimize the occurrence of accidents and ensure the personal safety of enterprise employees.

TSP, the Traveling Salesman Problem is a famous hard problem in computer science. Finding an optimal solution for TSP in a map consisting of huge number of locations will take huge amount of time (possibly years). A traveller (salesman) needs to visit a limited number of locations out of these thousands locations (each building is an address or location). It is desirable to solve TSP efficiently with real-time factors (traffic, distance, real-time delays). Online applications like Google maps, Yahoo maps, and many others do not give efficient solutions for a multiple-destinations queries. Minimizing the number of locations to exactly the number of destinations asked in the query (by the traveller) will make the optimal hard solution time-acceptable. This paper uses smart heuristics, intelligent algorithm A*, traditional graph Hamilton circuit algorithm, as well as efficient data structures to finding an efficient cycle path between multiple addresses, and hence finding and optimal solution for TSP in real-time. The main idea is to build a virtual graph VG built from a minimized list of vertices (equals exactly to desired list of destinations) and a list of virtual edges that are computed using the smart algorithms A*.

Based on the analysis of the semantic information in the process of team design task and its internal link representation, this paper makes a visual analysis of the performance of members with different creativity and evaluates them from multiple dimensions, so as to provide a visual reference basis for fuzzy and complex design tasks.

In this paper, we proposed an efficient genetic algorithm that will be applied to linear programming problems in order to find out the Fittest Chromosomes. This paper aim to find the optimal strategy of game theory in basketball by using genetic algorithms and linear programming as well as the comparison between traditional methods and modern methods being represented in artificial intelligence, Genetic algorithms as applied in this paper. A new method was adopted in finding the optimal game strategy for player (A) and player (B) through the application of linear programming and finding solutions by using (GA) in MATLAB. The final results confirmed the equivalent of linear programming and genetic algorithms as the model was in the linear approach, and in the case of nonlinearity, genetic algorithm will be in favor definitely. The Matlab program in the calculation of the results for great possibility optimization should also be adopted.

This contribution proposes a failure behavior model for driver models, which is validated by findings from accident research. Our concept is based on the five-step-method which is used in accident research. Based on this concept, we present a prototypical implementation of an information processing failure and validate the implemented failure model on the basis of a real traffic accident. In conclusion, we discuss and interpret the validation results.

Age-related changes significantly affect elderly users’ interaction with specific products and services. Nevertheless, the challenges experienced by elderly users are difficult to be perceived and understood, especially by younger people. Inspired by the concept of aging suits, we propose a Virtual Reality-based approach, where age-related visual impairments are simulated in virtual environments. The aim is to provide an approximation of the experience of viewing and interacting with a product, from the perspective of elderly persons with specific age-related visual problems. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is examined through an experiment involving package design evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate that Virtual Reality can play an important role on understanding the challenges that elderly users face, thus support the design of elderly-friendly products.

This paper presents and discusses the perspectives of ten investigators experienced with design of technologies for and with neurodiverse users. Although the advances on emerging technologies improved their potential to assist users with neurodiverse needs, existing methods for participatory design, usability tests and evaluation have been created for, and validated with, able-bodied users. User-centered design methods are not always well-suited to meet the unique needs of neurodiverse individuals. Therefore, to involve neurodiverse users iteratively in the design process, investigators need to adapt traditional methods from HCI to successfully conduct user studies. Through an online questionnaire, we identified the experimental designs commonly adopted and the major problems investigators face during recruitment, data collection, analysis and design. Based on the analysis of the investigators’ experiences, we provide nine recommendations to conduct studies with neurodiverse users, aiming at engaging them as active participants front and center in the research and design process.

This study aims to investigate the effects of a virtual reality (VR)-based learning environment on learners with different preferred learning styles by measuring various dimensions of technology mediated approach. The learning outcomes were measured through academic performance, and affectively through “learning experience” and “perceived learning”. “Learning experience” in VR was measured through perceived realism, immersion, interaction, presence, engagement, enjoyment, ease of use, usefulness, technology functionality, task-technology fit and attitude towards using the technology. A pretest-posttest design was employed for this study. Students were categorized based on their preferred learning style and their responses were compared. Results presented here are based on data collected from 130 students (grade 5–11) in NSW, Australia. As the result of our analysis indicates, regardless of students’ preferred learning style, students similarly benefited from VR and their learning experience and learning outcome did not differ significantly.

This paper introduces an augmented reality-based framework (called AugmentedBook) for e-learning that allows the creation of collaborative notes, illustrative media (i.e. video, 2D or 3D image, audio) for mobile devices or Google glass. The augmented content can be added to real-world educational support to make it more comprehensive, interactive and collaborative. In this platform, students and teachers can add collaborative notes to any part of the educational support system. They can also find illustrative media and indicate the pertinence of the result. Using our AugmentedBook platform, students can also download the enriched support using a mobile device. Our framework solves the problem of standard integration of augmented reality applications in education, offering a distributed framework which is e-learning compliant.

As Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have become affordable, portable, and realistic, the use of VR for education is becoming a reality. However, while VR environments are novel and interesting, this project studies if learning medical concepts in a VR environment truly improves the retention, comprehension, and motivation of medical school students. This paper presents the key results of a literature review of the current corpus of studies on these topics. The review revealed a modest number of peer-reviewed studies that assessed the retention, comprehension, and motivation of adult learners using VR in medical education. However, these studies presented several insights summarized in this paper. Additional research needs to be done on this topic to prove the efficacy and validity of this new medium for medical training and instruction. This paper also presents avenues for future research and describes a study that the researchers plan to conduct following this literature review.

This work presents a software developed to design virtual manikins inside spaces with complex topology and high density of occupation. The software is used to design 330 typical seated occupants in a roman theatre or in an adapted auditorium. The virtual manikins are used by a numerical software in the evaluation of the occupants’ thermal comfort level. This software simulates the human body and clothing thermal responses and analyses simultaneously several persons inside a space. The human body is divided into 1 spherical and 34 cylindrical elements. These elements consider the height and the weight of the occupants and have dimensions and angles similar to the human body. In the theatre and auditorium, all fundamental elements are considered.

This study presents the augmented reality technology and 3D information visualization for Army’s military education to realize the interactive tactical course teaching and consider the user center research and human-computer interaction architecture as a solution to improve the common operational picture. The purpose is to improve the Army’s command and general staff officers in tactical operations to learn battlefield situational awareness to enhance interest in learning and effective decision support. We constructed a prototype augmented reality program, the traditional tactical image and symbols of war games into 3-D virtual images, Which includes military equipment, urban architecture and geography scenes and other models, teaching applications to import tactical operations, not only to break through the limitations of a traditional 2-D image, enhanced visual effects and digital technology information, revealing a more complete battlefield scene. At the same time, through virtual operation, students are more interactive. In order to verify and collect the utility and data of learning, quasi-experimental research has been used. Experiments have shown that using 3-D information Visualization for better understanding of military tasks and space environments can enhance learning interest and perception of situation awareness.

The paper introduces a novel quantitative method in the domain of eye tracking (ET) for virtual reality (VR). The method might be of interest to researchers on the human factor in VR, behavioral psychologists, and designers of VR experiences. Several mathematical formulas describing a novel index quantifying convergence of visual attention are introduced. The index is based on recently developed distance variance [1], a function of distances between observations in metric spaces. An aggregated version of the visual attention convergence index introduced in the paper allows to measure the effectiveness of any system of attentional cues employed by a designer to guide the attention of VR experience participants along an intended narration line. An individual version of the index allows to capture individual differences in the convergence of visual attention across participants. Possibilities for real-life and academic usage of the index are discussed and example results of application to real VR ET data are summarized.

Mobile robots allow human to explore impassable or unsafe indoor locations remotely. There are a large number of scenarios where the implementation of mobile robots is the only way to successfully complete them. Herewith, human-robot interaction is the key factor that determines the efficiency of overall mission accomplishment. This paper presents a real-time approach for remote exploration of underinvestigated indoor environment conducted by human-robot interaction. The approach is based on the mobile robot and mixed reality. We have chosen a differential drive mobile robot platform called Plato and mixed reality glasses Microsoft Hololens for experimental investigation of the proposed approach. Our paper demonstrates the results of experimental investigations of the proposed approach. The results have shown that the proposed approach is helpful, intuitive and convenient for spatial understanding and improves natural interaction both with a mobile robot and remote environment. Moreover, our approach is able to significantly increase the speed of indoor environment exploration.

The challenges of effective teaching in mass education environments are well documented. The cohorts of large size generally means that identification of struggling students is usually only at a point when meaningful interventions are too late. This paper reports on the use of novel technologies to provide insights into areas of learner behaviour in large-scale computer programming modules. Accordingly, this paper brings together a previous series of investigative studies of student key engagement points during a typical programming module (1) seat position tracking during programming lectures, (2) Video Lecture Capture viewing behaviours and (3) Student Heart Rate monitoring during lectures. The paper combines the significant findings of each investigation to provide a variety of analysis using Machine Learning (ML) classification modeling. The purpose of the MC study is to create models that could identify students that are likely to pass and those that may be at risk of failing the module.

The innovations introduced by industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things have allowed the development of new and more efficient technologies. These innovations, if applied to Personal Protective Equipment, make it possible to improve efficiency and make work safer. The high-tech developed PPE are known as Smart PPE. These use wireless technologies, intelligent textiles and advanced electronics to transform a traditional PPE into an object with advanced and innovative features. Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work wants to give its contribution to increase worker safety by exploiting the latest technologies and making them available to a wide public.

In this paper we present results of an experiment designed to measure correlation between Galvanic Skin Response – GSR (also: Electrodermal Activity – EDA) and Oculographic (Eye Tracking) data. In the experiment we analyze the participants reactions on changing gameplay modes (changing dynamic and pace of user interaction with the game mechanics). The goal of the analysis is to demonstrate what influence of changing gameplay modes have on physiology (especially spontaneous body response). The gameplay modes used in experiment were chase mode (dynamic) and sneak mode (satisfying). In the experiment we have used Pupil Lab eye-tracker and EDA sensor based on BITalino platform. The game Serial Cleaner by iFun4all was used to conduct the experiment. The experiment resulted in multiple observations. Substantial correlation between participant failure and change of EDA pattern were observed as well as over 10% change in fixations durations.

Inappropriate trust in highly automated vehicles (HAVs) has been identified as one of the causes in several accidents [1–3]. These accidents have evidenced the need to include a Driver State Monitoring System (DSMS) [4] into those HAVs which may require occasional manual driving. DSMS make use of several psychophysiological sensors to monitor the drivers’ state, and have already been included in current production vehicles to detect drowsiness, fatigue and distractions [5]. However, DSMS have never been used to monitor Trust in Automation (TiA) states within HAVs yet. Based on recent findings, this paper proposes a new methodology to integrate TiA state-classification into DSMSs for future vehicles.

Traditional media has always been the main medium of information dissemination. In order to solve the negative effects on information flooding, truth and falsehoods in social network communication, a trust model of netizens is proposed. The Deffuant model is analyzed and the trust network is constructed according to the interaction behavior between the netizens and the government and the characteristics and definitions of the trust relationship. Netizens trust model describes the trust degree between netizens and the government. Then the simulation is carried out under different degrees of trust through MATLAB. The influence of the trust degree on social network dissemination is observed by changing the step size. Based on the analysis of the simulation results, we can conclude that when the trust between the netizens and the government is large, it’s easier to reach a consensus. It plays a positive role in promoting dissemination.

Airport Security is a complex and important task directly affecting airports’ operational performances and passenger comfort. As part of the EU Horizon 2020 project PASSME, passenger centric airport and airplane interiors were redesigned in order to meet passengers’ needs and reducing door-to-door travel time. This paper will describe how simulation was used to provide early feedback as part of the security design process and for evaluating the outcome while avoiding high implementation cost and without disturbing operational processes. We will also describe the new developed security design concept as well as the simulation approach with Anylogic software. The simulation output – effects of the new design concept – will be discussed at the end of the paper along with an outlook on further research opportunities.

Rapidly increasing globalization and international, often virtual communication require – besides intercultural competencies of people - thoughtful and well-designed strategies and tools for managing diversity. Interestingly, studies on the relationship between diversity and performance of teams have yielded inconsistent results. This is why in our research we want to find out what can be done to contribute to a positive relationship between diversity and team outcomes and thus pose the guiding research question: Which features tend to influence the relationship between diversity and team processes/outcomes? Once identified through a systematic literature analysis, our research goal is to arrange and visualize these features in a systematic way such as to provide an online visual aid to help practitioners and researchers to see at a glance which features to consider for a positive difference in managing team-diversity.

Visual perception is one of the most essential abilities for humans. This ability allows us to discover the world around us and to understand interdependencies with regard to both global context and particular concrete problem statement. We present in this paper an exploration of visualization and visual analytics approaches. Thereby, we focus on the field of data science with data-centric analytic methods and applications. Data science is closing the gap between visualization techniques, traditional hypothesis-driven methods and processing of mostly huge, heterogeneous and noisy data. A combination of smart visualization, advanced analytical methods and additional (domain) knowledge, mostly provided by humans, makes it possible to gain insights and discover new opportunities for problem solving.

Many gamers use desktop or laptop computers with a mouse when gaming, instead of a special purpose gaming input device such as a joystick. This study compared the hitting speed and success rates of mouse and joystick for a simple first-person shooter. A between-subjects experiment with n = 22 participants using a tailor-made game task was conducted. The results show that the mouse only takes 68.8% of the time compared to the joystick in hitting targets. No significant differences were found in terms of success rate with the two methods.

The aim of the paper is to highlight the importance of digital technologies as a support and complement in education. The reason is that there are currently many questions about what influence and impact to education represents digital technology, and whether its use in teaching is directed towards learning objectives. The paper attempts to define goals and visions for the future, its main advantages and also the barriers to integration into the teaching process are mentioned. It is possible to name the positive and negative aspects of new technologies, overcome contradictions and see the positive and negative impacts on the young generation. It is especially important to show the importance of mutual learning when using digital technologies. It is particularly important to compare the views of teachers and students.

Workplaces with increasing interaction between individual and artificial intelligence (AI) have to face socio-technical system dynamics resulting from the interplay between technology and human behavior. The paper specifies the key characteristics and moderating factors for these dynamics for the use case of radiology. Radiology gives a good example because of its central role in the initiation of integrated clinical care processes. The structurational model of technology with its recent outlines on the materiality of technology serves as theoretical framework. It specifies the system dynamics between technology, human agents and institutional properties. Closing remarks are related to implementation challenges aiming at better understanding drivers and inhibitors in socio-technical system change.

Mobile map applications have become a ubiquitous and important tool for navigation and exploration. However, existing map applications are heavily based on visual information, and are targeted towards persons with normal vision. Users with visual impairments face significant barriers when using these apps – currently, no major map app offers an accessible, intuitive or understandable presentation of map data in a non-visual format. The goal of this ongoing research project is to explore how mobile map application data can be displayed in an accessible and understandable way for visually impaired persons. As a first step, existing solutions were researched, identified and analysed. It was found that information retention is highest when a combination of different output modalities is used. Three major non-visual modalities were identified: Voice output (speech synthesis), ambient sounds (e.g. running water, birdsong, etc.), and vibration patterns. An initial prototype was created which combines all of these modalities, and first user tests were performed. Based on the test results, new iterations of the app are being developed. These will be tested and improved, after which a proof of concept will be developed, and ultimately a functioning app will be created and tested by target users.

In this paper, a method-mix (cultural dimensions, intercultural variables, user interface characteristics and human machine interaction (HMI) dimensions) for intercultural user interface design (IUID) is explained and discussed based on application examples. These examples elucidate why and how cultural aspects play a role in HMI design and usability/UX engineering. Implications for the consideration of variables such as speed and frequency of information/interaction for dialogue design in the cultural context are also added. The readers are sensitized to the challenges of intercultural usability/UX engineering and intercultural HMI design and will be equipped with methodological knowledge relevant to the derivation of design recommendations for user interface design for and in their desired cultural contexts.

As VR, and AR become more popular forms of interaction with standalone and wearable computing systems, there is an inherent need to redefine the role of haptics in virtual environments. Complex virtual environments require more comprehensive tactile information. For this reason, primitive tactile signals currently being used in most commercial systems, need to give way to more precisely calibrated actuation, which is specifically designed for various applications. In this research we have extended the “Haptic Mediation” concept to test and improve haptic actuation for virtual interaction by developing a Dynamic Self-sensing and Actuation Architecture (DSAA) using Autonomous Haptic Devices (AHD). We have developed autonomous mobile versions of small haptic devices with embedded actuators, sensors, power sources as well as a radio communication channel (transceiver). These haptic devices can be attached to any part of the body to perform sensing and actuation. Our testing shows that this approach can improve users’ overall experience in VR games and that AHDs can create reliable, perceivable actuation signals even when the user is actively moving around.

In this paper, we discuss the characteristics of a smartphone system that behaves as an automated e-coach that supports behavior change. To mimic the behavior of a human coach and to build a relationship with the end-user, the system offers a conversational experience and behaves as an active virtual coach that discusses various aspects with the coachee about the therapy. For that, the system provides two types of integrated interfaces that we call the ‘Talk-and-Tools’ paradigm. Talk provides the functionality for the conversational experience, while various Tool-interfaces form a coherent structure of input and output facilities that enable the user to get access to and manipulate relevant information. Currently, the system supports cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia, but its generic design targets at a broad range of application domains. Various types of tests and user evaluations were performed, ranging from expert analysis to a randomized controlled trial with insomnia patients.

Nowadays usability is a crucial factor for mobile applications to retain users. However, its traditional methods are still expensive and time-consuming. To overcome these disadvantages and support the automated approach to usability evaluation, current research offers a framework for automated detection of anomalies in users’ interactions with mobile applications. It first uses sequence detection with regular expressions to perform the correct user’s task identification and a Long Common Subsequence algorithm to identify tasks with anomalies and locate them in the user’s interaction sequences. For the framework evaluation, the usage data from the trade fair “DOMOTEX” was taken. It consists of user interface interaction sequences of 24 unique users (163 sessions). The results indicate that by considering the main constraint of the framework: its dependability on the initial baseline, the system can show high accuracy on task and anomaly detection and deliver detailed insight on users’ behavior with the application.

Usually, courses are given on human-computer interaction, while in recent years there was a major shift towards (mobile) devices and machines, with new human interfaces. Of course, they include embedded computers and software, but their interaction with users poses many new challenges and offers new solutions. This tutorial shows manifold usability problems as observed by the presenter in daily life, beyond those usually known from graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of traditional PCs (including laptop computers). It explains them by human factors usually unknown to embedded engineers and motivates user experience. User-centered and Usage-centered Design are compared with the result that they typically overlap but have a different focus each on Interaction Design. Usability Test and Usability Study are explained and contrasted as well. In addition, this tutorial explains key properties of Multimodal Interfaces and UIs of Mobile Devices. Finally, it culminates in a sketch of specific challenges of Human-Robot Interaction.

The paper explores a gestural and visual language to interact with an Artificial Intelligent agent controlling connected lighting systems. Six interaction modalities (four gestural and two visual) were designed and tested with users in order to collect feedback on their intuitiveness, comfort and engagement level. A comparison between traditional voice-based interaction modalities with AI and the proposed gesture-based language was performed. Preliminary results are discussed, including the importance of cognitive metaphors in gesture-based interaction, the relation between intuitiveness, innovation, and engagement, and the advantages provided by gesture-based interactions in terms of privacy, subtleness, and pleasantness, versus the limited options and the need to learn a codified language. Insights will help designers in the development of seamless interactions with AI agents for ambient intelligent systems.

Acknowledging the roles and potentials of data as activators of the design process within the fields of speculative design and prototyping, we are running a study to foster collaboration between the fields of speculative design, smart materials, digital fabrication, and interactive artifacts. This paper presents the first outcomes from InData, an ongoing research project that investigates how envisioning and prototyping can be informed by data. In this paper, authors present the first research outcome: an interactive tool that scrapes and visualize data from IMDb.com to support designers in envisioning future scenarios outlining the design and testing of the tool through an iterative process that allowed improvements. The purpose of InData Scraping Tool is not limited to the mentioned applications, but rather they have been a pilot of a flexible tool and methodology applicable to other fields and scalable in larger experimental and applied actions.

We propose a human interface for a smartphone application. The application is an evacuation support system that recommends safe evacuation routes when a natural disaster occurs. In a large-scale disaster occurs, the Internet communication may be difficult due to communication congestion and break down of communication base station. Since our system consists of only smartphones and communicate with each other using ad hoc network without depending on the communication base station, our system is free from the above problems. Evacuees share information by using multi-agent system among them. The main purpose of the evacuation support system is to guide its owner even in a panic situation. Therefore, our system’s user interface must be simple. The proposed design consists of the main screen, agent management screen that configures agents, and the guidance screen that display an evacuation route. In this paper, we present the human interface and the background philosophy of the system.

Data visualizations are an essential strategy for summarizing and comprehending large datasets. However, it is challenging for visually impaired people (VIP) to access visual representations of data. Current accessibility solutions fall short in providing comprehensive access to such visualizations. Most VIP must listen to datasets one cell at a time with a text-to-speech tool, which does not allow the user to gather the “gist” of the dataset. To address this gap, we designed and evaluated Sonify. Sonify is a sonification tool that makes data visualizations accessible to VIP through audio and tactile interactions on a mobile app. VIP use Sonify’s scrubbing interaction to explore patterns in data through pitch changes in sound. We evaluated Sonify’s interactions through contextual inquiries, with (n = 8) VIP. Through Sonify, we demonstrate how a novel scrubbing interaction technique makes 2-variable linear graphs accessible to a broader range of people, including VIP.

The focus of this (provocative) position paper is on how humans and ‘learning’ machines team up. Specifically, we look into the concept of synchrony. Systems ‘in sync’ seem to perform better. Using hyperscanning methods from social neuroscience one may analyse if humans are ‘in sync’. We suggest that this methodology might be applicable to study man-machine teaming as well. We hypothesize that various implementations of artificial neural nets lead to different levels of synchronizations with humans.

With the increasing use of mobile devices, users in recent years tend to use their smart mobile phones or tablets to obtain instant information. While staying at home, users may also like to watch live streaming news on TV and utilize their mobile devices as a second screen to interact with the news in order to share feedbacks to friends or obtain more detailed information pertinent to that particular news. The purpose of this study is to investigate the user experience (UX) when users watch live streaming news on TV and use their smart mobile devices as a second screen for various social interaction requirements. It is hoped users will have more opportunities to share their viewpoints and search for more information regarding that particular news to the public, and their voices can easily be heard.

This paper represents a novel work for standard type rectilinear barcode from illumination invariant confront pictures. This method finds out the qualification in slopes of picture sparkle utilizing LGFA and Windowing technique, at that point, it requires discovering normal of the angles into a limited number of interims utilizing standardization. After this, the aftereffect of quantization is changed over into the breaking points of decimal digits from zero to nine and the chart is converted into an extreme straight standardized identification. Surely, the present strategy creates the quality sort direct EAN-8 standardized tag of the best piece of face picture. In any case, in the present work, a system which is proposed to extract edge-based information utilizing LGFA and window method. LGFA helps us to generate gradient information from illumination invariant face image and by using the windowing technique; we scan the input image horizontally and take the upper 75% and 70% of the gradients. The barcode for these two cases are extracted from face images of five datasets, and it is found that the present technique is useful to account, discovery, acknowledgment and look for people in a group.

In recent years, with the popularity of electronic products, interactive information visualization has been widely used in various fields. In this paper, we describe a solution of interactive information visualization applied in displaying the bird habitat information and discussed what level of optimizations is achieved and what remains to be done. The experimental results show an increase in the efficiency of users collecting information and user satisfaction when the Zijingang Birdwatching Guide is used. This pilot study provides opportunities for further improvement on bird protection and interactive information visualization.

In the context of a sustainable development the mitigation of the energy consumption could be achieved by the incorporation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as the exploitation of smart computing in every day sectors, formulating a smart society constituted by energy conscious citizens. According to this assumption a smart society is necessary to be built on foundations of a smart education which aims to orchestrate best practices and methods based on smart pedagogies, in order to accomplish optimized learning through the development of Smart Learning Environments (SLEs). This paper presents the emergency of developing SLEs as a robust solution for the humans’ well-being. It classifies the fundamental features of SLEs highlighted by the international literature the past decade, into affordances arising from services that come from both accelerating technological achievements and pedagogical issues regarding energy. It also provides conclusions that foster research to this direction.

Full body interaction is used to allow a more immersive and cognitive implication of users in some contexts, for instance, in a museum. However, full body gestures can be stressful for some users in some environments. Specially, if these interactions are performed in the presence of an audience. We have analyzed a spectrum of full body gestures to understand the reaction of the Peripheral audience. Instead of the interactive users, the Peripheral audience is tested against selected gestures.

The purpose of this study is to assist the visually impaired to develop applications. There is a method for the visually impaired to develop applications by reading program codes with screen reader. In this method, the visually impaired can read code on line by line and select a line by knocking the up and down arrow key on the keyboard. After that, they can read the processing and describe an instruction before and after the processing. However, such an operation takes them a long time. Therefore, we suggested the system which let develop applications by editing flowcharts. This system converts program code into flowchart and read blocks in the flowchart. In this system, they can select blocks by knocking the left, right, up and down arrow key. We compared the time for rewriting programs between approach and the proposed system. As a result, the time reduced in all programs.

The use of green light optimal speed advisory (GLOSA) systems is seen as a key application for achieving more environmentally friendly, time efficient and safer traffic flows at signalized intersections. However, while previous GLOSA systems provide optimum speed advice to drivers, we have proposed a GLOSA system concept that informs drivers of the appropriate position of their vehicle instead of their optimal speed. This paper reports on a performance evaluation of our proposed GLOSA system using information distance variations. Information distance is defined as the distance between the subject vehicle and the closest traffic signal where the GLOSA system first becomes active. Traffic simulator experiments showed that the earlier activation of the GLOSA system is particularly effective when the approach traffic demand is relatively lower. In other situations, the partial assistance (PA) mode, in which the GLOSA system is activated only when the signal is red, performed well.

In this paper we propose a data driven methodology to assess text complexity of Spanish school texts. We model the problem as a classification task, that can be solved in a data-driven fashion using machine learning techniques. We show empirically that the discriminative power of the classifier depends on school grade level. Our proposal includes multiple predictors that capture different dimensions of text complexity such as coherence and cohesion. We provide an importance analysis of predictors across several complexity levels. Finally, we assess the model performance using accuracy and correlation measurements. The proposed model achieves accuracies of 0.7.

With the development of big data technology, the smartphone has become essential tool of people’s life and work. APP interface, the core of smartphone application program and the APP interface to construct the user experience mode, is an important means to improve APP product performance and satisfy users’ demand. This paper studies the interface design of smartphone APP so as to construct the interface design of user experience oriented smartphone APP from the three levels of feeling, cognition and sense.

Geographic Information Systems has now entered the realm of web and yields for feasible solutions to balance the technology offers with the users’ needs to share, access and explore the massive amounts of geodata available. Challenges occur when moving forward from old 2D platforms towards innovative and integrated webGIS systems that align functionality with the necessity to grant a complete understanding of the surrounding reality. 3D space responds to this necessity but, however, stands only at the beginning of its era and cannot yet reach the development of 2D web integration. Research is now aiming at possible webGIS solutions to adapt to the special structure imposed by 3D data. In this context, this paper focuses on designing an architecture for 2D and 3D geospatial data integration on a student-oriented web platform. This concept was further delivered and validated through a real case scenario – Studmap 3.0, a webGIS platform to serve the students of the University of Muenster in their academical life. The portal currently grants availability of geospatial data and web services of regional interest in a smart GIS environment that allows access and comparison of official services with own data. The implementation of Studmap 3.0 aided in the continuous improvement of the proposed architecture model and hence, developed under a design science research methodology. The cycle reached its end once the final approval of its users was attained via a mixed usability evaluation. Final strengths and drawbacks of the proposed architecture were ultimately identified in terms of data, system functionality, ease of implementation and usability. The usability for academical use was evaluated via a customized expert inspection, followed by a standardized student usability test of the resulting portal interface. The results fall under the acceptable range with an 83.75 score for the System Usability Scale standardized questions when addressed to experts and a score of 83.87 when addressed to students. A summary of future participants’ opinion on the benefits, drawbacks and proposed improvements was also delivered according to the answers to the final open-ended questions. Peers interested in similar concepts can use both this model and its final remarks as a reference for their work.

The rates of thrombosis without any prophylaxis range from 40% to 50% after orthopedic surgery like hip or knee replacement. Besides pharmacological measures, the muscle-vein-pump (MVP) is a typical exercise that is recommended for thrombosis prophylaxis. However, this exercise can be mundane and boring, which will compromise adherence to the rehabilitation program. Serious Games for Health have been suggested to motivate exercise training in rehabilitation and prevention. This paper describes a serious game for thrombosis prophylaxis. 41 participants volunteered in our user study and tested either an application counting the repetitions or a serious game controlled through MVP repetitions. All participants were patients after a hip or knee replacement surgery of a rehabilitation hospital. We evaluated the effect of application type on usage, i.e., duration, repetitions, and repetitions per minute. Additionally, we applied different questionnaires, e.g., System Usability Scale, Technology Acceptance Model, Intrinsic Motivation Inventory among others.

This work aimed at analyzing ergonomic conditions of community health agents (CHAs) in homecare visiting, mapping the performed activities, observing daily routine and describing the working process of CHA during visits. A descriptive study was carried out by a systematic observation of the reality. Eleven CHA’s from a public health unity at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were accompanied during their home visits. About 54.5% of the CHAs were well trained, with undergraduate certification and more than five years of work experience. A predominance of dynamic positions (less harmful) over static was noted. Despite the common presence of hot temperatures during home visits, the ergonomic risk was considered low. According to the Body Mapping Tool, the location of affected body areas can be related to the professional profile of the CHA. There was no evidence of mental disorders, as well as ergonomic inadequacies or work-related disorders during CHA’s daily work routine.

In this work is used the coupling of integral and differential numerical models applied in the evaluation of integral thermal comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ), Draught Risk (DR) and Air Distribution Index (ADI). In this study, a confined space, using a new Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system, based in confluent jets ventilation systems (CJVS) is used. This system is built with four vertical ducts, located in the corner of the wall surfaces, with horizontal nozzles turned to the two vertical walls. This study, done in summer conditions, evaluates the thermal comfort, the air quality, the DR around the occupants and the ADI for two possible arrangement of the nozzles: 0.5 m or 1.5 m. The results show that DR is acceptable for both cases but the ADI is better for the 0.5 m than the 1.5 m nozzles arrangement.

With the continuous development of tennis in China, tennis has been accepted by the masses. At the same time, tennis in colleges and universities is a very popular elective course among college students. Therefore, the accurate and simple monitoring and intervention of tennis sports is of great significance to the cultivation of college students’ physical activities and physical quality. In this paper, ActigraphGT9X is used to collect the data of sports energy consumption of college tennis beginners and skilled players, and to explore the influence of energy consumption in different body parts of tennis on the technical level of tennis.

In this paper, we designed and implemented an automatic authentication for accessing medical information and IoTs based biometric information through user-owned mobile terminals. The medical information server determines whether patient’s healthcare situation is a normal status or an emergency status by using IoTs based biometric information, according to a given disease-specific emergency status condition defined by hospital policies. As soon as the emergency status for a patient is determined, the medical staff (user) receives an emergency notification message service notification with an emergency code from the medical information server. The authentication procedures of user and user’s mobile terminal is automatically performed by sending to the authentication server with a text message composed only of the user password including the defaulted ID, emergency code and mobile terminal’s current location. Finally, if a patient is in a normal state after a successful first-aid with the authentication confirmation of the medical staff, the authorized access of the authorized medical staff also returns to a normal state.

The paper gives results of possibilities to use information technology organizing the work of health care nurses while working at patients’ homes. Information technology helps to improve care-quality of patients and has positive an economic impact. This paper analyses the results of three studies investigating Estonian healthcare nurses in the workplace. This study was conducted in 2007–2019. Significant changes have taken place in this timeframe. New improvements are possible if the latest information technology is utilized: tablets, mobile phones, wearables, etc. In the countryside, services are more patient-centric, but nurses in rural areas must commute further than care professionals who live in towns. Some Estonian retired people do not have enough resources to live in nursing homes. Instead, the elderly and their families make the economic decision to live at home.

After years of development, ActiGraph GT3X has been used in many fields, and the health effects of physical activity are also very obvious, and people are paying more and more attention to it. This paper systematically explains the basic principles of GT3X and the research status of GT3X in monitoring daily physical activities. By reviewing the two databases of CNKI and Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, the papers have been compared and summarized in a simple way. It is found that the research on monitoring physical activity through GT3X at home and abroad has been widely applied, but compared with foreign research fields and research results, there is still a lot of room for improvement in China. It is necessary to increase the research on the daily physical activity of wearable devices represented by GT3X in China, so as to make scientific and in-depth research on the physical activity of different periods of time and research and develop a guide for healthy physical activity that is most suitable for the Chinese population.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a dynamically developing tool in mechanical engineering and interdisciplinary research. Medicine is one of the areas, where the application of current computational methods is extremely necessary. This study presents the results of using computational fluid dynamics methods to solve actual problems of surgery (modeling of blood flow in the patient-specific aorta of a child with congenital heart disease during bypass surgery; modeling of the flow of bile in the biliary system to predict cholecystectomy outcome; modeling of the chyme flow in the colon). Simulation of blood flow in the aorta during shunting. Cardiovascular diseases are most common in the population and cause the prevailing part of premature mortality and disability in both adults and children. Blalock – Taussig shunting is mainly used to eliminate pathological changes in children. However, this procedure is carried out empirically: surgeons use their own experience. CFD enabled to numerically evaluate the shunt parameters and its location for proper lung development in children with congenital heart disease after shunt installation. Biomechanical analysis of the bile flow in healthy state, pathology, and after cholecystectomy. Cholecystectomy (removal of the surgical gallbladder) is usually taken to treat patients suffering from gallbladder disease and gallbladder pain. However, it should be noted that the results of the operation are not always successful. The biomechanical patient-specific model was created to assess the cholecystectomy outcome. Study of the chyme flow features in the colon. The large intestine is a long hollow muscle tube of complex shape, which digests and absorbs nutrients and water from food (which is commonly called chyme in medicine). The goal is to create a patient-specific model of the chyme and feces flow in the colon in the healthy state and pathology. Clinical applications of this model can be expressed in the description and understanding of the causes of the disorders as well as drug efficiency assessment to reduce the number of patients.

Dental system pathology has a negative impact on the quality of life. Abrasion, chipping, and loss of teeth are the main consequences of non-carious damage to the dental system elements. These factors are often associated with different levels of physical and emotional stress. One of the ways to reduce the physical loads on the dental system elements is the use of protective mouthguards during a sports activity. Therefore, studying the deformation behavior of the prosthetic structure and elements of an individual’s dental system and analyzing contact parameters are necessary for examining the structure’s operation and optimization. In this study, stress distribution in the teeth was obtained during a contact interaction without considering prosthetic structures and a single-layer prosthetic structure with a biting force of 200 N. Stress intensity distribution ( $$ \max\upsigma_{I} $$ ) in hard tooth tissues was obtained. Results showed that sports mouthguards reduced the maximum stress intensity in hard tooth tissues by 1.5 times on the tooth surface and 3.7 times near the zone of occlusion.

The objective of this work was to assess temperature distribution on hands after typing on ergonomic and non-ergonomic postures, using infrared camera. Three volunteers performed four activities: control, ergonomic typing (10-min typing in an ergonomic posture), non-ergonomic typing 1 (wrist extension) and non-ergonomic typing 2 (wrist flexion). There was no significant trend seen in temperature between the different days as they fluctuate across all the different subjects. There was an increase in temperature in the difference between metacarpophalangeal and finger extremities and the dorsal temperature and finger extremities after typing. There was a slight increase in temperature because small muscles were used as the typing task required a minimal amount of work intensity, therefore less heat was produced. The temperature increase could also be due to increased blood flow to the working muscles, suggesting the elevated temperature is secondary to increased blood flow.

An ergonomic intervention in a textile company was conducted after an initial request focusing on the recrudescence of workers’ visual complaints, and the defects of articles at the end of the chain. This intervention included three stages: an initial evaluation of the lighting atmosphere of the 6 workshops, an improvement of the compliance with industrial lighting standards and a re-evaluation of the lighting atmosphere. The total study population was composed of 718 workers, spread in six workshops. The evaluation concluded of non-compliance with the lighting standards of 60% of the workstations studied.

The current exhaustive cross-sectional study aims to assess the Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and capacity of work among steel industry workers in Tunisia. Two validated questionnaires were used to assess the work ability (the «WAI») and the HRQoL (the «SF12»). Among young, productive workers good preserved work ability was conflicting to altered HRQoL. Indeed, work ability was felt excellent or moderate by 30.8% of workers and poor HRQoL was noted in 49.23% of cases for physical dimension and in 50.77% of them for mental dimension. Steel workers need more concern about determinants of physical and mental components of HRQoL.

The phenomenon of symmetry in the forms of biological bodies has long served as one of the main points in the ideas about the existence of specific laws of morphogenesis. By analogy with the three-member kinematic blocks of the musculoskeletal system of the human body, the relationships between the three anatomical formations of the heart chambers were determined by the formula for calculating the wurf: the parameters of the right atrium and the length of the distance between the holes of the cava veins; opening area of the vena cava and right atrioventricular opening; the length of the sinus and trabecular parts (in the department of inflow and outflow) of the right ventricle. The material served as 93 hearts of human fetuses preparations of 13–36 weeks of development. It was established that the relationship between the digital values of the three anatomical formations of the chambers of the heart of human fetuses can be expressed as a wurf proportion. The average size of wurfs of three-membered blocks of formations of chambers of the heart of human fetuses is close in magnitude to the “golden wurf” (1.309). This testifies to the action of the laws of conformal transformations in the process of the growth of the heart of human fetuses.

Problems of the endoprosthetic knee joint are an actual problem of modern clinics. It is important to increase the terms of work resource of the endoprosthesis. For this purpose, it is important to get an equation of contact pressure in joint. Nowadays for simulation of contact interaction in joint a finite element method is used, but results of such simulations are sensitive to mesh quality and options for numerical contact model. An analytic model of contact in the knee joint is presented in the paper. The Hertz solution was used as a basic solution. The medial and lateral condyles are described with good accuracy by a sphere in each cross section. Then the pressure distribution obtained is transmitted to the elastic half-space. According to analytical solutions diagrams connecting maximum stress in an endoprosthetic knee joint and patient’s weight was built. Results allow using analytic solution in clinical practice.

Whole-body vibration exercises (WBVE) are a physical activity modality, promoted by mechanical vibrations generated in oscillating/vibratory platform (OVP). Used in the squatting-posture, but under limiting conditions, an alternative is sitting-posture. The objective was to evaluate acceleration transmission in specific body regions in: (I) squatting-posture; (II) sitting on chair with a free or (III) perpendicular ankle angle to the platform. Four volunteers performed single OVP protocol. An accelerometer was used on knee, lumbar, sternum and head to measure vertical displacement. The root-mean square (RMS) was computed for each signal, as well as the RMS-transmissibility (TRMS). TRMS varied for different parts of body: knees, head and lumbar spine were lowest in seated postures; there was an amplification of the vibration (TRMS > 100%) on the knee in all postures analyzed; a greater attenuation was observed in sternum. Seating positions seem to reduce vibration transmissibility for the upper parts of the body.

WBV is gaining adepts in clinical application on account of the countless benefits arising from its application. The physiological effects that justify its clinical use are diverse. Our purpose was to review the physiological effects of WBV, correlating them with the clinical use of this resource. An analytic literature review of manuscripts was made. Data collection was carried out on data bases using articles published between 2004 and 2019 that addressed the physiological effects and/or the clinical applications of the use of WBV. During low frequency WBV (maximum of 30 Hz) there is an increase in blood flow, Consequently the ventilatory patterns accompany this. It was noted better blood reperfusion in cardiac tissues that had undergone anterior ischemic injury. Biochemical analyzes showed a significant increase in growth hormone (GH) immediately after the end of WBV use, the high levels lasted for 1 h. There was also an improvement in the glycemic status. The mechanical stress offered by the WBV seems to prevent osteoporosis. Vibration training also improved isometric and dynamic muscle strength. WBV acts mainly in the cardiovascular, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems, under neurological and endocrine influence, enhancing organic functioning and cellular activity with many good effects in body.

The present study aimed at evaluating the short-term effect of one whole-body body vibration (WBV) session in the static posture of apparently healthy young adults, by means of a randomized controlled trial. Twenty-one volunteers were recruited and randomly assigned to one of three blinded interventions: (1) vibration group - VG; (2) placebo group – PG; and (3) control group - CG. Static posture of all volunteers was blind assessed before and right after interventions using computerized biophotogrammetry. Significant differences were observed in CG (tibial tuberosity horizontal alignment: p = 0.04) and in VG (pelvic horizontal alignment: p = 0.04). The intergroup analysis showed no significant differences (p > 0.05). The initial hypothesis was that if WBV provides strong reflex muscle contractions, posture alterations could be detected after a session. It was not possible to observe a short-term effect of a WBVE session on static posture as assessed by biophotogrammetry.

This work aimed at evaluating the effect of whole-body vibration exercises (WBVE) associated with a pressure threshold device for inspiratory muscular training (IMT). A blind randomized design was carried out with 15 women, divided into two groups: G1 (WBVE and threshold IMT) and G2 (threshold IMT). There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) before and after interventions for day 1 (G1: –1 ± 13 cmH2O; G2: +1 ± 8 cmH2O) and day 8 (G1: –1 ± 9 cmH2O; G2: –2 ± 5 cmH2O). However, when comparing measurements before intervention between day 1 and 8, it was found a significant p-value (G1: +30 ± 11 cmH2O; G2: +14 ± 11 cmH2O; p = 0.02). The association of WBVE and pressure threshold IMT led to a significant increase in MIP after 8 sessions, suggesting a benefit in combining these two techniques in clinical practice.

COPD is characterized by persistent limitation in air flow, major chronic inflammation, associated with various local and systemic complications and high frequency of exacerbations, besides the skeletal muscle dysfunction. The passive whole-body vibration (pWBV) is perform when the individuals are exposed to WBV in the sitting position on an auxiliary chair placed in front of the vibrating platform (VP), with the foot position on the base of the VP. This prospective study aimed to show preliminary acute responses of the clinical parameters of the COPD individuals exposed to pWBV. 15 individuals were randomized and allocated into 2 groups: control group and group exposed to pWBV on alternating VP. The individuals were barefoot, 2.5 mm of the peak-to-peak displacement, 25 Hz of the frequency, 5 bouts, working time of 1 min interpased with a rest time of 1 min. Clinical parameters were assessment in the begin and after a single session. The GraphPad Prism 6.0 program was used and appropriate tests were applied (p ≤ 0.05). Clinical parameters did not change after pWBV. The pWBV seem to benefit COPD individuals maintained clinical parameters, without exacerbation of the symptoms.

The aim of this study was to investigate a single session of whole-body vibration (WBV) exercise in the modified push-up position on hand neural efficiency (NE) in women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Twenty-one women with RA (diagnosis of disease: +8 years, erythrocyte sedimentation rate: +24.8, age: 54 + 11 years, BMI: 28 ± 4 kg.m−2) received three experimental tests for the upper limbs in a randomized cross-over clinical trial: Control, Placebo, and Vibration. Participants remained five minutes in each test. Before and immediately after the three experimental tests, the handgrip strength (HS) and electromyographic activity (EMG) of the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle of the dominant hand were measured for determination of the ratio between EMG and HS. Thus, the lower neuronal ratio represents the greater NE. This study suggests the WBV applied directly under the hands improves the hand NE in women with AR.

The aging process is accompanied by reduced muscle mass, referred to as sarcopenia, which contributes to fragility, loss of functional mobility, independence and mortality in the elderly. Although resistance exercises are preferred, whole body vibration exercise (WBV) has recently been introduced as an alternative training modality. Recent studies have demonstrated that the application of WBV in sarcopenic elderly improves bone mineral density, hormonal status, mobility, balance, reduction an prevention of falls and fractures. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate the cardiorespiratory and hormonal responses during the exercise of a dynamic squat with and WBV in the elderly population. The individuals who underwent both intervention protocols: squats with and without WBV. The exercise protocol was 40 Hz and 4 mm, with eight sets of the 40 s of exercise and rest. This study suggests that cardiorespiratory and hormonal responses after different types of exercise were similar in both groups.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a public health problem that including risk factors, such as central obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. Inadequate reserve of fat promotes a redistribution of free fatty acids to other tissues such as muscle and viscera, increasing metabolic risks. Studies have shown the association of subcutaneous and visceral fat with cardiovascular risk factors, oxidative stress and atherosclerosis. This population has a resistant profile both to start and to maintain an exercise routine. Whole-body vibration exercises (WBVE) can be considered as physical exercise. The aim of the present study was to analyze the effect of WBVE on body composition in MetS individuals. WBVE participants trained 2 times per week for 6 weeks at the vibratory platform (alternating) with frequency from 5 Hz up to 16 Hz which peak to peak displacement of 2.5/5.0/7.5 mm. This study suggest that WBVE can improve percentage segmental body fat in MetS individuals.

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a cause of public disability, mainly in elderly. The management of KOA symptoms requires a combination of conservative interventions for the joint, including both pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies. The analysis of the surface electromyographic pattern (sEMG) of the Vastus lateralis right(VLR) muscle may increase the understanding of some functions that are impaired by KOA and investigate if passive whole-body vibration (pWBV) or auriculotherapy (AT) increases the neuromuscular activity in these individuals. This study aimed to evaluate the effect (immediate and cumulative effects of a 5-week intervention). The immediate and cumulative effects of the interventions on the sEMG behavior of the VLR muscle were evaluated in all participants. AT, alone or combined with pWBV, significantly increased the recruitment of muscle fibers after 5 weeks of intervention in KOA patients.

Digital technologies foster the fluidity of knowledge and information resources and as such support the emergence of more open and co-creative problem-solving activities. At the same time ecosystem-oriented work environments evolve which are increasingly based on numerous heterogeneous actors’ contributions to maintain these work environments’ social systems. Thus, this article seeks to shed light on the question how actors’ digitally enabled contributions to the social system enable co-creative problem-solving in modern work environments. Based on a quantitative study (N = 187) it shows that actors’ digital citizenship behavior fosters co-creative problem-solving while actors’ preference for order decreases this positive effect.

With the ascension of the new digital economy, conventional means of access have found themselves completely reshaped from the ground up and the paradigm of service provision has shifted towards the online space. Daily services have now found themselves intrinsically tied to various online apps as the digital economy aims at increasing the coverage of services and providing equitable access to all users [5]. While the transition of services to the digital realm has certainly acted as a liberating vessel for many individuals, it has not come without its pitfalls. Chief among these is the concept of the digital divide. As a result of this, many individuals who are technically averse in an online sensibility have found themselves at odds with a concept that is in theory marketed as open and inclusive. With an in-depth empirical study of New York City (NYC), this research explains the conditions (and factors) within the digital economy that is causing a digital divide in New York. The focus of this research is specifically on digital media and its subsequent provision of services & accessibility. Among the deficiencies concerning the digital divide is its ambiguous nature. Be it in definition, the multifaceted nature of it, and the accompanying research that is associated with it. Findings of this research highlighted key areas where policy action is urgently needed. It may help policymakers in bringing right regulatory mechanisms in place and prevent the digital divide becoming a potential barrier to the advancements in digitally provided services.

Take an AI learning algorithm and a human trainer with an experience in machine intelligence. Take piles of data, in the form of labeled examples. If you think that the task of training a machine that makes accurate decisions is easy as pie, you could not be further from reality. That is what has been missing from this story: getting off on the right foot. For a good start, crucial is the value of data which come large in quantity but low in quality. Beyond how we design our AI, fundamental is making our data valid for learning. We report here our experience in the creation of highly accurate training examples, based on the idea of filtering out all the impurities from a dataset containing 15 million water readings, provided by an Italian water supply company. This was accomplished allowing a human-machine collaboration, down to the implementation of an AI model capable to predict water meter failure.

This paper presents a distributed control strategy for the coordination with local connectivity maintenance of single-integrator multi-agent systems with bounded velocities. The proposed strategy regards actuator saturation as dynamic scaling of the control. It preserves connectivity by applying gradient-based controls that can monotonically decrease suitably designed local potentials even if saturated. As a result, the controller design is not constrained by the velocity bounds, and can fully exploit the limited velocities for connectivity-preserving coordination. Numerical simulations verify the performance of the proposed controller.

In the XX century, arises the mass production implemented by Henry Ford to overcome the period of crisis lived in the World. In 1988, the term Lean emerged and this philosophy successfully challenged the mass production implemented in the automotive industry, focused on customers’ requirements and satisfaction with the minimum use of resources and waste elimination. A Lean environment can be a promoter in the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution, named Industry 4.0 (I4.0). In the succession of Industry 4.0 emerged the Society 5.0 in Japan, as a strategy to deal with the impact of an ageing population. The focus of this quiet revolution is the humankind and the creation of conditions to promote a happy, motivated and satisfied society with more time for leisure and consequently increase productivity and wealth. This article presents a historical approach to the technological evolution of productive systems, and their influence on societies.

The detachment and calculation of functionalities from a vehicle into a cloud creates new chances. By linking different data sources with the in-vehicle data in the cloud, an optimization of these functionalities in terms of energy efficiency can be applied. For example, the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) consumes up to 30% of total energy in a vehicle. Electric vehicles in particular lead to these high values because they are not able to recover the waste heat from combustion engines for interior heating. Therefore, the optimization of energy efficient strategies with respect to the vehicle energy management system becomes more relevant. Forecasts of the interior vehicle temperature are directly related to the HVAC energy consumption. This work focuses on the implementation and accuracy evaluation of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) for interior vehicle temperature forecasting.

The last few years have increasingly been influenced by the emergence of neural networks for classification tasks. Due to the increasing size of the nets, especially concerning deep neural nets, the selection of the optimal topology becomes critical. A set of hyper-parameters determines the topology of a neural network. The selection of suitable hyper-parameters however, is time-consuming or requires expert knowledge. This paper examines the application of an evolutionary algorithm to optimize the hyper-parameters of a neural network. The result of the optimization by evolutionary algorithms can be applied for a variety of use-cases: i.e. detection of anomalies in CAN-bus data, object recognition for autonomous driving or the classification of hydraulic machinery oil.

The article reveals the features of universal basic income. The objective of the research is to analyze experiments with UBI and to detect advantages and disadvantages of this relatively new, innovative and rather contradictory approach. The method of research is comparative analysis. Several experiments in the sphere of UBI in different types of countries (both developed and developing) are discussed. It is shown that the results of UBI-like experiments are controversial.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being introduced in several domains for classification and clustering of different types of existing information (e.g., text, images, audio, and video). Recently, improvements to Machine Learning (ML) and new approaches to the design and use of Neural Networks (NNs) enabled the development of algorithms that generate new content that mimics the features of the training dataset. Specifically, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are particularly effective in producing content with unprecedented levels of fidelity. As a result, they can generate realistic images of people, vehicles, and nature. In this paper, we discuss the results of a study that investigated user perception of pictures generated using GANs, with specific regard to portraits featuring faces. Specifically, our experiment involved 551 participants who were asked to classify over 7000 real images and pictures generated by ML algorithms. Our findings show that users show low accuracy in discriminating images and, thus, demonstrate the effectiveness of GANs in producing content that can be perceived as realistic.

Information systems support organizations to achieve strategic competitiveness and to improve the decision-making process. In addition, they help timely implementation of projects and effective risk management. A reliable and coherent information system requires a solid security framework that ensures Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Authenticity and Auditability of the critical information assets; therefore, managing security is essential for organizations doing a business in a globally networked and competitive environment whilst seeking to achieve their objectives and goals and ensuring the continuity of business. To date, studies have shown that non-technical risks are as important as technical risks in safeguarding. However, little attention has been paid to the role of human factors or organizational factors. This study validates the importance of non-technical factors based on a case study of an incident analysis using the information security framework with a focus of non-technical factors.

Al-Mabsili dates are harvested before fully ripen stage and stripped manually. This study aimed to develop a stripper machine for Al-Mabsili dates using different power sources (motor, exercise machine, bicycle) and to compare performances with traditional method. With different power source options, operator’s physiological and anthropometric parameters were increased and stabilized after stripping 5 bunches. The calories burnt, energy expenditure were highest in traditional method (2.3 kcal/kg, 14 kJ/kg) while energy expenditure rates were higher in exercise machine and bicycle (24.3 and 25.7 kJ/min). The stripping efficiency of all power sources was above 95%. The Cornell whole-body postural discomfort was lowest in exercise machine and highest in traditional method. Right hand was found more affected in Cornell hands discomfort evaluation. Exercising machine was best in Cornell seat comfort evaluation, traditional method was lowest. The average NIOSH lifting index was satisfactory (0.54). Growers preferred motor as the best power option.

This paper discussed the language learning from the perspective of educational technologies, e.g. Stanford parser and context free grammar. Language determines our thought, and social context lays an intellectual burden on language learners. Language is the outcome of cultural experience. Sometimes, the existence of ambiguity may delay the further development of language learning and teaching. The effective educational technologies are helpful for disambiguation in language learning and teaching, and stimulate the development of linguistic anthropology.

The objective of this study was to identify the impact of technology on the work process of the nursing team who works in hemodialysis services. The methodology used was an integrative review of the literature, whose eligibility criteria of the articles were: be a scientific article, be available in full, corresponding to the publication period from 2008 to 2018. The literature review totaled 1.303 articles, 1.097 were excluded. As results were found 53 articles that had evidence for the proposed study. It was concluded that it was possible to estimate the power that technology represents in the health area. In relation to the nursing team’s work process in the hemodialysis, a technological and knowledge advance was identified through the results. Nursing care for patients submitted to hemodialysis evolved positively with the advent of technology.

The objective of this work is to evaluate and quantify the potential of CO2 mitigation in the transportation of passengers, in the use of sub modal urban taxis in the city of Salvador. The complexity and behavior of society influence the behavior of taxi services that are concessions, population increase and consumption. Measures and technologies: (a) the reduction of fuel consumption, as well as (b) the gradual replacement of low-CO2 fuels can contribute to improving the relations of society and the environment. Continued use of fossil fuels is proven to increase the planet’s temperature. The methodology used follows the theoretical reference Lee Schipper. The main parameters used to measure emissions relate to the distance traveled, the number of passengers and fuel consumption. Data collection was through a secondary source and primary source, using semi-structured questionnaires at four taxi points through accidental sampling. The hypothesis is that the increase of 0.5 km/l in the energy efficiency of taxis using ethanol instead of CNG could reduce CO2 emissions by about 20%.

Online security and security of personal information is an important topic in information technology. Due to the recent high-profile security breaches as a result of authentication manipulation, there has been a growing need for enhanced methods of authentication as attackers have become more skilled in defeating existing authentication mechanisms. Attackers have resulted to phishing, social engineering, token interception and other highly sophisticated attackers all to gain access to the accounts of user. These attacks have resulted in serious damages for individuals and organizations. As a result, methods, such as, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) have been introduced to. Nevertheless, loopholes major vulnerabilities in the existing two-factor authentication implementation. In this paper, This paper analyzes the. The are listed and analyzed, and the methods of manipulation explained. This paper finally suggests a solution of a web platform service which utilizes the mobile phones of users as a form of secure confirmation of the identity of the user through a dedicated mobile application. This solution hopes to eliminate the need for communication of security parameters of the traditional telephone network.

Prima facie employees-cobot-interaction has the potential to minimize or even eliminate occupational physical and mental health risks. For example when the redesign results in the situation where tasks with high intensity, duration and frequency of physical exposure or monotonous activities are performed by the cobot. But even setting up a modern and inherently safe cobot-workplace does not necessarily mean a prevention of physical and mental health risks and is not automatically ensuring decent working conditions and, at worst, can result in downgraded working conditions. The article - see below - demonstrates this paradoxical situation by a comparison of an employees-cobot-interaction in the sense of industry 4.0 and digitization with its initial situation. For a standardized quantification, the procedural economic, holistic and ergonomic instrument of the BDS-System has been applied practically.

Crowdfunding is an innovative form of fund raising that enables individuals and businesses to leverage a large audience of potential supporters for financing their projects: disseminating the message to many potential contributors compensates for the smaller individual commitment. In the recent years, thanks to web-based platforms, crowdfunding received increasing attention and branched into several subtypes, such as, reward-based and equity-based initiatives, which enable supporters to pre-buy products or acquire company shares, respectively. Indeed, crowdfunding platforms have several advantages (e.g., reducing barriers to bottom up initiatives and democratizing access to high-return investments). Simultaneously, as governments are in their early stage of addressing the many risks and grey areas related to the dynamics of crowdfunding, the accountability of platforms has a crucial role. In this paper, we investigate the transparency of the User Interface (UI) of equity crowdfunding platforms and we discuss the implications in enabling users to make better informed decisions about their investments.

Digital curation of cultural heritage is an urgent and important matter for our society, which is becoming more and more digitized. In particular, preserving intangible cultural heritage requires novel solutions that can enable transmitting all the nuances of values and identity linked to different traditions and communities. The current development of digital copies of human beings, which promises the achievement of digital immortality in the near future, can allow our posterity to experience traditional events or create new artistic performances with deceased people that, otherwise, could not be lived and, therefore, understood.

Not only are common privacy policies hard to read and understand, but users are usually not experiencing any noticeable reactions of the application to their personal choices, if any are given. The Layered Privacy Language (LPL) is used to present legal privacy policies to the user in a concise way allowing the user fine-grained personalization options. Our contribution consists of the definition and detailing of possible personalization interaction scenarii in the context of web-applications and their validation within our evaluation environment. To simulate a negotiation of a privacy policy, a scenario environment is proposed, simulating several personal privacy preferences and users. Users can hereby perform different privacy policy personalization actions.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is today separated by different vertically oriented platforms for integration of all the different devices. Developers who aim to access other platforms and access that data are forced to manually adapt their interfaces to the specific platform API and data models. This paper highlights the work of the BIG IoT project that aims at launching an IoT marketplace and ecosystem as part of the European Platform Initiative (IoT EPI). The project finished end of 2018, so I will be able to present the setup of and the final results of the integration of the use cases that have been implemented in Northern Germany, Italy and Barcelona. Please refer to www.big-iot.eu for further details.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the Islamic Interbank Benchmark Rate (IIBR) and investigate its relationship to conventional benchmark rates. The methodology in this study relies extensively on multivariate regression, using data culled for IIBR, conventional interest-dependent benchmark rates and oil prices. The study contributes to the understanding of the IIBR’s framework principles and its value as a solution to current and future Sharia complaint short term interbank market funding for the Islamic finance industry.

In Brazil, the formation of cooperatives that include the involvement of workers excluded from the formal labor market has been promoted for reusing and recycling materials. In this cooperative environment, workers undertaking sorting activities are exposed to various temporal pressures, physical loads, and stress because it is a vital point of the production process. The objective of this research is to ergonomically evaluate the mental workload, tasks, and activities of the sorting activity workers of a material recycling cooperative in the city of Ituiutaba in Brazil. Several observations using filming and interviews were carried out, and the task/activity file and the NASA-TLX method were applied to the sorting activity workers. This research is justified because the level of attention required of the workers is extremely high, and they are required to concentrate on the operation of the machines, materials, their posture, and safety.

Following increasing market needs of productivity, cost reduction and safety requirements, computerized industry are faced to finding optimum between economic aspects of business and safety-related risk management. Modern factories equipped with computerized processes and extended diagnostic tools to support operator do not often use of all information’s which comes from the equipment. Some of the relations between the events are also omitted or neglected. Authors after analyzing the defects of modern production lines with batch production, noticed a correlation between the defects and the historical information registered by the supervisory system controlling the production process. The problem is that with the multitude of appearing information, they are not analyzed on an ongoing basis. This article presents a new approach to increase machinery reliability, safety and quality increase through predictive data analysis.

The purpose of this document is to improve inventory management processes and food processing at a restaurant in the region of Ancash by applying the 5S methodology and using specific indicators for the location and type of work. All this was achieved with the implementation of the menu engineering methodology, which consists basically of forecasts, linear programming, long-term orders, and inventory management. The proper operation of the new processes was experimentally validated. First, the main results were that the use of approximately 4.30 m2 of the work space allocated to unnecessary activities within the work area was optimized, increasing the number of processes that a worker can perform without moving more than 1 m from their work position. Despite the many studies existing on the methodology implemented, there is scarce material that focuses on its application in restaurants, as it is normally developed in industrial areas.

This paper presents the implementation of a compact wearable sensing device with temperature, pressure, humidity and gas measurement capabilities. The paper focuses on the implementation of an automatic procedure task able to perform periodically readings of the sensor and sending the data through a conventional serial port by the implementation of the USB Communication Device Class (CDC). The wearable sensing device has been tested by gathering measurements of temperature, pressure, humidity and gas sensor resistance when it has moved between two different areas in order to detect data variations and check the correct performance of the automatic procedure task. The objective is to develop a wearable device easy to use, portable and with simple connectivity to any host device in order to measure the ambient environmental conditions. The implemented wearable device is focused to be an easy approach for data measurement of the outdoor and indoor environments that can be used for research, industrial or educational purposes.

In the last years hackers have strengthened and have taken advantage of their knowledge and skills, as well as the inappropriate use of technology to search for vulnerabilities in organizations, in order to obtain their own benefit or for third parties. It’s imperative to stop this type of attacks, looking for an alternative that allows to know them and learn to classify them, to be prepared for these contingencies. This project seeks to implement a neural network as protection in a computational network. This work will use a multilayer network feedforward that is the type of classifier based on neural networks most widely studied and used. A wide dataset is used for training it and the mean square error (MSE) for the error value measurement. Recently it has been established that neural networks are a promising alternative to several classification methods.

We propose a novel method for efficient target audience augmentation in programmatic digital advertising. This method utilizes a novel ParGenFS algorithm for most adequate generalization in taxonomies which was developed by the authors in a joint work. The ParGenFS extends user segments by parsimoniously lifting them off-line as a fuzzy set over IAB content taxonomy into a higher rank ‘head subject’. This algorithm was initially intended as an intelligent information retrieval tool. Here it is applied to a very different task of targeted advertisement as an effective tool for augmenting audiences.

Planning of resources is a powerful tool in the field of supply chain management and control and in general. Global large-scale companies and enterprises have this implemented in their planning processes. Today, experts in the subject have found issues regarding the implementation of such tools in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, this paper aims to develop an application for the methodology of continual improvement of processes, referred to as the Deming cycle or Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA), which adapts to continuous improvements of processes and products in SMEs. The methodology was modeled in a SME dedicated to manufacture and distribution of wine and products (wine and Pisco). The model was simulated through a simulation software, obtaining results of improvement regarding problems like break of stock, taking into account the satisfaction of the client, productivity in the delivery, and shipment time.

Currently, businesses implementing electrical projects lack the theoretical knowledge of ways to correctly develop the projects given that they are based on empirical knowledge. Consequently, a need has developed to implement lean philosophy and project management as distinctive and renowned pillars to ensure high competitiveness in the market of the sector under study. Through case studies, the literature on the subject demonstrated the importance of proper planning based on cost and time pillars. These pillars were analyzed using Ishikawa tools and a problem tree. The following lean tools were chosen: 5S, visual management, and quality circles. These tools and the project management guidelines, specifically the 47 processes published in the 5th edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge, were applied as a model proposal at a pilot company in which the results of how this combination of solutions reduces delivery times for that organization were compared.

The Human Resources (HR) outsourcing market in Peru is growing; however, it is dominated by large companies in this area, which prevents the development of new organizations or small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The latter, in spite of providing the same services, fail to reach the expected sales volume, thus reporting low profitability. This article analyzes the different factors that impede the growth of SMEs through a fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram and the assessment of initial indicators. It also proposes a model that is based on the three pillars of Digital Transformation and the importance of their alignment in its implementation. A pilot model has been conducted for validation in an SME that provides HR outsourcing services. The research results denote an increase in the company’s profitability and capacity.

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between potential absorptive capacity, realized absorptive capacity, and innovation performance. Drawing on the knowledge- based theory, the current research conceptualizes absorptive capacity as two distinct and separated knowledge dynamic capabilities: potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity. The research addresses potential ACAP and realized ACAP separately and analyzed their influence on the firm’s innovation performance. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) in a sample of 12 firms from Jordanian pharmaceutical industry, the research revealed that potential and realized absorptive capacities have significant and direct relations with firm’s innovation performance. The results confirm that potential ACAP along with components (acquisition, assimilation), and realized ACAP (encompassing transformation, exploitation) are antecedents to the firm’s innovation performance. The research advances the concept of absorptive capacity by exploring it as two different dynamic capabilities.

The department with the greatest economic dependence on the fruit is Ancash, and the Province of Casma is most important in production, as it only produces mango; however, at the productivity level, is a marked difference of 8.2 t/ha compared to the highest worldwide producer, Mexico. Taking this data into consideration, an analysis of the MSEs producing mango in Casma was conducted and problems were seen in the management of resources and processes, both at the levels of planning and control. Considering the problems of MSEs from Casma, a basic Production Planning and Control model was designed based on Process Management and agricultural best practices. The model consists of applying process management tools, such as the flow diagram, the SIPOC turtle, data sheet indicators, procedures, and formats for each sub-process, all with the aim of better understanding the proposal’s development and increasing the productivity of MSEs.

One of the main problems existing in manufacturing companies is the high frequency of machine breakdowns and their high repair time. Therefore, over time, various maintenance strategies seeking to more efficiently manage the scheduled jobs have been presented. However, these are not always as effective as expected, because they are not properly applied, the resources are not available, or the strategy is not aimed at directly solving the problem. Based on the aforementioned, this paper proposes an integral model of maintenance management based on the principles of total productive maintenance and reliability-centered maintenance methodologies in order to increase machine availability in a company in the manufacturing sector. To validate this proposal, a pilot project will be developed to measure the impact that is being sought.

In recent years, the MicroServices architectural style has significantly grown in popularity due to its application to large-scale software systems with positive results. In the domain of Software Architecture, textual Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) can be used to describe the architecture of a software intensive system at an abstract level. μσADL is such an ADL, co-created by the author, designed in order to provide to software architects and various stakeholders a practical way for describing software systems that follow the microservices architectural style. In this paper, an example is presented, where a system based upon this style is described using μσADL. The constructs provided by the language concerning the description and dynamic reconfiguration of a microservice architecture are presented.

This paper presents a new pavement energy harvest system that was developed in Portugal by the Waydip Company in collaboration with the Pavement Mechanics Laboratory of the University of Coimbra. After carrying out testing in the laboratory on one Waynergy People prototype module, 25 Waynergy People modules were set up in the entrance to a shopping centre in Lisbon, Portugal. The electrical energy generated by the Waynergy People pilot plant was 15,525.0 J or 4.31 Wh. This energy was harvested from 2,070 people walking over the system, with each person averaging 5 steps, which means that the average energy generated per step was 1.50 J on each module. We recorded a peak value of 4.20 J, which is equal to the energy produced by a person weighing 100 kg jumping. The maximum energy generated during one day was 126,540.0 J, or 35.2 Wh, and the average energy generated per day over the four months of the Waynergy People pilot was 90,417.0 J or 25.1 Wh.

The waste and reprocess problem in Peruvian apparel companies is greater than expected. After reviewing a history of losses and reprocesses, an innovative technical solution based on a combination of Lean Manufacturing and Agile tools is presented herein. This innovative proposal is implemented in the areas of cutting, embossing, and sewing in an apparel company. Value Stream Mapping results before and after implementing the proposed model are compared. The major achievement of this model is the significant reduction in loss percentage after two weeks of implementation.

The following study proposes a production management process model based on good practices and developed with process management tools for increasing crop productivity of pecan nuts using the Ica region in the district of Pachacutec as a study area. The study covers the proposed model’s diagnosis and development. The relation between these stages is the main function of improving pecan orchard productivity. The study showed that to increase pecan productivity from 1.09 (t/ha) to 2.21 (t/ha), and to determine raw material needs, tools and/or labor, a standardized process is needed for pecan production. The study’s main contribution is the development of a production management process through which farmers can order and control production by means of indicators. Furthermore, the study proposes that the developed process of pecan production currently applied by farmers should be supported by a mathematical model simulation.

The objective of this work is to develop a quality management system focused on the principles of TQM for cocoa micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the province of La Convención, Cusco - Perú. The diagnosis for this investigation was made using in-depth interviews to the cocoa farmers that facilitated the identification of the current situation of cocoa MSEs. With the results obtained and based on the scientific articles studied, the critical elements in each activity related to the cocoa production process were determined, and it is focused on establishing a quality management system adaptable to the requirements of the plots studied. As a result of the analysis of the experts, the system in question is based on the following principles of TQM: documentation, customer focus, process-based approach and continuous improvement.

The service sector, specifically the automotive sector, has witnessed significant growth in the economy and is constantly searching for methods to improve its quality indexes with its customers; however, errors in general repairs are ever present in this tertiary activity. This document undertakes a practical study to measure the effectiveness of the Lean Service Quality (LSQ) model, which combines the development of a multi-elemental scale to measure service quality (SERVQUAL) and a conceptual/practical Lean Service model, with the aim of reducing the number of poorly performed technical repairs at a Toyota automobile dealership. The main result of the research was defining a practical guide to replicate the LSQ model. In addition, as the model’s first approach, the study demonstrated that, for the dealership under study, the rate of bad repairs was ultimately reduced by 5.17%.

In Peru, the health service has had certain problems in the attention of users. The emergency service of clinics has been saturated due to changes in the needs of people and demand, exposing the prestige of health entities that have this unit and generating risks for the health of users, this is reflected in the low level of satisfaction with regard to care. Based on the Lean philosophy, a model is developed using SMED, Kanban and pull tools to reduce waiting times. The application of this model of pilot in the Clinic reduces the waiting time for the first attention in 30% thereby reducing the number of fines imposed by the corresponding regulatory entity and the desertion in emergency, achieving an average time of 37 min.

Currently, one of the main problems is that “time” is becoming more important, which will cause people to perform multiple tasks every day because of a hectic lifestyle, and with it the issue of lost articles. and poorly placed also increases significantly. Although there have been initiatives by some small companies to offer solutions characterized by the use of positioning technologies, these have not achieved the desired success. That is why, in this research, a scheme for the design, evaluation and implementation and marketing of a product with RFID technology with location and alert functions in the absence of proximity to solve the aforementioned problem has been proposed. The scheme and the product were validated through focus tools, surveys and scenario analysis. Likewise, the components of the business model of the scheme allow to reach the demand.

In this study, we propose a basic quality management model that was designed based on good agricultural practices for micro-enterprises of pecan farmers in Ica el Valle, Peru. The research study was developed based on in-depth interviews with 18 farmers within the agricultural sector under study. The study focused on identifying and analyzing the current situation of farmers to design a basic quality management model that can be implemented. The results led to the identification of critical aspects for each of the activities related to the production of nuts. We thus designed a basic quality management model based previous scientific studies. This management system is composed of the following subprocesses: quality adjustment; documentation; parameters definition; monitoring and control; and continuous improvement and analysis of results.

The food supply chain has gained impulse over the past few years induced by the rising global demand for food; therefore, much emphasis is placed upon examining this class of supply chains. It also faces constant production, storage, and distribution challenges, wherein the key link for proper operation is the farmer, who engages in the agricultural sector, heavily impacted by low crop productivity, which interfer with economic development at a national level. Consequently, it is important to assess those farmers who belong to micro and small enterprises in the agricultural sector. Due to the characteristics of the population, a nonprobability sampling technique was used to assess micro and small cocoa producers in La Convención Province, Cusco, Peru. To such end, a snowball sampling model with distance boundaries was adopted because the population is unknown and hard to reach.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a proposal of a production management model using lean manufacturing techniques to improve on-time deliveries of a metal-mechanic company that works in a make-to-order (MTO) manufacture of industrial fans environment. The proposal of the research refers to the implementation of a production management model in a metal mechanic company in Peru and analyze the effect in on-time delivery rate of the company. In one month of operation after the implementation of the pro-posed model, the on-time delivery rate of the company increased from 35% to 80%. Likewise, the problems present in the metalworking research company may be the same in many metalworking companies in the country, so the present investigation will serve as an example for the possible solution of the problems of other companies.

Here in, comprehensive management model of municipal solid waste collection and transportation, “MIGRU,” is proposed, based on the Lean Six Sigma, VSM, and Servqual methods. This model considers and includes three important management systems for an efficient collection value chain: quality management, route management, and HR and community management. The proposed model was implemented and validated in the municipality of Lima, Peru, and the results showed that municipal costs were reduced up to 40%, solid waste was reduced in the streets, and routes and processes were updated and improved in addition to an improvement in the participation and environmental education of citizens. Thus, correct management of the proposed model’s three general approaches to a very positive municipal impact at economic and environmental levels, without the investment of excessive amounts of money observed in first-world countries.

In the management of port terminals, a common problem has been evidenced, high traffic of trucks and long waiting times given the variability of trucks arrival. This is a significant challenge for ports. This situation has given the opportunity to investigate in this matter and make use of a Truck Appointment System (TAS) together with other tools corresponding to industrial engineering for the optimization of truck service processes within a port terminal in Peru. To do this, a diagnosis is made of the company object of study and through a simulation of discrete systems, the technical viability of the proposal is validated. It was demonstrated that a procedure of attention based on appointments, Last in, First Out (LIFO) management for containers and development of visual management within the container yard; it is a highly viable option to shorten waiting times and unproductive movements of containers.

In general, lean strategies in the textile sector are applied in production to improve productivity, reduce production time, and reduce errors, among other aspects. However, there are also documented studies, which are not common in the literature that uses these strategies to improve storage operations. This study shows the implementation of the Lean 5S Hybrid tool in the warehouse of a textile company based in Lima. The objective of the implementation was to improve productivity in the warehouse, as there were high response times when searching for materials, which reduced production time, warehouse redistribution, better using available space, and being able to strategically locate main materials. The results revealed an increase in warehouse productivity 3.95 times the initial one, an Inventory Record Accuracy of 98.17%, a decrease in the requirement search time by 66.12% (from 25 to 8 min), and stock rotation of 6.22 times.

Micro and Small Enterprise (MSEs) are the primary employment driving force in Peru; however, their low level of management does not allow for their long-term sustainable development. This situation has led such companies to incur unnecessary costs and expenses. In this study, we deal with the case study of a microenterprise of services in the personal beauty sector, which applied a Management Model based on define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) method. That excellent methodology helps to improve processes through the philosophy of continuous improvement, with the aim of proposing improvements to increase profitability and growth. Moreover, the integration of various techniques and tools at each stage of the DMAIC methodology was proposed with a focus on human management processes, inventories, and operational services, which have greater impact on most companies of this type.

Logistics operators face various problems, the most common being the inadequate distribution of the operations yard. This is reflected in international logistics indexes, in which Peru ranks as one of the last countries. The company studied herein presents a problem of high reprocessing levels in the operations yard, which affects the level of service offered to customers. This study proposes the application of industrial engineering tools, such as systematic layout planning, to reduce reprocessing, increase profits. The proposed tool has been validated via simulation using the Arena software.

Excess waste problem is encountered by small and medium-sized companies in the textile and clothing sector, which has a negative impact on the profitability of these companies. Herein, a diagnosis analysis is performed in a small company using the Ishikawa diagram to identify the root causes and they are measured using indicators. Based on these results, a change management model is proposed, which supports the implementation of lean manufacturing tools and production system components during the 30-day pilot application. Then, each indicator is reassessed to verify the feasibility of the proposed umbrella model. Results show that this model reduced the amount of waste by 81.21%.

Today the implementation of strategic planning in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a variant that helps organizations to acquire and build knowledge, as it generates that the company manages to understand and manage the main processes in a given context and facilitates decision making for the acquisition of concrete results. This research is focused on the development of a strategic planning model based on the balanced scorecard (BSC) to help SMEs generate and execute strategies while considering their level of development as regards processes and needs, and though this help them to be more competitive and profitable. The expected results are the increase in profitability, the improvement in the quality of the service, the increase in sales volume, and reduction of the cost overruns found before the implementation of the proposed model.

This research article focuses on the application of the main engineering tools in the wood furniture manufacturing sector. It uses as an information source furniture companies of the industrial park of Villa El Salvador. Its objective is to implement 6TOC methodology based on LEAN philosophy, Six Sigma and restrictions theory, focusing on improvements to the bottleneck. Defines the product design as an ideal input for the planning and development of activities. Start to know the work environment: stations and functions, machines and tools, plant layout and ergonomics in order to increase productivity. Application of tools level operations for planning, control and execution of production. Resulted in the GDP in the year 2017 increased by 2.2%. However, the manufacturing sector of goods decreased by 5.5%, that is, it impairs GDP growth, since the wood and furniture industry, which had an aggregate gross manufacturing value of −19.9%.