Community engagement as a tool to help deliver smart city innovation: a case study of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Cities are complex urban conurbations and facing many challenges. The majority of the world’s population now live in cities and consume 80% of the resources. 'Smart City' innovation is emerging as a major response to the challenges cities are facing. Much of the focus remains on technological interventions, but technology alone may not be sufficient to reach smart and sustainable city goals. Cities are made up of people who have influence and are therefore key stakeholders in the development of smart city innovation and cannot be ignored. This paper aims to explore community engagement in Nottingham to help deliver smart city innovation and the way Nottingham City Council is engaging local communities in its smart projects. The paper analyses the community engagement strategy of Nottingham developed as part of the EU funded smart city project, REMOURBAN (REgeneration MOdel for accelerating the smart URBAN transformation). The main drivers and barriers to effective community engagement are identified in the smart city context. This exploratory study adopted a case study strategy and qualitative research methods. The data was collected through thirteen semi-structured interviews with middle and senior managers in Nottingham City Council and other stakeholder organisations in the city and a focus group of five community leaders from three local community groups. The content analysis of the REMOURBAN documents related to citizen engagement and the council’s energy strategies and policies was carried out. The key results are discussed with recommendations to nurture effective community engagement as a smart city tool and conclusions are drawn

Intelligent evacuation management systems: A review

Crowd and evacuation management have been active areas of research and study in the recent past. Various developments continue to take place in the process of efficient evacuation of crowds in mass gatherings. This article is intended to provide a review of intelligent evacuation management systems covering the aspects of crowd monitoring, crowd disaster prediction, evacuation modelling, and evacuation path guidelines. Soft computing approaches play a vital role in the design and deployment of intelligent evacuation applications pertaining to crowd control management. While the review deals with video and nonvideo based aspects of crowd monitoring and crowd disaster prediction, evacuation techniques are reviewed via the theme of soft computing, along with a brief review on the evacuation navigation path. We believe that this review will assist researchers in developing reliable automated evacuation systems that will help in ensuring the safety of the evacuees especially during emergency evacuation scenarios

An Ontological Approach to Inform HMI Designs for Minimizing Driver Distractions with ADAS

ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) are in-vehicle systems designed to enhance driving safety and efficiency as well as comfort for drivers in the driving process. Recent studies have noticed that when Human Machine Interface (HMI) is not designed properly, an ADAS can cause distraction which would affect its usage and even lead to safety issues. Current understanding of these issues is limited to the context-dependent nature of such systems. This paper reports the development of a holistic conceptualisation of how drivers interact with ADAS and how such interaction could lead to potential distraction. This is done taking an ontological approach to contextualise the potential distraction, driving tasks and user interactions centred on the use of ADAS. Example scenarios are also given to demonstrate how the developed ontology can be used to deduce rules for identifying distraction from ADAS and informing future designs

The Efficacy of Intravenous Versus Topical Use of Tranexamic Acid in Reducing Blood Loss after Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Blood loss during and immediately after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a challenge. It has been demonstrated that Tranexamic acid (TXA) can help reduce perioperative blood loss. TXA can be used via oral, topical or intravenous routs. The current study aimed to compare the effectiveness of intravenous versus topical use of TXA in reducing perioperative blood loss after primary total knee arthroplasty. Methods: Eighty-five patients who were candidates for total knee arthroplasty were randomized into two groups: one group received intravenous (IV) TXA, 15mg/kg, 10 min before tourniquet inflation while the other group received intraarticular (topical) TXA, 1 g diluted in 10 cc saline, during wound closure. The postoperative blood loss was estimated by measuring the whole drain output and also hemoglobin (Hb) drops. Moreover, we secondarily assessed and compared the need for allogenic blood transfusion and thromboembolic events. Results: Out of 387 thoracic screws and 373 lumbar screws, 65 (16.8) and 34 (9.1) screws perforated the pedicle wall or vePatients who received topical TXA had a higher total drain output ( 315 cc versus 226 cc; P< 0.001) compared to the IV route. The hemoglobin drop also was greater in the topical group although it was marginally significant (1.5 mg/dl versus 1.1 mg/dl; P= 0.05). No patient required further blood transfusion nor was diagnosed with a thromboembolic event. Conclusion: IV TXA seems more effective in reducing postoperative blood loss after primary TKA compared to the topical route

Topological phase transition in a network model with preferential attachment and node removal

Preferential attachment is a popular model of growing networks. We consider a generalized model with random node removal, and a combination of preferential and random attachment. Using a high-degree expansion of the master equation, we identify a topological phase transition depending on the rate of node removal and the relative strength of preferential vs. random attachment, where the degree distribution goes from a power law to one with an exponential tail.Comment: The final publication is available at http://www.epj.or

Análise do impacto da implantação de sistemas ERP nas características organizacionais das empresas de construção civil

Uma das causas do insucesso do ERP nas empresas de construção civil é o fato da implantação desse sistema ser uma grande mudança organizacional. O objetivo desta pesquisa é identificar como a implementação do sistema ERP impacta na organização e nos processos gerencias das empresas de construção civil. Foi realizada uma survey em uma amostra de empresas construtoras brasileiras. Os dados foram coletados por meio de um questionário encaminhado por email a dois grupos de empresas: com e sem ERP implantado. A partir da análise estatística discriminante foi possível identificar as variáveis relacionadas ao nível de desenvolvimento dos processos de gestão e as características organizacionais que mais distinguem os dois grupos de empresas. Os resultados revelaram que a implantação do ERP impacta nas variáveis da maturidade organizacional nos seguintes aspectos: visão estratégica, relacionamento com cliente, gerenciamento de recursos humanos, gestão financeira e de TI

Detection of Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica and shigella Dysenteriae by analysis of 23s ribosomal DNA gene

Background: Ribosomal DNA (rDNA) genes contain signature structures which are unique for groups of organisms. Considering their great number in cells and their protected areas, they render ideal targets for specific nucleic acid probes. The present study aimed to investigate the capability of some specific regions of 23S rDNA gene as a DNA target for differentiation and screening of Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica, and Shigella dysenteriae. Methods: Bacterial reference strains used in this study were E. coli, S. enterica and Sh. dysenteriae that were provided by the centers for microbial culture collection (CMCC) at Pasture Institute of Iran. DNA extraction was performed by boiling method. Alignment of the 23S rDNA sequences of bacterial species was performed by using AlignX (a component of Vector NTI Advance 11.0) and areas displaying sequence divergence among species were used for designing universal primers and individual bacteria specific probe. Findings: The universal polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products of each bacterial species showed bands of approximately 880 bp to be being equivalent to the fragment size of 23S rDNA gene. Different size bands of 23S rDNA probes were produced and included 228 bp for E. coli, 444 bp for S. enterica, and 776 bp for Sh. dysenteriae. Conclusion: Comparative sequence analysis of variable and specific regions of 23S rDNA genes among the studied bacterial species showed that we were able to amplify specific target among universal region for the detection of many enteric pathogenic bacteria