Evolution Of Services Research Articles

Energy-makespan optimization of workflow scheduling in fog–cloud computing

The rapid evolution of smart services and Internet of Things devices accessing cloud data centers can lead to network congestion and increased latency. Fog computing, focusing on ubiquitously connected heterogeneous devices, addresses latency and privacy requirements of workflows executing at the network edge. However, allocating resources in this paradigm is challenging due to the complex and strict Quality of Service constraints. Moreover, simultaneously optimizing conflicting objectives, e.g., energy consumption and workflow makespan increases the complexity of the scheduling process. We investigate workflow scheduling in fog–cloud environments to provide an energy-efficient task schedule within acceptable application completion times. We introduce a scheduling algorithm, Energy Makespan Multi-Objective Optimization, that works in two phases. First, it models the problem as a multi-objective optimization problem and computes a tradeoff between conflicting objectives while allocating fog and cloud resources, and schedules latency-sensitive tasks (with lower computational requirements) to fog resources and computationally complex tasks (with low latency requirements) on cloud resources. We adapt the Deadline-Aware stepwise Frequency Scaling approach to further reduce energy consumption by utilizing unused time slots between two already scheduled tasks on a single node. Our evaluation using synthesized and real-world applications shows that our approach reduces energy consumption, up to 50%, as compared to existing approaches with minimal impact on completion times.

Characteristics of Conceptually Related Smart Cities (CRSCs) Services from the Perspective of Sustainability

A smart city has developed gradually with the evolution of services and ICT technologies to achieve sustainability. Many academic and governmental documents reference this; however, there is no existing theoretical or empirical study on the characteristics of smart city services regarding sustainability. In this sense, this study aims to clarify characteristics of Conceptually Related Smart Cities (CRSCs) services from sustainability. The methodologies adopt a matrix taxonomy to sort the previous indicators in the first step. It also utilizes a keyword analysis based on a literature review to identify the characteristics of two concepts. Three outcomes result from the steps of theoretical structures. Firstly, this study develops SSC service indicators based on the synthesis of Sustainable Smart City (SSC) and Smart City and sustainable city. The second outcome is an identification of the relation between SSC services and Conceptually Related Smart Cities. Lastly, the study clarifies the significance of citizen engagement based on the evolutionary concept by typifying service development in the lens of sustainability in CRSCs. This study is worthwhile for understanding smart city services and managing different featured smart cities from a sustainability perspective.

THE SURVEILLANCE OF INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEMS AND APPROACHES

With the widespread evolution of new technologies and services, Internet has experienced explosive growth across the market that actively increases the impact of attacks where the attackers continuously find vulnerabilities and attack the system In an information system, intrusions are the activities that violate the security policy of the system. At this instant, it is fundamental to impenetrable the pc gadget which has end up the important problem over the few years so as to observe and forestall attacks. Intrusion detection is a necessary device to display networks for attacks or intrusions and document these intrusions in order to take an action. While Intrusion detection structures are ubiquitous defenses in current networks, there is no rigorous methodology to measure or enhance the effectiveness of the system. This paper is aimed to facilitate the extraordinary kinds of Intrusion detection systems, merits, demerits and the overall performance measurements that are desired. To determine these metrics, we evaluate previous empirical evaluations. We additionally existing the set of hurdles that have blocked the measurements and lookup associated in the direction of enhancing dimension competencies has been supplied.

Commercial Cloud Services for a Robust Mobile Application Backend Data Storage

Rapid advancements in the infrastructure of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have led to radically new but ubiquitous technology; cloud computing. Cloud computing has gracefully emerged offering services that possess on-demand scalability, huge computing power, and a utility-like availability, all at a relatively low cost. It has unsurprisingly become a paradigm shift in ICT, gaining adoptions in all forms of application i.e., personal, academic, business, or government. Not only for its cost-effectiveness but also for its inherent ability to meet business goals and provide strategic ICT resources. More recently there have been advances in cloud computing leading to the evolution of newer commercial cloud services, one of which is the Mobile backend as a Service (MBaaS). The MBaaS is important and required for a robust mobile application back-end data storage and management. Its wide adoption and importance stem from its ability to simplify application development and deployment. Also, MBaaS is robust, with the ability to cope with errors by providing nifty tools and other features. These enable rapid scaffolding of mobile applications. This paper reviews Mobile backend as a Service (MBaaS) and provides required background knowledge on some cloud services and their providers to enable stakeholders to make informed decisions and appropriate choices.

Razvoj obalnih i prekooceanskih pomorskih kontejnerskih ruta koje kreću iz talijanskih luka

In this paper, an analysis of the development of Deep Sea Shipping (DSS) and Short Sea Shipping (SSS) container routes calling at Italian ports, is carried out. Data about DSS routes have been collected in the years: 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2019, while data about SSS services have been collected in 2010 and 2018. Italian ports have been classified as follows: Ligurian multi-port gateway cluster, formed by Leghorn, La Spezia, Genoa, Savona/Vado Ligure; Northern Adriatic multi-port gateway cluster, made up of Ancona, Ravenna, Venice and Trieste; Campanian multi-port gateway cluster, composed of Naples and Salerno; hub ports, i.e. Gioia Tauro, Cagliari (only until 2018) and Taranto (only until 2014). The most important gateway cluster, for both DSS and SSS services, is the Ligurian one, which includes Genoa, the major Italian container gateway port. Genoa has shown an almost constant increase in container traffic in the time period analyzed. Italian hub ports are also an important group, but they have registered a negative trend in the years under analysis. DSS routes, to Far East and the American Continent, usually call at the Ligurian ports and the hub port of Gioia Tauro. Northern Adriatic ports are crossed by only a few DSS routes, but they are crossed by a large number of SSS routes, especially feeder ones, with transshipment mainly in the hub ports of Gioia Tauro, Marsaxlokk, Piraeus and Port Said. The evolution of DSS services shows clearly the effects of naval gigantism phenomenon: the number of DSS services has decreased, but the total and, especially, the average DWT have increased. As regards SSS routes, also their frequencies have decreased, but their length and, in particular, the number of ports called, have increased: this choice is performed by container operators in order to increase the ships ’load factor’.

Opportunities and challenges for contactless healthcare services in the post-COVID-19 Era

This study examines the opportunities and challenges involved with contactless healthcare services in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. First, we reviewed the literature to analyze contactless or contact-free healthcare services that have been utilized in pre-and during the COVID-19 pandemic periods. Then, we interviewed medical experts and hospital administrators to gain knowledge about how healthcare providers are currently working to mitigate the spread of COVID and preparing for the post-pandemic period. Thus, we analyzed the evolution and utilization of contactless services during the three different time periods: pre-, during-, and post-COVID-19. The results indicated that in the post-COVID-19 era, a new normal of hybrid healthcare services would emerge. While some of the contactless services that have been practiced during the pandemic may revert to the traditional face-to-face services, those innovative contactless healthcare services that have been proven effective during the pandemic would be practiced or even advanced in the post-pandemic period due to the accelerating technological developments. This study suggests many potential opportunities and daunting challenges for healthcare institutions, policymakers, and consumers regarding the implementation of contactless services in the post-COVID-19 era.

RETRACTED: Research on the HRM performance assessment model based on FPGA embedded system and bayesian network

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a structured and fully organized people-managed process. IT includes the person setting up the organization (employer), cash holding and benefits management, performance management, and alternative management and maintenance. One of the strategies for a successful company is to attract talented individuals to any particular position and retain key employees in a better and more energetic workforce. In any field, small or large, human resource management plays its traditional role, but its staff can expand its scope to evaluate performance. Due to the evolution of the new service comes the field of human resource management. The development of a new organization called a performance management system (PMS). Performance appraisal is the social irresponsible management center of companies and organizations, and each appraisal index of the proper allocation of human resources should be given appropriate weights that are important to organize and align the organizational structure and the performance management system at the limits of the individual goals of the sports organization's business goals. This article addresses the validity of PMS. Research programs that serve as a strategic tool for a performance management system achieve a strong foundation for employees to achieve their ambitions and goals for the company to achieve their core financial goals. Propose to implement a Bayesian Network (BN) Representation based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) that allow for continuous monitoring of embedded systems under a time and resource basis. Advanced package tools integrated with hardware implementation provide a specific offline configuration. The proposed hybrid redesign device is evaluated to indicate potential acceleration. Some modifications to the hardware's functionality have been explored to better balance accuracy, performance, and resource allocation.

A New Approach based on Fuzzy MADM for Enhancing Infrastructure Selection in the Case of VANET Network

The emergence of the 5G mobile network has a huge impact on the evolution of services and functionalities offered to its customers; this latest version of mobile networks will allow the simultaneous connection of a significant number of people and IoT devices, in addition to the improvement of several other features. 5G will serve in a large part of smart cities and especially in the field of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) is one of the promising projects on which the ITS is relying on. Its main purpose is to provide communication and information-sharing support for the vehicles in its network. VANET is based on a heterogeneous network architecture composed mainly of two infrastructures, the first one is the cellular infrastructure, and the second is the road infrastructure. This paper proposes a new approach based on Fuzzy multiple attribute decision making (MADM) methods for the selection of the most appropriate infrastructure in the VANET network and consequently enhance the number of executed vertical handover to move from one infrastructure to another without loss of connection.

Role of nongovernmental organizations in community mental health

This article focuses on the work done by nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) in mental health (MH) in India and will illustrate in broad strokes the growth of NGOs in the MH sector. It describes the evolution of MH services over the years with specific emphasis on community MH activities undertaken by NGOs. The role of the MH NGO in bridging the MH gap and the activities that have been undertaken ranging from primary prevention work to tertiary care is discussed. The inherent strengths that the NGOs have in working with communities and their ability to provide holistic care and services beyond the medical model by involving a wide array of workers ranging from MH professionals to peer support providers is examined. The need for private–public partnership in MH is emphasized as the way forward along with leveraging digital technologies that has now come into sharp focus following the COVID pandemic.

The Evolution of Financial Services in the Digital Age

This chapter provides an overview of how digital technologies are transforming the financial services landscape. We highlight the latest in digital financial product and service offerings related to payments and transfers, savings and investments, borrowing, and risk management. We then consider how digitalization is impacting the delivery of financial advice-including virtual advisors, robo-and hybrid advisors, and personal finance communities. While many of these digital innovations were underway prior to COVID-19, the pandemic accelerated the transition raising concerns that some individuals and families may be at risk of being excluded from financial services due to growing socioeconomic and digital divides. We look at barriers to access and usage and emphasize the need for digital financial literacy. Legal and regulatory challenges are also examined. Particular attention is given to recent efforts by regulatory and supervisory authorities to balance innovation and competition with consumer protection. The insights from this chapter provide a useful starting place for scholars and practitioners who are interested in exploring in greater detail how digital technologies are impacting the financial services industry.

Local time evolution in Personal Communication Service model

We investigate the local time evolution in the Personal Communication Service (PCS) model simulated with the parallel discrete event simulation method’s optimistic algorithm. We propose a model for the optimistic local virtual time evolution (OLVT) in PCS, which is reminiscent of statistical physics’s surface growth. We use Rensselaer’s optimistic simulation system with the Time Warp implementation. We compare the results of the simulations of both PCS and OLVT models and found good agreement. We discuss the highlights of our approach in the analysis of scalability and synchronization using the OLVT model.

Evolution of Ride Services: From Taxicabs to Ride Hailing and Self-Driving Cars

In recent years decentralized Ride Hailing companies have gained significant market share at the expense of vertically-integrated Taxi companies. Yet, Ride Hailing companies also experienced substantial setbacks, and it is not clear what the endgame between these two competing business models will be. Further, emerging self-driving car technologies, which leads to another form of a vertically-integrated ride service poses further questions on how the industry will shape in the future. In this paper, we aim to gain insights about the evolution and the future of ride services under these two distinct business approaches. We model and analyze competition and entry between Vertically Integrated (VI) and decentralized Ride Hailing (RH) firms. Although the VI model has an advantage for being centralized, we find that when customers are patient, in competition, the RH firm predominantly gains the upper hand in the market with lower delays and higher prices, as well as higher market share and profits even if it has a cost disadvantage. Surprisingly, entry may reduce total vehicle supply, and tends to increase customer waiting times. When customers are impatient, the entry of an inefficient VI firm may even lead to a decrease in social welfare despite introducing competition. Our results provide insights into how decentralized Ride Hailing companies may have a strategic advantage to dominate the market due to their agility and the structure of their business model, and how this can sometimes hurt service quality. Conversely, regulators should also be cautious about subsidizing inefficient Taxi services or self-driving ride services with costly technologies.

Redefining the reference librarian in the university environment

The reference librarian and the services provided hold more than ever the attention of users at the “Dun?rea de Jos” University Library of Galati (DJULG). The Internet, technology and struggle for survival left a significant mark on both librarians' skills and reference services in the new context of the information society. In order to align with new trends in librarianship and to respond effectively to the increasingly complex demands of users, the reference librarians had to move beyond the traditional and reinvent themselves. As a result, new skills have been acquired and new services emerged in the information landscape of the university library. The paper examines the evolution of the reference services at DJULG over the last ten years, emphasizing the changes of the librarian profile in this area. The variety of information sources, the emergence of new information technologies, the movement on open access have been the main elements that contributed to the professional development of the reference librarian and the implementation of new models of services for users. The case of the university library in this study reveals different profiles of the reference librarian: researcher, educator in information literacy, bibliometrician, wikilibrarian, digital resources manager, reference manager etc. Not far from the truth, we can say that the reference librarian became a chameleon, from the perspective of information evolution and ensuring sustainable library services.

Evaluation Method of Traffic Safety Maintenance of High-Grade Highway

Abstract With the evolution of better highway services and larger traffic volume, the traditional maintenance management indicators can no longer satisfy the demands of highway traffic safety. In order to ensure timely, fast, safe, and reliable highway maintenance and repair, this paper proposes a road traffic safety maintenance evaluation method. The fuzzy maintenance evaluation method based on the gray correlation degree is used to construct the safety maintenance evaluation model. The damaged characteristics of the high-grade highway components are analysed. The parameters of the evaluation model are established using the analytic hierarchy process, and the accuracy of the model is verified through experiments. The results show that the safety service level can intuitively measure the maintenance and repair status of various transportation facilities. When the safety level is 1 (above 87 points) or 2 (above 85 points), the road maintenance and repair are in good condition and the road users have a high level of satisfaction on safety; when the safety level is 3 or 4 (80 points or less), it reflects that there are weak links in the road components, and targeted maintenance repairs are required. The results provide references for highway safety maintenance decision-making and improvement of highway traffic safety services to some extent.

The role of services in the environmental Kuznets curve

This paper examines the influence of services activity in the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model regarding carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The analysis is applied for Spain during the period 1940-2014. It compares the standard environmental Kuznets curve model and its modification by isolating the evolution of services effect. The results through the autoregressive distributed-lag (ARDL) estimation strategy confirm that even though all economic activities tend to be more and more sustainable, it is the evolution of services sector that becomes fundamental in the reduction of per capita CO2 emissions.

Opportunities for education and learning in primary care genomics

The continued evolution of the NHS Genomic Medicine Service, alongside improved accessibility to genomic testing through other routes, will increase consultations regarding genomics issues within primary care. GP trainees identify ‘genetics’ as a learning gap in their training, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that completion of this section in the curriculum is ‘challenging’. To support trainees and trainers in meeting this aspect of GP training, this article outlines relevant educational theory, initiatives and resources in genomics from a primary care perspective. This information will equip the learner with approaches and tools to promote confidence in learning and managing issues involving genomic medicine in practice.

Federal Reserve Economic Data: A History

This article describes the contributions of the Federal Reserve System to the production and distribution of economic data. First, we present a chronological account of those contributions. Next, we describe the origins and evolution of the data information services provided by the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) online database, its partnership with sources, and the profile of its users. Next, we review the data-related educational outreach efforts of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, presenting some evidence of their impact. A summary and several reflections on the future of economic data and education conclude the article. JEL Classifications: N22, E01, A20

Localization of Blockchain and E-Currency Model for E-Government Services

Blockchain can reduce bureaucracy and increase the efficiency and performance of administrative processes through a platform possessing features and attributes such as storing and exchanging electronic messages in a decentralized environment and executing high level of security transactions and transparency, if used in government public service delivery. Many scholars believe that this distributed technology can bring new utilizations to a variety of industries and fields, including finance and banking, economics, supply chain, and authentication and increase economic productivity and efficiency dramatically by transforming many industries in the context of today's economy. The present study, presents the characteristics of the localized blockchain and e-currency conceptual model for the evolution of e-government services. It also examines the impact of the blockchain and e-currency model on the economy and electronic financial transactions as a viable, practical and constructive solution (rather than blocking and filtering of e-currency and blockchain). Ultimately designing a localized block chain and e-currency model, has played an effective role in exploit its high potential to speed up the administrative processes and reduce costs related to electronic transactions and payments in e-government and increase e-government revenues and ultimately it can speed up the customer service delivery and increase their satisfaction with the government.

Employee Assistance Program response and evolution in light of COVID-19 pandemic

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have been responding for decades to challenges put forth by employers and employees. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth new considerations for EAPs and has also highlighted preexisting challenges to the EAP value proposition. This paper highlights those challenges using examples from a specific internal EAP (Mayo Clinic Rochester) and observations about overall EAP acute trends as well. The future of EAP and evolution of EAP services are discussed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Multi-scale evolution of ecosystem services’ supply in Sierra Nevada (Spain): An assessment over the last half-century

The supply of ecosystem services is largely determined by changes in land use and cover. Here, we analysed how the supply and interactions among four ecosystem services have evolved over five decades in a mountain biosphere reserve largely dominated by human land uses. We modelled pastures for livestock, crop production, aquifer recharge and erosion prevention based on land use maps along five years. Multi-scale analyses were conducted to show the temporal evolution of the spatial patterns and interactions among those ecosystem services at three nested spatial scales (biosphere reserve, watershed and cell level). The overall increase in the supply of pastures and erosion prevention and the decline of crops and aquifer recharge were closely related to the abandonment of traditional land uses, particularly during the first decades. At finer scales, our results revealed that the cell areas with significant interactions among services (i.e. trade-offs and synergies) decreased from 1956 to 2007. Such evolution of trade-offs and synergies seemed to be driven by management decisions on land-use changes. Finally, we discussed the implications of our results in the context of ecosystem services’ optimization through management actions on land uses in mountain areas.