User Priorities Research Articles

Service user involvement in mental health system strengthening in a rural African setting: qualitative study

BackgroundIt is essential to involve service users in efforts to expand access to mental health care in integrated primary care settings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, there is little evidence from LMICs to guide this process. The aim of this study was to explore barriers to, and facilitators of, service user/caregiver involvement in rural Ethiopia to inform the development of a scalable approach.MethodsThirty nine semi-structured interviews were carried out with purposively selected mental health service users (n = 13), caregivers (n = 10), heads of primary care facilities (n = 8) and policy makers/planners/service developers (n = 8). The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in Amharic, and translated into English. Thematic analysis was applied.ResultsAll groups of participants supported service user and caregiver involvement in mental health system strengthening. Potential benefits were identified as (i) improved appropriateness and quality of services, and (ii) greater protection against mistreatment and promotion of respect for service users. However, hardly any respondents had prior experience of service user involvement. Stigma was considered to be a pervasive barrier, operating within the health system, the local community and individuals. Competing priorities of service users included the need to obtain adequate individual care and to work for survival. Low recognition of the potential contribution of service users seemed linked to limited empowerment and mobilization of service users. Potential health system facilitators included a culture of community oversight of primary care services. All groups of respondents identified a need for awareness-raising and training to equip service users, caregivers, service providers and local community for involvement. Empowerment at the level of individual service users (information about mental health conditions, care and rights) and the group level (for advocacy and representation) were considered essential, alongside improved, accessible mental health care and livelihood interventions.ConclusionAs Ethiopia increases access to mental health care, a fundamental barrier to service user involvement is beginning to be addressed. Our study identified further barriers that need to be tackled, including a supportive political climate, and receptiveness amongst stakeholders. The findings will inform the development of a model of service user involvement, which will be piloted and evaluated.

Scheduling for telemedicine traffic transmission over WLANs

The major disadvantage of the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA, the contention-based channel access function of 802.11e) is that it is unable to guarantee priority access to higher priority traffic in the presence of significant traffic loads from low priority users. This problem is enhanced by the continuously growing number of multimedia applications and the popularity of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). Hence, solutions in scheduling multimedia traffic transmissions need to take into account both the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements and the Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with each application, especially those of urgent traffic, like telemedicine, which carries critical information regarding the patients’ condition. In this work, we propose an easy-to-implement token-based and self policing-based scheduling scheme combined with a mechanism designed to mitigate congestion. Our approach is shown to guarantee priority access to telemedicine traffic, to satisfy its QoS requirements (delay, packet dropping) and to offer high telemedicine video QoE while preventing bursty video nodes from over-using the medium.

Perceived Access to Water: Associations with Health in Rural Uganda

Water security has been associated with myriad health concerns. However, measures of access to water vary and may not reflect reality or user priorities, affecting our understanding of the effect of water security on health. This study aimed to: 1) examine relationships between established measures and perceived access to water; and 2) compare the ability of established measures versus a perceived measure to predict health outcomes. Data collection included baseline anthropometrics, bi-monthly morbidity histories, and a final survey over a four-month period among 100 households in Uganda’s rural, semi-arid savannah. Hierarchical regression models were fitted to test relationships. Despite low water security, 68% of participants did not report illness. Perceptions of better access was significantly associated with fewer minutes walking to source and, surprisingly, with fewer litres collected yesterday/person. Perceived better access (β=-0.09, p<0.10) and more public ownership (β =-0.09, p<0.10) were associated with lower percentage time ill. Both effects were small. Understanding of the drivers of perceived water access may provide useful insights into social dimensions of water security, which may influence health.

Task-specific usability requirements of electronic medical records systems: Lessons learned from a national survey of end-users

ABSTRACTBackground: There are various approaches to evaluating the usability of electronic medical record (EMR) systems. User perspectives are an integral part of evaluation. Usability evaluations efficiently and effectively contribute to user-centered design and supports tasks and increase user satisfaction. This study determined the main usability requirements for EMRs by means of an end-user survey. Method: A mixed-method strategy was conducted in three phases. A qualitative approach was employed to collect and formulate EMR usability requirements using the focus group method and the modified Delphi technique. Classic Delphi technique was used to evaluate the proposed requirements among 380 end-users in Iran. Results: The final list of EMR usability requirements was verified and included 163 requirements divided into nine groups. The highest rates of end-user agreement relate to EMR visual clarity (3.65 ± 0.61), fault tolerance (3.58 ± 0.56), and suitability for learning (3.55 ± 0.54). The lowest end-user agreement was for auditory presentation (3.18 ± 0.69). Conclusion: The highest and lowest agreement among end-users was for visual clarity and auditory presentation by EMRs, respectively. This suggests that user priorities in determination of EMR usability and their understanding of the importance of the types of individual tasks and context characteristics differ.

Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation for Mobile-Edge Computation Offloading

Mobile-edge computation offloading (MECO) off-loads intensive mobile computation to clouds located at the edges of cellular networks. Thereby, MECO is envisioned as a promising technique for prolonging the battery lives and enhancing the computation capacities of mobiles. In this paper, we study resource allocation for a multiuser MECO system based on time-division multiple access (TDMA) and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA). First, for the TDMA MECO system with infinite or finite cloud computation capacity, the optimal resource allocation is formulated as a convex optimization problem for minimizing the weighted sum mobile energy consumption under the constraint on computation latency. The optimal policy is proved to have a threshold-based structure with respect to a derived offloading priority function , which yields priorities for users according to their channel gains and local computing energy consumption. As a result, users with priorities above and below a given threshold perform complete and minimum offloading, respectively. Moreover, for the cloud with finite capacity, a sub-optimal resource-allocation algorithm is proposed to reduce the computation complexity for computing the threshold. Next, we consider the OFDMA MECO system, for which the optimal resource allocation is formulated as a mixed-integer problem. To solve this challenging problem and characterize its policy structure, a low-complexity sub-optimal algorithm is proposed by transforming the OFDMA problem to its TDMA counterpart. The corresponding resource allocation is derived by defining an average offloading priority function and shown to have close-to-optimal performance in simulation.

Knowledge Work in Context

There is an increase in stress during the job. This can lead to health issues such as burn-out for employees. In the SWELL project (http://www.swell-project.net) we investigate intelligent ICT solutions that can support knowledge workers to achieve a healthy way of living at work and at home. One of the causes of stress at work is the problem of 'information overload'. The availability of smartphones and tables with continuous internet access causes individuals to become overwhelmed with information. It becomes more difficult to separate work and home, but also to find the information you need to execute your work properly. A possible solution to this problem is to make application more 'context-aware'. This means that the application understands what a person is doing, such that it can provide the optimal support at the optimal time. This is the underlying motivation for this thesis. This thesis consists of three parts. In the first part we discuss the question "How can we design, develop and evaluate context-aware methods that make knowledge work more effective and efficient?" To answer this question, we have observed knowledge workers during their activities and collected data about their behavior. From these we can conclude that many intentions and goals of the knowledge worker are implicit, and cannot be recognized easily [1,4]. We can, however, get a feeling of the knowledge worker's intentions by observing his interactions with the computer (i.e. key presses and mouse activity). The challenge in this type of data is that it contains a significant amount of noise. In the second part of the thesis we model the context that is necessary to support the knowledge worker in a context-aware manner. The context model is dynamic and driven by events in the surroundings of the knowledge worker. The knowledge worker is in the center of the model, but the context also influences the knowledge worker himself. The context can be observed with sensors that are independent from the knowledge worker, but the interpretation of the context can only be achieved in combination with the knowledge worker. In this part we also describe the Contextual Interactive Activation Model (CIA) that can recognize the context of the knowledge worker automatically based on his or her interactions with the computer [2]. Based purely on data, without intervention by a user, it can already recognize the user's context. Enhanced with only a few example it can also identify the context, meaning that it can put a label on it, for example project 'Dissertation'. In the final part of the thesis we describe algorithms that support knowledge workers while requiring little user input. One of the application is the categorization of e-mail messages, for example based on whether they need to be replied to or not, or based on which project the message belongs to. For this later categorization problem, we use an adapted version of CIA [2]. The advantage of CIA is that it requires less training examples than existing methods. In another application we use CIA to find documents without the need for a query [5]. We describe the requirements for evaluation of these kind of recommendation systems and conclude that a multidimensional evaluation is important. Each method has its own benefits and issues and the best method is dependent on the user's priorities. The main limitation of the thesis is that it is explorative in nature. Little data was available to test our methods and hypotheses; therefore, the conclusions cannot be generalized easily. This illustrates the need to collect more datasets that reflect the complexity of the knowledge worker, his tasks and his context. Future research need to investigate the effect of using context-aware applications on the knowledge worker's well-being. One of the remaining question is which supporting application to use at which time. In an ideal case we can combine these methods and application to support the knowledge worker in such a way that he or she is not required to put in a lot of effort.

User's priority focused resource provisioning over cloud computing infrastructure

Resource provisioning is the process of activating a bundle of allocated quantity of resources to bear the user requests. The scheduling algorithm plays a vital role in effective utilisation of resources, though resource allocation fails to achieve user satisfaction. To overcome this failure, Drip Irrigation-based Resource Allocation (DRA) scheduling algorithm is proposed to exploit the user priority on the basis of the reputation of the users who frequently request the resources. This algorithm works in three stages, namely resource selection, resource matching and drip-based resource allocation, where the unallocated requests are divided into smaller sub-tasks and limited available resources are allocated to them. Simulation results demonstrate that the drip-based resource scheduling mechanism is effective in satisfying the users' diverse requirements by considering their priority. Compared to the First Come First Serve (FCFS) and UFeed algorithms this performs better in terms of resource utilisation rate and satisfies more users in the cloud system.

User's priority focused resource provisioning over cloud computing infrastructure

Resource provisioning is the process of activating a bundle of allocated quantity of resources to bear the user requests. The scheduling algorithm plays a vital role in effective utilisation of resources, though resource allocation fails to achieve user satisfaction. To overcome this failure, Drip Irrigation-based Resource Allocation (DRA) scheduling algorithm is proposed to exploit the user priority on the basis of the reputation of the users who frequently request the resources. This algorithm works in three stages, namely resource selection, resource matching and drip-based resource allocation, where the unallocated requests are divided into smaller sub-tasks and limited available resources are allocated to them. Simulation results demonstrate that the drip-based resource scheduling mechanism is effective in satisfying the users' diverse requirements by considering their priority. Compared to the First Come First Serve (FCFS) and UFeed algorithms this performs better in terms of resource utilisation rate and satisfies more users in the cloud system.

Modeling and Analysis of Non-Orthogonal MBMS Transmission in Heterogeneous Networks

Broadcasting/multicasting is an efficient mechanism for multimedia communications due to its high spectrum efficiency, which achieves point-to-multipoint transmission on the same radio resources. To satisfy the increasing demands for multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS), we present a power domain non-orthogonal MBMS transmission scheme in a K-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet). Firstly, the system model, usage scenarios, and fundamentals of the presented scheme are discussed. Next, a tractable framework is developed to analyse the performance of non-orthogonal MBMS transmission, by using stochastic geometry. Based on this framework, the analytical expressions for the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) coverage probability, average number of served users, and sum rate are derived. Furthermore, synchronous non-orthogonal MBMS transmission to further improving the system performance is also studied. The results demonstrate that non-orthogonal MBMS transmission can achieve better performance than the conventional one, in which non-orthogonal multirate one can fully utilize channel conditions to achieve a significant rate gain, while non-orthogonal multi-service one can efficiently use power resources to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) of high priority users, and also provide services for low priority users simultaneously.

ВПРОВАДЖЕННЯ МСФЗ ЯК ОДИН ІЗ ФАКТОРІВ ПОКРАЩЕННЯ ІНВЕСТИЦІЙНОГО КЛІМАТУ В УКРАЇНІ

The article is devoted to the study of the impact of the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on changes in the investment climate in Ukraine. The relevance of the topic is that improving the practice of applying IFRS as a tool for exchanging financial information is one of the key conditions for improving the investment climate in Ukraine. The authors have created the generalized scheme that illustrates the chronological list of enterprises that are required by law to prepare financial statements in accordance with IFRS. It was noted that in 2018, in accordance with Part 2 of Article 12 of the law on accounting and financial reporting in Ukraine and resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 547 from 11.07.2018, the criteria of enterprises that are required to prepare financial statements in accordance with IFRS were updated. This step significantly increased the level of application of international standards due to the adoption of such a decision at the legislative level. The dynamics of the number of IFRS enterprises in Ukraine was analyzed. The analysis showed that over the past three years, the number of almost all enterprises that must apply international standards has been growing. The advantages of using IFRS for different users of financial statements were determined. It was determined that the priority users of IFRS financial statements are investors. At the same time, it was noted that the main advantage for other users of financial statements prepared in accordance with international standards is the improvement of the investment climate. The dynamics of the Investment Attractiveness Index of Ukraine based on the Likert scale in the period from 2016 to 2020 was analyzed. The direct investment receipts to Ukraine from the European Union countries were studied. The dynamics of direct investment in the Ukrainian economy was analyzed for two types of economic activities that should form financial statements in accordance with IFRS, namely, the extractive industry and quarrying, as well as financial and insurance activities.

Концепция механизма адаптивного управления сетевыми ресурсами

The concept of a mechanism for adaptive control of resources available in a corporate computer network is considered. The main trends in the development of computer networks are described, and the main problems requiring additional research and development are pointed out. The existing methods for distributing load among the available network resources in an automated manner are subjected to a comparative analysis. A mechanism for adaptively altering the network users’ priorities and redirecting the transactions forming the data traffic flows in the peak load modes on the basis of software-defined networking principle is proposed. An algorithm for implementing the developed mechanism is presented. The objective that has been set forth is solved by integrating a dedicated controller into the corporate computer network topology. The abovementioned controller is essentially a computerized module that performs the basic functions of monitoring the network resources, identifying the priority pairs of users initiated the transmission of data blocks, determining the backup routes, creating a data flow tables, and assigning the shaped flows to the network switches. An example corporate computer network is considered, in which high-performance host machines exchange large amounts of data in the real time mode using the main and backup communication channels. The feasibility of the proposed concept of the adaptive network resource control mechanism has been confirmed experimentally. The results of experimental testing carried out on a corporate computer network fragment are presented, which confirm an increase in the data transmission rate between a pair of priority users in comparison with the channel aggregation mechanism.

Library in the Market of Services: the New Trends and Modern Approaches

There is substantiated the need for updating the work of the modern domestic public libraries, transformation of their traditional functions and the priority user orientation. It is proved that the information-resource component of the library activities becomes equivalent to its socializing cultural-leisure and interpersonal communication functions. The complex character of modernization of the activity of public libraries with a view to increasing their relevance is considered. The analysis of the library’s competitive environment is presented (free virtual access to information, the book trade market relevant by content and presentation, a variety of event-related leisure, comfortable public places, etc.) and its possible advantages in specific, functional and price competition. There is emphasized the urgency of reorganization of the library space-formation of the comfortable barrier-free attractive user environment. The advocacy activity of the library is considered as the direction, aimed at formation of the loyal attitude of modern society to the library and perception of it. There are identified the key parameters for the successful activity of public library as a territory for the new opportunities — an information-knowledge and a socio-cultural center, an actual place for the positive personal development practices and knowledgeable leisure, an accessible public platform for the personal self-realization.

К 40-летию кафедры прикладной математики: исследования и разработки в области обучения, программирования, информационных технологий и искусственного интеллекта

The concept of a mechanism for adaptive control of resources available in a corporate computer network is considered. The main trends in the development of computer networks are described, and the main problems requiring additional research and development are pointed out. The existing methods for distributing load among the available network resources in an automated manner are subjected to a comparative analysis. A mechanism for adaptively altering the network users’ priorities and redirecting the transactions forming the data traffic flows in the peak load modes on the basis of software-defined networking principle is proposed. An algorithm for implementing the developed mechanism is presented. The objective that has been set forth is solved by integrating a dedicated controller into the corporate computer network topology. The above-mentioned controller is essentially a computerized module that performs the basic functions of monitoring the network resources, identifying the priority pairs of users initiated the transmission of data blocks, determining the backup routes, creating a data flow tables, and assigning the shaped flows to the network switches. An example corporate computer network is considered, in which high-performance host machines exchange large amounts of data in the real time mode using the main and backup communication channels. The feasibility of the proposed concept of the adaptive network resource control mechanism has been confirmed experimentally. The results of experimental testing carried out on a corporate computer network fragment are presented, which confirm an increase in the data transmission rate between a pair of priority users in comparison with the channel aggregation mechanism.

Towards completely fair scheduling on asymmetric single-ISA multicore processors

Single-ISA asymmetric multicore processors (AMPs), which combine high-performance big cores with low-power small cores, were shown to deliver higher performance per watt than symmetric CMPs (Chip Multi-Processors). Previous work has highlighted that this potential of AMP systems can be realizable via OS scheduling. To date, most existing scheduling schemes for AMPs have been designed to optimize the system throughput, but they are inherently unfair. Although fairness-aware schedulers have been also proposed, they fail to effectively deal with user priorities and do not always ensure that equal-priority applications experience a similar slowdown. To overcome these limitations, we propose ACFS, an asymmetry-aware completely fair scheduler that seeks to optimize fairness while ensuring acceptable throughput. Our evaluation on real AMP hardware and using scheduler implementations in the Linux kernel demonstrates that ACFS achieves an average 23% fairness improvement over two state-of-the-art schemes, while providing higher system throughput.

Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA Protocol for WBAN Medical Scenario through DTMC Model.

The newly drafted IEEE 802.15.6 standard for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) has been concentrating on a numerous medical and non-medical applications. Such short range wireless communication standard offers ultra-low power consumption with variable data rates from few Kbps to Mbps in, on or around the proximity of the human body. In this paper, the performance analysis of carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme based on IEEE 802.15.6 standard in terms of throughput, reliability, clear channel assessment (CCA) failure probability, packet drop probability, and end-to-end delay has been presented. We have developed a discrete-time Markov chain (DTMC) to significantly evaluate the performances of IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA under non-ideal channel condition having saturated traffic condition including node wait time and service time. We also visualize that, as soon as the payload length increases the CCA failure probability increases, which results in lower node's reliability. Also, we have calculated the end-to-end delay in order to prioritize the node wait time cause by backoff and retransmission. The user priority (UP) wise DTMC analysis has been performed to show the importance of the standard especially for medical scenario.

Identifying the most suitable road crossing infrastructure based on estimated delay to pedestrians and vehicle users

Worldwide guidelines have been studied to identify the most common parameters being considered for making a decision regarding identification of most suitable road crossing infrastructure. Delay being the most common parameter needs to be considered to make a decision regarding most suitable crossing infrastructure. This study proposes a methodology to select road crossing infrastructure type based on the delay caused to pedestrians and vehicle passengers. To estimate the average delay caused to pedestrians and vehicle users, data through videography have been collected at six locations in Delhi. At all six locations, average delay caused to pedestrians and vehicles users has been estimated using existing methods suitable for Indian traffic conditions and behavior. Total delay caused to all pedestrians and vehicle users has been calculated based on average delay, traffic volume count and number of pedestrians. Estimated gross delay for all users (total delay of pedestrians and vehicle users) for alternate road crossing infrastructures (at-grade signalized and grade-separated) has been compared to identify the one which causes minimum gross delay. Total delay has been compared for various scenarios developed considering the equal and higher priority for non-motorized and public transport users compared to personalized vehicle users.

Multiple Objective Optimization in Reliability Demonstration Tests

Reliability demonstration tests are usually performed in product design or validation processes to demonstrate whether a product meets specified requirements on reliability. For binomial demonstration tests, the zero-failure test has been most commonly used due to its simplicity and use of minimum sample size to achieve an acceptable consumer's risk level. However, this test can often result in unacceptably high risk for producers as well as a low probability of passing the test even when the product has good reliability. This paper explicitly explores the interrelationship between multiple objectives that are commonly of interest when planning a demonstration test and proposes structured decision-making procedures using a Pareto front approach for selecting an optimal test plan based on simultaneously balancing multiple criteria. Different strategies are suggested for scenarios with different user priorities and graphical tools are developed to help quantify the trade-offs between choices and to facilitate informed decision making. Potential impacts of some subjective user inputs on the final decision are studied to offer insights and useful guidance for general applications.

Equilibrium analysis of an opportunistic spectrum access mechanism with imperfect sensing results

In order to reduce the average delay of secondary user (SU) packets and adapt to various levels of tolerance for transmission interruption, we propose a novel opportunistic channel access mechanism with admission threshold and probabilistic feedback in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). Considering the preemptive priority of primary user (PU) packets, as well as the sensing errors of missed detection and false alarm caused by SUs, we establish a type of priority queueing model in which two classes of customers may interfere with each other. Based on this queueing model, we evaluate numerically the proposed mechanism and then present the system performance optimization. By employing a matrix-geometric solution, we derive the expressions for some important performance measures. Then, by building a reward function, we investigate the strategies for both the Nash equilibrium and the social optimization. Finally, we provide a pricing policy for SU packets to coordinate these two strategies. With numerical experiments, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed opportunistic channel access mechanism and the rationality of the proposed pricing policy.

Performance Optimization of Priority Assisted CSMA/CA Mechanism of 802.15.6 under Saturation Regime

Due to the recent development in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), the Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have become a major area of interest for the developers and researchers. Human body exhibits postural mobility due to which distance variation occurs and the status of connections amongst sensors change time to time. One of the major requirements of WBAN is to prolong the network lifetime without compromising on other performance measures, i.e., delay, throughput and bandwidth efficiency. Node prioritization is one of the possible solutions to obtain optimum performance in WBAN. IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA standard splits the nodes with different user priorities based on Contention Window (CW) size. Smaller CW size is assigned to higher priority nodes. This standard helps to reduce delay, however, it is not energy efficient. In this paper, we propose a hybrid node prioritization scheme based on IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA to reduce energy consumption and maximize network lifetime. In this scheme, optimum performance is achieved by node prioritization based on CW size as well as power in respective user priority. Our proposed scheme reduces the average back off time for channel access due to CW based prioritization. Additionally, power based prioritization for a respective user priority helps to minimize required number of retransmissions. Furthermore, we also compare our scheme with IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA standard (CW assisted node prioritization) and power assisted node prioritization under postural mobility in WBAN. Mathematical expressions are derived to determine the accurate analytical model for throughput, delay, bandwidth efficiency, energy consumption and life time for each node prioritization scheme. With the intention of analytical model validation, we have performed the simulations in OMNET++/MIXIM framework. Analytical and simulation results show that our proposed hybrid node prioritization scheme outperforms other node prioritization schemes in terms of average network delay, average throughput, average bandwidth efficiency and network lifetime.

User Association With Unequal User Priorities in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

In heterogeneous networks (HetNets), the load between macrocell base stations (MBSs) and small-cell base stations (SBSs) is imbalanced due to their different transmission powers and locations. This load imbalance significantly impacts system performance and affects the experience of mobile users (MUs) with different priorities. In this paper, we aim to distributively optimize the user association in HetNets with various user priorities to solve the load balancing problem. Since the user association is a binary matching problem, which is NP-hard, we propose a distributed belief propagation (BP) algorithm to approach the optimal solution. We first develop a factor graph model, using the network topology, to represent this user association problem. With this factor graph, we propose a novel distributed BP algorithm by adopting the proportional fairness as the objective. Next, we theoretically prove the existence of the fixed point in our BP algorithm. To be more practical, we develop an approximation method to significantly reduce the computational and communication complexity of the BP algorithm. Furthermore, we analyze some properties of the factor graph relevant to the performance of the BP algorithm using the stochastic geometry. Simulation results show that 1) the proposed BP algorithm well approaches the optimal system performance and achieves a much better performance compared with other association schemes and that 2) the analytical results on the average degree distribution and sparsity of the factor graph match with those obtained from the Monte Carlo simulations.