Decreasing water pollution is a big problem in coastal waters. Coastal health of ecosystems can be affected by high concentrations of suspended sediment. In this work, a Modified Hopfield Neural Network Algorithm (MHNNA) was used with remote sensing imagery to classify the total suspended solids (TSS) concentrations in the waters of coastal Langkawi Island, Malaysia. The adopted remote sensing image is the Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) image acquired on 18 January 2010. Our modification allows the Hopfield neural network to convert and classify color satellite images. The samples were collected from the study area simultaneously with the acquiring of satellite imagery. The sample locations were determined using a handheld global positioning system (GPS). The TSS concentration measurements were conducted in a lab and used for validation (real data), classification, and accuracy assessments. Mapping was achieved by using the MHNNA to classify the concentrations according to their reflectance values in band 1, band 2, and band 3. The TSS map was color-coded for visual interpretation. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm was investigated by dividing the validation data into two groups. The first group was used as source samples for supervisor classification via the MHNNA. The second group was used to test the MHNNA efficiency. After mapping, the locations of the second group in the produced classes were detected. Next, the correlation coefficient (R) and root mean square error (RMSE) were calculated between the two groups, according to their corresponding locations in the classes. The MHNNA exhibited a higher R (0.977) and lower RMSE (2.887). In addition, we test the MHNNA with noise, where it proves its accuracy with noisy images over a range of noise levels. All results have been compared with a minimum distance classifier (Min-Dis). Therefore, TSS mapping of polluted water in the coastal Langkawi Island, Malaysia can be performed using the adopted MHNNA with remote sensing techniques (as based on ALOS images).
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
Digital elevation model (DEM) plays a vital role in hydrological modelling and environmental studies. Many essential layers can be extracted from this land surface information, including slope, aspect, rivers, and curvature. Therefore, DEM quality and accuracy will affect the extracted features and the whole process of modeling. Despite freely available DEMs from various sources, many researchers generate this information for their areas from various observations. Sentinal-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are among the best Earth observations for DEM generation thanks to their availabilities, high-resolution, and C-band sensitivity to surface structure. This paper presents a comparative study, from a hydrological point of view, on the quality and reliability of the DEMs generated from Sentinel-1 data and DEMs from other sources such as AIRSAR, ALOS-PALSAR, TanDEM-X, and SRTM. To this end, pair of Sentinel-1 data were acquired and processed using the SAR interferometry technique to produce a DEM for two different study areas of a part of the Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia, a part of Sanandaj, Iran. Based on the estimated linear regression and standard errors, generating DEM from Sentinel-1 did not yield promising results. The river streams for all DEMs were extracted using geospatial analysis tool in a geographic information system (GIS) environment. The results indicated that because of the higher spatial resolution (compared to SRTM and TanDEM-X), more stream orders were delineated from AIRSAR and Sentinel-1 DEMs. Due to the shorter perpendicular baseline, the phase decorrelation in the created DEM resulted in a lot of noise. At the same time, results from ground control points (GCPs) showed that the created DEM from Sentinel-1 is not promising. Therefore, other DEMs' performance, such as 90-meters' TanDEM-X and 30-meters' SRTM, are better than Sentinel-1 DEM (with a better spatial resolution).
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
Due to the lack of dependency for routing initiation and an inadequate allocated sextant on responding messages, the secure geographic routing protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have attracted considerable attention. However, the existing protocols are more likely to drop packets when legitimate nodes fail to respond to the routing initiation messages while attackers in the allocated sextant manage to respond. Furthermore, these protocols are designed with inefficient collection window and inadequate verification criteria which may lead to a high number of attacker selections. To prevent the failure to find an appropriate relay node and undesirable packet retransmission, this paper presents Secure Region-Based Geographic Routing Protocol (SRBGR) to increase the probability of selecting the appropriate relay node. By extending the allocated sextant and applying different message contention priorities more legitimate nodes can be admitted in the routing process. Moreover, the paper also proposed the bound collection window for a sufficient collection time and verification cost for both attacker identification and isolation. Extensive simulation experiments have been performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol in comparison with other existing protocols. The results demonstrate that SRBGR increases network performance in terms of the packet delivery ratio and isolates attacks such as Sybil and Black hole.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems/economics
The evaluation of Health Information Systems (HIS)-induced medication errors is crucial in efforts to understand its cause, impact and mitigation measures when trying to minimize errors and increase patient safety. A review of evaluation studies on HIS-induced medication errors was carried out, which indicated the need to further structure complex socio technical aspects of the subject. In order to satisfy this requirement, a new framework was introduced for the evaluation of HIS-induced error management in clinical settings. The proposed HO(P)T-fit framework (Human, Organization, Process and Technology-fit) was developed after critically appraising existing findings in HIS related evaluation studies. It also builds on previous models related to HIS evaluation, in particular, the HOT-fit (Human, Organization, Process and Technology-fit) framework, error model, business process management, Lean method, and medication workflow. HOPT-fit incorporates the concept of fit between the four factors. The framework has the potential to be used as a tool to conduct a structured, systematic, and comprehensive HIS evaluation.
Blockchain in healthcare applications requires robust security and privacy mechanism for high-level authentication, interoperability and medical records sharing to comply with the strict legal requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Blockchain technology in the healthcare industry has received considerable research attention in recent years. This study conducts a review to substantially analyse and map the research landscape of current technologies, mainly the use of blockchain in healthcare applications, into a coherent taxonomy. The present study systematically searches all relevant research articles on blockchain in healthcare applications in three accessible databases, namely, ScienceDirect, IEEE and Web of Science, by using the defined keywords 'blockchain', 'healthcare' and 'electronic health records' and their variations. The final set of collected articles related to the use of blockchain in healthcare application is divided into three categories. The first category includes articles (i.e. 43/58 scientific articles) that attempted to develop and design healthcare applications integrating blockchain, particularly those on new architecture, system designs, framework, scheme, model, platform, approach, protocol and algorithm. The second category includes studies (i.e., 6/58 scientific articles) that attempted to evaluate and analyse the adoption of blockchain in the healthcare system. Finally, the third category comprises review and survey articles (i.e., 6/58 scientific articles) related to the integration of blockchain into healthcare applications. The final articles for review are discussed on the basis of five aspects: (1) year of publication, (2) nationality of authors, (3) publishing house or journal, (4) purpose of using blockchain in health applications and the corresponding contributions and (5) problem types and proposed solutions. Additionally, this study provides identified motivations, open challenges and recommendations on the use of blockchain in healthcare applications. The current research contributes to the literature by providing a detailed review of feasible alternatives and identifying the research gaps. Accordingly, researchers and developers are provided with appealing opportunities to further develop decentralised healthcare applications through a comprehensive discussion of about the importance of blockchain and its integration into various healthcare applications.
Matched MeSH terms: Information Systems/organization & administration*; Information Systems/standards
Clinical information systems have long been used in intensive care units but reports on their adoption and benefits are limited. This study evaluated a Critical Care Information System implementation.
Matched MeSH terms: Hospital Information Systems/utilization*
Malaria remains a major health problem in Sudan. With a population exceeding 39 million, there are around 7.5 million cases and 35,000 deaths every year. The predicted distribution of malaria derived from climate factors such as maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall and relative humidity was compared with the actual number of malaria cases in Sudan for the period 2004 to 2010. The predictive calculations were done by fuzzy logic suitability (FLS) applied to the numerical distribution of malaria transmission based on the life cycle characteristics of the Anopheles mosquito accounting for the impact of climate factors on malaria transmission. This information is visualized as a series of maps (presented in video format) using a geographical information systems (GIS) approach. The climate factors were found to be suitable for malaria transmission in the period of May to October, whereas the actual case rates of malaria were high from June to November indicating a positive correlation. While comparisons between the prediction model for June and the case rate model for July did not show a high degree of association (18%), the results later in the year were better, reaching the highest level (55%) for October prediction and November case rate.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
The comparability and reliability of global positioning system (GPS) devices during running protocols associated with team-sports was investigated. Fourteen moderately-trained males completed 690 m of straight-line movements, a 570 m change of direction (COD) course and a 642.5 m team-sport simulated circuit (TSSC); on two occasions. Participants wore a FieldWiz GPS device and a Catapult MinimaxX S4 10-Hz GPS device. Typical error of measurement (TE) and coefficient of variation (CV%) were calculated between GPS devices, for the variables of total distance and peak speed. Reliability comparisons were made within FieldWiz GPS devices, between sessions. Small TE were observed between FieldWiz and Catapult GPS devices for total distance and peak speed during straight-line (16.9 m [2%], 1.2 km·h-1 [4%]), COD (31.8 m [6%], 0.4 km·h-1 [2%]) and TSSC protocols (12.9 m [2%], 0.5 km·h-1 [2%]), respectively, with no significant mean bias (p > 0.05). Small TE were also observed for the FieldWiz GPS device between sessions (p > 0.05) for straight-line (9.6 m [1%], 0.2 km·h-1 [1%]), COD (12.8 m [2%], 0.2 km·h-1 [1%]) and TSSC protocols (6.9 m [1%], 0.6 km·h-1 [2%]), respectively. Data from the FieldWiz GPS device appears comparable to established devices and reliable across a range of movement patterns associated with team-sports.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems/instrumentation*
Enterprise Architecture (EA) implementation evaluation provides a set of methods and practices for evaluating the EA implementation artefacts within an EA implementation project. There are insufficient practices in existing EA evaluation models in terms of considering all EA functions and processes, using structured methods in developing EA implementation, employing matured practices, and using appropriate metrics to achieve proper evaluation. The aim of this research is to develop a hybrid evaluation method that supports achieving the objectives of EA implementation. To attain this aim, the first step is to identify EA implementation evaluation practices. To this end, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted. Second, the proposed hybrid method was developed based on the foundation and information extracted from the SLR, semi-structured interviews with EA practitioners, program theory evaluation and Information Systems (ISs) evaluation. Finally, the proposed method was validated by means of a case study and expert reviews. This research provides a suitable foundation for researchers who wish to extend and continue this research topic with further analysis and exploration, and for practitioners who would like to employ an effective and lightweight evaluation method for EA projects.
Matched MeSH terms: Information Systems/organization & administration*; Information Systems/standards
Precise navigation is a vital need for many modern vehicular applications. The global positioning system (GPS) cannot provide continuous navigation information in urban areas. The widely used inertial navigation system (INS) can provide full vehicle state at high rates. However, the accuracy diverges quickly in low cost microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based INS due to bias, drift, noise, and other errors. These errors can be corrected in a stationary state. But detecting stationary state is a challenging task. A novel stationary state detection technique from the variation of acceleration, heading, and pitch and roll of an attitude heading reference system (AHRS) built from the inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors is proposed. Besides, the map matching (MM) algorithm detects the intersections where the vehicle is likely to stop. Combining these two results, the stationary state is detected with a smaller timing window of 3 s. A longer timing window of 5 s is used when the stationary state is detected only from the AHRS. The experimental results show that the stationary state is correctly identified and the position error is reduced to 90% and outperforms previously reported work. The proposed algorithm would help to reduce INS errors and enhance the performance of the navigation system.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems/standards*
The author spent 6 months as director of a major university hospital accident and emergency department in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A brief summary of this experience is provided, followed by a series of recommendations based on the experience that may provide some guidance in future efforts to establish emergency medicine in developing areas of the world.
Healthcare for elderly people has become a vital issue. The Wearable Health Monitoring System (WHMS) is used to manage and monitor chronic disease in elderly people, postoperative rehabilitation patients and persons with special needs. Location-aware healthcare is achievable as positioning systems and telecommunications have been developed and have fulfilled the technology needed for this kind of healthcare system. In this paper, the researchers propose a Location-Based Mobile Cardiac Emergency System (LMCES) to track the patient's current location when Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has been activated as well as to locate the nearest healthcare unit for the ambulance service. The location coordinates of the patients can be retrieved by GPS and sent to the healthcare centre using GPRS. The location of the patient, cell ID information will also be transmitted to the LMCES server in order to retrieve the nearest health care unit. For the LMCES, we use Dijkstra's algorithm for selecting the shortest path between the nearest healthcare unit and the patient location in order to facilitate the ambulance's path under critical conditions.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems/instrumentation*
The aim of this paper is to review the potentialities and major methodological challenges
of integrating remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) with socioeconomic data
from published articles or book chapters. RS and GIS combined with social science (SS)(termed as
geoinformation technology) serve many applications for sustainable management and monitoring of
the environment. This combined approach gives more accurate results than the single one. It makes
information available about the trend and pattern of land use and land cover change (LUCC) with
socioeconomic variables like population, demographic or income. This combined study which links
RS and GIS with socioeconomic data can also be used successfully for monitoring transmission rate
of disease and mapping or preparing vulnerability index. For impact assessment and modelling, this
combined technology provides better results than the single one. There are some methodological
problems for the researchers to link completely two different disciplines as the object of study and
observational unit is completely different. However, this interdisciplinary study is gaining popularity
day by day to researchers from different disciplines as well as decision makers.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
The selection of landfill, which happens to be an environmental issue, has attracted
the attention of many researchers from the fields of waste management and
environmental sciences worldwide. Hence, in the attempt to overcome this problem,
some decision-making techniques, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), have been widely utilized in prior studies,
where multiple criteria, particularly in site selection process, have been employed.
With that, this article identifies the selection criteria for landfill selection and presents
a review concerning decision-making techniques that have been used in past studies
for two important phases involved during the process of site selection, namely, (1)
preliminary site screening, and (2) assessment of site suitability. As such, some 82
articles chosen from 34 peer-reviewed journals had been investigated in detail. The
results showed that 42.68% of the selected articles integrated GIS and MCDA
techniques to solve the problem of landfill site selection, and this is followed by
integrating GIS and fuzzy MCDA technique (18.29%). Both these techniques are indeed
powerful tools that can guide decision-makers to solve problems in making decisions
on the basis of various criteria under certainty and uncertainty results, mainly involving
environmental issues.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
In the backdrop of prompt advancement, information and communication technology (ICT) has become an inevitable part to plan and design of modern solid waste management (SWM) systems. This study presents a critical review of the existing ICTs and their usage in SWM systems to unfold the issues and challenges towards using integrated technologies based system. To plan, monitor, collect and manage solid waste, the ICTs are divided into four categories such as spatial technologies, identification technologies, data acquisition technologies and data communication technologies. The ICT based SWM systems classified in this paper are based on the first three technologies while the forth one is employed by almost every systems. This review may guide the reader about the basics of available ICTs and their application in SWM to facilitate the search for planning and design of a sustainable new system.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
Malaysia is in the process of modernizing its oil palm plantation management, by implementing geo-information technologies which include Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS), and Spatial Decision Support System (DSS). Agencies with large oil palm plantations such as the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (FELCRA), Guthrie Sdn. Bhd., and Golden Hope Sdn. Bhd. have already incorporated GIS in their plantation management, with limited use of RS and DSS. In 2005, FELCRA, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Espatial Resources Sdn. Bhd. (ESR) collaborated in a research project to explore the potentials of geo-informatics for oil palm plantation management. The research was conducted in FELCRA located in Seberang Perak Oil Palm Scheme. In that research, a tool integrating RS, GIS and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was developed to support decision making for replanting of the existing old palms. RS was used to extract productive stand per hectare; AHP was used to compute the criteria weights for the development of a suitable model; and GIS was used for spatial modelling so as to generate the decision support layer for replanting. This paper highlights the approach adopted in developing the tool with special emphasis on the AHP computation.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems
In this article we present a standardized dataset on 6659 songbirds (Passeriformes) highlighting information relevant to species conservation prioritization with a main focus to support the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Data were collected from both scientific and grey literature as well as several online databases. The data are structured into six knowledge categories: Conventions and Treaties, Human Use, Extinction Risk, Management Opportunities, Biological Information, and Intrinsic Values. The Conventions and Treaties category includes the listings for two international conventions, CITES and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), as well as EU listings for the EU Wildlife Trade Regulations and the EU Birds Directive. The Human Use category contains information on both regulated trade collected from the CITES Trade Database and the United States' Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS), and highly aggregated data on seizures which we obtained from TRAFFIC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and two data sources on traditional medicine. We also present, for the first time, the complete Songbirds in Trade Database (SiTDB), a trade database curated by taxon expert S. Bruslund based on expert knowledge, literature review, market surveys and sale announcements. Data on the types of human use, including traditional medicine are also provided. The knowledge area on Extinction Risk contains data on the species' IUCN Red List status, the Alliance for Zero Extinction Trigger Species status, site and population at the site, the species' IUCN Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, and the listing of priority species at the Asian Songbird Crisis Summit. In the Management Opportunities category, we gathered data on ex-situ management from Species360 zoo holdings as well as species management plans from the European and North American Zoo Associations (EAZA and AZA, respectively). Biological Information includes data on body mass, clutch size, diet, availability of data from the IUCN Red List on habitat systems, extent of occurrence, generation length, migration pattern, distribution, and biological data from the Demographic Species Knowledge Index, number of occurrences recorded by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) as well as genomic data from the Bird 10 000K Genomes (B10K) project, Vertebrate Genome Project (VGP) and GenBank. Information on invasive species is also part of this knowledge area. The Intrinsic Value category refers to two measures of the species' intrinsic value, namely Ecological and Evolutionary Distinctiveness. In order to make these knowledge areas comparable, we standardized data following the taxonomy of the Handbook of the Birds of the World and Birdlife (Version 4, 2019). The data enable a broad spectrum of analyses and will be useful to scientists for further research and to policymakers, zoos and other conservation stakeholders for future prioritization decisions.
Matched MeSH terms: Management Information Systems
Introduction: Physical activity has been shown to be beneficial for the prevention of
obesity and non-communicable diseases. Our contemporary way of life that is technology
dependent has significantly reduced physical activity. This study aimed to determine
accelerometer-measured physical activity (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA))
among adults in high and low walkability neighbourhoods in Penang and Kota Bharu,
Malaysia.
Methods: Participants (n=490) were sampled using multistage sampling method
from neighbourhoods with varied levels of walkability using Geographical Information
System (GIS). Physical activity was measured objectively using Actigraph GT3X+
accelerometers, worn by the participants on their waists for a period of 5 to 7 days.
Results:
The participants had a mean of 13.5 min/day of MVPA. Total MVPA was significantly
higher among participants in high walkability neighbourhoods (19.7 min/day vs. 9.1 min/
day). Results from t-test showed that the time spent on MVPA per day was significantly
lower among participants residing in low walkability neighbourhoods. The final model
of the MIXED model statistical tests showed that total MVPA was significantly associated
with BMI, but not with WC measurements, after adjusting for covariates.
Conclusion: Most
of the participants had very low MVPA and did not achieve the current physical activity
recommendations, implying that Malaysian adults residing in these two cities were not
physically active to achieve health benefits. Results are suggestive of the importance of the
walkability concept in neighbourhoods in encouraging physical activity and healthy body
weight among Malaysians.
Matched MeSH terms: Geographic Information Systems