Location-Awareness for Radios and Networks: Part I

The papers in this special issue focus on the topic of location awareness for radio and networks. Localization-awareness using radio signals stands to revolutionize the fields of navigation and communication engineering. It can be utilized to great effect in the next generation of cellular networks, mining applications, health-care monitoring, transportation and intelligent highways, multi-robot applications, first responders operations, military applications, factory automation, building and environmental controls, cognitive wireless networks, commercial and social network applications, and smart spaces. A multitude of technologies can be used in location-aware radios and networks, including GNSS, RFID, cellular, UWB, WLAN, Bluetooth, cooperative localization, indoor GPS, device-free localization, IR, Radar, and UHF. The performances of these technologies are measured by their accuracy, precision, complexity, robustness, scalability, and cost. Given the many application scenarios across different disciplines, there is a clear need for a broad, up-to-date and cogent treatment of radio-based location awareness. This special issue aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in technology, regulation, and theory. It also presents a holistic view of research challenges and opportunities in the emerging areas of localization.

Match-fixing and Money-laundering

his essay is premised on the following: a conspiracy to fix or otherwise manipulate the outcome of a sporting event for profitable purpose. That conspiracy is in turn predicated on the conspirators’ capacity to: (a) ensure that the fix takes place as pre-determined; (b) manipulate the betting markets that surround the sporting event in question; and (c) collect their winnings undetected by either the betting industry’s security systems or the attention of any national regulatory body or law enforcement agency.

Unlike many essays on this topic, this contribution does not focus on the “fix”– part (a) of the above equation. It does not seek to explain how or why a participant or sports official might facilitate a betting scam through either on-field behaviour that manipulates the outcome of a game or by presenting others with privileged inside information in advance of a game. Neither does this contribution seek to give any real insight into the second part of the above equation: how such conspirators manipulate a sports betting market by playing or laying the handicap or in-play or other offered betting odds. In fact, this contribution is not really about the mechanics of sports betting or match fixing at all; rather it is about the sometimes under explained reason why match fixing has reportedly become increasingly attractive as of late to international crime syndicates. That reason relates to the fact that given the traditional liquidity of gambling markets, sports betting can, and has long been, an attractively accessible conduit for criminal syndicates to launder the proceeds of crime. Accordingly, the term “winnings”, noted in part (c) of the above equation, takes on an altogether more nefarious meaning.

This essay’s attempt to review the possible links between match fixing in sport, gambling-related “winnings” and money laundering is presented in four parts.

First, some context will be given to what is meant by money laundering, how it is currently policed internationally and, most importantly, how the growth of online gambling presents a unique set of vulnerabilities and opportunities to launder the proceeds of crime. The globalisation of organised crime, sports betting and transnational financial services now means that money laundering opportunities have moved well beyond a flutter on the horses at your local racetrack or at the roulette table of your nearest casino. The growth of online gambling platforms means that at a click it is possible for the proceeds of crime in one jurisdiction to be placed on a betting market in another jurisdiction with the winnings drawn down and laundered in a third jurisdiction and thus the internationalisation of gambling-related money laundering threatens the integrity of sport globally.

Second, and referring back to the infamous hearings of the US Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organised Crime in Interstate Commerce of the early 1950s, (“the Kefauver Committee”), this article will begin by illustrating the long standing interest of organised crime gangs – in this instance, various Mafia families in the United States – in money laundering via sports gambling-related means.

Third, and using the seminal 2009 report “Money Laundering through the Football Sector” by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF, an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system), this essay seeks to assess the vulnerabilities of international sport to match fixing, as motivated in part by the associated secondary criminality of tax evasion and transnational economic crime.

The fourth and concluding parts of the essay spin from problems to possible solutions. The underlying premise here is that heretofore there has been an insularity to the way that sports organisations have both conceptualised and sought to address the match fixing threat e.g., if we (in sport) initiate player education programmes; establish integrity units; enforce codes of conduct and sanctions strictly; then our integrity or brand should be protected. This essay argues that, although these initiatives are important, the source and process of match fixing is beyond sport’s current capacity, as are the possible solutions.

Regular medication reviews for children and young people with ADHD

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (2008) guidelines for the diagnosis and management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) recommend a full clinical and psychological assessment by an appropriately trained clinician; this should include a detailed developmental and psychiatric history. Stimulant medications, which are Schedule II controlled drugs, are the most commonly prescribed medicines in the UK and across the world for the management of ADHD. Children and young people with a diagnosis of ADHD receiving these stimulant medications are required to attend regular review appointments with a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist or specialist nurse under shared care guidelines with general practices, and it has long been recognized that appropriately educated nurses can assist in the management of ADHD. Owing to the pharmacological action of the stimulant medication on neurotransmission, there is potential for misuse and dependence. A growing body of evidence suggests that adolescents with ADHD can become involved in drug diversion and that the topic should be explored during assessment. The level of misuse of prescribed stimulants is increasing, and adolescents and young people with ADHD may misuse to enhance cognitive function for academic purposes. The following scenario highlights some of the challenges and opportunities for independent nurse prescribers working in child and adolescent mental health services.

On the statistical memory architecture exploration and optimization

The worsening of process variations and the consequent increased spreads in circuit performance and consumed power hinder the satisfaction of the targeted budgets and lead to yield loss. Corner based design and adoption of design guardbands might limit the yield loss. However, in many cases such methods may not be able to capture the real effects which might be way better than the predicted ones leading to increasingly pessimistic designs. The situation is even more severe in memories which consist of substantially different individual building blocks, further complicating the accurate analysis of the impact of variations at the architecture level leaving many potential issues uncovered and opportunities unexploited. In this paper, we develop a framework for capturing non-trivial statistical interactions among all the components of a memory/cache. The developed tool is able to find the optimum memory/cache configuration under various constraints allowing the designers to make the right choices early in the design cycle and consequently improve performance, energy, and especially yield. Our, results indicate that the consideration of the architectural interactions between the memory components allow to relax the pessimistic access times that are predicted by existing techniques.

The OpenPMU Project: Challenges and perspectives:Challenges and Perspectives

The OpenPMU project is a platform for the development of Synchrophasor measurement technology, Phasor Measurement Units (PMU), in an open source manner. The project has now been operating for a number of years and has seen increased adoption at Universities and interest from electrical utilities. The OpenPMU device has recently been tested against the IEEE C37.118 standard and shown to operate within the specification. This paper discusses the OpenPMU project from the perspective of the past two years of experience and evaluates successes and opportunities for improvements in both the OpenPMU device and the philosophy of the design.

Waste Not, Want Not: Managing Perishables in Small and Medium Retail Enterprises

Purpose of this paper:
Recent literature indicates that around one third of perishable products finish as waste (Mena et al., 2014): 60% of this waste can be classified as avoidable (EC, 2010) suggesting logistics and operational inefficiencies along the supply chain. In developed countries perishable products are predominantly wasted in wholesale and retail (Gustavsson et al., 2011) due to customer demand uncertainty the errors and delays in the supply chain (Fernie and Sparks, 2014). While research on logistics of large retail supply chains is well documented, research on retail small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) capabilities to prevent and manage waste of perishable products is in its infancy (c.f. Ellegaard, 2008) and needs further exploration. In our study, we investigate the retail logistics practice of small food retailers, the factors that contribute to perishable products waste and the barriers and opportunities of SMEs in retail logistics to preserve product quality and participate in reverse logistics flows.

Design/methodology/approach:
As research on waste of perishable products for SMEs is scattered, we focus on identifying key variables that contribute to the creation of avoidable waste. Secondly we identify patterns of waste creation at the retail level and its possibilities for value added recovery. We use explorative case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989) and compare four SMEs and one large retailer that operate in a developed market. To get insights into specificities of SMEs that affect retail logistics practice, we select two types of food retailers: specialised (e.g. greengrocers and bakers) and general (e.g. convenience store that sells perishable products as a part of the assortment)

Findings:
Our preliminary findings indicate that there is a difference between large retailers and SME retailers in factors that contribute to the waste creation, as well as opportunities for value added recovery of products. While more factors appear to affect waste creation and management at large retailers, a small number of specific factors appears to affect SMEs. Similarly, large retailers utilise a range of practices to reduce risks of product perishability and short shelf life, manage demand, and manage reverse logistics practices. Retail SMEs on the other hand have limited options to address waste creation and value added recovery. However, our findings show that specialist SMEs could successfully minimize waste and even create possibilities for value added recovery of perishable products. Data indicates that business orientation of the SME, the buyersupplier relationship, and an extent of adoption of lean principles in retail coupled with SME resources, product specific regulations and support from local authorities for waste management or partnerships with other organizations determine extent of successful preservation of a product quality and value added recovery.

Value:
Our contribution to the SCM academic literature is threefold: first, we identify major factors that contribute to the generation waste of perishable products in retail environment; second, we identify possibilities for value added recovery for perishable products and third, we present opportunities and challenges for SME retailers to manage or participate in activities of value added recovery. Our findings contribute to theory by filling a gap in the literature that considers product quality preservation and value added recovery in the context of retail logistics and SMEs.

Research limitations/implications:
Our findings are limited to insights from five case studies of retail companies that operate within a developed market. To improve on generalisability, we intend to increase the number of cases and include data obtained from the suppliers and organizations involved in reverse logistics flows (e.g. local authorities, charities, etc.).

Practical implications:
With this paper, we contribute to the improvement of retail logistics and operations in SMEs which constitute over 99% of business activities in UK (Rhodes, 2015). Our findings will help retail managers and owners to better understand the possibilities for value added recovery, investigate a range of logistics and retail strategies suitable for the specificities of SME environment and, ultimately, improve their profitability and sustainability.

Bio-fuelling the Hummer? Transdisciplinary Thoughts on Techno-Optimism and Innovation in the Transition from Unsustainability

An overarching aim of this chapter is to offer an informed and critical analysis of ‘techno-optimism’, informed by an explicitly transdisciplinary approach. A transdisciplinary perspective is one in which knowledge production goes beyond the academy to include end non-academic stakeholders and users. In effect it seeks to ‘upstream’ the involvement of non-academic interests in research design and knowledge production, as opposed to limiting those non-academic interests to the dissemination end point stage of research, which is the dominant research model. Techno-optimism is understood as an exaggerated and unwarranted belief in human technological abilities to solve problems of unsustainability while minimising or denying the need for large-scale social, economic and political transformation. More specifically, techno-optimism is the belief that the negative environmental and social costs of high-consumption, affluent, consumer societies and associated ways of life within capitalist orthodox economic growth orientated socio-economic systems, can be solved or eradicated through technological innovation and breakthroughs. Business as usual can be ‘greened’; a capitalist, growth-based economy can be made more ‘resource efficient’, consumerism less ‘resource intensive’ (and maybe a little bit more ethical). Techno-optimism, to be deliberately provocative for a moment, can therefore be described as a ‘biofuel the hummer’ response to the challenges (and opportunities) of the crisis of unsustainability. What I mean by that analogy is the seductive promise and premise of techno-optimism of not questioning or doubting the status quo (the hummer), hence it’s putative (but entirely false) non-political character. The capitalist, consumerist, growth-based socio-economic system is thus removed from critical analysis (usually on the implicit or explicit assumption of either the normative rightness of this system, or on strategic political grounds that it is naive or utopian to envisage widespread support for a non or post-capitalist consumer system). Techno-optimism simply enables a different means (biofuel) to the same ends.

No second chance: the experiences of junior neonatal nurses in providing end-of-life care for babies and families in the NNU

Background

An infant’s death is acutely stressful for parents and professionals. Little is known about junior nurses’ experiences providing end-of-life care in Neonatal Units (NNU).

Objectives

To better understand junior nurses’ experiences providing end-of-life care in NNU, the study explored the challenges and opportunities inherent in their practice relating to providing such care to babies and their families.

Methods

Neonatal nurses (n=12) with less than 3 years’ experience who were undergoing a neonatal education programme participated. Two focus groups were convened each with 6 nurses. The Ethics Committee at the relevant University approved the study. Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used in the focus groups to build consensus around the challenges faced by junior nurses, alongside suggested developments in improving future care provision. Primary analysis involved successive rounds of ranking and decision making whilst secondary analysis involved thematic analysis.

Results

The study identified the pressures these nurses felt in having only one chance to ‘get it right’ for the infants and their families. They perceived the need for further ‘education and training’ highlighting that improved education provision would include both additional courses and internal training sessions. Greater ‘support’ from mentors themselves more experienced in this aspect of care within the NNU was identified as important in addressing issues around confidence building and skill development.

Conclusions

The results highlight junior nurses’ need for specific education and mentorship around end-of-life care for babies. This presentation will outline the implications for practice, education and further research.