Information and communication technologies in food services and restaurants: a systematic review

Purpose Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a key player in the food services and restaurants sector; thus, the aim of this work consists in studying the previous research on ICTs in food services and restaurants in the context of tourism and hospitality through a systematic literature review. Design/methodology/approach The systematic literature review is performed on full papers published in journals included in the Journal Citation Report of the WoS in the category of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. A total of 165 articles from 28 journals are analyzed, following different criteria, such as the research methods, perspectives, statistical techniques, geographical focus, topics, technologies, authors and universities. Findings The restaurant sector is more and more based on the creation of experiences and ICTs, through their multiple possibilities, can undoubtedly contribute to adding value to the simple meal and create and recreate experiences to attract and retain customers who are increasingly sophisticated and hooked on ICTs. ICTs are basic for managers taking decision at the highest level in food services and restaurants, so ICTs should not be seen as a technical tool but as an essential element for top management. Research limitations/implications This paper examined articles from very well-known tourism and hospitality journals, leaving aside others as well as different publication formats such as books or papers presented at conferences. Originality/value A significant contribution made with this paper is the availability of a list of topics in the context of ICTs in food services and restaurants. These topics are classified into three areas (Consumers, Suppliers and Environment and Tendencies) that can serve as a future research framework. The paper also provides useful information to restaurant managers about ICTs, to researchers for their future projects and to academics for their courses.

Participatory Governance of Smart Cities: Insights from e-Participation of Putrajaya and Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Participatory governance is widely viewed as an essential element of realizing planned smart cities. Nonetheless, the implementation of e-participation platforms, such as the websites and mobile applications of civic authorities, often offer ambiguous information on how public voices may influence e-decision-making. This study aims to examine the status of participatory governance from the angle of e-participation platforms and from the broader scope of linking e-platforms to a smart city blueprint. In order to achieve this aim, the study focuses on shedding light on the e-governance space given to smart city realization in a developing country context—i.e., Malaysia. The Putrajaya and Petaling Jaya smart cities of Malaysia were selected as the testbeds of the study, which used the multiple case study methodology and multiple data collection designs. The analyses were done through the qualitative observations and quantitative descriptive statistics. The results revealed that both of the investigated smart city cases remained limited in their provision of e-decision-making space. The inefficiency of implementing planned initiatives to link the city blueprints to e-platforms was also evidenced. The study evidenced that the political culture of e-decision-making is undersized in Malaysia, which hinders the achievement of e-democracy in the smart cities’ development. This study has contributed a case report on a developing country’s smart cities, covering the participatory issues from the angle of e-participation and e-platforms.

Developing Critical Thinking Skills among Prospective Teachers through Teaching Educational Research Course: A Quasi Experimental Approach

The study aims to develop critical thinking skills among prospective teachers. The study was experimental in nature; quasi experimental approach was used to conduct the study. The population of the study was prospective teachers studying at master level. Sample of the study was 73 prospective teachers enrolled in the educational research course in two groups. The first was labeled as the control group, while one was labeled as the experimental group. To assess the critical thinking skills of prospective teachers test was developed by the research using guidelines of Watson and Glaser test. Test was consisted of five dimensions i.e. analyzing, assumptions, deduction, and inference and interpreting information. Cronbach's alpha determined the test's reliability to be 0.80. Intervention was consisted of 10 lessons related to educational research course. The prospective teachers performed well in analyzing, Assumptions, deduction and overall CTS in post-test as compare to pre-test. There was statistically noteworthy the variation between the or before as well as post-test grades of Inference and interpreting. The critical thinking skills are essential element to compete 21st century challenges. Prospective teachers have to face many educational challenges to improve students learning, it is necessary that they should be prepared with CTS either to infuse through separate curriculum or embed with existing curriculum.

Chitosan Nanoparticle-Based System: A New Insight into the Promising Controlled Release System for Lung Cancer Treatment

Lung cancer has been recognized as one of the most often diagnosed and perhaps most lethal cancer diseases worldwide. Conventional chemotherapy for lung cancer-related diseases has bumped into various limitations and challenges, including non-targeted drug delivery, short drug retention period, low therapeutic efficacy, and multidrug resistance (MDR). Chitosan (CS), a natural polymer derived from deacetylation of chitin, and comprised of arbitrarily distributed β-(1-4)-linked d-glucosamine (deacetylated unit) and N-acetyl-d-glucosamine (acetylated unit) that exhibits magnificent characteristics, including being mucoadhesive, biodegradable, and biocompatible, has emerged as an essential element for the development of a nano-particulate delivery vehicle. Additionally, the flexibility of CS structure due to the free protonable amino groups in the CS backbone has made it easy for the modification and functionalization of CS to be developed into a nanoparticle system with high adaptability in lung cancer treatment. In this review, the current state of chitosan nanoparticle (CNP) systems, including the advantages, challenges, and opportunities, will be discussed, followed by drug release mechanisms and mathematical kinetic models. Subsequently, various modification routes of CNP for improved and enhanced therapeutic efficacy, as well as other restrictions of conventional drug administration for lung cancer treatment, are covered.

Root Cause Analysis of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Failure in a Public Transport Communication System

A printed circuit board (PCB) is an essential element for practical circuit applications and its failure can inflict large financial costs and even safety concerns, especially if the PCB failure occurs prematurely and unexpectedly. Understanding the failure modes and even the failure mechanisms of a PCB failure are not sufficient to ensure the same failure will not occur again in subsequent operations with different batches of PCBs. The identification of the root cause is crucial to prevent the reoccurrence of the same failure. In this work, a step-by-step approach from customer returned and inventory reproduced boards to the root cause identification is described for an actual industry case where the failure is a PCB burn-out. The failure mechanism is found to be a conductive anodic filament (CAF) even though the PCB is CAF-resistant. The root cause is due to PCB de-penalization. A reliability verification to assure the effectiveness of the corrective action according to the identified root cause is shown to complete the case study. This work shows that a CAF-resistant PCB does not necessarily guarantee no CAF and PCB processes can render its CAF resistance ineffective.

Patient Handoff Among General Surgery Residents in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Communication failure is a common cause of adverse events. An essential element of communication among healthcare providers is patient handoffs. To explore this practice, we assessed patient handoffs among general surgery residents in Saudi Arabia. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted with individuals in accredited general surgery residency programs in Saudi Arabia between 2020 to 2021. Results Participants comprised 118 general surgery residents—66 (57.3%) were females; 67 (72.8%) did not receive any formal training on patient handoff; 35 (38.8%) reported that they were sometimes interrupted during the patient handoff process. The most common reason for such interruptions was medical personnel paging. Further, 60 (68.1%) general surgery residents stated that such interruptions led to a decreased quality of effective communication, 39 (44.3%) believed it led to decreased quality of patient care, 63(71.5%) believed it led to the loss of some information related to patient handoff, and 16 (18.1%) believed it led to patient harm. Finally, 31 (34.4%) general surgery residents believed that the existing handoff system at their institutions neither adequately protected the patient’s safety nor allowed for continuity of care; and 51 (68%) reported that they did not have a standardized protocol for patients’ verbal handoff process at their institution. There were higher proportion of patients with minor harm in residents who did not, rare or some time received verbal or written hand off (67% vs 33%). Conclusion The patient handoff process among general surgery residents in Saudi Arabia is subjective, not standardized, and can contribute to patient harm. Standardizing it is paramount to improve patient safety.

Empowering Nurses to Meet Challenges and Lead Palliative Care for Achieving Triple Billion Targets

Objectives: Nurses provide care to patients in all contexts and at all stages of their lives. Their contributions are crucial to meeting global goals like Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDG) which present challenges and opportunity to improve nursing services including rehabilitation and palliative care. This study identifies challenges for empowering nurses to lead palliative care and achieve triple billion targets’. Determine reasons for challenges to empower nurses. Recommends strategies to overcome challenges in order to empower nurses to lead palliative care and achieve triple billion targets’. Materials and methods: Multiple brainstorming sessions were conducted through the Zoom platform among the three authors to ‘identify challenges for empowering nurses to lead palliative care and achieve triple billion targets’ and recommend strategies to overcome those challenges. Narrative literature review was conducted and experts’ opinions were elicited. Identified aspects were discussed in further brainstorming sessions. Result: Challenges and reasons for empowering nurses to lead palliative care and achieve triple billion targets’ were identified and strategies to overcome those challenges were recommended. Conclusion: Equitable, competent and compassionate palliative care is a primary tool to relieve serious health-related suffering. There is a pressing necessity to provide available, accessible, acceptable, quality, and cost-effective palliative nursing care. WHO proposed the triple billion targets to improve the health of billions where palliative care is an essential element that can be achieved only with proper identification of challenges and meticulous planning and implementation of strategies to overcome those challenges.

Delay Management in Regional Railway Transport

This article is focused on the reliability of transfer connections in regional railway transport. The reliability of the transportation chain in public transport is an essential element for functional, attractive, and long-term sustainable public transport. This article discusses the causes and consequences of railway traffic disruption and related impacts on passenger transfer connections. To reduce the negative impacts of common operational disruptions, the authors present an original approach for determining transfer waiting times between delayed trains based on a modified critical path method (CPM). In addition, an example of the implementation of this method in regional railway transport in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic is provided.