Introduction: In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there are problems with how healthcare supplies are managed. These issues, like poor organization, divided systems, lack of responsibility, and frequent shortages, lead to worse health outcomes for people in those countries. In the last ten years, private-sector logistics collaborations and performance-based contracting (PBC) have been popular strategies for enhancing supply chain performance in environments with limited resources. Objectives: The structure, application, and effectiveness of PBC models in Pakistan's donor-funded health supply chains from 2015 to 2025 are all critically examined in this review. Additionally, factors influencing private-sector logistics providers in LMICs are examined, and lessons learned are summarized to direct health supply chain reform in Pakistan by 2026. Methods: In order to assess PBC frameworks, operational, institutional, and market aspects as well as Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models impacting supply chains in LMICs, a comprehensive narrative review was carried out using a variety of regional and worldwide information. Results: PBC uses the idea of principle-agent theory, which means payments are tied to measurable goals. These goals include things like delivering supplies in time, keeping accurate records, and providing good quality reports. Countries like Tanzania, Zambia, and Afghanistan have shown that PBC can make healthcare more accessible and convenient. With the help of USAID GHSC-PSM, Pakistan has adopted PBC, which comprises PPP projects that concentrate on last-mile and cold chain distribution. Governmental opposition, inadequate digital systems, and restricted contract monitoring are some of the main obstacles. Resilience and efficiency are improved by strong control, defined responsibilities, uniform agreements, and market-shaping tactics like pooled procurement. Conclusion: To improve Pakistan’s health supply chain, we can focus on strengthening PBC, working more with private companies, using digital data, and employing market-shaping strategies. These changes are crucial by 2026 to build a more reliable, effective, and accountable system.
As the US marketplace becomes increasingly diverse, understanding how intergroup contact shapes consumer attitudes is essential for inclusive and effective marketing. Drawing from Berry’s bidimensional model of acculturation and intergroup contact theory, this paper examines how the quality and frequency of intergroup interactions influence diversity-related attitudes. While most acculturation research treats ‘interaction’ as a generalised process between groups, this study disaggregates contact experiences by race and ethnicity, revealing important group-specific dynamics. Findings from a national sample of 1,153 White, African-American and Hispanic respondents show that high-quality intergroup contact is a stronger predictor of diversity-related attitudes than contact frequency, particularly among multicultural participants. These results underscore the importance of two-way acculturation in an increasingly pluralistic society, where consumer interaction is mutual and shaped by lived intergroup experiences. Theoretically, this study advances Berry’s model by dimensionalising interaction between minority and majority consumers, demonstrating that the quality of contact, not merely its presence, plays an important role in shaping consumer attitudes. For marketers, the nature of interpersonal interactions in a demographically diverse marketplace significantly influences a number of diversity-related attitudes. Therefore, brands should move beyond demographic proxies of acculturation and recognise the psychosocial dimensions of cultural contact that shape consumer perceptions, attitudes and marketing outcomes that help drive growth in a multicultural America. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.
Driven by the idea to use alarm data to explore machine learning across Industry 4.0 applications, the goal of this pilot study was to explore how to collect, store, manage and share data from the ESS Control System. Generally, we seek to make any control system data available for research and innovation but started with alarms as a feasible domain in which to explore machine learning. The goals were threefold, each explored in a work package:1. How to govern a data ecosystem, and which tools are needed to support it?2. How can alarm data be interpreted across industrial contexts, i.e., which meta dataand reference models are needed?3. How can data sharing be practically and legally handled at ESS?In summary, we identify a set of potential alleys for continued work to foster industrial innovation and collaboration in a control system data ecosystem with ESS as a catalyst. (Less)
In massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the large size of channel state information (CSI) matrix significantly increases the computational complexity of uplink detection and size of required memory to store the channel data. To address these challenges, we propose to perform detection in the angular domain, where the channel information can be presented in a more condensed way. The underlying idea is to exploit the sparsity of massive MIMO channel in the angular domain to reduce the size of CSI matrix by selecting dominant beams. Then, an angular-domain linear detector followed by a non-linear post-processing scheme is proposed to perform detection using the reduced-size CSI. Evaluated using measured massive MIMO channels, our method results in 35%-73% reduction in complexity and required memory compared to traditional detectors while it achieves better performance. Moreover, this paper provides a framework, which trades between performance, complexity, and size of required memory. As a proof of concept, we implement the angular-domain detector in a 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS for a massive MIMO with 128 antennas communicating with up to 16 users. Synthesis result shows that our design attains a throughput of 2240 Mbps with an area of 829 k gates. (Less)
The introduction of high-speed communication systems over the past few years has created many opportunities for academic and business communities, while some challenges resulted in its by-product. The high-speed information systems have opened the door for e-commerce and resulted in the appearance of numerous online cyber entrepreneurial activities. While the cyber entrepreneurship and e-commerce heralded the lower costs for potential consumers, these systems limited the number of customers visiting the “brick and mortar” stores and shrunk the traditional commercial activities. Although business and commerce schools have been at the forefront of e-commerce, the engineering schools have tried to incorporate e-commerce and online education to their array of courses offered to their students. Many engineering schools have long realized the new shifts demanded in their traditional classes based on the advice of their constituencies and the industry advisory board members.
