Blockchain has evolved as one of the disruptive technologies in the landscape of business. The study aims to investigate drivers of consumer adoption of blockchain for product origin and track to trace history before making a purchase. An extended technology adoption model (TAM) has been proposed to examine the consumer perspective for blockchain adoption in the food supply chain. Based on the survey of 208 retail consumers the proposed model was validated using variance-based structure equation modeling. Findings of the study emphasize the significant role of perceived security and privacy in developing trust, ease of use, and usefulness of blockchain-enabled systems. The relationship between perceived ease of use and attitude is mediated through perceived usefulness. The strong influence of attitude on adoption intention represents the consumer interest for blockchain to understand the product provenance. Study provides vital insights for successful blockchain implementation to enhance supply chain effectiveness.

Geopolymer concrete represents the future of green and sustainable concrete. It has a large impact on the construction industry owing to its better performance than that of conventional Portland cement concrete. This study aimed to identify the effect of curing conditions on the physical, mechanical, and microstructural properties of specimens using ambient curing and oven-curing. In the experimental analysis, we tested slump and setting time for physical properties, density and drying shrinkage for chemical properties, compressive strength, indirect tensile strength, modulus of rupture, Poisson’s ratio, and elastic modulus for mechanical properties, rebound strength, and UPVT for nondestructive and X-ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric analysis for microstructural analysis. After the experimental analysis, it was concluded that the density, Poisson’s ratio, and dry shrinkage were higher for ambient-cured specimens than for oven-cured specimens, whereas the compressive strength, indirect tensile strength, modulus of rupture, and elastic modulus of oven-cured specimens were higher than those of ambient-cured specimens. The nondestructive tests, rebound tests, and UPVT show that the oven-cured specimens are better in quality and strength than the ambient cured specimens. In microstructural analysis, X-ray diffraction showed that the oven-cured specimens had a lower intensity of mineral oxides than the ambient-cured specimens in microstructural analysis. The matrix of the ambient-cured specimens was thermally stable up to 8000C and retained 92% of its original mass, whereas the matrix of the oven-cured specimens retained 94% of its mass up to 8000C in the thermogravimetric analysis.

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Disruptive technologies are gaining importance in healthcare systems and health informatics. By discussing computational intelligence, IoT, blockchain, cloud and big data analytics, this book provides support to researchers and other stakeholders involved in designing intelligent systems used in healthcare, its products, and its services. This book offers both theoretical and practical application-based chapters and presents novel technical studies on designing intelligent healthcare systems, products, and services. It offers conceptual and visionary content comprising hypothetical and speculative scenarios and will also include recently developed disruptive holistic techniques in healthcare and th e monitoring of physiological data. Metaheuristic computational intelligence-based algorithms for analysis, diagnosis, and prevention of disease through disruptive technologies are also provided. Designing Intelligent Healthcare Systems, Products, and Services Using Disruptive Technologies and HealthInformatics is written for researchers, academicians, and professionals to bring them up to speed on current research endeavours, as well as to introduce hypothetical and speculative scenarios.

Introduction Magnesium is a less frequently monitored electrolyte in critically ill patients. Hypomagnesemia is associated with increased need for mechanical ventilation, mortality and prolonged ICU stay. The present study was undertaken to identify the proportion of children with abnormal magnesium levels and correlate it with disease outcome. Methods This observational study included children aged 1 month to 12 years hospitalized at the emergency room. Heparinized blood was collected for determination of ionized magnesium, ionized calcium, sodium, potassium and lactate using Stat Profile Prime Plus (Nova Biomedical, Waltham, MA, USA). Clinical outcomes for duration of hospitalization, and death or discharge were recorded. Results A total of 154 (102 males) children with median (IQR) age of 11 (4, 49.75) months were enrolled. Sixty one (39.6%) had ionized magnesium levels below 0.42 mmol/l, 63 (40.9%) had normal levels and 30 (19.4%) had hypermagnesemia (>0.59 mmol/l). Hypomagnesemia was associated with hypocalcemia (p < 0.001), hyponatremia (p < 0.001) and hypokalemia (p < 0.02). A higher proportion of children with hypermagnesemia required ventilation than hypomagnesemia (26% vs. 9%) and succumbed (35% vs. 20%), respectively; p > 0.05. Ninety-three (60.3%) had hypocalcemia and 10 (6.5%) children had hypercalcemia. There was good correlation between ionized calcium and magnesium values (r = 0.72, p < 0.001). Conclusion Both hypomagnesemia and hypermagnesemia were seen in critically ill children. Patients with hypomagnesemia had significantly higher proportion of other electrolyte abnormalities.