Understanding and valuing the economic, social and environmental components of System Harmonisation

The aim of the Products and Markets component of the System Harmonisation project is to value the economic and environmental outcomes from an irrigation scheme that is operated by and in the interests of society. In this conceptual note the thinking underlying this component of the project are outlined. The aim of this note is to provide elements for debated. The nature and requirements of System Harmonisation demands that a 'systems approach' be taken throughout the project. What becomes important within this approach is how the different elements within a system are isolated and yet linked with one another. In many instances the extent and nature of irrigation systems are defined by the relevant Regional Irrigation Business Partnership (RIBP) under investigation. It is recognised that society has multiple uses for the water (agriculture, industry, households, recreation and the environment) as well as non-use (intrinsic) values for which it derives benefits from and incurs costs in distributing the water in any select manner. Further, it is assumed that the irrigation schemes are run for the benefit of society as a whole. Thus, there is a necessity to evaluate both the private and public costs and benefits associated with irrigation schemes. In order to identify what society values from an irrigation scheme, it is argued that a social matrix approach is needed. This analysis allows for a clustering of the issues people feel is important to them regarding the use of an irrigation scheme. Such an analysis will allow identification of the perceived most and least beneficial activities connected to water allocation, economic modelling of the most productive activities, evaluation of externalities and Cost Benefit Analysis. The net economic benefits that arise from irrigation need to be evaluated. The sectors where benefits are derived can be segregated into agriculture, households, the environment, recreation and industrial uses. The largest of these, by pure scale of the use of water, is agriculture. A gross margins approach is used to evaluate the returns for water in the agricultural sector. In the industrial and household sectors, a simple evaluation approach is used where the quantity of water demanded is multiplied by the price paid in each sector. Non-market valuation techniques are used to evaluate the recreational and environmental uses of water. The difficulty that arises in this analysis is how to evaluate the performance of irrigation schemes, where the outcomes are multifaceted. A 'meta' model approach is suggested in which the different elements from the project are brought together and assessed using a technique derived from the theory surrounding production possibility frontiers. This technique can be used to hypothesise a value for the ecosystem services derived from an irrigation scheme. The performance of an irrigation scheme is evaluated in terms of the suggestions raised to change it. Cost Effective Analysis is to be utilised to evaluate this performance. Then two issues need to be addressed. First, it is necessary to converse with those from other components, particularly those involved in the hydrological programs, to determine the nature of the schemes to be investigated. Second, it is necessary to implement the approach in each of the RIBPs. This work needs to commence with the evaluation of the social values in each region

Model morphisms (MoMo) to enable language independent information models and interoperable business networks

MSc. Dissertation presented at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa to obtain the Master degree in Electrical and Computer EngineeringWith the event of globalisation, the opportunities for collaboration became more evident with the effect of enlarging business networks. In such conditions, a key for enterprise success is a reliable communication with all the partners. Therefore, organisations have been searching for flexible integrated environments to better manage their services and product life cycle, where their software applications could be easily integrated independently of the platform in use. However, with so many different information models and implementation standards being used, interoperability problems arise. Moreover,organisations are themselves at different technological maturity levels, and the solution that might be good for one, can be too advanced for another, or vice-versa. This dissertation responds to the above needs, proposing a high level meta-model to be used at the entire business network, enabling to abstract individual models from their specificities and increasing language independency and interoperability, while keeping all the enterprise legacy software‟s integrity intact. The strategy presented allows an incremental mapping construction, to achieve a gradual integration. To accomplish this, the author proposes Model Driven Architecture (MDA) based technologies for the development of traceable transformations and execution of automatic Model Morphisms

An Architecture for Integrated Intelligence in Urban Management using Cloud Computing

With the emergence of new methodologies and technologies it has now become possible to manage large amounts of environmental sensing data and apply new integrated computing models to acquire information intelligence. This paper advocates the application of cloud capacity to support the information, communication and decision making needs of a wide variety of stakeholders in the complex business of the management of urban and regional development. The complexity lies in the interactions and impacts embodied in the concept of the urban-ecosystem at various governance levels. This highlights the need for more effective integrated environmental management systems. This paper offers a user-orientated approach based on requirements for an effective management of the urban-ecosystem and the potential contributions that can be supported by the cloud computing community. Furthermore, the commonality of the influence of the drivers of change at the urban level offers the opportunity for the cloud computing community to develop generic solutions that can serve the needs of hundreds of cities from Europe and indeed globally.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

A Multi-Criteria Framework to Assist on the Design of Internet-of-Things Systems

The Internet-of-Things (IoT), considered as Internet first real evolution, has become immensely important to society due to revolutionary business models with the potential to radically improve Human life. Manufacturers are engaged in developing embedded systems (IoT Systems) for different purposes to address this new variety of application domains and services. With the capability to agilely respond to a very dynamic market offer of IoT Systems, the design phase of IoT ecosystems can be enhanced. However, select the more suitable IoT System for a certain task is currently based on stakeholder’s knowledge, normally from lived experience or intuition, although it does not mean that a proper decision is being made. Furthermore, the lack of methods to formally describe IoT Systems characteristics, capable of being automatically used by methods is also an issue, reinforced by the growth of available information directly connected to Internet spread. Contributing to improve IoT Ecosystems design phase, this PhD work proposes a framework capable of fully characterise an IoT System and assist stakeholder’s on the decision of which is the proper IoT System for a specific task. This enables decision-makers to perform a better reasoning and more aware analysis of diverse and very often contradicting criteria. It is also intended to provide methods to integrate energy consumptionsimulation tools and address interoperability with standards, methods or systems within the IoT scope. This is addressed using a model-driven based framework supporting a high openness level to use different software languages and decision methods, but also for interoperability with other systems, tools and methods

EU's Eastern Neighbours: Institutional Harmonisation and Potential Growth Bonus

This paper provides the quantitative estimate of the potential growth bonus for CIS countries, and in particular EU's Easter Neighbours, that can be a result of deeper institutional harmonisation with the EU. Econometric investigation involving instrumental variable, simultaneous equation and dynamic panel techniques documents the strong positive link between growth performance and reforms, as well as between reforms and European integration. The paper derives the range of possible values of growth bonus from the deepened neighbourhood cooperation between 1 and 3.8 with the median at 1.8 percentage points. The least growth bonus is expected through basic liberalization reforms, while countries with a considerable institutional gap are likely to gain the most.institutions, reform, growth, transition, integration, neighbourhood, dynamic panel

A human biomonitoring (HBM) Global Registry Framework: Further advancement of HBM research following the FAIR principles.

Data generated by the rapidly evolving human biomonitoring (HBM) programmes are providing invaluable opportunities to support and advance regulatory risk assessment and management of chemicals in occupational and environmental health domains. However, heterogeneity across studies, in terms of design, terminology, biomarker nomenclature, and data formats, limits our capacity to compare and integrate data sets retrospectively (reuse). Registration of HBM studies is common for clinical trials; however, the study designs and resulting data collections cannot be traced easily. We argue that an HBM Global Registry Framework (HBM GRF) could be the solution to several of challenges hampering the (re)use of HBM (meta)data. The aim is to develop a global, host-independent HBM registry framework based on the use of harmonised open-access protocol templates from designing, undertaking of an HBM study to the use and possible reuse of the resulting HBM (meta)data. This framework should apply FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles as a core data management strategy to enable the (re)use of HBM (meta)data to its full potential through the data value chain. Moreover, we believe that implementation of FAIR principles is a fundamental enabler for digital transformation within environmental health. The HBM GRF would encompass internationally harmonised and agreed open access templates for HBM study protocols, structured web-based functionalities to deposit, find, and access harmonised protocols of HBM studies. Registration of HBM studies using the HBM GRF is anticipated to increase FAIRness of the resulting (meta)data. It is also considered that harmonisation of existing data sets could be performed retrospectively. As a consequence, data wrangling activities to make data ready for analysis will be minimised. In addition, this framework would enable the HBM (inter)national community to trace new HBM studies already in the planning phase and their results once finalised. The HBM GRF could also serve as a platform enhancing communication between scientists, risk assessors, and risk managers/policy makers. The planned European Partnership for the Assessment of Risk from Chemicals (PARC) work along these lines, based on the experience obtained in previous joint European initiatives. Therefore, PARC could very well bring a first demonstration of first essential functionalities within the development of the HBM GRF

TOWARDS INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES FOR E-SCIENCE: The Scope of the Challenge

The three-fold purpose of this Report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Research Councils (UK) is to: • articulate the nature and significance of the non-technological issues that will bear on the practical effectiveness of the hardware and software infrastructures that are being created to enable collaborations in e- Science; • characterise succinctly the fundamental sources of the organisational and institutional challenges that need to be addressed in regard to defining terms, rights and responsibilities of the collaborating parties, and to illustrate these by reference to the limited experience gained to date in regard to intellectual property, liability, privacy, and security and competition policy issues affecting scientific research organisations; and • propose approaches for arriving at institutional mechanisms whose establishment would generate workable, specific arrangements facilitating collaboration in e-Science; and, that also might serve to meet similar needs in other spheres such as e- Learning, e-Government, e-Commerce, e-Healthcare. In carrying out these tasks, the report examines developments in enhanced computer-mediated telecommunication networks and digital information technologies, and recent advances in technologies of collaboration. It considers the economic and legal aspects of scientific collaboration, with attention to interactions between formal contracting and 'private ordering' arrangements that rest upon research community norms. It offers definitions of e-Science, virtual laboratories, collaboratories, and develops a taxonomy of collaborative e-Science activities which is implemented to classify British e-Science pilot projects and contrast these with US collaboratory projects funded during the 1990s. The approach to facilitating inter-organizational participation in collaborative projects rests upon the development of a modular structure of contractual clauses that permit flexibility and experience-based learning.

Harmonising and linking biomedical and clinical data across disparate data archives to enable integrative cross-biobank research

A wealth of biospecimen samples are stored in modern globally distributed biobanks. Biomedical researchers worldwide need to be able to combine the available resources to improve the power of large-scale studies. A prerequisite for this effort is to be able to search and access phenotypic, clinical and other information about samples that are currently stored at biobanks in an integrated manner. However, privacy issues together with heterogeneous information systems and the lack of agreed-upon vocabularies have made specimen searching across multiple biobanks extremely challenging. We describe three case studies where we have linked samples and sample descriptions in order to facilitate global searching of available samples for research. The use cases include the ENGAGE (European Network for Genetic and Genomic Epidemiology) consortium comprising at least 39 cohorts, the SUMMIT (surrogate markers for micro- and macro-vascular hard endpoints for innovative diabetes tools) consortium and a pilot for data integration between a Swedish clinical health registry and a biobank. We used the Sample avAILability (SAIL) method for data linking: first, created harmonised variables and then annotated and made searchable information on the number of specimens available in individual biobanks for various phenotypic categories. By operating on this categorised availability data we sidestep many obstacles related to privacy that arise when handling real values and show that harmonised and annotated records about data availability across disparate biomedical archives provide a key methodological advance in pre-analysis exchange of information between biobanks, that is, during the project planning phase