Innovations in geomatics teaching during the COVID-19 emergency

The approach in the teaching process is changing, thanks to the increased awareness that a higher students\u2019 involvement leads to a better quality of their learning. The aim is to make the students more participative, avoiding a unidirectional lesson and encouraging their wish to keep updated on the course advancements. However, innovative teaching methodologies are not yet widespread, mainly in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. At the University of Genoa, the experimentation of innovative teaching techniques has been significant and worthy especially because it was planned before the COVID-19 emergency and applied in the scenario of forced remote teaching. Thanks to the introduc- tion of novel technological instruments, several techniques have been exploited to realize interactive lessons and promoting students\u2019 involvement. The present work discloses the employed techniques and frames them within the state of the art of innovative teaching, highlighting their contribution in the teaching activities related to the Geomatics field of knowledge. The acquired experiences in Geomatics dissemination and a critical analysis, including teachers\u2019 and students\u2019 perception about the tested innovative teaching/learning tools, are also reported. In general, the innovations introduced in teaching and learning processes during the COVID-19 sanitary emergency were warmly received by the entire community, including teachers, students, and teaching assistants

Towards transformative WASH: an integrated case study exploring environmental, sociocultural, economic and institutional risk factors contributing to infant enteric infections in rural tribal India.

BACKGROUND: Despite clear linkages between poor Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) and enteric disease, the design of effective WASH interventions that reduce child enteric infections and stunting rates has proved challenging. WASH factors as currently defined do not capture the overall exposure factors to faecal pathogens through the numerous infection transmission pathways. Understanding the multiple and multifaceted factors contributing to enteric infections and their interconnectedness is key to inform future interventions. This study aimed to perform an in-depth holistic exploration of the environmental, socio-cultural, economic and institutional context surrounding infants to develop an integrated understanding of enteric infection drivers in rural tribal Banswara, in Rajasthan State, India. METHODS: This study relied on the triangulation of mixed-methods to capture critical influences contributing to infant enteric infection transmission. We conducted structured observations and exploratory qualitative research across 9 rural tribal villages, including transect walks, household observations, interviews with frontline health workers and group discussions with mothers. The emergent social themes and identified factors were mapped based on the scale of agency (individual, family or community-level factor) and on their nature (environmental, socio-cultural, economic and institutional factors). RESULTS: Infants aged 5 to 24 months were seen to have constant exposures to dirt via mouthing of soil, soiled hands, soiled objects and food. Rudimentary household environments with dirt floors and domestic animals lacked a hygiene-enabling environment that hindered hygienic behaviour adoption. Several unsafe behaviours failing to interrupt infants' exposures to pathogens were captured, but caregivers reported a lack of self-efficacy skills to separate children from faecal exposures due to the rural farming environments where they lived. Conceptual mapping helped understand how wider-level societal factors such as socio-economic limitations, caste inequalities, and political corruption may have trickle-down effects on the caregivers' motivation and perceived self-efficacy for improving hygiene levels around children, highlighting the influence of interconnected broader factors. CONCLUSIONS: Conceptual mapping proved useful to develop an integrated understanding of the interlinked factors across socio-ecological levels and domains, highlighting the role of wider sociocultural, economic and institutional factors contributing to infant's enteric infection risks. Future WASH interventions are likely to require similar integrated approaches that account for the complex factors at all levels

Clinical data for paediatric research: the Swiss approach : Proceedings of the National Symposium in Bern, Switzerland, Dec 5-6, 2019.

Continuous improvement of health and healthcare system is hampered by inefficient processes of generating new evidence, particularly in the case of rare diseases and paediatrics. Currently, most evidence is generated through specific research projects, which typically require extra encounters with patients, are costly and entail long delays between the recognition of specific needs in healthcare and the generation of necessary evidence to address those needs. The Swiss Personalised Health Network (SPHN) aims to improve the use of data obtained during routine healthcare encounters by harmonizing data across Switzerland and facilitating accessibility for research. The project "Harmonising the collection of health-related data and biospecimens in paediatric hospitals throughout Switzerland (SwissPedData)" was an infrastructure development project funded by the SPHN, which aimed to identify and describe available data on child health in Switzerland and to agree on a standardised core dataset for electronic health records across all paediatric teaching hospitals. Here, we describe the results of a two-day symposium that aimed to summarise what had been achieved in the SwissPedData project, to put it in an international context, and to discuss the next steps for a sustainable future. The target audience included clinicians and researchers who produce and use health-related data on children in Switzerland. The symposium consisted of state-of-the-art lectures from national and international keynote speakers, workshops and plenary discussions. This manuscript summarises the talks and discussions in four sections: (I) a description of the Swiss Personalized Health Network and the results of the SwissPedData project; (II) examples of similar initiatives from other countries; (III) an overview of existing health-related datasets and projects in Switzerland; and (IV) a summary of the lessons learned and future prospective from workshops and plenary discussions. Streamlined processes linking initial collection of information during routine healthcare encounters, standardised recording of this information in electronic health records and fast accessibility for research are essential to accelerate research in child health and make it affordable. Ongoing projects prove that this is feasible in Switzerland and elsewhere. International collaboration is vital to success. The next steps include the implementation of the SwissPedData core dataset in the clinical information systems of Swiss hospitals, the use of this data to address priority research questions, and the acquisition of sustainable funding to support a slim central infrastructure and local support in each hospital. This will lay the foundation for a national paediatric learning health system in Switzerland

Contributions to digital transformation and mobile application development

This cumulative dissertation presents and discusses research on digital trans-formation in several business areas. It discusses the chances and challenges businesses face when introducing technologies, e.g., mobile applications. Also, the usage of new technology-accelerated business models is investigated from a technology acceptance perspective. With a specific look at technical solutions, this dissertation examines challenges in mobile application development and their processes and presents implications. This dissertation enriches the body of knowledge of mobile app development and the phenomenon of digital transfor-mation, both on a business and individual level. Based on the limitations of the contained paper, a research agenda is derived that lays the foundation for fur-ther tailored investigations in the field of digital transformation as well as mobile application development. Researchers can use this agenda for their further re-search projects.In dieser kumulativen Dissertation werden Forschungsarbeiten zur digitalen Transformation in verschiedenen Geschäftsbereichen vorgestellt und diskutiert. Sie erörtert die Chancen und Herausforderungen, denen sich Unternehmen bei der Einführung von Technologien, z. B. mobilen Anwendungen, gegenüberste-hen. Zusätzlich wird die Nutzung neuartiger Geschäftsmodelle aus der Perspek-tive der Technologieakzeptanz untersucht. Mit einem spezifischen Blick auf tech-nische Lösungen werden in dieser Dissertation Probleme bei der Entwicklung mobiler Anwendungen und deren Prozesse untersucht und Implikationen aufge-zeigt. Diese Dissertation bereichert den Wissensstand zur mobilen Applikations-Entwicklung und zum Phänomen des digitalen Wandels auf Unternehmens- und Individualebene. Basierend auf den Limitationen der enthaltenen Artikel wird eine Forschungsagenda abgeleitet, die die Grundlage für weitere Untersuchungen im Bereich der digitalen Transformation sowie der mobilen Anwendungsentwicklung bildet. Wissenschaftler können diese Agenda für ihre zukünftigen Forschungs-projekte nutzen

Integrated methodological frameworks for modelling agent-based advanced supply chain planning systems: a systematic literature review

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review of recent developments in methodological frameworks for the modelling and simulation of agent-based advanced supply chain planning systems. Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review is provided to identify, select and make an analysis and a critical summary of all suitable studies in the area. It is organized into two blocks: the first one covers agent-based supply chain planning systems in general terms, while the second one specializes the previous search to identify those works explicitly containing methodological aspects. Findings: Among sixty suitable manuscripts identified in the primary literature search, only seven explicitly considered the methodological aspects. In addition, we noted that, in general, the notion of advanced supply chain planning is not considered unambiguously, that the social and individual aspects of the agent society are not taken into account in a clear manner in several studies and that a significant part of the works are of a theoretical nature, with few real-scale industrial applications. An integrated framework covering all phases of the modelling and simulation process is still lacking in the literature visited. Research limitations/implications: The main research limitations are related to the period covered (last four years), the selected scientific databases, the selected language (i.e. English) and the use of only one assessment framework for the descriptive evaluation part. Practical implications: The identification of recent works in the domain and discussion concerning their limitations can help pave the way for new and innovative researches towards a complete methodological framework for agent-based advanced supply chain planning systems. Originality/value: As there are no recent state-of-the-art reviews in the domain of methodological frameworks for agent-based supply chain planning, this paper contributes to systematizing and consolidating what has been done in recent years and uncovers interesting research gaps for future studies in this emerging fieldPeer Reviewe

Practitioners’ view on command query responsibility segregation

Relational database management systems (RDBMS) have long been a predominant technology in information systems (IS). Today, however, the ever-changing technology landscape seems to be the proving grounds for many alternative approaches. For instance, alternative databases are currently used in many cloud services that affect everyday life. Similarly, a novel way to design applications has come to fruition. It relies on two concepts; command query responsibility segregation (CQRS) and event sourcing. A combination of the concepts is suggested to mitigate some performance and design issues that commonly arise in traditional information systems development (ISD). However, this particular approach hasn’t sparked interest from of academia yet. This inquiry sets out to find opportunities and challenges that arise from adoption of one of the two concepts, namely CQRS. This is done in relative isolation from event sourcing. In total five interviews were conducted with seven participants using open-ended interview questions derived from design patterns research. The results are five themes that provide guidance to IS professionals evaluating adoption. These are alignment between IT-artifacts and business processes, simultaneous development, flexibility from specific database technology, modularization as a means of implementation and risk of introducing complexity. The results indicate that several themes from domain-driven design are influential to the concept. Additionally, results indicate that CQRS may be a precursor to eventually consistent queries and aids fine-tuning of availability, consistency and partition tolerance considerations. It is concluded that CQRS may facilitate improved collaboration and ease distribution of work. Moreover, it is hoped that the results will help to contextualize CQRS and spark additional interest in the field of IS research. The inquiry suggests further inquiries in other areas. These are among others; extract transform load-patterns, operational transforms, probabilistic bounded staleness and occasionally connected systems

Developing trends in showrooming, webrooming, and omnichannel shopping behaviors: Performance analysis, conceptual mapping, and future directions

In an omnichannel era, businesses and marketers need insights into the dynamics of customer shopping behaviors, particularly the interplay between omnichannel, showrooming, and webrooming behaviors. This study investigates the evolution and trends of the research and channel shopping behaviors (RCSB) domain, spanning from 1998 to 2022, including the Covid-19 era. The study performed a bibliometric review of 500 papers in the Scopus database. The performance analysis reveals an annual growth rate of nearly 16%, with average citations per document of 44, indicating sustained and growing research interest. Science mapping revealed five distinct cluster themes, including showrooming and webrooming in multi- and omni-channel contexts; consumer behavior in online retail and shopping; customer satisfaction and trust in multi-channel retailing; mobile commerce in a multi-channel environment; and the interplay between online shopping, channel choice, and supply chain management. Furthermore, topics, such as showrooming, e-commerce, retailing, and omnichannel retailing, remain popular before and during the pandemic, as seen in the thematic evolution. Our examination of the thematic maps revealed various topics that gained significance during the pandemic, such as multichannel, channel choice, customer experience, social commerce, purchase behavior, and covid-19. Among these, the thematic maps indicate that customer experience, channel choice, multichannel, and covid-19 are emerging and basic topics. These topics can steer research directions in the RCSB domain toward examining customer experiences using digital innovations, e-commerce (including mobile and social commerce), and omnichannel strategy and management

An Exploratory Study of Information Systems Researcher Impact

Citation counts of refereed articles are a potentially valuable measure of the impact of a researcher\u27s work, in the information systems discipline as in many others. Citation counts can be generated from a number of data collections, including Thomson’s ISI database and Google Scholar. This paper reports on an exploratory study of the apparent impact of IS researchers, as disclosed by citation counts of their works in those two collections. Citation analysis using currently available databases is found to be fraught with many serious problems, particularly if the ISI collection is used. Unless these problems are appreciated and addressed, IS researchers will be under-valued by those with authority over research funding and employment, to the serious detriment of the IS discipline

Geospatial Information Research: State of the Art, Case Studies and Future Perspectives

Geospatial information science (GI science) is concerned with the development and application of geodetic and information science methods for modeling, acquiring, sharing, managing, exploring, analyzing, synthesizing, visualizing, and evaluating data on spatio-temporal phenomena related to the Earth. As an interdisciplinary scientific discipline, it focuses on developing and adapting information technologies to understand processes on the Earth and human-place interactions, to detect and predict trends and patterns in the observed data, and to support decision making. The authors – members of DGK, the Geoinformatics division, as part of the Committee on Geodesy of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, representing geodetic research and university teaching in Germany – have prepared this paper as a means to point out future research questions and directions in geospatial information science. For the different facets of geospatial information science, the state of art is presented and underlined with mostly own case studies. The paper thus illustrates which contributions the German GI community makes and which research perspectives arise in geospatial information science. The paper further demonstrates that GI science, with its expertise in data acquisition and interpretation, information modeling and management, integration, decision support, visualization, and dissemination, can help solve many of the grand challenges facing society today and in the future