1,889 research outputs found

    A collaborative platform for an ambient assisted living ecosystem

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    The population ageing is a global trend that affects almost all countries in the world. The global share of people with 60 years or over is expected to reach 21.6% by 2050. The social and economic impact of this tendency is huge, creating new challenges to healthcare and social support services. Furthermore, population ageing is linked to an increased number of people with physical limitations together with the isolation of persons. The Ambient Assisted Living paradigm seeks to answer to some of this challenges through the integration of innovative technologies, products, systems and services. Aiming the development of an ecosystem of products and services for Ambient Assisted Living, the AAL4ALL project was created joining more than thirty research, academic and industry partners. During the AAL4ALL project a 3-layered model of services ecosystem was adopted for the conceptual architecture. This work presents a collaborative platform as a contribution to the top layer of the conceptual architecture - AAL Ecosystem.O envelhecimento da população é uma tendência global que afeta quase todos os países no mundo. A nível mundial, a percentagem de pessoas com mais de 60 anos deve atingir os 21,6% até 2050. Os impactos sociais e económicos desta tendência são enormes, criando novos desafios aos serviços de saúde e de assistência social. Além disso, o envelhecimento populacional significa um aumento do número de pessoas com limitações físicas bem como o seu isolamento. O paradigma de Ambient Assisted Living procura responder a alguns destes desafios através da integração de tecnologias, produtos, sistemas e serviços inovadores. Com o objetivo de desenvolver um ecossistema de produtos e serviços de Ambient Assisted Living, o projeto AAL4ALL foi criado reunindo mais de trinta parceiros das áreas académica, de investigação e indústria. Durante o projeto AAL4ALL, um modelo de ecossistema de serviços de 3 camadas foi adotado para a arquitetura conceptual. Este trabalho apresenta uma plataforma colaborativa como contributo para a camada superior da arquitetura conceptual – Ecossistema AAL

    Assessing organizations collaboration readiness: a behavioral approach

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    Dissertation presented at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the New University of Lisbon to obtain the degree of Doctor in Electrical Engineering, specialty of Robotics and Integrated ManufacturingThis thesis presents an approach for assessing organizations‘ readiness to collaborate. This assessment is based in three fundamental aspects, namely (1) on collaboration preparedness, which aims at assessing whether a partner has adequate collaboration-related character traits; (2) on competencies fitness which is predominantly aimed at assessing how well an organization is able to use its competencies in a collaboration context; and (3) on willingness to collaborate, which is a concept applied to assess whether an organization is, or is not, really interested to engage in concrete collaboration opportunities. The proposed approach contributes to the formation of improved collaborative networks, increasing their likelihood of success. The principal characteristic of the model lies in the fact that it follows a behavioral perspective. As such, collaboration preparedness is based on the idea of the organizations‘ character, traits and behavioral patterns. Competencies fitness is in turn based on the so-called soft competencies, exploring the performance influences/effects of the soft competencies on the hard ones in a collaboration context. Finally, willingness to collaborate is based on the organization‘s planned behavior, attitudes and intentions that are perceived in/from a partner. The work involved in the conceptualization of readiness to collaborate includes the utilization of text data mining to discover the behavioral aspects, namely the collaboration-related organization‘s traits which are relevant for assessing collaboration readiness. Bayesian belief networks are proposed as a way to deal with the underlying uncertainty in assessing collaboration readiness. A soft versus hard competencies dichotomy is used to develop the concept of competencies fitness, proposing the adjusted competencies profile and the fitness level, as the way to assess whether a partner‘s competencies fit in a collaboration opportunity. The Theory of the Planned Behavior is adapted from social sciences and used in organizations in collaboration contexts. Various modeling experiments were performed to assist in the development of this readiness concept. The validation through some cases of partnerships is proposed to evaluate the underlying collaboration readiness assessment model

    Collaborative networks: A pillar of digital transformation

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    UID/EEA/00066/2019 POCI-01-0247-FEDER-033926The notion of digital transformation encompasses the adoption and integration of a variety of new information and communication technologies for the development of more efficient, flexible, agile, and sustainable solutions for industrial systems. Besides technology, this process also involves new organizational forms and leads to new business models. As such, this work addresses the contribution of collaborative networks to such a transformation. An analysis of the collaborative aspects required in the various dimensions of the 4th industrial revolution is conducted based on a literature survey and experiences gained from several research projects. A mapping between the identified collaboration needs and research results that can be adopted from the collaborative networks area is presented. Furthermore, several new research challenges are identified and briefly characterized.publishe

    Strengthening Primary Health Care Through Community Health Workers: Investment Case And Financing Recommendations

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    A report released this week at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development found that there is a strong case for investing in Community Health Worker (CHW) programs as part of integrated health systems. The report was released by leaders from the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Republic of Liberia, the U.N. Secretary General's Special Envoy for Financing the Health MDGs and for Malaria, Partners in Health, the Clinton Foundation, the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, and the MDG Health Alliance. The authors encourage domestic governments, international financers, bilateral and multilateral donors, and the broader global health community to finance and support the scale up of CHW programs as part of community-based primary health care through a set of specific recommendations. The authors participated in the crafting of the report and its recommendations as part of a distinguished panel chaired by Ray Chambers, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Financing the Health MDGs and for Malaria, and Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

    The impact of E-HR on the roles and competencies of HR

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    Since the emergence of the internet, a new era of HR termed as E-HRM has begun, dramatically reengineering the HR practices and processes to operate in a highly competitive market. As a result, HRM has undergone a change process in terms of HRM functions over the last decade. Observations through previous studies lead us to the interest of seeking for both positive and negative impacts of E-HR to HRM function in organizations, particularly to the changes in roles and competencies of HR specialists as well as non-HR staff (line managers and employees). This research is a qualitative single case study based on semi-structured interview conducted via phone calls. Data was collected during semi-structured interviews with 10 middle management executives including 4 HR managers and 6 other functional managers in a successful MNC in the industry of milk and dairies in Vietnam. The case company is in the first phase of strategically transforming HR department at different levels and has just adopted ICTs in recent years. There is a trend to continue the automation of HR service in the next few years. In addition, the findings suggest that the delivery of HR services with a small range of web-based tools used hardly enables the expected changes in HR’s role toward a strategic partner though it supports the shift of HR focus to the role as employee champion. The initiation of E-HRM practices is pushing HR to move from a traditional bureaucratic department to a client-friendly approach which potentially targets at the role of an employee champion. Another tangible effect caused by E-HRM is the devolvement of HR responsibilities to line management though the support from HR technology to their daily work is unobvious. However, improvements in competencies of HR professional after the implementation of E-HRM were found to be inconsiderable. A preference of developing people related skills such as communication, teamwork, consultancy and negotiation to other types of competencies existed among HR professionals, though they were suggested to focus on upgrading the business knowledge, critical thinking and leadership.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

    Understanding student learning evidence: a case study of evaluation use and evaluation influence for accountability and learning

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    Evaluation use is a key construct in evaluation that characterizes the ways in which an evaluation, through its processes and findings, affects people and situations. Through in-depth case study, this research explores the nature of evaluation use, and the related notion of evaluation influence, within the context of assessment in higher education. Despite a historical focus on compliance and accreditation, assessment contemporarily hinges on increasing the use of student learning evidence for decision making across many levels of an educational organization. This shift toward learning has positioned assessment as a context for evaluation theory and practice, one that offers a unique opportunity to study evaluation use and influence relative to various purposes for evaluation (i.e., accountability and learning). The findings suggested three problematics, or dilemmas, that shape the nature of evaluation use and influence in assessment: facilitating sensemaking processes, engaging systemic complexity, and attending to power and information gaps that exist within and between educational program models and their evaluative tools. Findings from this study also suggest that student learning evidence has a profound impact on educational programming, both at the individual student and program levels

    Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

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    Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

    Healthy aging in complex environments : exploring the benefits of systems thinking for health promotion practice

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    Background Many different stakeholders and contextual factors influence the success or failure of health promotion activities. Conventional approaches and evaluation designs underlying health promotion interventions, often explicitly take contextual variables out of consideration by controlling them. In doing so, relevant information about why a project was successful or failed to reach success remains invisible and ‘black boxed’. Next to this, in health promotion practice, control over contextual variables often is not possible. Aim Given the complexity of health promotion practice, research approaches often do not fit the realities of practice. As a result, health promotion activities are not always experienced as meaningful by all stakeholders involved. This thesis aims to appreciate the complex environment in which health promotion takes place by applying a systems thinking perspective to healthy aging in order to contribute to more robust strategies and interventions to support the aging population. Methods Systems thinking aims to include a diversity of viewpoints on an issue. Therefore, to be able to answer the research questions, multiple methods were required. A combination of literature review, semi-structured and open interviews, interactive workshops, case study and survey research was used. Different sources for data collection included the aging population, local and national stakeholders, and AGORA project members. Results Part I of this thesis concludes that a systems thinking approach strengthens health promotion by 1) including diverse stakeholder perspectives, 2) explicitly addressing contextual factors, and 3) co-creating solutions with all involved. Following this conclusion, Part II addressed the application of systems thinking at the local level by investigating different stakeholders perspectives on healthy aging. Results show how there is a discrepancy between the way aging individuals experience healthy aging as an integral part of everyday life and the way services and interventions are presented with a focus on isolated health themes. Local healthy aging strategies can benefit by taking into account an assets based approach that better matches aging persons’ perspectives. Next to this, collaboration between local stakeholders can be facilitated when shared issues are made visible and contextual preconditions are taken into account. Since the operationalization of systems thinking in health promotion can benefit from learning experiences with application in practice, findings from Part II were discussed in interactive presentations and workshop formats within participating municipalities. This resulted in the co-creation of a model to facilitate collaboration and the co-creation of an intervention through application of this model. The salutogenic concept Sense of Coherence was identified as a promising concept to operationalize systems approaches in health promotion practice. It was therefore expected that quantitative measurement of SOC could provide useful information for both the development and evaluation of health promotion. The OLQ-13 scale to measure Sense of Coherence was therefore investigated for its psychometric properties. Results indicate difficulties with the use of this scale in aging populations. Deleting two items from the original 13 items, improved the functioning of OLQ. Conclusion The importance of the fact that health issues and possible intervention strategies are perceived differently by involved actors was argued within this thesis. Research is one amongst many stakeholders and a systems thinking approach implies linking all kinds of actors in order to enable co-creation of projects. Consequently, the definition of health risks, health determinants, and possible intervention effects have to be verified in both scientific research and everyday practice. Strategies to improve health are context sensitive, and consequently, certain strategies may not work in some settings whereas they function perfectly well in others. Measurement of successes of interventions should therefore use multi-method evaluations combining the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to gain insight in the ‘black box’ of why an intervention failed or was successful. If not, alternatives are overlooked and at the same time successes may go unnoticed. </p

    Academic Review Reports, Health Science, D.H.S. 2007-2008

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