991 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    UMSL Bulletin 2022-2023

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    The 2022-2023 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1087/thumbnail.jp

    Digital Innovations for a Circular Plastic Economy in Africa

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    Plastic pollution is one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century that requires innovative and varied solutions. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, this book brings together interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder perspectives exploring challenges and opportunities for utilising digital innovations to manage and accelerate the transition to a circular plastic economy (CPE). This book is organised into three sections bringing together discussion of environmental conditions, operational dimensions and country case studies of digital transformation towards the circular plastic economy. It explores the environment for digitisation in the circular economy, bringing together perspectives from practitioners in academia, innovation, policy, civil society and government agencies. The book also highlights specific country case studies in relation to the development and implementation of different innovative ideas to drive the circular plastic economy across the three sub-Saharan African regions. Finally, the book interrogates the policy dimensions and practitioner perspectives towards a digitally enabled circular plastic economy. Written for a wide range of readers across academia, policy and practice, including researchers, students, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), digital entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and multilateral agencies, policymakers and public officials, this book offers unique insights into complex, multilayered issues relating to the production and management of plastic waste and highlights how digital innovations can drive the transition to the circular plastic economy in Africa. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license

    Microcredentials to support PBL

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    Creating shared value:An operations and supply chain management perspective

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    Focusing solely on short-term profits has caused social, environmental, and economic problems. Creating shared value integrates profitability with social and environmental objectives, offering a holistic solution. This dissertation examines two areas where this integration is crucial. The first topic explores servicizing business models for a transition to a more circular economy, emphasizing environmental benefits and firm profitability. Initially, we focus on pricing policies, comparing pricing schemes across consumer segments to identify win-win-win strategies that meet all people, planet, and profit objectives. Our research reveals that pay-per-use schemes outperform pay-per-period schemes for cost-inefficient or small-scale providers. A win-win (profit and planet) strategy can be achieved by offering a pay-per-use policy to high usage-valuation consumers, but a win-win-win strategy is unattainable. We then investigate consumer choices in servicizing models by conducting a conjoint experiment on payment scheme, price, minimum contract duration, and entry label attributes. The payment scheme emerges as the most influential attribute, with purchasing and pay-per-use schemes being popular options. The second topic focuses on drug shortages. Specifically, we examine the impact of tendering on shortages. Our findings demonstrate that tendering reduces prices but increases shortages, particularly at the beginning of contracts. However, shortages are less severe when alternative suppliers are available, and the market is less concentrated. To address this issue, we propose allowing multiple winners, regionalizing tenders, increasing the time between tender and contract initiation, and incorporating a reliability measure as a winning criterion to mitigate shortages

    An empirical evaluation of m-health service users’ behaviours: A case of Bangladesh

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    A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Mobile health (m-health) services are revolutionising healthcare in the developing world by improving accessibility, affordability, and availability. Although these services are revolutionising healthcare in various ways, there are growing concerns regarding users' service quality perceptions and overall influence on satisfaction and usage behaviours. In developing countries, access to healthcare and low healthcare costs are insufficient if users lack confidence in healthcare service quality. Bangladesh's Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) provides the only government-sponsored m-health service available to the entire population. DGHS's m-health service, available since 2009, is yet to be evaluated in terms of users' perceptions of the quality of service and its impact on satisfaction and usage. Hence, this study developed a conceptual model for evaluating the associations between overall DGHS m-health service quality, satisfaction, and usage behaviours. This study operationalised overall m-health service quality as a higher-order construct with three dimensions- platform quality, information quality, and outcome quality, and nine corresponding subdimensions-privacy, systems availability, systems reliability, systems efficiency, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, emotional benefit, and functional benefit. Moreover, researchers in various service domains, including- healthcare, marketing, environmental protection, and information systems, evaluated and confirmed the influence of social and personal norms on satisfaction and behavioural outcomes like- intention to use. Despite this, no research has been conducted to determine whether these normative components affect m-health users' service satisfaction and usage behaviours. As a result, this study included social and personal norms along with overall service quality into the conceptual model to assess the influence of these variables on users' satisfaction and m-health service usage behaviours. Data was collected from two districts in Bangladesh- Dhaka and Rajshahi, utilising the online survey approach. A total of 417 usable questionnaires were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling to investigate the relationships between the constructs in Warp PLS. The study confirms that all three dimensions of service quality and their corresponding subdimensions influence users' overall perceptions of DGHS m-health service quality. Moreover, overall DGHS m-health service quality has a significant direct association with satisfaction and an indirect association with usage behaviours through satisfaction. While social norms do not influence satisfaction and usage behaviours within the DGHS m-health context, personal norms directly influence users' satisfaction and indirectly influence usage behaviours through satisfaction. Theoretically, the study contributes by framing the influence of users' overall m-health service quality perceptions, social and personal norms on their actual usage behaviours rather than the intention to use. It also extends the existing knowledge by assessing and comparing m-health users' continuous and discontinuous behaviours. Methodologically this study confirms the usefulness of partial least squares structural equational modelling to analyse a complex model including a higher order construct (i.e., overall perceived service quality). Practically, the study demonstrates the importance of users' satisfaction in addition to service quality, as service quality only affects usage behaviours through satisfaction in the current study context. Additionally, knowing that personal norms significantly influence service satisfaction motivates providers of m-health services to strive to enhance users' personal norms toward m-health service to enhance service satisfaction and usage. Overall, the study will help enhance patient outcomes and m-health service usage

    Blockchain-Coordinated Frameworks for Scalable and Secure Supply Chain Networks

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    Supply chains have progressed through time from being limited to a few regional traders to becoming complicated business networks. As a result, supply chain management systems now rely significantly on the digital revolution for the privacy and security of data. Due to key qualities of blockchain, such as transparency, immutability and decentralization, it has recently gained a lot of interest as a way to solve security, privacy and scalability problems in supply chains. However conventional blockchains are not appropriate for supply chain ecosystems because they are computationally costly, have a limited potential to scale and fail to provide trust. Consequently, due to limitations with a lack of trust and coordination, supply chains tend to fail to foster trust among the network’s participants. Assuring data privacy in a supply chain ecosystem is another challenge. If information is being shared with a large number of participants without establishing data privacy, access control risks arise in the network. Protecting data privacy is a concern when sending corporate data, including locations, manufacturing supplies and demand information. The third challenge in supply chain management is scalability, which continues to be a significant barrier to adoption. As the amount of transactions in a supply chain tends to increase along with the number of nodes in a network. So scalability is essential for blockchain adoption in supply chain networks. This thesis seeks to address the challenges of privacy, scalability and trust by providing frameworks for how to effectively combine blockchains with supply chains. This thesis makes four novel contributions. It first develops a blockchain-based framework with Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) model to assure data privacy by adopting a distributed framework to enable fine grained, dynamic access control management for supply chain management. To solve the data privacy challenge, AccessChain is developed. This proposed AccessChain model has two types of ledgers in the system: local and global. Local ledgers are used to store business contracts between stakeholders and the ABAC model management, whereas the global ledger is used to record transaction data. AccessChain can enable decentralized, fine-grained and dynamic access control management in SCM when combined with the ABAC model and blockchain technology (BCT). The framework enables a systematic approach that advantages the supply chain, and the experiments yield convincing results. Furthermore, the results of performance monitoring shows that AccessChain’s response time with four local ledgers is acceptable, and therefore it provides significantly greater scalability. Next, a framework for reducing the bullwhip effect (BWE) in SCM is proposed. The framework also focuses on combining data visibility with trust. BWE is first observed in SC and then a blockchain architecture design is used to minimize it. Full sharing of demand data has been shown to help improve the robustness of overall performance in a multiechelon SC environment, especially for BWE mitigation and cumulative cost reduction. It is observed that when it comes to providing access to data, information sharing using a blockchain has some obvious benefits in a supply chain. Furthermore, when data sharing is distributed, parties in the supply chain will have fair access to other parties’ data, even though they are farther downstream. Sharing customer demand is important in a supply chain to enhance decision-making, reduce costs and promote the final end product. This work also explores the ability of BCT as a solution in a distributed ledger approach to create a trust-enhanced environment where trust is established so that stakeholders can share their information effectively. To provide visibility and coordination along with a blockchain consensus process, a new consensus algorithm, namely Reputation-based proof-of cooperation (RPoC), is proposed for blockchain-based SCM, which does not involve validators to solve any mathematical puzzle before storing a new block. The RPoC algorithm is an efficient and scalable consensus algorithm that selects the consensus node dynamically and permits a large number of nodes to participate in the consensus process. The algorithm decreases the workload on individual nodes while increasing consensus performance by allocating the transaction verification process to specific nodes. Through extensive theoretical analyses and experimentation, the suitability of the proposed algorithm is well grounded in terms of scalability and efficiency. The thesis concludes with a blockchain-enabled framework that addresses the issue of preserving privacy and security for an open-bid auction system. This work implements a bid management system in a private BC environment to provide a secure bidding scheme. The novelty of this framework derives from an enhanced approach for integrating BC structures by replacing the original chain structure with a tree structure. Throughout the online world, user privacy is a primary concern, because the electronic environment enables the collection of personal data. Hence a suitable cryptographic protocol for an open-bid auction atop BC is proposed. Here the primary aim is to achieve security and privacy with greater efficiency, which largely depends on the effectiveness of the encryption algorithms used by BC. Essentially this work considers Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and a dynamic cryptographic accumulator encryption algorithm to enhance security between auctioneer and bidder. The proposed e-bidding scheme and the findings from this study should foster the further growth of BC strategies

    Sustainable Living in Systems Change: A holistic approach to model lifestyle changes in Integrated Assessment Models

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    Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased almost continuously since 1850, and it has been unequivocally proven to contribute to climate change. In the Paris Agreement of 2015, countries agreed to limit the global mean temperature increase to well below 2°C, possibly even 1.5°C, compared to the preindustrial level. Traditionally, changes in energy supply have been explored and considered extensively as solutions to combat climate change. Yet, there has been much less focus on demand-side changes through lifestyle and behavioural changes. However, this has changed in the last few years, with increasing attention to sustainable lifestyles and behaviour, for example, in the UNEP Emission Gap Report and IPCC AR6. This research aims to show how to improve the representation of lifestyle changes in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), to establish the possible role of lifestyle changes in climate change mitigation strategies. This thesis identifies key insights from existing literature on different approaches for analysing lifestyle changes. These insights include the harmonisation of lifestyle-related terms, different perspectives on analysing lifestyles, the broad ranges of lifestyle changes that can be modelled, the trade-offs between different modelling approaches and the tools that could help analyse the outcomes of lifestyle changes. This thesis also developed the ASIF* decomposition tool to distinguish between impacts from consumption and technology changes in the analysis of future scenarios. Another part of the thesis analyses current lifestyles compared to future emissions consistent with climate targets. This analysis shows how heterogeneous segments within and between regions show a variety of lifestyles and contexts that affect emissions, and large consumer segments in Japan are close to the transport-related emission levels in a 2°C climate scenario in 2050. A vital part of the thesis is the set of developed SLIM (Sustainable Living in Models) scenarios across two critical uncertainties: more individualistic or collectivist values; and more centralised or distributed support for sustainable lifestyles. Four scenarios emerge, leading to unique, sustainable futures and just transitions. Firstly, the qualitative SLIM scenario narratives illustrate how structural support and value systems shape lifestyles differently and change dynamically in response to enablers and societal shifts. The scenario narratives identify the extent and speed of lifestyle changes for modelling the SLIM scenarios, with regional differentiation and equity considerations. The emission pathways show the implications of the SLIM scenarios towards sustainable living and highlight that lifestyle changes contribute substantially to climate change mitigation, mostly with larger systems change, to achieve transformative outcomes. More specifically, lifestyle changes could reduce passenger transport and residential emissions by about 39% for Global North regions and 27% for Global South regions in 2050 compared to a scenario based on current trends. These scenarios can help guide strategic dialogue and global climate change mitigation decisions and actions by considering lifestyle change in the context of larger systems change

    The Unexpected Sources of Innovation

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    From increased access to information to a shift in production from material to immaterial goods, recent trends enable citizens to become more active agents of change. Both at their homes and workplaces, citizens are witnessed to be producers of goods, including innovations enabling new functions when compared with the existing goods offered on the (local) market. Examples range from tangible goods, such as new brewing technologies for making craft beers, to intangible goods, like open-source software. In the words of Eric von Hippel (2005): innovation is democratizing. In this thesis, Max Mulhuijzen studies the democratization of innovation. With four studies, he researches the development of innovations by individual citizens and when and how these innovations diffuse. Thereby, Max sheds light on the process of innovation brought about by actors not recognized in the traditional academic literature: the unexpected sources of innovation. The first study unravels the process through which citizens produce household sector (HHS) innovations. In particular, how citizens’ income and discretionary time permit them to develop goods at home and subsequently, how these resources allow citizens to be innovative in their efforts. The main contributions of this chapter to the literature are the more nuanced conceptualization of HHS innovation—Max connects the concept to broader constructs on citizen production behavior (e.g., do-it-yourself)—and the sophisticated model theorizing how resources steer innovation by citizens. In the second study, Max takes a helicopter view of the regional factors enabling citizens to develop and diffuse innovations and develops an ecosystem model. Past studies of HHS innovation are weakly correlated concerning the policies they advise, resulting in only a few changes to policymaking. The ecosystem model presented in this chapter explains how the most significant regional elements may determine levels of HHS innovation, how these elements complement or weaken each other, and provides a valuable toolbox to scholars and policymakers in suggesting HHS innovation policies. The third study focuses on the interactions between innovating citizens and firms. Though the academic literature has counseled firms to open up their boundaries and facilitate innovation by and absorb knowledge from users of their products, few theories to date explain variation in users’ characteristics and how this might explain their innovation outcomes. Max examines quantitatively the case of the Ultimaker 3D printer and its online platform YouMagine—such platforms allow users to share freely the product improvements or additions they developed. He offers new insights into the characteristics of users contributing designs well-received by the user community, guiding firms on which users are likely contributors. The final study included in this dissertation considers how a democratized view of innovation implicates innovation in firms by exploring underground innovation, i.e., the innovations employees initiate and develop without their supervisors or managers knowing. Previous studies have reported such cases but did not provide an in-depth account of employees’ motivations—while these can have implications for the diffusion, hence the visibility of underground innovations. This study contributes such an account and reveals three orientations characterizing employees’ projects developed underground
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