Thought for Food: the impact of ICT on agribusiness

This report outlines the impact of ICT on the food economy. On the basis of a literature review from four disciplines - knowledge management, management information systems, operations research and logistics, and economics - the demand for new ICT applications, the supply of new applications and the match between demand and supply are identified. Subsequently the impact of new ICT applications on the food economy is discussed. The report relates the development of new technologies to innovation and adoption processes and economic growth, and to concepts of open innovations and living lab

Business Process Management Education in Academia: Status, challenges, and Recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise

Thought for Food: The impact of ICT on agribusiness

The paper outlines the impact of ICT on the food economy. On basis of a literature review from four disciplines – knowledge management, management information systems, operations research and logistics, and economics - the paper identifies the demand for new ICT applications, the supply of new applications and the match between demand and supply. Subsequently, the paper discusses the impact of new ICT applications on the food economy. The paper relates the development of new technologies to innovation and adoption processes and economic growth, and to concepts of open innovations and living labs.ICT, Food Economy, Innovation and Adoption, Economic growth, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Navigating Through the Maze of Business Process Change Methods

Business Process Management (BPM) is an approach adopted by many organizations for improving their business processes in order to serve their customers more efficiently and effectively. Literature on BPM offers a plethora of methods used as a guide when improving business processes. Some are promoted as methods for process reengineering, while others as methods for improvement, redesign, or innovation. The number of BPM methods is overwhelming, such that organizations are faced with the challenge to select one that best fits their needs. In this paper, we follow a systematic literature review approach to investigate the characteristics of existing BPM methods. We find that the ambition, nature and perspective of the methods are important to determine whether they can be used for radical or incremental process change. Our findings point to the lack of research done on methods for radical process change

Effectiveness of a new one-hour blood pressure monitoring method to diagnose hypertension: a diagnostic accuracy clinical trial protocol

Introduction 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is the gold standard diagnostic method for hypertension, but has some shortcomings in clinical practice while clinical settings often lack sufficient devices to accommodate all patients with suspected hypertension. Home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) and office blood pressure monitoring (OBPM) also have shortcomings, such as the white coat effect or a lack of accuracy. This study aims to study the validity of a new method of diagnosing hypertension consisting of monitoring blood pressure (BP) for 1 hour and comparing it with OBPM and HBPM and examining the sensitivity and specificity of this method compared with 24-hour ABPM. The patient experience will be examined in each method. Methods and analysis A minimum sample of 214 patients requiring a diagnostic test for hypertension from three urban primary healthcare centres will be included. Participants will undergo 24-hour ABPM, 1-hour BP measurement (1-BPM), OBPM for three consecutive weeks and HBPM. Patients will follow a random sequence to first receive 24-hour ABPM or 1-hour ABPM. Daytime 24-hour ABPM records will be compared with the other monitoring methods using the correlation coefficient and Bland Altman plots. The kappa concordance index and the sensitivity and specificity of the methods will be calculated. The patient’s experience will be studied, with selected indicators of efficiency and satisfaction calculated using parametric tests. Ethics and dissemination The protocol has been authorised by the research ethics committee of the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona (Ref. HCB/2014/0615): protocol details and amendments will be recorded and reported to ClinicalTrials.com. The results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed literature, and to policy makers and healthcare partners.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

SOA and BPM, a Partnership for Successful Organizations

In order to stay effective and competitive, companies have to be able to adapt themselves to permanent market requirements, to improve constantly their business process, to act as flexible and proactive economic agents. To achieve these goals, the IT systems within the organization have to be standardized and integrated, in order to provide fast and reliable data access to users both inside and outside the company. A proper system architecture for integrating company’s IT assets is a service oriented one. A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an IT architectural style that allows integration of the company’s business as linked, repeatable tasks called services. A subject closely related to SOA is Business Process Management (BPM), an approach that aims to improve business processes. The paper also presents some aspects of this topic, as well as the relationship between SOA and BPM. They complement each other and help companies improve their business performance.Information Systems, SOA, Web Services, BPM

Knowledge based economy –technological perspective: implications and solutions for agility improvement and innovation achievement in higher education

Nowadays, the universities, as driving forces of innovative economy and as components of modern society, based on knowledge and collaboration, face a number of challenges and difficulties. In order to overcome them and to create/ensure the bases of eScience education and research activities, universities have to change culturally, strategically, and operationally. The paper highlights the need for ICT (Information and Communications Technology) use and its implications for higher education. In addition, the study places the theoretical aspects into a specific context, combining technologies through interfunctionality in order to ensure academic education agility and innovation. This involves the use of knowledge, process management, service oriented architectures, and Cloud solutions, exemplifying on the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest case. The integrated approach is extended using the SharePoint 2010 platform to improve academic management and achieve harmonization of teaching and research and development content and methods with European Union standards. The platform has been implemented and tested within two AES departments and the Master’s Degree Studies in Computer Economics. The results have encouraged the integration of the proposed solution within the institution. The study was based on the authors' competences in the areas addressed and was joined with a rigorous analysis of technology trends and various EU countries (Italy, Germany France, Belgium, Netherlands etc.) universities outputs regarding knowledge economy implications for economic higher education studies.knowledge-based economy, information and communications technology, university studies in economics, university management, agility, innovation, SharePoint 2010

Green BPM as a business-oriented discipline : a systematic mapping study and research agenda

Green Business Process Management (BPM) focuses on the ecological impact of business processes. This article provides a systematic mapping study of Green BPM literature to evaluate five attributes of the Green BPM research area: (1) scope, (2) disciplines, (3) accountability, (4) researchers and (5) quality control. The results allow developing a research agenda to enhance Green BPM as an approach for environmentally sustainable organizations. We rely on a dichotomy of knowledge production to present research directives relevant for both academics and practitioners in order to help close a rigor-relevance gap. The involvement of both communities is crucial for Green BPM to advance as an applied, business-oriented discipline

Orchestrating the spatial planning process: from Business Process Management to 2nd generation Planning Support Systems

Metaplanning can be considered as a necessary step for improving collaboration, transparency and accountability in sustainable and democratic spatial decision-making process. This paper reports current findings on the operational implementation of the metaplanning concept developed by the authors relying on Business Process Management methods and techniques. Two solutions are presented which implement spatial planning process workflows thanks to the development of original spatial data and processing services connectors to a Business Process Management suite. These results can be considered as a first step towards the development of 2nd generation Planning Support Systems