The evolution of digital capital in organizations: a quantitative assessment

This study analyzed the evolution of resources in organizations towards digital capital using the example of Russia, by analyzing data on the development of technological infrastructure. It concluded that, over the past decade, there were moderately favourable conditions in terms of technological orientation in the Russian Federation. However, only a third of Russian organizations have mastered digital transformation in the context of digital interaction in the online environment using relatively simple information technologies. At the same time, a downward trend was noted for the pace of digitization of business processes and management decisions through dedicated software, reducing the global competitiveness of such organizations. The quantitative assessment of the evolution of digital resources demonstrated that Russian organizations have only a basic level of mastery of digital technologies, with some additional capabilities. This level is characterized by the use of relatively simple digital technologies and standard software. Thus, Russian economic entities in almost all areas use information and communication technology as a component of digital capital for the production of added value, but within limited professional competencies. The study results can be used by organizations’ management for meso-level research and by policymakers for evaluating the digital economy

The Dynamics of Transformation in the Development of Digital Services

Service providers are increasingly depending and using digital infrastructure and tools provided by digital platforms to transform their services and develop digital ones that meet the needs of heterogeneous end users. However, while there is an emerging literature of developing digital services, little is known about the dynamics of transformation. Using multiple cases of firms that develop digital services, the digital service taxonomy was synthesized to understand the dynamics of transformation in developing digital services. This study identifies five main dynamics: the services experience, the service process, the service capabilities, the service environment and the service delivery.  Each of those dynamics and their associated factors is explored under the objectives of business, interaction and technology. This enables us to extend the existing literature on digital service development in particular and contributes to the research of digital innovation in general

Contextual impacts on industrial processes brought by the digital transformation of manufacturing: a systematic review

The digital transformation of manufacturing (a phenomenon also known as "Industry 4.0" or "Smart Manufacturing") is finding a growing interest both at practitioner and academic levels, but is still in its infancy and needs deeper investigation. Even though current and potential advantages of digital manufacturing are remarkable, in terms of improved efficiency, sustainability, customization, and flexibility, only a limited number of companies has already developed ad hoc strategies necessary to achieve a superior performance. Through a systematic review, this study aims at assessing the current state of the art of the academic literature regarding the paradigm shift occurring in the manufacturing settings, in order to provide definitions as well as point out recurring patterns and gaps to be addressed by future research. For the literature search, the most representative keywords, strict criteria, and classification schemes based on authoritative reference studies were used. The final sample of 156 primary publications was analyzed through a systematic coding process to identify theoretical and methodological approaches, together with other significant elements. This analysis allowed a mapping of the literature based on clusters of critical themes to synthesize the developments of different research streams and provide the most representative picture of its current state. Research areas, insights, and gaps resulting from this analysis contributed to create a schematic research agenda, which clearly indicates the space for future evolutions of the state of knowledge in this field

Wireless Play and Unexpected Innovation

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the Unexpected. This chapter considers play as leading to unexpected innovation in advanced wireless technologies. It concludes that much of the potential for new media to enhance innovation actually echoes much older patterns, as evidenced by comparisons to wireless history. These are patterns of privilege, particularly class and gender privilege, reinforced by strict intellectual property protections. Detailed case studies are presented of the "wardrivers," young male computer enthusiasts who helped map wi-fi signals over the past decade, and of earlier analog wireless enthusiasts. The chapter offers a solid critique of many present-day celebrations of technology-driven innovation and of the rhetoric of participatory culture

Microvision: Static analysis-based approach to visualizing microservices in augmented reality

Microservices are supporting digital transformation; however, fundamental tools and system perspectives are missing to better observe, understand, and manage these systems, their properties, and their dependencies. Microservices architecture leans toward decentralization, which yields many advantages to system operation; it, however, brings challenges to their development. Microservices lack a system-centric perspective to better cope with system evolution and quality assessment. In this work, we explore microservice-specific architecture reconstruction based on static analysis. Such reconstruction typically results in system models to visualize selected system-centric perspectives. Conventional models are limited in utility when the service cardinality is high. We consider an alternative data visualization using 3D space using augmented reality. To begin testing the feasibility of deriving such perspectives from microservice systems, we developed and implemented prototype tools for software architecture reconstruction and visualization of compared perspectives

Impact Evaluation of Interoperability Decision Variables on P2P Collaboration Performances

This article deals with the impact evaluation of interoperability decision variables on performance indicators of business processes. The case of partner companies is studied to show the interest of an Interoperability Service Utility (ISU) on business processes in a peer to peer (P2P) collaboration. Information described in the format and the ontology of a broadcasting entity is transformed by ISU into information with the format and the ontology of the receiving entity depending on the available resources of interoperation. These resources can be human operators with defined skill level or software modules of transformation in predefined languages. A design methodology of a global simulation model for estimating the impact of interoperability decision variables on performance indicators of business processes is proposed. Its implementation in an industrial case of collaboration shows its efficiency and its interest to motivate an investment in the technologies of enterprise interoperability

Scan matching by cross-correlation and differential evolution

Scan matching is an important task, solved in the context of many high-level problems including pose estimation, indoor localization, simultaneous localization and mapping and others. Methods that are accurate and adaptive and at the same time computationally efficient are required to enable location-based services in autonomous mobile devices. Such devices usually have a wide range of high-resolution sensors but only a limited processing power and constrained energy supply. This work introduces a novel high-level scan matching strategy that uses a combination of two advanced algorithms recently used in this field: cross-correlation and differential evolution. The cross-correlation between two laser range scans is used as an efficient measure of scan alignment and the differential evolution algorithm is used to search for the parameters of a transformation that aligns the scans. The proposed method was experimentally validated and showed good ability to match laser range scans taken shortly after each other and an excellent ability to match laser range scans taken with longer time intervals between them.Web of Science88art. no. 85

Ontology-based domain modelling for consistent content change management

Ontology-based modelling of multi-formatted software application content is a challenging area in content management. When the number of software content unit is huge and in continuous process of change, content change management is important. The management of content in this context requires targeted access and manipulation methods. We present a novel approach to deal with model-driven content-centric information systems and access to their content. At the core of our approach is an ontology-based semantic annotation technique for diversely formatted content that can improve the accuracy of access and systems evolution. Domain ontologies represent domain-specific concepts and conform to metamodels. Different ontologies - from application domain ontologies to software ontologies - capture and model the different properties and perspectives on a software content unit. Interdependencies between domain ontologies, the artifacts and the content are captured through a trace model. The annotation traces are formalised and a graph-based system is selected for the representation of the annotation traces

Active learning based laboratory towards engineering education 4.0

Universities have a relevant and essential key role to ensure knowledge and development of competencies in the current fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 promotes a set of digital technologies to allow the convergence between the information technology and the operation technology towards smarter factories. Under such new framework, multiple initiatives are being carried out worldwide as response of such evolution, particularly, from the engineering education point of view. In this regard, this paper introduces the initiative that is being carried out at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, called Industry 4.0 Technologies Laboratory, I4Tech Lab. The I4Tech laboratory represents a technological environment for the academic, research and industrial promotion of related technologies. First, in this work, some of the main aspects considered in the definition of the so called engineering education 4.0 are discussed. Next, the proposed laboratory architecture, objectives as well as considered technologies are explained. Finally, the basis of the proposed academic method supported by an active learning approach is presented.Postprint (published version

Proposal for an IMLS Collection Registry and Metadata Repository

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign proposes to design, implement, and research a collection-level registry and item-level metadata repository service that will aggregate information about digital collections and items of digital content created using funds from Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grants. This work will be a collaboration by the University Library and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. All extant digital collections initiated or augmented under IMLS aegis from 1998 through September 30, 2005 will be included in the proposed collection registry. Item-level metadata will be harvested from collections making such content available using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI PMH). As part of this work, project personnel, in cooperation with IMLS staff and grantees, will define and document appropriate metadata schemas, help create and maintain collection-level metadata records, assist in implementing OAI compliant metadata provider services for dissemination of item-level metadata records, and research potential benefits and issues associated with these activities. The immediate outcomes of this work will be the practical demonstration of technologies that have the potential to enhance the visibility of IMLS funded online exhibits and digital library collections and improve discoverability of items contained in these resources. Experience gained and research conducted during this project will make clearer both the costs and the potential benefits associated with such services. Metadata provider and harvesting service implementations will be appropriately instrumented (e.g., customized anonymous transaction logs, online questionnaires for targeted user groups, performance monitors). At the conclusion of this project we will submit a final report that discusses tasks performed and lessons learned, presents business plans for sustaining registry and repository services, enumerates and summarizes potential benefits of these services, and makes recommendations regarding future implementations of these and related intermediary and end user interoperability services by IMLS projects.unpublishednot peer reviewe