8,932 research outputs found
Key technologies for safe and autonomous drones
Drones/UAVs are able to perform air operations that are very difficult to be performed by manned aircrafts. In addition, drones' usage brings significant economic savings and environmental benefits, while reducing risks to human life. In this paper, we present key technologies that enable development of drone systems. The technologies are identified based on the usages of drones (driven by COMP4DRONES project use cases). These technologies are grouped into four categories: U-space capabilities, system functions, payloads, and tools. Also, we present the contributions of the COMP4DRONES project to improve existing technologies. These contributions aim to ease drones’ customization, and enable their safe operation.This project has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 826610. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Spain, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands. The total project budget is 28,590,748.75 EUR (excluding ESIF partners), while the requested grant is 7,983,731.61 EUR to ECSEL JU, and 8,874,523.84 EUR of National and ESIF Funding. The project has been started on 1st October 2019
The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions
The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are
non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive
experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can
benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed,
including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture.
Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an
ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on
the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse
and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic,
multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is
required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To
address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline
ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications
and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user
interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps
of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact
of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial
Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on
its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies
to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions,
and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for
each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the
best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users,
scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse
ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution
Economia colaborativa
A importância de se proceder à análise dos principais desafios jurÃdicos que a economia colaborativa coloca – pelas implicações que as mudanças de paradigma dos modelos de negócios e dos sujeitos envolvidos suscitam − é indiscutÃvel, correspondendo à necessidade de se fomentar a segurança jurÃdica destas práticas, potenciadoras de crescimento económico e bem-estar social.
O Centro de Investigação em Justiça e Governação (JusGov) constituiu uma equipa multidisciplinar que, além de juristas, integra investigadores de outras áreas, como a economia e a gestão, dos vários grupos do JusGov – embora com especial participação dos investigadores que integram o grupo E-TEC (Estado, Empresa e Tecnologia) – e de outras prestigiadas instituições nacionais e internacionais, para desenvolver um projeto neste domÃnio, com o objetivo de identificar os problemas jurÃdicos que a economia colaborativa suscita e avaliar se já existem soluções para aqueles, refletindo igualmente sobre a conveniência de serem introduzidas alterações ou se será mesmo necessário criar nova regulamentação.
O resultado desta investigação é apresentado nesta obra, com o que se pretende fomentar a continuação do debate sobre este tema.Esta obra é financiada por fundos nacionais através da FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., no âmbito do Financiamento UID/05749/202
A Design Science Research Approach to Smart and Collaborative Urban Supply Networks
Urban supply networks are facing increasing demands and challenges and thus constitute a relevant field for research and practical development. Supply chain management holds enormous potential and relevance for society and everyday life as the flow of goods and information are important economic functions. Being a heterogeneous field, the literature base of supply chain management research is difficult to manage and navigate. Disruptive digital technologies and the implementation of cross-network information analysis and sharing drive the need for new organisational and technological approaches. Practical issues are manifold and include mega trends such as digital transformation, urbanisation, and environmental awareness.
A promising approach to solving these problems is the realisation of smart and collaborative supply networks. The growth of artificial intelligence applications in recent years has led to a wide range of applications in a variety of domains. However, the potential of artificial intelligence utilisation in supply chain management has not yet been fully exploited. Similarly, value creation increasingly takes place in networked value creation cycles that have become continuously more collaborative, complex, and dynamic as interactions in business processes involving information technologies have become more intense.
Following a design science research approach this cumulative thesis comprises the development and discussion of four artefacts for the analysis and advancement of smart and collaborative urban supply networks. This thesis aims to highlight the potential of artificial intelligence-based supply networks, to advance data-driven inter-organisational collaboration, and to improve last mile supply network sustainability. Based on thorough machine learning and systematic literature reviews, reference and system dynamics modelling, simulation, and qualitative empirical research, the artefacts provide a valuable contribution to research and practice
Mathematical models to evaluate the impact of increasing serotype coverage in pneumococcal conjugate vaccines
Of over 100 serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae, only 7 were included in the first pneumo- coccal conjugate vaccine (PCV). While PCV reduced the disease incidence, in part because of a herd immunity effect, a replacement effect was observed whereby disease was increasingly caused by serotypes not included in the vaccine. Dynamic transmission models can account for these effects to describe post-vaccination scenarios, whereas economic evaluations can enable decision-makers to compare vaccines of increasing valency for implementation. This thesis has four aims. First, to explore the limitations and assumptions of published pneu- mococcal models and the implications for future vaccine formulation and policy. Second, to conduct a trend analysis assembling all the available evidence for serotype replacement in Europe, North America and Australia to characterise invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) caused by vaccine-type (VT) and non-vaccine-types (NVT) serotypes. The motivation behind this is to assess the patterns of relative abundance in IPD cases pre- and post-vaccination, to examine country-level differences in relation to the vaccines employed over time since introduction, and to assess the growth of the replacement serotypes in comparison with the serotypes targeted by the vaccine. The third aim is to use a Bayesian framework to estimate serotype-specific invasiveness, i.e. the rate of invasive disease given carriage. This is useful for dynamic transmission modelling, as transmission is through carriage but a majority of serotype-specific pneumococcal data lies in active disease surveillance. This is also helpful to address whether serotype replacement reflects serotypes that are more invasive or whether serotypes in a specific location are equally more invasive than in other locations. Finally, the last aim of this thesis is to estimate the epidemiological and economic impact of increas- ing serotype coverage in PCVs using a dynamic transmission model. Together, the results highlight that though there are key parameter uncertainties that merit further exploration, divergence in serotype replacement and inconsistencies in invasiveness on a country-level may make a universal PCV suboptimal.Open Acces
The determinants of value addition: a crtitical analysis of global software engineering industry in Sri Lanka
It was evident through the literature that the perceived value delivery of the global software
engineering industry is low due to various facts. Therefore, this research concerns global
software product companies in Sri Lanka to explore the software engineering methods and
practices in increasing the value addition. The overall aim of the study is to identify the key
determinants for value addition in the global software engineering industry and critically
evaluate the impact of them for the software product companies to help maximise the value
addition to ultimately assure the sustainability of the industry.
An exploratory research approach was used initially since findings would emerge while the
study unfolds. Mixed method was employed as the literature itself was inadequate to
investigate the problem effectively to formulate the research framework. Twenty-three face-to-face online interviews were conducted with the subject matter experts covering all the
disciplines from the targeted organisations which was combined with the literature findings as
well as the outcomes of the market research outcomes conducted by both government and nongovernment institutes. Data from the interviews were analysed using NVivo 12. The findings
of the existing literature were verified through the exploratory study and the outcomes were
used to formulate the questionnaire for the public survey. 371 responses were considered after
cleansing the total responses received for the data analysis through SPSS 21 with alpha level
0.05. Internal consistency test was done before the descriptive analysis. After assuring the
reliability of the dataset, the correlation test, multiple regression test and analysis of variance
(ANOVA) test were carried out to fulfil the requirements of meeting the research objectives.
Five determinants for value addition were identified along with the key themes for each area.
They are staffing, delivery process, use of tools, governance, and technology infrastructure.
The cross-functional and self-organised teams built around the value streams, employing a
properly interconnected software delivery process with the right governance in the delivery
pipelines, selection of tools and providing the right infrastructure increases the value delivery.
Moreover, the constraints for value addition are poor interconnection in the internal processes,
rigid functional hierarchies, inaccurate selections and uses of tools, inflexible team
arrangements and inadequate focus for the technology infrastructure. The findings add to the
existing body of knowledge on increasing the value addition by employing effective processes,
practices and tools and the impacts of inaccurate applications the same in the global software
engineering industry
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An Agile Musicology: Improvisation in Corporate Management and Lean Startups
The last decade of the twentieth century saw a proliferation of publications that use jazz as a metaphor for corporate management, arguing that in the contemporary knowledge economy, jazz is superior to the symphonic model that governed mid-century factory floors. As the literature on the jazz metaphor, and organizational improvisation more broadly, continued to develop into the twenty-first century, another managerial methodology became widely adopted by entrepreneurs: agile. While agile is yet to be fully theorized as an improvisatory practice, agile shares several core tenets with the models promoted by organizational improvisation scholars, including the use of small teams, an emphasis on feedback, and an openness to change. In this dissertation, I argue that agile methods, and the adjacent lean methodology, are inherently improvisatory and that understanding them as improvisatory offers opportunities not only for their deployment within growing businesses, but also for adoption at-scale in large corporations.
I draw on an array of disciplinary perspectives, including management science, organizational studies, musicology, and critical improvisation studies, as well as a wide range of sources, from peer-reviewed journal publications to trade manuals. Each chapter builds upon the former: a substantial and critical review of the jazz metaphor literature is followed by a dissection of its main themes under a musicological lens; after securing the foundations of organizational improvisation, the next chapter reveals the improvisatory nature of agile and lean startup practices and links them to concepts discussed within the jazz metaphor literature. Drawing on insights from large-scale improvisatory musical practices, the final chapter reveals how improvisation, as a set of practices shared between corporate management and agile methodologies, provides avenues for agile to be scaled up as startups grow or for its widespread adoption within established companies
Consolidation of Urban Freight Transport – Models and Algorithms
Urban freight transport is an indispensable component of economic and social life in cities. Compared to other types of transport, however, it contributes disproportionately to the negative impacts of traffic. As a result, urban freight transport is closely linked to social, environmental, and economic challenges. Managing urban freight transport and addressing these issues poses challenges not only for local city administrations but also for companies, such as logistics service providers (LSPs). Numerous policy measures and company-driven initiatives exist in the area of urban freight transport to overcome these challenges. One central approach is the consolidation of urban freight transport. This dissertation focuses on urban consolidation centers (UCCs) which are a widely studied and applied measure in urban freight transport. The fundamental idea of UCCs is to consolidate freight transport across companies in logistics facilities close to an urban area in order to increase the efficiency of vehicles delivering goods within the urban area. Although the concept has been researched and tested for several decades and it was shown that it can reduce the negative externalities of freight transport in cities, in practice many UCCs struggle with a lack of business participation and financial difficulties. This dissertation is primarily focused on the costs and savings associated with the use of UCCs from the perspective of LSPs. The cost-effectiveness of UCC use, which is also referred to as cost attractiveness, can be seen as a crucial condition for LSPs to be interested in using UCC systems. The overall objective of this dissertation is two-fold. First, it aims to develop models to provide decision support for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of using UCCs. Second, it aims to analyze the impacts of urban freight transport regulations and operational characteristics on the cost attractiveness of using UCCs from the perspective of LSPs. In this context, a distinction is made between UCCs that are jointly operated by a group of LSPs and UCCs that are operated by third parties who offer their urban transport service for a fee. The main body of this dissertation is based on three research papers. The first paper focuses on jointly-operated UCCs that are operated by a group of cooperating LSPs. It presents a simulation model to analyze the financial impacts on LSPs participating in such a scheme. In doing so, a particular focus is placed on urban freight transport regulations. A case study is used to analyze the operation of a jointly-operated UCC for scenarios involving three freight transport regulations. The second and third papers take on a different perspective on UCCs by focusing on third-party operated UCCs. In contrast to the first paper, the second and third papers present an evaluation approach in which the decision to use UCCs is integrated with the vehicle route planning of LSPs. In addition to addressing the basic version of this integrated routing problem, known as the vehicle routing problem with transshipment facilities (VRPTF), the second paper presents problem extensions that incorporate time windows, fleet size and mix decisions, and refined objective functions. To heuristically solve the basic problem and the new problem variants, an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) heuristic with embedded local search heuristic and set partitioning problem (SPP) is presented. Furthermore, various factors influencing the cost attractiveness of UCCs, including time windows and usage fees, are analyzed using a real-world case study. The third paper extends the work of the second paper and incorporates daily and entrance-based city toll schemes and enables multi-trip routing. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation of the resulting problem is proposed, as well as an ALNS solution heuristic. Moreover, a real-world case study with three European cities is used to analyze the impact of the two city toll systems in different operational contexts
Developing end-of-life care at a Portuguese nursing home through participatory action research
Background: Nursing homes are places where older people live and often die but little is known about the needs of those who care for them, in Portugal. Aim: to identify the needs of nursing home staff when caring for older people at the end of life; to understand the cultural nuances of providing care at the end-of-life in nursing homes; to develop, with nursing home staff, a culturally appropriate programme that meets their needs; and to plan for future development. Methods: Participatory Action Research was used to identify needs and to develop interventions, designed by the staff themselves, aimed at improving care. Up to ten nursing home staff participated in a six-cycle research process, with data collected, analysed, and used in sequential plan-act-reflect steps. Findings: The silence that surrounds a resident’s death has a severe impact on the lives of those who survive him/her. Lacking competencies in grief management, and with no emotional and relational space to express grief emotions, staff strive to manage their loss, while trying to support other residents. Acknowledging the existence of death and its impact on nursing home life made the invisibility of death and mourning visible, and interventions possible, providing closure to all. Conclusion: The impact of death and dying on nursing home life needs to be recognised. If adequately supported, nursing home staff can develop strategies to manage grief and mourning, to improve their knowledge of the residents’ needs and wishes, improve communication among staff, and ultimately improve care
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