A Model to Define an eHealth Technological Ecosystem for Caregivers

The ageing of world population has a direct impact on the health and care systems, as it means an increase in the number of people needing care which leads to higher care costs and the need for more resources. In this context, informal caregivers play an important role as they enable dependent persons to stay at home and thus reduce care costs. However, long-term continuous care provision has also an impact in the physical and mental health of the caregivers. Moreover, geographical barriers make it difficult for caregivers to accessing psychoeducation as a way to alleviate their problems. To support caregivers in their needs and provide specialized training, technology plays a fundamental role. The present work provides the theoretical basis for the development of a technological ecosystem focused on learning and knowledge management processes to develop and enhance the caregiving competences of formal and informal caregivers, both at home and in care environments. In particular, a platform-specific model to support the definition of the ecosystem based on Open Source software components is presented, along with a Business Model Canvas to define the business structure as part of the human elements of the technological ecosystem

Modelling Co-Creation Ecosystem for Public Open Spaces

Co-creation can be defined as the involvement of citizens in the initiation and/or the design process of public services in order to (co)create beneficial outcomes and value for society. Mediated public open spaces are ideal environments for co-creation to emerge due to the involvement of the community and ICT in the knowledge creation. The aims of the research presented in the chapter are two-fold: to conduct a mapping activity in order to collect the insights on civic technologies promoting the creation of open public spaces through the use of ICT and to define the critical dimensions in designing cocreative ecosystems. The mapping strategy was conducted by evaluating the civic technologies in Lithuania and Bulgaria. The insights from the empirical exercise allow to draw managerial and organizational recommendations for strengthening the collective efforts of citizens, IT developers, public and governmental institutions in creating open, inclusive and reflective open public spaces

Proposal, project, practice, pause: developing a framework for evaluating smart domestic product engagement

Smart homes are fast becoming a reality, with smart TVs, smart meters and other such “smart” devices/systems already representing a substantial household presence. These, which we collectively term “smart domestic products” (SDPs), will need to be promoted, adopted, and normalized into daily routines. Despite this, the marketing canon lacks a substantive discourse on pertinent research. We look to help correct this by melding ideas from organizational sociology, innovation diffusion and appropriation studies, and service dominant logic. Consequently, we suggest a framework for research that responds directly to the specific characteristics of SDPs. Using the SDP eco-system as a context, our framework emphasizes the interplay of embeddedness, practice, value and engagement. It comprises a four-stage horizontal/ longitudinal axis we describe as proposal, project, practice and pause. Cross-sectionally we focus on value, and combine aspects of existing thought to suggest how this impacts each stage of our engagement continuum. We subsequently identify perceived personal advantage as the resultant of these two axes and propose this as the key for understanding consumer and SDP sociomaterial engagement. This article also advances a definition of SDPs and ends with an agenda for further research

S-D logic-informed customer engagement: Integrative framework, revised fundamental propositions, and application to CRM

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Transitioning to Value Co-development

Developing strategic approaches to value creation for their firms and others is among the most fundamental challenges that managers face in all businesses. This implies the need to better understand both how value is created and the roles various parties within and outside the firm play

Closed-form optimality characterization of network-assisted device-to-device communications

International audience—This paper considers the mode selection problem for network-assisted device-to-device (D2D) communications with multiple antennas at the base station. We study transmission in both dedicated and shared frequency bands. Given the type of resources (i.e., dedicated or shared), the user equipment (UE) decides to transmit in the conventional cellular mode or directly to its corresponding receiver in the D2D mode. We formulate this problem under two different objectives. The first problem is to maximize the quality-of-service (QoS) given a transmit power, and the second problem is to minimize the transmit power given a QoS requirement. We derive closed-form results for the optimal decision and show that the two problem formulations behave differently. Taking a geometrical approach, we study the area around the transmitter UE where the receiving UE should be to have D2D mode optimality, and how it is affected by the transmit power, QoS, and the number of base station antennas. I. INTRODUCTION Emerging multimedia services and applications introduce new traffic types and user behaviors [1]. To address the higher demands imposed on wireless networks, more spectrally effi-cient and energy efficient approaches should be developed. Device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks is proposed to improve cell spectral and energy efficiency of the network [2], [3]. In D2D transmission mode, user equipments (UEs) communicate directly to their intended receivers as opposed to the conventional cellular mode where they communicate through the base station (BS). D2D mode can bring proximity gains and reduce the transmission time. Users in the D2D mode can transmit either in a separate frequency band or via spectrum sharing with cellular users. In the former case, D2D communications do not interfere with cellular users. This case is interesting due to its potential applications, such as public safety and multicasting for local multimedia services and robustness to infrastructure failure. On the other hand, spectrum sharing can be employed to efficiently utilize the resources which allows for better area spectral efficiency [4]. The gain from spectrum sharing can be assured if the interference is controlled by proper mode selection and resource management. However, depending on the network topology and channel conditions, it may not always be beneficial to choose the D2D mode for a UE