Innovating in practice: How to shape (startup) ecosystems

Conferencia en el marco de propuestas de conferencias de investigación del Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas y Vicerrectorado de Innovación Social y EmprendimientoHow to build startup Ecosystem. A Service Dominant Logic Approach. There is a growing interest in the process by which universities proceed to obtain value from research and transfer technology (Galán-Muros et al., 2017; Muschio et al. 2016; Perkman et al. 2013; Baldini, 2010; Gomez Gras et al., 2008: Lockett and Wright, 2005). This process is usually linked to innovation; generally, the strategy involves the organization developing institutions (rules) that encourage scholars and other university staff to achieve sufficient benefits to become involved in the process, in which both academics and graduates benefit from the results (i.e., through the creation of job opportunities), as proposed by Rizzo (2015) and Friedman and Silberman (2003). Scandura (2016, p.1907) highlights the relevance of the University in this process: “The exchange of knowledge between academia and industry is therefore an essential mechanism to bring science to the market and foster innovation and economic growth”. The last report on Science, Research and Innovation Performance of the EU (2018, pp.4) the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation posits “Europe currently benefits from distinctive strengths, but also faces weaknesses that we need to address. Europe is the world´s largest producer of high quality scientific knowledge, and yet its innovation performance remains far below its potential. EU invests around 20% of its GDP in R&D, while the United Stated, Japan and South Korea invest 2,8%, 3,3% and 4,2% respectively (…) Europe generates many exciting start-ups but has been largely left behind in the development of major new digital platforms, and lacks those transformational entrepreneurs that have disrupted entire industries at a global scale”. The present conference is related to to find out how to improve the innovation process in the University-Industry relationship side and their social networks.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas Vicerrectorado de Innovación Social y Emprendimient

Francesco Piro, Manuale di educazione al pensiero critico. Comprendere e argomentare, prefazione di Tullio De Mauro, Napoli, 2015, Editoriale Scientifica - Collana punto org., pp. 280

“Il nostro impegno consiste nel portare la scuola del Novecento in questo secolo. Ciò significa saper innovare contenuti e metodi senza stravolgere un modello educativo che funziona e che ha prodotto eccellenze nei secoli, da Galileo a Fabiola Gianotti. Perciò non intendiamo sostituire il modello knowledge-based su cui si fonda la scuola italiana con il modello skill-based più tipico del mondo anglosassone. Il nostro obiettivo è di sviluppare nuove competenze e nuove abilità pratiche, sulla base di una solida conoscenza teorica”. Così afferma il Ministro Stefania Giannini in una intervista con Armando Massarenti pubblicata il 22 febbraio 2015 su “Il Sole 24 ore”. Con tatto e al tempo stesso con ferma decisione, Giannini pone una questione di fondo per lo sviluppo economico e culturale del nostro Sistema-Paese: se è vero che l’educazione scolastica (e universitaria) in Italia è basata sulla trasmissione di conoscenze, è altresì fondamentale riconoscere come la trasmissione di conoscenze non basta più, da sola, per formare il personale oggi necessario a sostenere nel lungo periodo la competitività delle aziende e, più in generale, di tutte quelle organizzazioni (Istituzioni, Terzo settore etc.), dove prendono corpo i processi di creazione di valore. Ciò che urge sempre di più, in un mercato del lavoro dove la flessibilità è metodo, è un personale dotato di competenze trasversali, ovvero di competenze che hanno una base metacognitiva, più che cognitiva

Micro-CT imaging of tomato seeds: Predictive potential of 3D morphometry on germination

The relationship between seed physical characteristics and seed quality is widely investigated by using X-ray based imaging techniques. Recently the use of X-ray micro-tomography (micro-CT) is increasingly used for more accurate characterisation of the internal seed morphology. In this work a germination test was carried out along with the morphometric characterisation of tomato seed internal structure by means of X-ray micro-CT and 3D image analysis. The aim was to accurately evaluate the predictive potential of internal seed 3D morphology for germination outcomes. The visual assessment allowed the relationship between specific internal seed abnormalities and the different germination outcomes to be demonstrated experimentally. Univariate analysis of morphometric seed traits allowed 3D free space % and Sauter diameter, among the most discriminant parameters, to be identified as the most effective for the prediction of germination outcomes. Discriminant Analysis (DA) of 3D morphometric dataset correctly classified 96.3% of normal seedlings, 83.3% of ungerminated seeds and 63.6% of abnormal seedlings, providing a high overall prediction potential of 91.9%. The above analyses have also been performed referring to the germination at 5 days after sowing. As a side effect of the applied technique, an increase of abnormal seedlings was observed at increasing X-ray exposure level. Overall, X-ray micro-CT coupled with DA of internal morphometric traits has proved to be an effective tool to investigate the relationship between tomato seed 3D morphology and seed physiology, although attention has to be paid to possible consequences of X-ray exposure

The role of shared intentions in the emergence of service ecosystems

With the increased prevalence of ecosystems across sectors, understanding what conditions enable their formation is important for both researchers and managers. Service-dominant logic (S-D logic) focuses on service ecosystems, in which actors are interdependent, and characterizes them as layered and nested within three levels (micro, meso, and macro). To understand their formation, this study draws from work in philosophy and the social sciences to introduce the concept of shared intentionality, an aspect of collective agency whose specific conditions result from and foster interdependence among actors, and to acknowledge the mediating role of the meso level in emergence. With these concepts, this study addresses a research question on how service ecosystems are formed and what role individual and collective agency play in this process. This study contributes to S-D logic research by offering a new understanding of service ecosystem formation as a process of emergence in which the development of shared intentions enables collective agency. To synthesize the contribution, this study uses a case to illustrate a conceptual framework in which the sharing of intentions among interdependent actors drives service ecosystem emergence step-by-step across distinct dynamic levels

Boundary work in value co-creation practices: the mediating role of cognitive assistants

PurposeHow to improve healthcare for the ageing population is attracting academia attention. Emerging technologies (i.e. robots and intelligent agents) look relevant. This paper aims to analyze the role of cognitive assistants as boundary objects in value co-creation practices. We include the perceptions of the main actors – patients, (in)formal caregivers, healthcare professionals – for a fuller network perspective to understand the potential overlap between boundary work and value co-creation practices.Design/methodology/approachWe adopted a grounded approach to gain a contextual understanding design to effectively interpret context and meanings related to human–robot interactions. The study context concerns 21 health solutions that had embedded the Watson cognitive platform and its adoption by the youngest cohort (50–64-year-olds) of the ageing population.FindingsThe cognitive assistant acts as a boundary object by bridging actors, resources and activities. It enacts the boundary work of actors (both ageing and professional, caregivers, families) consisting of four main actions (automated dialoguing, augmented sharing, connected learning and multilayered trusting) that elicit two ageing value co-creation practices: empowering ageing actors in medical care and engaging ageing actors in a healthy lifestyle.Originality/valueWe frame the role of cognitive assistants as boundary objects enabling the boundary work of ageing actors for value co-creation. A cognitive assistant is an "object of activity" that mediates in actors' boundary work by offering novel resource interfaces and widening resource access and resourceness. The boundary work of ageing actors lies in a smarter resource integration that yields broader applications for augmented agency

Smart nudging: How cognitive technologies enable choice architectures for value co-creation

Abstract People make decisions and take actions to improve their viability everyday, and they increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to assist with their decision making. Such trends suggest the need to determine how AI and other cognitive technologies affect value co-creation. An integrative framework, based on the service-dominant logic and nudge theory, conceptualizes smart nudging as uses of cognitive technologies to affect people's behaviour predictably, without limiting their options or altering their economic incentives. Several choice architectures and nudges affect value co-creation, by (1) widening resource accessibility, (2) extending engagement, or (3) augmenting human actors' agency. Although cognitive technologies are unlikely to engender smart outcomes alone, they enable designs of conditions and contexts that promote smart behaviours, by amplifying capacities for self-understanding, control, and action. This study offers a conceptualization of actors' value co-creation prompted by AI-driven nudged choices, in terms of re-institutionalizing processes that affect agency and practices

Caching Historical Embeddings in Conversational Search

Rapid response, namely low latency, is fundamental in search applications; it is particularly so in interactive search sessions, such as those encountered in conversational settings. An observation with a potential to reduce latency asserts that conversational queries exhibit a temporal locality in the lists of documents retrieved. Motivated by this observation, we propose and evaluate a client-side document embedding cache, improving the responsiveness of conversational search systems. By leveraging state-of-the-art dense retrieval models to abstract document and query semantics, we cache the embeddings of documents retrieved for a topic introduced in the conversation, as they are likely relevant to successive queries. Our document embedding cache implements an efficient metric index, answering nearest-neighbor similarity queries by estimating the approximate result sets returned. We demonstrate the efficiency achieved using our cache via reproducible experiments based on TREC CAsT datasets, achieving a hit rate of up to 75% without degrading answer quality. Our achieved high cache hit rates significantly improve the responsiveness of conversational systems while likewise reducing the number of queries managed on the search back-end