Search Results (92)

In today’s demanding healthcare landscape, the use of theoretical frameworks is paramount for navigating the complexities of digital health challenges. The Context Optimisation Model for Person-centred Analysis and Systematic Solutions (COMPASS) theoretical framework and implementation model serves as an invaluable direction tool in planning, implementing, and evaluating digital healthcare initiatives. This paper showcases the tangible value of the COMPASS implementation model through a use case scenario involving an accredited exercise physiologist and a healthcare user with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus who seeks credible information via a mobile digital device. Within this example, the COMPASS model demonstrates the ability to enhance systematic processes, streamline the workflow of health professionals and develop their capabilities to actively contribute to the transformative realm of digital health. Through exploration of the use case and the significance of the systematic processes as a research direction, the empowerment of health professionals to play pivotal roles in ongoing digital health transformation is emphasised. The COMPASS model emerges as a powerful tool, guiding health professionals and organisations towards innovative and sustainable solutions in the dynamic landscape of digital healthcare. Full article

Process mining organizatioQn (PMO) is an innovative approach based on artificial intelligence (AI) decision making suitable for designing healthcare processes for human resource (HR) organizations. The proposed work suggests some examples of PMO-based Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) workflows by highlighting the advances in HR management and in risk decrease according to healthcare scenarios. Specifically proposed are different examples of “TO BE” process pipelines related to an upgrade of the organizational healthcare framework, including digital technologies and telemedicine. Important elements are provided to formulate HR management guidelines supporting PMO design. The proposed BPMN workflows are the result of different consulting actions in healthcare institutions based on the preliminary mapping of “AS IS” processes highlighting bottlenecks and needs in HR organization. A pilot experimental dataset is used to show how it is possible to apply AI algorithms providing organization corrective actions. The paper is mainly focused on discussing some validated BPMN models managing HR in the healthcare sector. The methodology is based on the application of the BPMN approach to deploy human resource organizational processes. The results show AI data-driven workflows adopted in healthcare and examples of AI fuzzy c-means outputs addressing organizational actions. Full article

Past research on knowledge has differentiated between dimensions (e.g., amount, accuracy, specificity, coherence) of knowledge. This paper introduces a novel dimension of knowledge, the Motivational Utility of Knowledge (MUK), that is based on fundamental human needs (e.g., physical safety, affiliation, actualization, reproduction). Adults in the United States (N = 190) were recruited from an online survey platform and paid for participation. Participants read a set of four texts arguing different views of houselessness and were administered a comprehension test after each text. Participants were asked about their conceptions of houselessness before and after reading. Finally, they were given the MUK scale, a demographics questionnaire, including questions about their personal experience with houselessness, and were administered a general prior knowledge test and a vocabulary knowledge test. We examined MUK, the factor structure of the scale and the relationship between MUK and other measures of knowledge. The analyses showed that the subscales of MUK loaded onto a single factor—an overall value of houselessness knowledge. In addition, we found that MUK was correlated with conceptions of houselessness and comprehension of texts on houselessness, indicating that the scale was valid. Overall, the findings demonstrate that MUK is an important dimension of knowledge to consider in learning tasks. Full article

Crowdsourcing offers on-demand access to large numbers of human workers to implement new forms of human–computer collaborative functionalities that can be seamlessly integrated into advanced software and algorithms. However, crowdsourcing tasks are primarily undertaken by urban rather than rural workers. To enable the development of skilled rural employment, this research aims to assess rural crowdsourcing workers’ spatial reasoning and creative abilities and their abilities to solve irregular strip packing problems associated with the manufacture of sheet materials. The study conducted experiments and data collection with 140 rural Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) workers located in six states of India. The statistical analyses of the data collected from seven rural BPO firms (140 rural workers) reveal that rural workers can achieve a 2D packing efficiency that is up to 8% higher than that of commercial algorithm outcomes. The results suggest that rural crowdsourcing can lead to effective job creation, skill development, and, for a modest cost, it can support industries that employ CAD/CAM systems to generate geometric data for common manufacturing processes. Full article

The global surge in urbanization and population growth has led to a significant increase in municipal solid waste generation, posing a considerable challenge in identifying suitable landfill sites. This study proposes a novel framework that enhances landfill site monitoring and assessment by combining GIS-based hierarchical analytical processes with a fuzzy inference system (FIS). The study employs a systematic approach involving phases such as feature selection, spatial analysis, criteria weighting, FIS building, and a case study conducted in São Paulo State, Brazil. The proposed framework effectively assesses landfill suitability and offers practical recommendations for landfill management and future site selection. This framework provides actionable recommendations for landfill monitoring and assessment, supporting landfill management while minimizing environmental and social impacts. It offers a comprehensive approach to landfill assessment, enhancing the sustainability of waste management practices. Further research can improve the proposed framework by refining feature selection and incorporating real-time data for continuous monitoring. Additionally, exploring the integration of emerging technologies, such as remote sensing and artificial intelligence, can further enhance landfill site monitoring and assessment. Full article

This paper describes the processes of embedding Sustainability Justice in secondary education curricula for economic courses in Greece applying the DeCoRe plus methodology and participatory action research. These processes resulted in a reconstructed curriculum that was implemented by nine teachers teaching courses in economics. Sustainability justice emphasizes the ethics and praxis of education for sustainability and requires an understanding of the curriculum as a process and praxis and teaching as an ethical and political praxis. The implementation of the diagnostic evaluation of DeCoRe plus showed that economics teachers in Greece select more behavioral than constructive-emancipatory teaching approaches. On the other hand, the implementation of the reconstructed curriculum units in their courses using the DeCoRe plus methodology revealed a shift from instructive to constructivist and emancipatory teaching and learning approaches. Teachers by the great majority declared the political and ethical perspective of teaching and seeing curriculum as a living text that can always be under the process of deconstruction, construction, and reconstruction. Full article

Over the years, various software quality measurement models have been proposed and used in academia and the software industry to assess the quality of produced code and to obtain guidelines for its improvement. In this article, we describe the design and functionality of SQMetrics, a tool for calculating object-oriented quality metrics for projects written in Java. SQMetrics provides the convenience of measuring small code, mainly covering academic or research needs. In this context, the application can be used by students of software engineering courses to make measurements and comparisons in their projects and gradually increase their quality by improving the calculated metrics. Teachers, on the other hand, can use SQMetrics to evaluate students’ Java projects and grade them in proportion to their quality. The contribution of the proposed tool is three-fold, as it has been: (a) tested for its completeness and functionality by comparing it with widely known similar tools, (b) evaluated for its usability and value as a learning aid by students, and (c) statistically tested for its value as a teachers’ aid assisting in the evaluation of student projects. Our findings verify SQMetrics’ effectiveness in helping software engineering students learn critical concepts and improve the quality of their code, as well as in helping teachers assess the quality of students’ Java projects and make more informed grading decisions. Full article

The term “metaverse” came to the fore in 2021 when Facebook rebranded its corporate identity to Meta and signalled its intention to invest at least USD 10 billion in developing the concepts and related products that year. However, there is still little consensus in defining what constitutes the metaverse, although there is a widespread, though not universal, agreement that it will bring a wide range of benefits across society. More specifically, the advent and continuing evolution of the metaverse has strategic and operational implications for, and impacts on, industry and business at large. Adopting an inductive, interpretivist approach, this exploratory research article presents case examples of the guidance on the responsible development of the metaverse provided by two IT business services companies. This article identifies the major risks and responsibilities associated with the metaverse and assesses how companies might address these responsibilities. Very little research has been published in this area, and this article attempts to make a small contribution to filling this gap in the literature. This article finds that these responsibilities are largely in line with those currently associated with corporate digital responsibility, and concludes that the strategic impact and extent of regulatory change will depend on the nature of the metaverse that materialises in the forthcoming decade. Full article

Cooperation is an important aspect of open innovation (OI) facilitated by information and communication technology (ICT). Cooperation may have two distinct forms, namely dialectic or dialogic, and it has already been argued that dialogic cooperation is more appropriate for knowledge creation and innovation. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the choice of the form of cooperation by an organisation, and its implementation in an OI-enabling Information System, are contingent to the organisation’s strategic orientation and competitive and innovation strategies, and it is mediated by the past experience of its OI initiative managers. We also examined, for the first time, which are the antecedents of the adoption of dialogic (and indirectly, dialectic) cooperation in OI initiatives. The empirical research carried out in a sample of senior managers of different sectors in Greece suggests that companies that have extrospective strategic orientations and that adopt differentiation/innovation strategies are more likely to implement dialogic cooperation in their OI endeavors, thus increasing their knowledge creation potential. This choice is further supported by managers who have participated in other organisations’ OI initiatives in the past. Full article

The GPA is a universally recognised and utilised metric of academic performance that is considered to also measure a student’s potential for academic performance in the future. In this short communication we examine to what extent the GPA of the first grade of high school predicts performance in the later grades of high school, either generally (as classified in an excellent student, strong student, weak student, or very weak student) or more accurately (as indicated by the exact GPA in the next grade). We also put to the test the widely held notion that it might be best if core courses such as language and mathematics contributed more to the calculation of the GPA compared to secondary courses such as physical education or music. Our findings confirm the predictive properties of the GPA but strongly rebut the notion that a weighted GPA might achieve a better reflection of students’ potential. The study is based on the academic records of every student in Greece that progressed from the first to third grade of high school in the 2016–2019 period. This dataset contains records of more than 85,000 students, making it one of the most extensive studies ever conducted on the topic of the properties of the GPA. Full article

The public release of ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence language model, caused wide-spread public interest in its abilities but also concern about the implications of the application on academia, depending on whether it was deemed benevolent (e.g., supporting analysis and simplification of tasks) or malevolent (e.g., assignment writing and academic misconduct). While ChatGPT has been shown to provide answers of sufficient quality to pass some university exams, its capacity to write essays that require an exploration of value concepts is unknown. This paper presents the results of a study where ChatGPT-4 (released May 2023) was tasked with writing a 1500-word essay to discuss the nature of values used in the assessment of cultural heritage significance. Based on an analysis of 36 iterations, ChatGPT wrote essays of limited length with about 50% of the stipulated word count being primarily descriptive and without any depth or complexity. The concepts, which are often flawed and suffer from inverted logic, are presented in an arbitrary sequence with limited coherence and without any defined line of argument. Given that it is a generative language model, ChatGPT often splits concepts and uses one or more words to develop tangential arguments. While ChatGPT provides references as tasked, many are fictitious, albeit with plausible authors and titles. At present, ChatGPT has the ability to critique its own work but seems unable to incorporate that critique in a meaningful way to improve a previous draft. Setting aside conceptual flaws such as inverted logic, several of the essays could possibly pass as a junior high school assignment but fall short of what would be expected in senior school, let alone at a college or university level. Full article

“Knowledge transfer” is achieved through sharing or disseminating knowledge, and providing inputs to problem solving; it is commonly associated with attending a series of classroom lectures and maintaining students’ engagement with the taught subject. This paper examines how a specific radio frequency identification (RFID) based information system (IS) solution could be utilized to help monitor and increase engagement of university students during lecturing activities. This IS solution relies on student attendance as the main method to measure their engagement. Initially, the main stakeholders were identified: students, lecturers, administration team and the Student Loans Company (source of funding). A value proposition canvas was subsequently created, and potential system requirements were identified. A design of the proposed RFID based system was created based on these requirements and then compared with a real-life (already existing) system at Henley Business School. By comparing these two systems, the authors determined related benefits/drawbacks of the proposed system in monitoring student engagement. Potential benefits consisted of allowing all parties to easily capture attendance (with very minimal involvement of the university’s staff) and increased efficiency in analyzing student attendance data. Its main limitation was inaccurately capturing the exact time a student leaves a session. Building a working prototype for detailed evaluation and further fine-tuning/improvements must be part of future work. Full article

Lifelong learning is crucial for equipping the workforce to navigate a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Despite its importance, resistance to enrolling in lifelong learning courses persists. This exploratory study examines the exposure to and engagement with government-sponsored courses among two distinct groups: individuals who opt for these courses and those who select alternative courses. We employed comparative statistical analysis to identify the primary factors influencing course awareness and selection. Our findings underscore the enduring influence of traditional media in promoting course awareness. Additionally, personal interest and availability of subsidies emerged as significant determinants of course selection. Based on these insights, we propose policy recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of these courses. This empirical study contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of lifelong learning in Singapore, providing valuable insights for policy and practice. Full article

Purpose—The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of spiritual leadership on knowledge-hiding behavior in agriculture research institutes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The study aims to analyze theoretical and empirical evidence regarding the mediation pathway, specifically professional commitment, in order to clarify the significant association between spiritual leadership and subordinates’ knowledge-hiding behavior. Design/methodology—This survey-based study used cross-sectional data and a five-point Likert scale to investigate the given hypotheses. In order to address the primacy effect and mitigate any potential for common method bias, data were collected at two distinct time points, with a four-week interval between them. Smart PLS4 was used to assess a sample of 298 complete and valid responses for hypothesis testing. Findings—The results show that spiritual leadership has a negative impact on employees’ knowledge-hiding behavior. Additionally, this relationship is mediated by professional commitment. Originality/value—First, in contrast to the majority of previous studies, which focused on the factors influencing knowledge sharing, the present study investigates the influence of spiritual leadership on employees’ knowledge-hiding behaviors, which are two contrasting concepts. Secondly, the study empirically examined the mediation effect of professional commitment. These three variables have not previously been studied together. Full article

Backtesting represents a set of techniques that aim to evaluate trading strategies on historical data in order to verify their effectiveness before applying them to a market in real time. This requires processing large amounts of data from different periods and applying different simulation techniques to them. In general, these types of tools are not very popular for reasons such as the amount of data that must be evaluated and maintained, the computational resources that are required, and the need to have a deep conceptual understanding of these techniques in order to use them. This article presents a web application that implements a set of backtesting functionalities that allow evaluating different trading strategies, managing portfolios, representing the results of simulations, and optimizing a stock portfolio, all from an intuitive and visual interface that makes these techniques accessible to new investors in this field. Full article