The Blockchain technology can be defined as a distributed ledger database for recording transactions between parties verifiably and permanently. Blockchain emerged as a leading technology layer for ...financial applications. Nevertheless, in the past years, the attention of researchers and practitioners moved to the application of the Blockchain technologies to other domains. Recently, it represents the backbone of a new digital supply chain. Thanks to its capability of ensuring data immutability and public accessibility of data streams, Blockchain can increase the efficiency, reliability, and transparency of the overall supply chain, and optimize the inbound processes. The literature concerning Blockchain in non-financial applications mainly focused on the technological part and the Business Process Modeling, lacking in terms of standard methodology for designing a strategy to develop and validate the overall Blockchain solution and integrate it in the Business Strategy. Thus, this paper aims to overcome this lack. First, we integrate the current literature filling the lack concerning the digital strategy, creating a standard methodology to design Blockchain technology use cases, which are not related to finance applications. Second, we present the results of a use case in the fresh food delivery, showing the critical aspects of implementing a Blockchain solution. Moreover, the paper discusses how the Blockchain will help in reducing the logistics costs and in optimizing the operations and the research challenges.
In recent years, the concept of a “Smart City” became central in the agenda of researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders. Although the application of information and communication technologies on ...city management has advanced exponentially, also other components would be needed for building a truly sustainable urban environment. Researchers from different domains debated the definition of a smart city and the conceptual variants. However, a broad view of the smart city field is still missing. This paper attempts to fill this gap by proposing a taxonomic classification of the most 105 outstanding smart city projects in Europe and North America. Collected data are then processed by statistical tools for clearly highlighting the success factors, trends and future paths in which all these projects are moving, along with different aspects (e.g., business model, purpose, industry). We then investigate the European and the North American Smart City concepts, illustrating the key role of mixed public and private partnerships in creating successful projects and the focus on the urban transportation, and freight and last-mile delivery in particular. Moreover, it emerges how the business modeling and the exploitation aspects have still low integration in the projects.
In the evolving context of distributed ledger technologies, the standardization of smart contracts is necessary. Smart contracts are tamper-proof computer programs. Due to their security and ...flexibility, it is possible to exploit smart contracts in a wide variety of use cases. In particular, it could be possible to automate legally recognized contracts by leveraging smart contracts. To this extent, some standards regarding the proper management of smart contracts are surging. However, there are still many technological misconceptions regarding smart contracts. This study describes smart contracts from multiple perspectives and identifies and clarifies some of the most common misconceptions regarding smart contracts. This study also provides some guidelines and insights on the proper management of smart contracts. This study can be a valuable resource for future standards on smart contracts.
One of the main endeavors of smart cities is the organization and subsidization of public transportation. To achieve this, it is important to obtain information about the way in which people move. ...This once-difficult problem can now be addressed by using smartphones. This paper introduces a machine learning-based framework that is able to ascertain the usage of a public or a private transportation mode by analyzing a little amount of data sampled by a user's smartphone. The presented method exhibits a good accuracy and a limited battery consumption. A public anonymized dataset based on real measurements is also provided along with this study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first dataset of this kind that is offered to the public.
We consider the variable cost and size bin packing problem, a generalization of the well-known bin packing problem, where a set of items must be packed into a set of heterogeneous bins characterized ...by possibly different volumes and fixed selection costs. The objective of the problem is to select bins to pack all items at minimum total bin-selection cost. The paper introduces lower bounds and heuristics for the problem, the latter integrating lower and upper bound techniques. Extensive numerical tests conducted on instances with up to 1000 items show the effectiveness of these methods in terms of computational effort and solution quality. We also provide a systematic numerical analysis of the impact on solution quality of the bin selection costs and the correlations between these and the bin volumes. The results show that these correlations matter and that solution methods that are un-biased toward particular correlation values perform better.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Blockchain is a technology that creates trust among non-trusting parties without relying on any intermediaries. Consequently, it has attracted the interest of companies operating in a multitude of ...sectors. However, due to the number of different blockchain solutions that have emerged in the last few years and their rapid changes, it is challenging for such companies to orient their technological decisions. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the key dimensions—namely, governance, maturity, support, latency, privacy, interoperability, flexibility, efficiency, resiliency, and scalability—of some of the most-used permissioned blockchain platforms. Moreover, we present the results of a performance evaluation considering the following frameworks: Hyperledger Fabric 2.2, Hyperledger Sawtooth 1.2, and ConsenSys Quorum 21.1 (with both the GoQuorum client and the Hyperledger Besu client). The platforms were tested under similar conditions, and official releases were used, such that our findings provide a reference for companies establishing their technological orientation.
•Comparative analysis of permissioned blockchain frameworks.•Methodology for fair comparison of performance.•Extensive performance evaluation on recent releases of the main blockchain frameworks.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Multi-echelon distribution systems are quite common in supply-chain and logistic management. They are used by public administrations in their transportation and traffic planning strategies as well as ...by companies to model their distribution systems. In the literature, most studies address issues related to the movement of flows throughout the system from the origins to their final destinations.
In this paper we consider the Two-Echelon Vehicle Routing Problem (2E-CVRP), the two-echelon variant of the well known Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem, where the delivery from one depot to the customers is managed by routing and consolidating freight through intermediate depots, called satellites. Valid inequalities based on the TSP and CVRP, the network flow formulation, and the connectivity of the transportation system graph are presented.
Extensive computational results on instances with up to 50 customers show an improvement of the best known results between 4% and 15%.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
•Two-phase training algorithm able to boost the Machine Learning accuracy.•Accurate bankruptcy prediction up to 60 months by a Machine Learning algorithm.•Integration of the Machine Learning ...algorithm in a DSS for policy making.•Test of the DSS on the Italian SMEs, with a focus on the COVID-19 effects.
In the field of detection and prediction of company defaults and bankruptcy, significant effort has been devoted to evaluating financial ratios as predictors using statistical models and machine learning techniques. This problem becomes crucially important when financial decision-makers are provided with predictions on which to act, based on the output of prediction models. However, research has shown that such predictors are sufficiently accurate in the short-term, with the focus mainly directed towards large and medium-large companies. In contrast, in this paper, we focus on mid- and long-term bankruptcy prediction (up to 60 months) targeting small and/or medium enterprises. The key contribution of this study is a substantial improvement of the prediction accuracy in the short-term (12 months) using machine learning techniques, compared to the state-of-the-art, while also making accurate mid- and long-term predictions (measure of the area under the ROC curve of 0.88 with a 60 month prediction horizon). Extensive computational tests on the entire set of companies in Italy highlight the efficiency and accuracy of the developed method, as well as demonstrating the possibility of using it as a tool for the development of strategies and policies for entire economic systems. Considering the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we show how our method can be used as a viable tool for large-scale policy-making.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
•Broader vision and analysis of freight intermodal transportation.•First taxonomy of simulation in freight intermodal transportation.•Analysis of the recent literature: 89 papers from 2007 to 2017.
...Intermodal transportation refers to multimodal chains or networks involving at least two transportation modes, freight being packed into a “container” and not being handled at intermodal-transfer terminals on its trip from its origin to its destination. This characterization makes intermodal transportation a multi-actor complex system involving a broad range of interacting stakeholders, decision makers, operations, and planning activities. Due to this complexity, simulation is much studied and used within the field of operations research, yielding models, methods, and tools to manage transportation activities and support the decision-making processes. The literature includes a large number of contributions on particular issues, but a broad view of the field is still missing. This paper aims to fill this gap, using a new taxonomy to structure the recent relevant literature. The proposed taxonomy thus appears a useful instrument to classify the literature and support further analyzes, identifying main findings, trends, and future paths of intermodal freight transportation systems across several dimensions (e.g., modes, geographical extensions, time horizons, and simulation objectives).
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
•First analysis of the operators involved in the urban parcel delivery system.•Study of business and operational models of traditional and green couriers.•Analysis of the cost structure of different ...options for delivering goods.•Monte Carlo simulation-optimization DSS to design mixed-fleet policies.
In recent years, the role of freight transportation and parcel delivery in urban areas has increased, supporting the economic and social development of cities. At the same time, the industry is affected by various issues, inefficiencies, and externalities, particularly in the last-mile segment. As such, there is an emerging awareness of a need to improve urban mobility and transportation, making them more sustainable and competitive by mixing traditional and emerging technologies, such as cargo bikes, autonomous vehicles, and drones. In contrast, the complexity of the overall system, characterized by multiple actors with conflicting goals, requires a strategy that harmonizes these actors’ business and operational models. This study contributes in this direction along three axes. First, it defines the main actors involved in urban parcel delivery, and then analyzes their business models and the interactions between them. Second, it investigates the integration of traditional and green logistics (mainly cycle-logistics), from both business and operational perspectives, in order to identify synergies, conflicts, and the operational and economic consequences of adopting green vehicles. Third, it introduces a simulation-optimization decision support system tool capable of assessing mixed-fleet policies for the management of parcel delivery in urban areas. Finally, the decision support system is tested using real data of the city of Turin.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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