The concept of digital twin (DT) is undergoing rapid transformation and attracting increased attention across industries. It is recognised as an innovative technology offering real-time monitoring, ...simulation, optimisation, accurate forecasting and bi-directional feedback between physical and digital objects. Despite extensive academic and industrial research, DT has not yet been properly understood and implemented by many industries, due to challenges identified during its development. Existing literature shows that there is a lack of a unified framework to build DT, a lack of standardisation in the development, and challenges related to coherent goals of DT in a multi-disciplinary team engaged in the design, development and implementation of DT to a larger scale system. To address these challenges, this study introduces a unified framework for DT development, emphasising reusability and scalability. The framework harmonises existing DT frameworks by unifying concepts and process development. It facilitates the integration of heterogeneous data types and ensures a continuous flow of information among data sources, simulation models and visualisation platforms. Scalability is achieved through ontology implementation, while employing an agent-based approach, it monitors physical asset performance, automatically detects faults, checks repair status and offers operators feedback on asset demand, availability and health conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed DT framework is validated through its application to a real-world case study involving five interconnected air compressors located at the Connected Facility at Devonport Royal Dockyard, UK. The DT automatically and remotely monitors the performance and health status of compressors, providing guidance to humans on fault repair. This guidance dynamically adapts based on feedback from the DT. Analyses of the results demonstrate that the proposed DT increases the facility’s operation availability and enhances decision-making by promptly and accurately detecting faults.
The diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease can be improved by the use of biological measures. Biomarkers of functional impairment, neuronal loss, and protein deposition that can be assessed by neuroimaging ...(ie, MRI and PET) or CSF analysis are increasingly being used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease in research studies and specialist clinical settings. However, the validation of the clinical usefulness of these biomarkers is incomplete, and that is hampering reimbursement for these tests by health insurance providers, their widespread clinical implementation, and improvements in quality of health care. We have developed a strategic five-phase roadmap to foster the clinical validation of biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease, adapted from the approach for cancer biomarkers. Sufficient evidence of analytical validity (phase 1 of a structured framework adapted from oncology) is available for all biomarkers, but their clinical validity (phases 2 and 3) and clinical utility (phases 4 and 5) are incomplete. To complete these phases, research priorities include the standardisation of the readout of these assays and thresholds for normality, the evaluation of their performance in detecting early disease, the development of diagnostic algorithms comprising combinations of biomarkers, and the development of clinical guidelines for the use of biomarkers in qualified memory clinics.
The creation of commons—resources that are shared, accessible, and collectively owned and managed by communities—is increasingly being adopted by social entrepreneurs as a way of contributing to ...community development and putting value into economic activities. Yet, little research is evident related to the entrepreneurial processes involved in the creation and commercialization of these shared resources. Drawing on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework developed by Ostrom (2005), I explain how commons are entrepreneurially created. Based on a comparative study of five community banks in Brazil, I derive two ideological principles of collective entrepreneurship that help sustain commercialization of commons without commodification, namely ‘self-organization’ and ‘right to access’. I elucidate how these principles are enacted across venture levels through downward and upward mechanisms of social control facilitated by entrepreneurs who enhance collective action. This article contributes to the entrepreneurship theory of commons by explaining how commons are entrepreneurially created and by adding the collective entrepreneurship principles and mechanisms that commons of different types need in order to achieve and sustain wealth-creation options without incurring the downsides of commodification.
•Guided by principles of self-organization and right to access, commons are created by entrepreneurs within communities•These principles are enacted through mechanisms of social control facilitated by entrepreneurs•Upward and downward mechanisms align ideology and action to achieve commercialization without commodification•Social entrepreneurs transform financial resources for collective benefits rather than promoting capital concentration
Artificial intelligence (AI) and the use of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) technologies are becoming increasingly popular in companies. These technologies enable companies to leverage ...big quantities of data to improve system performance and accelerate business development. However, despite the appeal of ML/DL, there is a lack of systematic and structured methods and processes to help data scientists and other company roles and functions to develop, deploy and evolve models. In this paper, based on multi‐case study research in six companies, we explore practices and challenges practitioners experience in developing ML/DL models as part of large software‐intensive embedded systems. Based on our empirical findings, we derive a conceptual framework in which we identify three high‐level activities that companies perform in parallel with the development, deployment and evolution of models. Within this framework, we outline activities, iterations and triggers that optimize model design as well as roles and company functions. In this way, we provide practitioners with a blueprint for effectively integrating ML/DL model development into the business to achieve better results than other (algorithmic) approaches. In addition, we show how this framework helps companies solve the challenges we have identified and discuss checkpoints for terminating the business case.
Based on our empirical findings from six case companies, we derive a conceptual framework in which we identify three high‐level activities that companies perform in parallel to develop, deploy, and evolve models. In this framework, we outline activities, iterations, and triggers that optimize model design as well as roles and company functions, thus providing practitioners with a blueprint for how to effectively incorporate the development of AI/ML/DL models into the business to generate better results than with other (algorithmic) approaches. Furthermore, we show how this framework helps companies solve challenges we identify and discuss decision checkpoints for business case termination.
•An approach for evaluating cross-platform development frameworks with sound theory.•33 criteria grouped in infrastructure, development, app, and user perspective.•Weight profiles allow for company- ...or project-specific configurations.•Criteria weights are also adaptable to novel classes of app-enabled devices.•An evaluation study demonstrates the applicability on 5 cross-platform frameworks.
Mobile app development is hindered by device fragmentation and vendor-specific modifications. Boundaries between devices blur with PC-tablet hybrids on the one side and wearables on the other. Future apps need to support a host of app-enabled devices with differing capabilities, along with their software ecosystems. Prior work on cross-platform app development concerned concepts and prototypes, and compared approaches that target smartphones. To aid choosing an appropriate framework and to support the scientific assessment of approaches, an up-to-date comparison framework is needed. Extending work on a holistic, weighted set of assessment criteria, we propose what could become the definitive framework for evaluating cross-platform approaches. We have based it on sound abstract concepts that allow extensions. The weighting capabilities offer customisation to avoid the proverbial comparison of apples and oranges lurking in the variety of available frameworks. Moreover, it advises on multiple development situations based on a single assessment. In this article, we motivate and describe our evaluation criteria. We then present a study that assesses several frameworks and compares them to Web Apps and native development. Our findings suggest that cross-platform development has seen much progress but the challenges are ever growing. Therefore, additional support for app developers is warranted.
In this paper, based on the established Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF), we introduce a new framework, tailor-made specifically for Vietnamese educational researchers, namely, Vietnam's ...Framework for Educational Researchers (VFER). VFER is expected to serve as a tool for Vietnamese educational researchers to self-evaluate their skills and support them in developing their career qualities from junior to senior career ladders. The framework includes four domains with ten subdomains and 28 indicators. To date, VFER has been implemented in some Vietnamese universities of pedagogical education. We expect that other research fields will look to VFER as a reference to build their own research capacity framework.
Theories, models, and frameworks (TMF) are foundational for generalizing implementation efforts and research findings. However, TMF and the criteria used to select them are not often described in ...published articles, perhaps due in part to the challenge of selecting from among the many TMF that exist in the field. The objective of this international study was to develop a user-friendly tool to help scientists and practitioners select appropriate TMF to guide their implementation projects.
Implementation scientists across the USA, the UK, and Canada identified and rated conceptually distinct categories of criteria in a concept mapping exercise. We then used the concept mapping results to develop a tool to help users select appropriate TMF for their projects. We assessed the tool's usefulness through expert consensus and cognitive and semi-structured interviews with implementation scientists.
Thirty-seven implementation scientists (19 researchers and 18 practitioners) identified four criteria domains: usability, testability, applicability, and familiarity. We then developed a prototype of the tool that included a list of 25 criteria organized by domain, definitions of the criteria, and a case example illustrating an application of the tool. Results of cognitive and semi-structured interviews highlighted the need for the tool to (1) be as succinct as possible; (2) have separate versions to meet the unique needs of researchers versus practitioners; (3) include easily understood terms; (4) include an introduction that clearly describes the tool's purpose and benefits; (5) provide space for noting project information, comparing and scoring TMF, and accommodating contributions from multiple team members; and (6) include more case examples illustrating its application. Interview participants agreed that the tool (1) offered them a way to select from among candidate TMF, (2) helped them be explicit about the criteria that they used to select a TMF, and (3) enabled them to compare, select from among, and/or consider the usefulness of combining multiple TMF. These revisions resulted in the Theory Comparison and Selection Tool (T-CaST), a paper and web-enabled tool that includes 16 specific criteria that can be used to consider and justify the selection of TMF for a given project. Criteria are organized within four categories: applicability, usability, testability, and acceptability.
T-CaST is a user-friendly tool to help scientists and practitioners select appropriate TMF to guide implementation projects. Additionally, T-CaST has the potential to promote transparent reporting of criteria used to select TMF within and beyond the field of implementation science.
The existence of land adjustment undermines the positive effect of farmland titling. This situation not only affects agricultural operation, but also the social governance of rural areas. Using the ...institutional analysis and development framework, this paper takes the governance of irrigation commons in rural China as an example. Based on 721 household survey data sets, the ordinal regression model and instrumental variable method are employed to examine the relationship between farmland titling, land adjustment, and irrigation collective action. The empirical results show that, on the one hand, farmland titling both clarifies and stabilizes farmers' ownership of the residual claim on land output and encourages farmers to participate in irrigation collective action to ensure their benefits. On the other hand, land adjustment lower farmers' perception of the security of their property rights and discourage long-term investment in agricultural production. This situation not only reduces the incentive for farmers to participate in collective action, but also weakens the promoting effect of farmland right confirmation on collective action. Therefore, future land system reforms should enhance farmers' perception of property rights security and promote the land governance mode. The research conclusions of this paper provide implications for developing countries towards promoting both land system reform and socioeconomic development.
•Farmland tilting can promote the cooperation in irrigation collective action.•Land adjustments exert an inhibitory effect on irrigation collective action.•Land adjustments have weakened the role of farmland titling in promoting collective action on irrigation.•Institutional Analysis and Development framework should include both subjective and objective factors.•The paper concludes that the stability of farmland property rights should be safeguarded.
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