•A review on Machine and Deep Learning methods applied to industrial problems.•Papers from 2000 are analyzed and hierarchically catalogued.•Application domains, trend, and evolutions are ...investigated.
Machine Learning (ML) is a branch of artificial intelligence that studies algorithms able to learn autonomously, directly from the input data. Over the last decade, ML techniques have made a huge leap forward, as demonstrated by Deep Learning (DL) algorithms implemented by autonomous driving cars, or by electronic strategy games. Hence, researchers have started to consider ML also for applications within the industrial field, and many works indicate ML as one the main enablers to evolve a traditional manufacturing system up to the Industry 4.0 level. Nonetheless, industrial applications are still few and limited to a small cluster of international companies. This paper deals with these topics, intending to clarify the real potentialities, as well as potential flaws, of ML algorithms applied to operation management. A comprehensive review is presented and organized in a way that should facilitate the orientation of practitioners in this field. To this aim, papers from 2000 to date are categorized in terms of the applied algorithm and application domain, and a keyword analysis is also performed, to details the most promising topics in the field. What emerges is a consistent upward trend in the number of publications, with a spike of interest for unsupervised and especially deep learning techniques, which recorded a very high number of publications in the last five years. Concerning trends, along with consolidated research areas, recent topics that are growing in popularity were also discovered. Among these, the main ones are production planning and control and defect analysis, thus suggesting that in the years to come ML will become pervasive in many fields of operation management.
The conventional perspective of acne pathogenesis holds that Propionibacterium acnes colonizes the duct of the sebaceous follicle, causing an innate immune response and the progression from a ...so-called noninflammatory comedo to an inflammatory papule, pustule, or nodule. However, this viewpoint has come under increasing scrutiny over the last decade, as evidence has emerged supporting a role for inflammation at all stages of acne lesion development, perhaps subclinically even before comedo formation. The immunochemical pathways underlying the initiation and propagation of the inflammation in acne are complex and still being elucidated, but may involve Propionibacterium acnes as well as several inflammatory mediators and their target receptors, including cytokines, defensins, peptidases, sebum lipids, and neuropeptides. This review presents evidence to support the notion that acne is primarily an inflammatory disease, challenging the current nomenclature of noninflammatory versus inflammatory acne lesions and suggesting that the nomenclature is outdated and incorrect. The evidence in support of acne as an inflammatory disease also has clinical implications, in that anti-inflammatory drugs used to treat the disease can be expected to exert effects against all lesion stages, albeit via distinct mechanisms of anti-inflammation.
Rosacea is a common inflammatory facial dermatoses affecting primarily adults with fair skin, although all skin types may be affected. The diagnostic term "rosacea" reflects a spectrum of clinical ...features with the more common presentations characterized by increased blood flow and vasodilation during disease flares, which accentuate central facial erythema. Inflammatory lesions, usually papules and/or pustules are present in some cases. Variations in magnitude of the associated features of rosacea are noted clinically. Over time, other clinical features emerge or may be further accentuated, such as diffuse facial erythema and telangiectasias, as fixed changes in cutaneous vasculature occur. These later findings account for persistent diffuse facial erythema usually accentuated centrally on the inner cheeks, chin, nose, and/or medial forehead. Some patients may also develop phymatous changes and/or have concurrent ocular rosacea. Augmented innate immune response to certain triggers (often exogenous) and neurovascular/neuroimmune dysregulation appear to be involved early in the pathophysiological sequence of cutaneous rosacea and appear to signal other downstream inflammatory or physiochemical cascades that contribute to the pathogenesis of the disorder. In this article, Part 1 of a two-part series, emphasis is placed upon the correlation of clinical features and underlying pathophysiological changes in the more common presentations of rosacea encountered by the clinician. The importance of this information is that some of these pathogenic mechanisms are modulated by available therapies, and others remain as targets for the development of new therapeutic agents or modalities.
In recent decades, several Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) methods have been proposed to help in selecting the best compromise alternatives. In the meantime, the PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking ...Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations) family of outranking methods and their applications has attracted much attention from academics and practitioners. In this paper, a classification scheme and a comprehensive literature review are presented in order to uncover, classify, and interpret the current research on PROMETHEE methodologies and applications. Based on the scheme, 217 scholarly papers from 100 journals are categorized into application areas and non-application papers. The application areas include the papers on the topics of Environment Management, Hydrology and Water Management, Business and Financial Management, Chemistry, Logistics and Transportation, Manufacturing and Assembly, Energy Management, Social, and Other Topics. The last area covers the papers published in several fields: Medicine, Agriculture, Education, Design, Government and Sports. The scholarly papers are also classified by (1) year of publication, (2) journal of publication, (3) authors’ nationality, (4) PROMETHEE as applied with other MCDA methods, and (5) PROMETHEE as applied with GAIA (Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Aid) plane. It is hoped that the paper can meet the needs of researchers and practitioners for easy references of PROMETHEE methodologies and applications, and hence promote the future of PROMETHEE research.
Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) have become a standard tool in many fields of management research but are often considerably less stringently presented than other pieces of research. The ...resulting lack of replicability of the research and conclusions has spurred a vital debate on the SLR process, but related guidance is scattered across a number of core references and is overly centered on the design and conduct of the SLR, while failing to guide researchers in crafting and presenting their findings in an impactful way. This paper offers an integrative review of the widely applied and most recent SLR guidelines in the management domain. The paper adopts a well-established six-step SLR process and refines it by sub-dividing the steps into 14 distinct decisions: (1) from the research question, via (2) characteristics of the primary studies, (3) to retrieving a sample of relevant literature, which is then (4) selected and (5) synthesized so that, finally (6), the results can be reported. Guided by these steps and decisions, prior SLR guidelines are critically reviewed, gaps are identified, and a synthesis is offered. This synthesis elaborates mainly on the gaps while pointing the reader toward the available guidelines. The paper thereby avoids reproducing existing guidance but critically enriches it. The 6 steps and 14 decisions provide methodological, theoretical, and practical guidelines along the SLR process, exemplifying them via best-practice examples and revealing their temporal sequence and main interrelations. The paper guides researchers in the process of designing, executing, and publishing a theory-based and impact-oriented SLR.
Knowledge production within the field of business research is accelerating at a tremendous speed while at the same time remaining fragmented and interdisciplinary. This makes it hard to keep up with ...state-of-the-art and to be at the forefront of research, as well as to assess the collective evidence in a particular area of business research. This is why the literature review as a research method is more relevant than ever. Traditional literature reviews often lack thoroughness and rigor and are conducted ad hoc, rather than following a specific methodology. Therefore, questions can be raised about the quality and trustworthiness of these types of reviews. This paper discusses literature review as a methodology for conducting research and offers an overview of different types of reviews, as well as some guidelines to how to both conduct and evaluate a literature review paper. It also discusses common pitfalls and how to get literature reviews published.
Stakeholder engagement has grown into a widely used yet often unclear construct in business and society research. The literature lacks a unified understanding of the essentials of stakeholder ...engagement, and the fragmented use of the stakeholder engagement construct challenges its development and legitimacy. The purpose of this article is to clarify the construct of stakeholder engagement to unfold the full potential of stakeholder engagement research. We conduct a literature review on 90 articles in leading academic journals focusing on stakeholder engagement in the business and society, management and strategy, and environmental management and environmental policy literatures. We present a descriptive analysis of stakeholder engagement research for a 15-year period, and we identify the moral, strategic, and pragmatic components of stakeholder engagement as well as its aims, activities, and impacts. Moreover, we offer an inclusive stakeholder engagement definition and provide a guide to organizing the research. Finally, we complement the current understanding with a largely overlooked dark side of stakeholder engagement. We conclude with future research avenues for stakeholder engagement research.
Learning analytics can improve learning practice by transforming the ways we support learning processes. This study is based on the analysis of 252 papers on learning analytics in higher education ...published between 2012 and 2018. The main research question is: What is the current scientific knowledge about the application of learning analytics in higher education? The focus is on research approaches, methods and the evidence for learning analytics. The evidence was examined in relation to four earlier validated propositions: whether learning analytics i) improve learning outcomes, ii) support learning and teaching, iii) are deployed widely, and iv) are used ethically. The results demonstrate that overall there is little evidence that shows improvements in students' learning outcomes (9%) as well as learning support and teaching (35%). Similarly, little evidence was found for the third (6%) and the forth (18%) proposition. Despite the fact that the identified potential for improving learner practice is high, we cannot currently see much transfer of the suggested potential into higher educational practice over the years. However, the analysis of the existing evidence for learning analytics indicates that there is a shift towards a deeper understanding of students’ learning experiences for the last years.
•Most learning analytics research undertake a descriptive approach.•Interpretative and experimental studies prevail.•Overall there is little evidence that shows improvements in learner practice.•The identified potential for improving learning support and teaching is high.•There is a shift towards a deeper understanding of students' learning experiences.
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