Carmen De-Pablos-Heredero

A Methodological Approach to Evaluate Livestock Innovations on Small-Scale Farms in Developing Countries

The aim of the study was deepening the knowledge of livestock innovations knowledge on small-scale farms in developing countries. First, we developed a methodology focused on identifying potential appropriate livestock innovations for smallholders and grouped them in innovation areas, defined as a set of well-organized practices with a business purpose. Finally, a process management program (PMP) was evaluated according to the livestock innovation level and viability of the small-scale farms. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the impact of PMP on the economic viability of the farm. Information from 1650 small-scale livestock farms in Mexico was collected and the innovations were grouped in five innovation areas: A1. Management, A2. Feeding, A3. Genetic, A4. Reproduction and A5. Animal Health. The resulting innovation level in the system was low at 45.7% and heterogeneous among areas. This study shows the usefulness of the methodology described and confirms that implementing a PMP allows improving the viability an additional 21%, due to a better integration of processes, resulting in more efficient management.

Technical Efficiency and Organ Transplant Performance: A Mixed-Method Approach

Mixed methods research is interesting to understand complex processes. Organ transplants are complex processes in need of improved final performance in times of budgetary restrictions. As the main objective a mixed method approach is used in this article to quantify the technical efficiency and the excellence achieved in organ transplant systems and to prove the influence of organizational structures and internal processes in the observed technical efficiency. The results show that it is possible to implement mechanisms for the measurement of the different components by making use of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The analysis show a positive relationship between the levels related to the Baldrige indicators and the observed technical efficiency in the donation and transplant units of the 11 analyzed hospitals. Therefore it is possible to conclude that high levels in the Baldrige indexes are a necessary condition to reach an increased level of the service offered.

Meloda, métrica para evaluar la reutilización de datos abiertos

Current policies demanding an increase in transparency, open government, and the implementation of smart cities necessitate publishing open data. However, there are limited mechanisms for assessing the use and value of this information. The goal of this paper is to present a new metric, Meloda , that qualifies the information and helps to assess its reusability. Meloda ’s four dimensions are described: technical standards, access, legal considerations, and data model. Finally, Meloda ’s assessment process is explained.

Achieving quality in e-Learning through relational coordination

In this research, the relational coordination model has been applied to prove learners’ and instructors’ high levels of satisfaction in e-learning. According to the model, organizations can obtain better results in terms of satisfaction by providing shared knowledge, shared goals and mutual respect mechanisms, supported by a frequent, timely and problem-solving communication. Online courses learners and instructors from Spanish universities and private companies have been surveyed on these particular issues. By using structural equation model analysis, it is shown that high standards in terms of relational coordination amongst learners and instructors explain higher degrees of satisfaction. This research contributes to the literature by validating from an empirical point of view the effects of the use of the relational coordination model in e-learning. The results should be considered by universities and private companies when they evaluate the results of their actual e-learning systems and search for the improvement of quality.

Future Intelligent Systems and Networks

The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect current developments and future directions of Future Intelligent Systems and Networks. The motivation for this issue stems from the increasing interest of firms in applying technological possibilities to promote more innovative business models. The cases shown may become a real inspiration for firms to evolve to more innovative models by properly applying Intelligent Systems and Networks. The first article, A Methodological Approach to Evaluate Livestock Innovations on Small-Scale Farms in Developing Countries authored by Antón García-Martínez, José Rivas-Rangel, Jaime Rangel-Quintos, José Antonio Espinosa, Cecilio Barba and Carmen de-Pablos-Heredero [1], analyses the knowledge of livestock innovations on small-scale farms in developing countries and confirms that implementing an intelligent system improves the viability of farms by an additional 21%, due to a better integration of processes, resulting in more efficient management. The second article, Turning Video Resource Management into Cloud Computing, authored by Weili Kou, Hui Li and Kailai Zhou [2], is focused on video resource management architecture based on The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS); it presents a design tested by establishing a simulation system prototype. It provides a uniform framework and a five-layer model for standardizing the current various algorithms and applications. The third article, A Novel QoS Provisioning Algorithm for Optimal Multicast Routing in WMNs, authored by Weijun Yang and Yuanfeng Chen [3], is centered on optimal multicast routing in Wireless Mess Networks (WMNs) with Quality-of-Service (QoS) provisioning. Random static networks with different destination nodes are evaluated. The fourth article, A Reliability Calculation Method for Web Service Composition Using Fuzzy Reasoning Colored Petri Nets and Its Application on Supercomputing Cloud Platform, authored by Ziyun Deng, Lei Chen, Tingqing He and Tao Meng [4], develops a Supercomputing Cloud Platform (SCP) prototype system using Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Petri nets based on some technologies for Web service composition. The fifth article, Socialism and the Blockchain, authored by Steve Huckle and Martin White [5], opens a discussion to present blockchain technologies as useful tools to enhance Socialist forms of governance. The last article, A Novel Multi-Focus Image Fusion Method Based on Stochastic Coordinate Coding and Local Density Peaks Clustering, authored by Zhiqin Zhu, Guanqiu Qi, Yi Chai, and Yinong Chen [6], proposes a three-step novel stochastic model to coordinate a coding-based image fusion framework integrated with local density peaks. It offers some comparative experiments that demonstrate that fused images of the proposed method have higher qualities than existing state-of-the-art methods.