Does Poor Governance Compromise Value Delivery of ICT Deployments

Organisations continue to make significant investments in enabling business via Information Technology (IT). To ensure a return on investment in IT and the relevance and value of tech deployment, there is a need for a broader accountability focus on strategic technology initiatives alongside a structured and evaluative approach to the effective governance of IT. Ongoing changes in tech development and emerging technologies have broadened the role of IT as an enabler. Moreover, businesses and communities expect to see value from tech deployment in shorter time spans. The emergence of the C forced organisations in all sectors to deploy technology to minimise contact and implement lockdown regulations. However, some organisations were challenged with a lack of preparedness of employees and infrastructure needs to cope with tech deployment in a short time. Overall, the fast-paced developments of emerging technologies alongside the pandemic signals a need for effective IT or technology deployment governance. Systems, processes, standards, and best practice frameworks have been developed to facilitate effective IT governance throughout the last decade. However, a large number of IT initiatives fail to deliver. This chapter, motivated by recent developments (including the emerging tech and COVID-19), discusses the role of effective IT governance in successful IT deployment. Overall, the systematic literature review followed by the analysis of several failed IT deployment cases studies demonstrated a strong connection between failed tech adoption projects and poor governance practices. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Mapping emerging technologies in aged care: results from an in-depth online research.

BACKGROUND: Emerging Technologies (ETs) have recently acquired great relevance in elderly care. The exceptional experience with SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized the usefulness of ETs in the assistance and remote monitoring of older adults. Technological devices have also contributed to the preservation of social interactions, thus reducing isolation and loneliness. The general purpose of this work is to provide a comprehensive and updated overview of the technologies currently employed in elderly care. This objective was achieved firstly, by mapping and classifying the ETs currently available on the market and, secondly, by assessing the impact of such ETs on elderly care, exploring the ethical values promoted, as well as potential ethical threats. METHODS: An in-depth search was carried out on Google search engine, by using specific keywords (e.g. technology, monitoring techniques, ambient intelligence; elderly, older adults; care and assistance). Three hundred and twenty-eight technologies were originally identified. Then, based on a predetermined set of inclusion-exclusion criteria, two hundreds and twenty-two technologies were selected. RESULTS: A comprehensive database was elaborated, where the two hundred and twenty-two ETs selected were classified as follows: category; developmental stage; companies and/or partners; functions; location of development; time of development; impact on elderly care; target; website. From an in-depth qualitative analysis, some ethically-related contents and themes emerged, namely: questions related to safety, independence and active aging, connectedness, empowerment and dignity, cost and efficiency. Although not reported by developers, a close analysis of website contents highlights that positive values are often associated with potential risks, notably privacy threats, deception, dehumanization of care. CONCLUSIONS: Research findings may ultimately lead to a better understanding of the impact of ETs on elderly people.

The moderating role of emerging technologies on the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 and the performance of construction projects: the case of Pakistan

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the outcome of construction projects and explore the moderating effects of emerging technologies on the relationship between COVID-19 and construction project outcomes. Design/methodology/approachData for the study was collected through a Web-based, semistructured questionnaire. The responses of 62 construction practitioners were analyzed using a hierarchical linear regression model. The model consists of 16 independent variables, three control variables (organization size, organization type and project size), one moderator (adoption level of emerging technologies) and three dependent variables (project time, project cost and project quality). FindingsThe study confirms the negative significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of construction projects. It also identifies the significant moderating effects of emerging technologies in mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on construction projects. Further, it shows a significant increase in the application of emerging technologies in construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the findings related to the moderating impact of the technology, this study provides a clear set of recommendations for construction firms, public sector and research community in combating the unavoidable situation similar to the COVID-19 pandemic in the future. Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to identify the moderating role of technology on the impact of COVID-19 on the performance of the construction sector in Pakistan. The findings can also be used for the construction sectors of other developing countries.

A Review on Digital Twin Technology in Healthcare

Digital twin technology is the union of three systems - the physical, the virtual and the interconnecting link layer. It acts as a replica and provides real-time representation of real-world physical objects in a virtual format. Digital twins are promising when applied in healthcare. This brief review gives a schematic overview of the current state of digital twin, specifically in the healthcare industry with gaps to overcome the challenges in building smart healthcare ecosystem. A concise synthesis of the following aspects of digital twin provides a cohesive whole in this paper: new capabilities and functions of the digital twin in healthcare, technologies that support digital twins, with its applications. This study motivated by the current COVID-19 pandemic, focuses on the application of the Digital Twin technology in healthcare. © 2023 IEEE.

Emerging Technologies and Global Pandemic

Emerging technologies, often defined as Industry 4.0, have been increasingly altering the development paths of businesses and individuals. As the pandemic continues to remain a part of our reality, we continue to improvise, innovate, and overcome. Technologies we have adapted today, are going to be an integral part of the post-pandemic world as well, this expedited technological adaption beckons the question—when we accepted the thrust of technology to the center of our lives, what the coming years bring forth remains to be seen, now that we as a species we have accepted our technologically interwoven existence. Disruptive technologies include artificial intelligence (AI), Blockchain, 3D printing, augmented reality, etc. While the speed and breadth of the fourth industrial revolution have been and will continue to be remarkable, the COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate innovation and catalyze technological changes already underway paving the way to Society 5.0. Society 5.0 aims to integrate human concerns back into the details of how we think about technologically advanced environments and promote user-friendly technologies for daily living;the initiative has also tried to address the challenges of productivity in an ageing society. This chapter presents examples of how emerging technologies have been employed during the COVID-19 crisis;discusses trends that may heighten the role of emerging technologies in a post-COVID-19 world;and reviews risks to and opportunities of faster adoption of emerging technologies and their implications to human security. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.

Impact of autonomous solutions on earthmoving electrification using machine learning: case study

PurposeThis research aims to investigate the adoption of future technologies in earthmoving applications. The increased development in automated driving systems (ADS) has opened up significant opportunities to revolutionize mobility and to set the path for technologies, such as electrification. The research also aims to explore the impact of automation on electromobility in earthmoving applications.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a multi-objective simulation-based optimization approach using machine learning in earthmoving applications.FindingsThis study concludes that ADS is "conditionally” an enabler for electrification. The study highlights and explains how local and global factors affect this conclusion. In addition to that, the research explores the impact of the equipment size on the integration of future mobility technologies. The shift from "elephant to ants” in the fleet selection resulted in improved feasibility from the integration of ADS in electrification.Originality/valueThis research provides fundamental considerations in the assessment of the impact of autonomous driving solutions on electromobility in the construction industry.

An Integrated Neutrosophic SNA-MABAC Approach for Blockchain Applicability Evaluation in Sustainable Supply Chains

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia and the turbulent international situation in recent years have seriously disrupted the normal operation of the entire supply chain (SC). As an emerging technology, blockchain is characterized by decentralization, reliability, transparency and traceability, which can be effectively applied to solve social, environmental and economic concerns and achieve sustainability of supply chain. However, whether blockchain is suitable for every function of a sustainable supply chain (SSC), or what function is best suited for the application of a set of blockchain criteria, can be viewed as a multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problem. This paper presents a combined MCGDM technique utilizing the social network analysis (SNA) and Multi-Attributive Border Approximation Area Comparison (MABAC), for selecting an appropriate function of SSCs to implement blockchain technology with Neutrosophic information. The framework gives quantitative consideration to the weight of relevant blockchain criteria and decision makers under high uncertainty. This study can also facilitate the effective allocation of resources and enhance the competitiveness of SSCs in the coordinated planning of various blockchain deployments. © 2022 IEEE.

Emerging technologies for COVID-19, diagnosis, prevention, and management

Virus-related respiratory epidemics have been the most common cause of infectious disease worldwide for the past century. SARS-CoV-2 has been a threat to humanity all across the world from the beginning of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic can only be controlled by identifying and isolating the new cases, thereby interrupting community transmission. Policymakers, health care providers, and interdisciplinary scientists must collaborate to ensure pandemic preparedness utilizing cutting-edge technology. Nonetheless, the development of novel nanotherapeutic and vaccination techniques is critical. To address these issues, further research about the SARS-CoV-2 structure as well as the precise immunological response it elicits in the human body is needed. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Technology and HealthCare in the Coming Era

The fast-emerging technologies in this century fueled by covid19 crises has taught every stakeholder (technology giants, pharmacists, hospitals, patients etc.) a great lesson. Hospital with good healthcare system will have some of these technologies while there are least developed countries with no infrastructure and no technology. Using technology in healthcare will change the working of existing healthcare system to brighter one. This paper will portray different technology trends like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Block chain, Robotic Surgery, Smart devices, telemedicine and so on. The promises and the obstacles with impact of the technology are discussed too. © 2022 IEEE.

An exploratory study of organisational and industry drivers for the implementation of emerging technologies in logistics

Purpose: Emerging technologies have the capacity to transform industries offering substantial benefits to users. Given the increasing demand for advanced logistics services, third-party logistic service providers (LSPs) face greater pressure to deploy and realise these technologies, especially given the demands and operational challenges created during the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing upon the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework, this paper goes beyond just identifying drivers and barriers to technology adoption to understanding how LSPs and industry experts perceive these drivers and barriers and simultaneously confront and undertake actions to implement them. Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory study was conducted in three phases: (1) in-depth interviews with twelve stakeholders in the Australian logistics industry;(2) five in-depth interviews conducted with stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis and (3) a focus group discussion session. All interviews were analysed using content analysis and revealed several drivers for the deployment of emerging technologies, including internal organisational factors that drive supply chain (SC) network optimisation. Findings: The analysis of the three phases identified several drivers for the deployment of emerging technologies in logistics, including internal organisational factors that drive SC network optimisation. Also identified were external drivers including the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, along with barriers and specific actions that were considered and implemented by LSPs for sustainable operations, particularly in a post-COVID-19 environment. Originality/value: This study explores organisational and industry drivers for the implementation of emerging technologies. Explicitly, it extends the extant research by highlighting organisational and industry drivers and enablers that influence adoption and deployment of emerging technologies. Second, it advances the existing perspectives on LSPs in the Australian context on the development and implementation of technology strategies. The paper offers insights around implementation of technologies, directly obtained from industrial application for managers and practitioners. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Big data Citizen-centred smart city governance. Evidence from Wuhan and the Coronavirus battle

Smart City governance is a topical subject and many scholars have developed diverse top-down and bottom-up models and frameworks. This paper presents insights from a qualitative and exploratory investigation from the city of Wuhan, China. It proposes and develops a novel urban governance, citizen-oriented and leveraging different emerging technologies such as mobile, social media and Big data. Our empirical results describe the actions realized by the Wuhan local government against the coronavirus epidemic disease between January and March 2020 to monitor the temperature of the citizenship and authorize or not their displacement in order to minimize the cross-contamination and avoid a large human mortality. Our conclusions corroborate the existence of this novel ICT urban governance model. In doing so, the paper advances our understanding of modern urban organization model which comprises of a 360° citizen holistic view, a data-oriented decision-making process and a centralized perspective of the citizen during all the data life cycle. The heuristic that manages this new governance model suggests ex-ante actions at individual or group level and largely exploits public and private sector information breaking (temporarily if necessary) the individual privacy rules for the purpose of its action. © 2022 IEEE.

Educational management from the integrated input-output methodology of the dynamic model

The purpose is to analyze management in educational organizations through the integrated input-output methodology of the dynamic model with emerging technologies, in the institutions "Camilo Torres Restrepo, San José and San Isidro”, municipality of Curumaní (Cesar-Colombia). The research was of an analytical type;supported by the qualitative macro-ethnographic approach. According to the epistemological framework, the research is considered phenomenological. The technique used was the in-depth interview, applying the interview script directed to nine (9) key informant teachers of the mentioned institutions. In basic secondary education, the integrated input-output methodology of the dynamic model using emerging technologies does not constitute a teacher's priority to respond to learning mediated by virtuality during Covid-19. Finally, it is necessary for classroom managers to effectively apply the theoretical-practical elements related to the integrated input-output methodology in order to assertively guide students in their learning process. © 2023, Universidad del Zulia. All rights reserved.

A Simulation-Heuristic Approach to Optimally Design Drone Delivery Systems in Rural Areas

In recent years, drone delivery has become one of the most widely adopted emerging technologies. Under the current Covid-19 pandemic, drones greatly improve logistics, especially in rural areas, where inefficient road networks and long distances between customers reduce the delivery capacity of conventional ground vehicles. Considering the limited flight range of drones, charging stations play essential roles in the rural delivery system. In this study, we utilize simulation to optimize the drone delivery system design, in order to minimize the cost of serving the maximum capacity of customers. As facility siting is usually difficult to optimize, we propose a novel simulation-heuristic framework that continuously improves the objective to find near-optimal solutions. In addition, we conduct a case study using real-world data collected from Knox County, Tennessee. The results suggest that the proposed approach saves over 15% on total costs compared with the benchmark. © 2022 IEEE.

Using Computer Vision to enhance Safety in a Post COVID World

The pandemic has being fought with passion over the world, and India has already in the critical phases. They must be proactive now more than ever, and governments all around the globe have realized the value of emerging technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), and other similar technologies to combat the epidemic. Since wearing a mask and avoiding crowded places is the only option even a reliable vaccination is launched into the general market. Face mask detection can be a rejuvenating element in restoring normalcy to people's life. In nations with huge populations, such as ours, real-time mask detection can also help with monitoring. This paper shows a variety of deep learning models for detecting whether or not a person is wearing a mask. Entry and exit access systems may be combined with such technology to assist reduce the transmission of the virus, not just for the Covid19 pandemic, but wherever and whenever facemasks are enforced to minimize any air-borne infections. This paper also shows a variety of deep learning models for social distancing monitoring. © 2022 IEEE.

Slack, Social Justice, and Online Technical Communication Pedagogy: TCQ

This Methodologies and Approaches piece interfaces conversations about social justice pedagogies in technical and professional communication (TPC), Black TPC, and online TPC instruction to discuss the social justice affordances of Slack in online instruction. Drawing on our experiences using Slack within an online graduate course during the COVID-19 pandemic, we consider how Slack supports pedagogical community building and accessibility in online instruction before presenting a framework for assessing instructional technologies in terms of social justice.

Novel Framework to Define Extended & Mixed Reality for Online Learning

COVID-19 has taken educational protocols to different track. Online education is the way to execute process smoothly. There are various tools that are providing services to fill the pain points. Role of emerging technologies can't be denied. Extended and mixed reality plays a vital role here. Our purpose is to analyze the same in this paper. Second objective of this paper is to develop novel framework to define extended and mixed reality for online learning Fig.∼\ref{fig1}. Testing has been done on four Indian universities and schools to identify the effectiveness of proposed framework. © 2022 IEEE.

Are Health Information Systems Ready for the Digital Transformation in Portugal? Challenges and Future Perspectives.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to reflect on the challenges of Health Information Systems in Portugal at a time when technologies enable the creation of new approaches and models for care provision, as well as to identify scenarios that may characterize this practice in the future. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A guiding research model was created based on an empirical study that was conducted using a qualitative method that integrated content analysis of strategic documents and semi-structured interviews with a sample of fourteen key actors in the health sector. FINDINGS: Results pointed to the existence of emerging technologies that may promote the development of Health Information Systems oriented to "health and well-being" in a preventive model logic and reinforce the social and management implications. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The originality of this work resided in the empirical study carried out, which allowed us to analyze how the various actors look at the present and the future of Health Information Systems. There is also a lack of studies addressing this subject. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The main limitations resulted from a low, although representative, number of interviews and the fact that the interviews took place before the pandemic, so the digital transformation that was promoted was not reflected. Managerial implications and social implications: The study highlighted the need for greater commitment from decision makers, managers, healthcare providers, and citizens toward achieving improved digital literacy and health. Decision makers and managers must also agree on strategies to accelerate existing strategic plans and avoid their implementation at different paces.

Using emerging technologies to improve the sustainability and resilience of supply chains in a fuzzy environment in the context of COVID-19.

In rapidly changing business conditions, it has become extremely important to ensure the sustainability of supply chains and further improve the resiliency to those events, such as COVID-19, that can cause unexpected disruptions in the value supply chain. Although globalized supply chains have already been criticized for lack of control over sustainability and resilience of supply chain operations, these issues have become more prevalent in the uncertain environment driven by COVID-19. The use of emerging technologies such as blockchain, Industry 4.0 analytics model and artificial intelligence driven methods are aimed at increasing the sustainability and resilience of supply chains, especially in an uncertain environment. In this context, this research aims to identify the problematic areas encountered in building a resilient and sustainable supply chain in the pre-COVID-19 era and during COVID-19, and to offer solutions to those problematic areas tackled by an appropriate emerging technology. This research has been contextualized in the automotive industry; this industry has a complex supply chain structure and is one of the sectors most affected by COVID-19. Based on the findings, the most important problematic areas encountered in SSCM pre-COVID-19 are determined as supply chain traceability, demand planning and production management as well as purchasing process planning based on cause and effect groups. The most important issues to be addressed during COVID-19 are top management support, purchasing process planning and supply chain traceability, respectively.

Auditors' perceptions on work adaptability in remote audit: a COVID-19 perspective

In the context of COVID-19, adoption of teleworking challenges companies' culture and social interaction to foster a creative and innovative workplace. The article aims to identify the auditors' perception of different factors that influence work adaptability in remote audit activity. The research method is based on multivariate data analysis that consist of correspondence analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and generalised linear ordinal regression. On one hand, findings emphasise that auditors' perception on the work efficiency of auditors in remote audits is significantly influenced by the digitalization degree of audit activities. On the other hand, the research outlines the main threats and opportunities of remote auditing in the context of the current pandemic restrictions. Where auditors perceive the benefits of remote audit, they appreciate positively the degree of adaptability and work efficiency as regards teleworking. Opportunities perceived lead to enhanced audit activity outcome if audit companies embrace emergent technologies in the new digital workplace. Nevertheless, as transition to remote audit determines increased auditors' liability and audit risks, auditors are more cautious and sometimes reluctant about future scenarios of remote audit, if innovative emerging audit technologies and integrated GRCs are not used or are not properly implemented. Whatever the future holds for the new digital audit workplace, it is obvious that auditors working from home face specific challenges, because what they earn in efficiency, they lose in benefits that are harder to quantify, such as innovative thinking and creativity. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.