VirtualECare: group support in collaborative networks organizations for digital homecare

Collaborative Work plays an important role in today’s organizations and normally in areas where decisions must be made. However, any decision that involves a collective or group of decision makers is, by itself, complex but is becoming normal in recent years. In this work we present the VirtualECare project (Figure 10), intelligent multi‐agent system able to monitor, interact and serve its customers, which are, normally, in need of care services. In the last years there has been a substantially increase in the number of people needed of intensive care, especially among the elderly, a phenomenon that is related to population ageing. However, this is not exclusive of the elderly, as diseases as obesity, diabetes, and blood pressure have been increasing among young adults. As a new reality, it has to be dealt by the health sector, and particularly by the public one. Thus, the importance of finding new and cost effective ways for health care delivery are of particular importance, especially when one want them not to be removed from their “habitat”. Following this line of thinking, the VirtualECare project will be presented, like similar ones that preceded it. Recently we have assisted to a growing interest in combining the advances in information society ‐ computing, telecommunications and presentation – in order to create Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS). Indeed, the new economy, along with increased competition in today’s complex business environments, takes the companies to seek complementarities in order to increase competitiveness and reduce risks. Under these scenarios, planning takes a major role in a company life. However, effective planning depends on the generation and analysis of ideas (innovative or not) and, as a result, the idea generation and management processes are crucial. Our objective is to apply the above presented GDSS to a new area. We believe that the use of GDSS in the healthcare arena will allow professionals to achieve better results in the analysis of one’s Electronically Clinical Profile (ECP). This achievement is vital, regarding the explosion of knowledge and skills, together with the need to use limited resources and get better results

Service Performance Assessment: A PI Toolset Methodology for VEs

Part 2: Knowledge-Based ServicesInternational audienceNowadays service sector is becoming more and more relevant in building successful collaborative economies. In this environment Virtual Enterprises (VEs) are forcing a change in the way traditional manufacturing systems are managed. Therefore measuring service performances plays an important role in turning company strategic goals into reality. Performance Indicators (PIs) consist in a supporting tool to assess service efficiency and effectiveness. Consequently, determining the most significant activities which need to be controlled and measured through proper PIs becomes essential. Within this paper, a PI Toolset is going to be presented and tested through industrial use case. The PI Toolset has been developed to support VEs in selecting significant activities, to manage governance processes and to support the design and implementation of specific PIs related to the precise use case objectives. Finally, a lesson learnt approach has been adopted so to stress strengths and weaknesses of both proposed methodology and tools

A Cloud Based Data Integration Framework

Virtual enterprise (VE) relies on resource sharing and collaboration across geographically dispersed and dynamically allied businesses in order to better respond to market opportunities. It is generally considered that effective data integration and management is crucial to realise the value of VE. This paper describes a cloud-based data integration framework that can be used for supporting VE to discover, explore and respond more emerging business opportunities that require instant and easy resource access and flexible on-demand development in a customer-centric approach. Motivated by a case study discussing power incident management in the Spanish Electricity System, an effective on-demand application is also implemented to demonstrate how to use this framework to solve real world problems

Taking the customer into account in collaborative design

This article describes the improvement of a model of collaborative design for the ceramic industry. A new stakeholder playing a crucial role is now included in the design process, i.e. the customer. Specifically, we present a pilot validation study for the framework that aims to analyse how the environment, experiences and reference criteria of different types of the customers (commercial dealers, final users, architects and interior designers, etc.) can affect their preferences. Information about these customer preferences could be very useful for designers during the early stages of product development. A multidisciplinary approach to the problem can introduce substantial improvements in defining a truly collaborative design chain

Artificial intelligence use in collaborative network processes

Funding Information: The research that led to these findings received funding from the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON) with Grant Agreement No 101057294 "AI-Driven Industrial Equipment Product Life Cycle Boosting Agility, Sustainability, and Resilience (AIDEAS)". First research projects aimed at research staff of the Universitat Politècnica de València in the framework of the Vice-Rectorate for Research (PAID-06- 23) " Algorithms and intelligent optimisation models for production planning and replenishment (ATENNEA)". Grant program for carrying out of stays of doctor research staff in companies of the Valencian Community, Spain (AEST/2023) CIAEST/2022/39 "Development of Optimisation Models and Heuristic Algorithms for Inventory Management and the Optimisation of Replenishment and Production Plans in a company in the agri-food industry machinery manufacturing sector". Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)This paper reviews the literature to analyse the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in collaborative processes among supply chain (SC) partners, thereby forming a collaborative network (CN). Given the growth of AI and its limited exploration in many business strategies, especially when collaboration among SC partners’ is established, this paper focuses on defining the lines of research and application of AI in CN processes, by presenting insights into how AI can improve the resilience and the antifragility. It examines the integration of AI in CN processes from the following perspectives: (i) the collaborative processes addressed among the CN partners, (ii) the decision-making level of the collaborative processes performed, (iii) the SC partners involved in the collaboration; (iv) the technologies combined with AI to support CN processes; (v) the programming languages implemented to develop AI algorithms; (vi) the SC sectors in which AI is mainly implemented to perform collaborative processes; and (vii) the potential of implementing AI in CN processes, in an increasingly turbulent and disruptive business world. The study focuses on SC in various sectors, including food, transport, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare or electronics, among others. In addition, the review provides a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between collaborative processes and AI-driven advances, identifying the technologies that can merge with AI to support CN processes. The results have enabled the development of a conceptual framework for AI use collaborative processes and outline the benefits, risks and challenges associated with the use of AI in CN, while proposing future research directions in this area.publishersversionpublishe

A Collaborative Network Model for the Standards Community

Standards, as agreed-upon norms and requirements about systems, are essential pillars of enterprise and network operation and interoperability. However, standards themselves often display interoperability, inconsistency and overlap problems partly due to the custodian work groups' heterogeneity, the politics involved and limited communication and cooperation. This paper proposes and investigates the use of a Collaborative Network (CN) model in the standards community so as to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge accumulated in this domain, the artefacts built and the lessons learned in practice. Following an introduction and a review of the current issues in standards development, the paper presents the specific features of the CNs and the Virtual Organisations (VOs) they would create in order to tackle standards creation and revision in an integrated and synergistic way. A case study is also used to describe a possible implementation of the CN / VO model in practice and to illustrate the benefits of the proposed approach.No Full Tex

Should a Sentinel Node Biopsy Be Performed in Patients with High-Risk Breast Cancer?

A negative sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy spares many breast cancer patients the complications associated with lymph node irradiation or additional surgery. However, patients at high risk for nodal involvement based on clinical characteristics may remain at unacceptably high risk of axillary disease even after a negative SLN biopsy result. A Bayesian nomogram was designed to combine the probability of axillary disease prior to nodal biopsy with customized test characteristics for an SLN biopsy and provides the probability of axillary disease despite a negative SLN biopsy. Users may individualize the sensitivity of an SLN biopsy based on factors known to modify the sensitivity of the procedure. This tool may be useful in identifying patients who should have expanded upfront exploration of the axilla or comprehensive axillary irradiation

Aligning Monitoring and Compliance Requirements in Evolving Business Networks

Dynamic business networks (BNs) are intrinsically characterised by change. Compliance requirements management, in this context, may become particularly challenging. Partners in the network may join and leave the collaboration dynamically and tasks over which compliance requirements are specified may be consequently delegated to new partners or backsourced by network participants. This paper considers the issue of aligning the compliance requirements in a BN with the monitoring requirements they induce on the BN participants when change (or evolution) occurs. We first provide a conceptual model of BNs and their compliance requirements, introducing the concept of monitoring capabilities induced by compliance requirements. Then, we present a set of mechanisms to ensure consistency between the monitoring and compliance requirements when BNs evolve, e.g. tasks are delegated or backsourced in-house. Eventually, we discuss a prototype implementation of our framework, which also implements a set of metrics to check the status of a BN in respect of compliance monitorability