Brokering Approach Research Articles

Knowledge brokering inside the policy making process: an analysis of evidence use inside a UK government department

Background Knowledge brokering plays an important role in the evidence-to-policy system, but little is known about whether and how it occurs within government departments. Aims and objectives Using empirical evidence from one UK government department, this article analyses how knowledge brokering takes place inside the policy making process and what shapes brokering activities. Methods Between 2019 and 2021, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with current and former senior officials at the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). We combined existing knowledge brokering frameworks to investigate the daily activities of a group of officials known internally as ‘evidence specialists’. Findings Defra’s evidence specialists routinely performed a range of activities to improve the uptake and use of evidence by their ‘policy maker’ colleagues. These conformed well to our knowledge brokering framework and included informing, relational, framing, institutional and some co-production activities. They could act as brokers because of the separation of roles of evidence specialists and policy makers; and their brokering work was shaped by organisational, structural and process factors. Discussion and conclusion Knowledge brokering can play a key role in improving evidence use inside government departments, though this may vary between jurisdictions because different administrations may vary the roles and functions of groups of civil servants. Understanding how different roles could contribute to a brokering approach to evidence use would help fill a gap in researchers’ understanding about the evidence-to-policy process and help government departments formalise and strengthen the ways they acquire and interpret evidence to inform policy decisions.

Combining IoMT and XAI for Enhanced Triage Optimization: An MQTT Broker Approach with Contextual Recommendations for Improved Patient Priority Management in Healthcare

The widespread adoption of the Internet of Things has significantly enhanced our daily lives across various dimensions. E-health has significantly benefited from advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT), particularly with the emergence of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). A sophisticated wireless sensor network produces a huge amount of data, requiring robust cloud-based hardware for precise processing and categorization. The IoMT allows for the extensive gathering of medical data from incoming hospital patients, enabling real-time monitoring of vital signs and health statuses. Nevertheless, effectively prioritizing patients in emergencies is challenging due to the importance and complicatedness of the data. To tackle this issue, an innovative solution involves integrating Explainable Artificial Intelligence into the IoMT ecosystem. By incorporating Explainable AI, the system enhances explainability, fostering trust and reliability in patient prioritization. This provides healthcare providers a more reliable prioritization mechanism that aligns with established medical guidelines. The study explores IoMT devices for collecting medical data from incoming patients, focusing on the MQTT protocol for lightweight devices, aiming to guide patients to the right department and prioritize emergency management through IoMT data analysis.

A knowledge interchange broker composition modeling framework for simulating water, energy, and water-energy nexus systems

Understanding the dynamics of complex systems requires developing and combining different kinds of models that can be simulated separately and together. Modeling the interactions as separate models contributes to building flexible hybrid simulation frameworks. In this research, a Discrete Event System Specification–based Interaction Model (DEVS-IM) framework is developed based on the Knowledge Interchange Broker (KIB) approach. This KIB-based RESTful modeling composition framework is shown to enable systematic modeling and simulation of interactions between disparate simulatable models. It supports storing IMs developed for componentized Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) and Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) tools. It generates the skeleton of DEVS-IMs stored in database for DEVS-Suite simulator. An exemplar model consisting of water, energy, and IMs demonstrates this methodology for developing nexus models of water–energy systems.

The impact of knowledge brokering in health sector and the challenges: A review of literature.

Knowledge brokering is a type of knowledge translation that bridge the researchers and end users. Knowledge brokering assist the interactions between all agents to understand each other's perspectives and goals to improve health system performance. The failure to deliver how important the research implementation in society may cause significant outcome. A person or organization who perform knowledge brokering is called knowledge broker (KB). Literature review is conducted for the clinical question of how knowledge brokering impact the health sector and the visible challenges. A literature search is performed by systematic search using three major online databases; Cochrane, PubMed, and EBSCO. Hand-searching also yielded one result that fit the objective of this study. The database result search was being screened from the title and abstract which resulted in 14 relevant articles. After reading the full-text articles, four literatures were ruled-in. The study assessed knowledge brokering process using various methods like single framework or model as well as the combination. The challenges include the lack of communication between internal team and end users, leadership skill, engaging end users, knowledge transfer activity, different timeline, and diverse vision. Evaluating and applying knowledge brokering strategies were needed as the practice itself bringing positive outcomes. Knowledge brokering approaches consist of many methods which tailored to the study objective. Challenges that stand out were communication and personal skill, engaging end users, and perspectives difference. The impact of knowledge brokering is challenging to assess. Further studies that evaluate the impacts of knowledge brokering are still needed.

Multi-scale hydrological system-of-systems realized through WHOS: the brokering framework

ABSTRACT Global Change challenges are now systematically recognized and tackled in a growingly coordinated manner by intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. Heterogeneous observing networks provide the founded data sources to assess the Earth environmental status and take sound decisions to achieve a sustainable development. WMO Hydrological Observing System (WHOS) allows to discover and access historical and near real time hydrological observations. WHOS represents the hydrological contribution to the wider WIGOS-WIS system of WMO. It is a digital ecosystems framework contributed by a set of data providers and technical support centers. In this framework, three regional pilots were successfully completed. The WHOS architecture applies the services brokering style, implemented through the Discovery and Access Broker technology. A brokering approach makes a global system of systems possible and sustainable, where the different enterprise systems are enabled to interoperate, despite they implement heterogeneous communication interfaces and data models. In this manuscript, the WHOS brokering solution is detailed by recurring to the definition of a set of transversal viewpoints to describe the important aspects of the complex ecosystem –namely: enterprise, information, computational, engineering, and technological views. Finally, the three regional pilot ecosystems are described as successful cases of WHOS implementation.

The broker role in societal activation of long-term welfare recipients: A jack of all trades?

Summary Socioeconomic status and health are strongly related to the ability of a person to participate in society. Acting upon activation and employment possibilities is difficult for several groups. One group described as especially hard to activate is long-term welfare recipients. In the current study, the role of an activation broker was studied as a supplementary practice to regular support practices. A qualitative research design using an analysis of the administrative logbook of the activation broker and interviews with professionals ( n = 8) and long-term welfare recipients ( n = 10) was carried out. To structure the retrieved data, the Activation Broker Wheel was developed. Findings Seven core behaviours were identified and categorized in three determinants; capabilities, opportunities and motivation. Contextual factors supporting the activation broker approach were selected. The activation broker approach was found to be successful in activating long-term welfare recipients. Applications The behaviours, determinants and context made visible within the Activation Broker Wheel provided insight into workable elements that may help future activation brokers to optimize their support.

A control and communications platform for procedural mission planning with multiple aerial drones

Leveraging recent advances in autonomous flight capabilities of commercially available drone equipment, we report on the development of a modular solution for multi-drone control that implements the functionality required for planning, execution, and monitoring of procedural, multi-step missions with optional drone cooperation. The platform consists of loosely coupled components interacting via message brokers, which we evaluate through a pair of real-life experiments that emulate reference use-cases. We then look into the performance of drone-to-ground communications, with a particular focus on latency. We implement a dedicated, low-resource communications module with efficient serialization protocols and asynchronous message handling, to compare against the built-in message broker approach. Our data shows the importance of low-level prioritization of drone control requests and indicates that message broker approaches may not be suitable for drone swarms.

Optimized hybrid service brokering for multi-cloud architectures

A cloud computing platform provides access to shared resources along with diverse services including computation and storage to its users. The ubiquitous access to resources requires the service providers to ensure an efficient, reliable, and a fault-tolerant infrastructure. In this context, the cloud brokering mechanisms enable the cloud computing platforms to manage cloud resources through mediation between cloud service providers and cloud users. Corresponding to user requests, the cloud service brokering and load balancing aim at efficient real-time provision of services with minimal monetary cost through selection of appropriate data centers and virtual machines. This paper proposes a normalization-based hybrid service brokering approach integrated with throttled round-robin load balancing to improve resource management through cost- and performance-aware provision of cloud services. The proposed approach incorporates a hybrid (static and dynamic) evaluation criteria using normalization for determining the impact of cost and performance-oriented parameters in a multi-cloud environment. The subsequent selection of the most appropriate service provider along with throttled round-robin load balancing optimizes cloud resource management. The experiments performed with diverse number of user bases and data centers show that the proposed cloud service brokering approach outperforms other well-known approaches by improving response time, data center processing time, and monetary cost up to 17.39%, 31.35%, and 7.06%, respectively.

The sustainability of knowledge brokerage of the mental health improvement outcomes framework in Scotland: a follow-up analysis

This is a follow-up study to Reid et al (2017) which considered the barriers and facilitators of getting knowledge into policy when using a knowledge brokering approach. The previous study analysed the use of strategies to reduce barriers to the use of evidence in mental health strategy planning in Scotland using outcome frameworks. The main facilitators highlighted were the importance of local champions, cooperation within partnership networks, and national-level support. The barriers were local implementation cultures, local time pressures, perceived complexities of the framework, and timeliness of the framework. The present article details the results of a follow-up qualitative evaluation of the sustainability of the mental health improvement outcomes framework with local planners. There is a dearth of literature which focuses on the sustainability of outcome frameworks and the findings of this study suggest that the barriers highlighted by Reid et al (2017) remain acute issues. However, there are further aspects for learning for knowledge brokers themselves in terms of national and local relations and the wider challenges and opportunities relating to network governance and policy reform agendas.

A domain-independent methodology to analyze IoT data streams in real-time. A proof of concept implementation for anomaly detection from environmental data

ABSTRACTPushed by the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm modern sensor networks monitor a wide range of phenomena, in areas such as environmental monitoring, health care, industrial processes, and smart cities. These networks provide a continuous pulse of the almost infinite activities that are happening in the physical space and are thus, key enablers for a Digital Earth Nervous System. Nevertheless, the rapid processing of these sensor data streams still continues to challenge traditional data-handling solutions and new approaches are being requested. We propose a generic answer to this challenge, which has the potential to support any form of distributed real-time analysis. This neutral methodology follows a brokering approach to work with different kinds of data sources and uses web-based standards to achieve interoperability. As a proof of concept, we implemented the methodology to detect anomalies in real-time and applied it to the area of environmental monitoring. The developed system is capable of detecting anomalies, generating notifications, and displaying the recent situation to the user.

Technical note: Harmonising metocean model data via standard web services within small research groups

Abstract. Work over the last decade has resulted in standardised web services and tools that can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of working with meteorological and ocean model data. While many operational modelling centres have enabled query and access to data via common web services, most small research groups have not. The penetration of this approach into the research community, where IT resources are limited, can be dramatically improved by (1) making it simple for providers to enable web service access to existing output files; (2) using free technologies that are easy to deploy and configure; and (3) providing standardised, service-based tools that work in existing research environments. We present a simple, local brokering approach that lets modellers continue to use their existing files and tools, while serving virtual data sets that can be used with standardised tools. The goal of this paper is to convince modellers that a standardised framework is not only useful but can be implemented with modest effort using free software components. We use NetCDF Markup language for data aggregation and standardisation, the THREDDS Data Server for data delivery, pycsw for data search, NCTOOLBOX (MATLAB®) and Iris (Python) for data access, and Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service for data preview. We illustrate the effectiveness of this approach with two use cases involving small research modelling groups at NATO and USGS.

Use of a knowledge broker to establish healthy public policies in a city district: a developmental evaluation.

BackgroundPublic health is to a large extent determined by non-health-sector policies. One approach to address this apparent paradox is to establish healthy public policies. This requires policy makers in non-health sectors to become more aware of the health impacts of their policies, and more willing to adopt evidence-informed policy measures to improve health. We employed a knowledge broker to set the agenda for health and to specify health-promoting policy alternatives. This study aimed at gaining in-depth understanding of how this knowledge broker approach works.MethodsIn the context of a long-term partnership between the two universities in Amsterdam and the municipal public health service, we employed a knowledge broker who worked part-time at a university and part-time for an Amsterdam city district. When setting an agenda and specifying evidence-informed policy alternatives, we considered three individual policy portfolios as well as the policy organization of the city district. We evaluated and developed the knowledge broker approach through action research using participant observation.ResultsOur knowledge brokering strategy led to the adoption of several policy alternatives in individual policy portfolios, and was especially successful in agenda-setting for health. More specifically, health became an issue on the formal policy agenda as evidenced by its uptake in the city district’s mid-term review and the appointment of a policy analyst for health. Our study corroborated the importance of process factors such as building trust, clearly distinguishing the knowledge broker role, and adequate management support. We also saw the benefits of multilevel agenda-setting and specifying policy alternatives at appropriate policy levels. Sector-specific responsibilities hampered the adoption of cross-sectoral policy alternatives, while thematically designed policy documents offered opportunities for including them. Further interpretation revealed three additional themes in knowledge brokering: boundary spanning, a ripple effect, and participant observation.ConclusionsThe employment of a knowledge broker who works simultaneously on both agenda-setting for health as well as the specification of health-promoting policy alternatives seems to be a promising first step in establishing local healthy public policies. Future studies are needed to explore the usefulness of our approach in further policy development and policy implementation.

Architecture of a Process Broker for Interoperable Geospatial Modeling on the Web

The identification of appropriate mechanisms for process sharing and reuse by means of composition is considered a key enabler for the effective uptake of a global Earth Observation infrastructure, currently pursued by the international geospatial research community. Modelers in need of running complex workflows may benefit from outsourcing process composition to a dedicated external service, according to the brokering approach. This work introduces our architecture of a process broker, as a distributed information system for creating, validating, editing, storing, publishing and executing geospatial-modeling workflows. The broker provides a service framework for adaptation, reuse and complementation of existing processing resources (including models and geospatial services in general) in the form of interoperable, executable workflows. The described solution has been experimentally applied in several use scenarios in the context of EU-funded projects and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.

Evaluating the effectiveness of knowledge brokering in health research: a systematised review with some bibliometric information.

The aim of this study was to identify the effectiveness of knowledge brokering as a knowledge translation (KT) strategy used in promoting evidence-based decision-making, evidence-based practice or collaboration between researchers, health practitioners and policymakers. A systematised review of literature was performed using MEDLINE (through ProQuest Dialog), PubMed and Scopus electronic databases. A search strategy was developed to identify primary studies indexed in these databases on knowledge translation that reported the implementation of knowledge brokering. Sixty-two titles related to knowledge brokering were identified from the search after the removal of duplicates, and 24 articles met the eligibility criteria following the review of the full text documents. The findings were then synthesised using a narrative approach. It was found that knowledge brokering has been an effective strategy for knowledge translation. Although this review shows that knowledge brokering has been an effective strategy for KT, it advocates for more empirical studies to compare the effectiveness of specific knowledge brokering approaches with others. It also calls for empirical studies to explicate the role of library and information science professionals in knowledge brokering.

Science–policy interface for addressing environmental problems in arid Spain

a b s t r a c t Science–policy interfaces are avenues for finding solutions for environmental challenges through strengthening collaborations between research disciplines and public administrations. Here we present a methodology for the conduct of science–policy interfaces between scientists and policymakers for addressing day-to-day environmental problems in the southeastern Spanish drylands. A knowledge brokering approach based on six consecutive workshops was used to facilitate mutual understanding and trust between scientists and policymakers. Water policy and biodiversity loss were identified as major environmental concerns in the region, and 12 final environmental problems were agreed as priorities. A graphical tool was used for diagnosing each environmental problem according to the available scientific knowledge, the current regulatory capacity of administrations, and the level of public engagement necessary for addressing the problem. The use of the graphical tool also allowed for (a) the clarification of roles involved in problem solving, and (b) the promotion of a culture of shared responsibility for the implementation of management actions based on collaborative work. We discuss lessons learned and propose recommendations for future experiences.

Contexualising the tool development process through a knowledge brokering approach: The case of climate change adaptation and agriculture

Abstract This article applies a ‘knowledge brokering’ approach to contextualise the development of an integrated computer modelling tool into the real world policy context of adaptation of agriculture to climate change at the EU level. In particular, the article tests a number of knowledge brokering strategies described and theorised in the literature, but seldom empirically tested. The article finds that while the policy context can be used to identify a theoretically informed knowledge brokering strategy, in practice a strategy's ‘success’ is more informed by practical considerations, such as whether the tool development process is knowledge or demand driven. In addition, in practice the knowledge brokering process is found to be dynamic and messy, which is not always apparent in the literature. The article goes on to question the perception that there is always a need (or a desire) to bridge the gap between researchers and policy makers in the tool development process. Rather than a problem of design and communication, the science policy interface may be characterised more by a high level of competition between researchers and research organisations to have their tool legitimised by its use in the policy making process.

Reviewing innovative Earth observation solutions for filling science-policy gaps in hydrology

Summary Improved data sharing is needed for hydrological modeling and water management that require better integration of data, information and models. Technological advances in Earth observation and Web technologies have allowed the development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) for improved data sharing at various scales. International initiatives catalyze data sharing by promoting interoperability standards to maximize the use of data and by supporting easy access to and utilization of geospatial data. A series of recent European projects are contributing to the promotion of innovative Earth observation solutions and the uptake of scientific outcomes in policy. Several success stories involving different hydrologists’ communities can be reported around the World. Gaps still exist in hydrological, agricultural, meteorological and climatological data access because of various issues. While many sources of data exists at all scales it remains difficult and time-consuming to assemble hydrological information for most projects. Furthermore, data and sharing formats remain very heterogeneous. Improvements require implementing/endorsing some commonly agreed standards and documenting data with adequate metadata. The brokering approach allows binding heterogeneous resources published by different data providers and adapting them to tools and interfaces commonly used by consumers of these resources. The challenge is to provide decision-makers with reliable information, based on integrated data and tools derived from both Earth observations and scientific models. Successful SDIs rely therefore on various aspects: a shared vision between all participants, necessity to solve a common problem, adequate data policies, incentives, and sufficient resources. New data streams from remote sensing or crowd sourcing are also producing valuable information to improve our understanding of the water cycle, while field sensors are developing rapidly and becoming less costly. More recent data standards are enhancing interoperability between hydrology and other scientific disciplines, while solutions exist to communicate uncertainty of data and models, which is an essential pre-requisite for decision-making. Distributed computing infrastructures can handle complex and large hydrological data and models, while Web Processing Services bring the flexibility to develop and execute simple to complex workflows over the Internet. The need for capacity building at human, infrastructure and institutional levels is also a major driver for reinforcing the commitment to SDI concepts.

Postprandial glucose sensing by POMC neurons regulates appetite and energy metabolism

Introduction: Multiple efforts are being undertaken globally to confront the public health challenge of overweight, obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Improving the capacity to develop and critique policy options through a robust evidence-based approach will contribute to better policy outcomes. TROPIC (Translational Research in Obesity Prevention in Communities) refined a knowledge brokering approach in Fiji that increased the development of evidence-informed policy briefs that had the potential to improve food and physical activity environments across four government sectors and two non-government organisations. TROPIC 2 built on this approach in order to meet the need for greater capacity for evidence-informed policymaking within the Fiji Ministry of Health (MoH). Method: Knowledge brokers delivered a 4month capacity-building programme to selected senior officials in seven key areas in the MoH. The programme comprised four phases: (1) a one week workshop targeting evidence-informed policymaking (EIPM) skills; (2) flexible mentoring to develop evidence-informed pre-determined policy briefs; (3) support in presenting policy briefs to higher level officers; and (4) a subsequent 2-day workshop to strengthen skills developed in phases two and three. Mentoring for participants included one-to-one meetings, email interactions and phone conversations. Results: Ten of the 12 participants completed the program, each producing a policy brief that was presented to senior MoH officials. Policy topics included improving food and/or physical activity environments; systems within the MoH; and reproductive health care. One policy brief is already being used to develop a policy. Challenges to completing the project included lack of local evidence, insufficient resources for accessing and managing evidence and lack of dedicated time. Conclusion: Skills in EIPM are relevant across issues within health and, importantly, in other sectors that influence health. A united approach to obesity includes the development of evidenceinformed policies from a range of sectors.

On Efficiency of Multi-job Grid Allocation Based on Statistical Trace Data

The ever growing number of computation-intensive applications calls for utilizing large-scale, potentially interoperable distributed infrastructures. Nowadays, such distributed systems enable the management of heterogeneous scientific workflows of considerable sizes, where job scheduling and resource management is a crucial issue. In this paper we focus on the challenges of scheduling parameter sweep applications, a specific and commonly used type of workflows where ordering of job executions is irrelevant. A parameter sweep has a large set of independent job instances, called a multi-job, submitted for execution in a single step. In order to cope with the high uncertainty and unpredictable load of resources, and the simultaneous submissions of multi-job instances, we propose a statistics-based brokering approach for allocating jobs to resources so that the makespan is minimised. Earlier studies claim that users’ predictions on job runtime are inaccurate and unusable for scheduling. Our aim is to examine, whether statistical trace data for the same purpose is efficient compared to randomized allocation.

Knowledge brokering between researchers and policymakers in Fiji to develop policies to reduce obesity: a process evaluation.

BackgroundThe importance of using research evidence in decisionmaking at the policy level has been increasingly recognized. However, knowledge brokering to engage researchers and policymakers in government and non-government organizations is challenging. This paper describes and evaluates the knowledge exchange processes employed by the Translational Research on Obesity Prevention in Communities (TROPIC) project that was conducted from July 2009 to April 2012 in Fiji. TROPIC aimed to enhance: the evidence-informed decisionmaking skills of policy developers; and awareness and utilization of local and other obesity-related evidence to develop policies that could potentially improve the nation’s food and physical activity environments. The specific research question was: Can a knowledge brokering approach advance evidence-informed policy development to improve eating and physical activity environments in Fiji.MethodsThe intervention comprised: recruiting organizations and individuals; mapping policy environments; analyzing organizational capacity and support for evidence-informed policymaking (EIPM); developing EIPM skills; and facilitating development of evidence-informed policy briefs. Flexible timetabling of activities was essential to accommodate multiple competing priorities at both individual and organizational levels. Process diaries captured the duration, frequency and type of each interaction and/or activity between the knowledge brokering team and participants or their organizations.ResultsPartnerships were formalized with high-level officers in each of the six participating organization. Participants (n = 49) developed EIPM skills (acquire, assess, adapt and apply evidence) through a series of four workshops and applied this knowledge to formulate briefs with ongoing one-to-one support from TROPIC team members. A total of 55% of participants completed the 12 to18 month intervention, and 63% produced one or more briefs (total = 20) that were presented to higher-level officers within their organizations. The knowledge brokering team spent an average of 30 hours per participant during the entire TROPIC process.ConclusionsActive engagement of participating organizations from the outset resulted in strong individual and organizational commitment to the project. The TROPIC initiative provided a win-win situation, with participants expanding skills in EIPM and policy development, organizations increasing EIPM capacity, and researchers providing data to inform policy.