Digital Ecosystem Research Research Articles

DiHECO – Digital healthcare ecosystem research and networking

The DiHECO project aims at studying the role and potential of digital healthcare platforms in the European, mostly publicly arranged, healthcare service ecosystem. The project, divided into a few subprojects, tries to identify areas of research that can grow into impactful larger European projects with industry co-operation. DiHECO aims also at further developing the capacity of participants, particularly the Kaunas University of Technology, to perform relevant research in this area. In its first year, the project has made progress according to plan through joint research activities and networking events. These include the digital health tracks of the researcher and industry forum of the ICTE 2021 conference and two grant writing workshops and a scientific writing workshop.

Addressing Conceptual Randomness in IoT-Driven Business Ecosystem Research.

During the almost 27 years of its existence, the business ecosystem research has developed a substantial level of ambiguity and multifacetedness. Because to the technological advancements that promote interconnectedness and value co-creation, the field has consequently spun off into more domain-specific branches, such as the arena of digital business ecosystems that are driven by Internet of Things (IoT). Nonetheless, despite the efforts to mend the theoretical foundations and to close the gap between academia and empirical practice, the absolute majority of IoT-driven digital business ecosystem literature follows the trend of conceptual randomness while expanding the volume of publications exponentially. Therefore, in order to address this unfavourable increase in random adoption of distinct concepts that ultimately refer to the same subject matter, the author encourages other scholars involved in the research field of IoT-driven digital business ecosystems to make extended efforts and support the external validity of their research (as well as the relevance of the research stream as a whole) by bounding the IoT-driven digital business ecosystems on a rigorous basis through deploying the extant theory in a careful and appropriate manner. Via a thorough examination of the theoretical fundaments that underpin the concept of IoT-driven digital business ecosystem, and based on a concise thematic review of corresponding literature published until September 2020, this article articulates logic for viewing the conceptual hierarchy within the business ecosystem research and proposes six literature-based recommendations for developing further IoT-driven digital business ecosystem (DBE) research in a rigorous way.

Conceptualising Capabilities and Value Co-Creation in a Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE): A Systematic Literature Review

Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE) is a topical concept for business organisations to collaborate in driving product or service innovation. DBE is supported by digital technologies which aim to create and co-create values among the participated business organisations. For achieving successful collaboration, business organisations need to understand their capabilities that lead to value creation. This approach is vital for a business organisation to benefit from the values co-created when collaborating with others. Failing to do so will cause inefficient collaboration. However, there is a lack of capability and value co-creation studies in the DBE context. Therefore, this paper aims to conceptualise capabilities and value co-creation through a systematic literature review. We analysed the findings by thematic analysis. The review results produced a set of research themes surrounding the capability and value co-creation concepts. The research themes contribute to informing future avenues in digital business ecosystem research.

Intermediary XML schemas: constraint, templating and interoperability in complex environments

This article introduces the methodology of intermediary schemas for complex metadata environments. Metadata in instances conforming to these is not generally intended for dissemination but must usually be transformed by XSLT transformations to generate instances conforming to the referent schemas to which they mediate. The methodology is designed to enhance the interoperability of complex metadata within XML architectures. This methodology incorporates three subsidiary methods: these are project-specific schemas which represent constrained mediators to over-complex or over-flexible referents (Method 1), templates or conceptual maps from which instances may be generated (Method 2) and serialised maps of instances conforming to their referent schemas (Method 3). The three methods are detailed and their applications to current research in digital ecosystems, archival description and digital asset management and preservation are examined. A possible synthesis of the three is also proposed in order to enable the methodology to operate within a single schema, the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS).

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ РОЗВИТКУ ПРОЦЕСІВ ДИФУЗІЇ ІННОВАЦІЙ У СЕКТОРІ ІКТ В УКРАЇНІ

The article considers the structural features of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in Ukraine as a basis for the digital economy emergence, as well as the processes of diffusion of innovations that provide its formation. The indicators of global ICT costs and the global software development market of services are considered; their dynamics is shown. The indicators that characterize the activation of the processes of diffusion of innovations in the ICT field in the world are analyzed. An integrated scientific and methodological approach is proposed that combines structural and institutional analysis, parametric estimates of statistical data, and it should be an improvement of the methodology of national digital ecosystem research. The step-by-step analysis of parameters of diffusion of innovations in the ICT sector is characterized. The main problems and limitations of the development of diffusion of innovations in the ICT sector are identified. An analysis of the experience of Ukrainian startups that have succeeded in the global market, as well as promising startups that are close to it was conducted in order to develop solutions to ensure the development of diffusion of innovations in the ICT sector in Ukraine. The projects and companies of the Noosphere group are considered in order to present the experience of providing of diffusion of innovations. The methods used by Noosphere companies and projects to obtain and promote technologies are studied in detail. New scientific factors for the diffusion of innovations based on the study of this experience have been identified. The cluster-classification analysis of branches of economy and regions of Ukraine was conducted. The key indicators in determining the positions of industries and regions in the overall gradation are highlighted. A parametric analysis of the obtained results was conducted; a large digital divide between industries and regions of Ukraine was substantiated. It was shown that the obtained results form a parametric map of the digital economy management by industries and regions, as well as a map of diffusion of innovations. It is analyzed that the digital divide reduction due to the interregional diffusion of innovations requires mechanisms of interregional cooperation, collaboration between science and industry (business), technological platforms; demonstration events conducting (at the special agencies level), national projects. A scheme of state support for technology transfer has been developed based on foreign experience; it covers the entire cycle of innovation creation within the framework of imitation.

Perspectives and prospects of LiDAR in forest ecosystem monitoring and modeling

Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) is an active remote sensing technology for acquiring high resolution 3D terrain and vegetation structure parameters over multiple tempo-spatial scales, which can help to accurately monitor and model forest ecosystem dynamics. Consequently it plays an important role in understanding the impact of such dynamics on the carbon cycle and global climate change, and promoting biodiversity conservation. In this paper, we review the concepts and recent developments of LiDAR and explore the application of LiDAR in generating terrain models (e.g. digital elevation and digital surface models) and retrieving forest biophysical parameters (e.g. individual tree locations, leaf area index, volumes, biomass and carbon stocks). Finally, we present challenges for LiDAR in forestry applications, and suggest three major research issues for future study. We believe that there is an inevitable trend to constructing a digital ecosystem research network via combining spaceborne, airborne, and ground-based sensor measurements in an integrated platform, where LiDAR can provide an accurate and efficient solution for capturing 3D environmental variables. Thus, LiDAR will contribute to improving the relationship between man and nature in decision-making processes and eventually realizing a harmonious coexistence.

Internationally Distributed Living Labs and Digital Ecosystems for Fostering Local Innovations in Everyday Life

There are an increasing number of information sources and services around us enabling new ways of interacting with our everyday environment. Examples include intelligent devices, sensors embedded in the environment and the emerging Internet-of-Things. Simultaneously users are becoming increasingly involved as information providers and consumers by means of Web 2.0 and social media. While these areas have gained a lot of attention recently and while the research on Digital Ecosystems has also dealt with these phenomena separately there seems to be need for research on the rich and complex ecosystem combining the sensor-based information sources with Web 2.0 and mobile services. In this paper, we propose a Digital Ecosystem architecture, which combines the social media and Internet-of-Things. The architecture is the fruit from the international collaboration between two long-term university Living Lab projects in Finland and in China. It aims at fostering student innovations in their everyday campus lives. We discuss the experiences learnt in the context of this international collaboration and the implications to Digital Ecosystem research.

The (Im)possibility of Interdisciplinarity: Lessons from Constructing a Theoretical Framework for Digital Ecosystems

This paper reflects critically on challenges and opportunities associated with developing a theoretical framework for an interdisciplinary Framework Programme 6 research project funded by the European Commission in the area of digital ecosystems. The paper first provides a description of the interdisciplinary structure of the research agenda of the project and the areas of digital ecosystem research prioritised by each discipline. Second, it discusses the challenging questions of epistemology that arose in the context of theorising interdisciplinary research and provides a summary of how these were dealt with in order to outline a theoretical framework for digital ecosystems research by the end of the project. Finally, it discusses the lessons that can be extrapolated from the project experience, arguing that it is impossible to develop a unified interdisciplinary theoretical framework due to irreconcilable epistemological differences, yet it is possible and very worthwhile for those adhering to various disciplinary perspectives to collaborate towards the achievement of a practical joint endeavour. These lessons, which are considered valuable to the broader research community, are summarised in a model of the (im)possibility of interdisciplinarity.

The Computing of Digital Ecosystems

A primary motivation this research in digital ecosystems is the desire to exploit the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems. Ecosystems are thought to be robust, scalable architectures that can automatically solve complex and dynamic problems. However, the computing technologies that contribute to these properties have not been made explicit in digital ecosystems research. In this paper, the authors discuss how different computing technologies can contribute to providing the necessary self-organising features, including Multi-Agent Systems (MASs), Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs), and distributed evolutionary computing (DEC). The potential for exploiting these properties in digital ecosystems is considered, suggesting how several key features of biological ecosystems can be exploited in Digital Ecosystems, and discussing how mimicking these features may assist in developing robust, scalable self-organising architectures. An example architecture, the Digital Ecosystem, is considered in detail. The Digital Ecosystem is then measured experimentally through simulations, which consider the self-organised diversity of its evolving agent populations relative to the user request behaviour.