The status, challenges, and trends: an interpretation of technology roadmap of intelligent and connected vehicles in China (2020)

Purpose The rapid development of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (ICVs) has boomed a new round of global technological and industrial revolution in recent decades. The Technology Roadmap of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (2020) comprehensively analyzes the technical architecture, research status and future trends of ICVs. The methodology that supports the roadmap should get studied. Design/methodology/approach This paper interprets the roadmap from the aspects of strategic significance, technical content and characteristics of the roadmap, and evaluates the impact of the roadmap on researchers, industries and international strategies. Findings The technical architecture of ICVs as the “three rows and two columns” structure is studied, the methodology that supported the roadmap is explained with a case study and the influence of key technologies with proposed development routes is analyzed. Originality/value This paper could help researchers understand both thoughts and methodologies behind the technology roadmap of ICVs.

Desglose y sistematización de ítems para las labores de supervisión formal de proyectos de edificación

Graduates of technical architecture and construction have several work possibilities ahead of them. One is to join firms that carry out supervisory work of construction design projects, and their role in such firms is to perform an in-depth and formal verification of the content of design documents. This paper presents a number of results obtained in practical activities with students, the objective of which was to understand how they would carry out the management of such supervisory tasks by means of a systematic process of item verification. It is thus intended to hold an exercise of how they will eventually organise their professional duties. The results are grouped into five fully systematised checklist tables, one for each of the component elements of design projects (description, attachments, plans, measurements and budgets, and terms and conditions). A total of 108 testing and control checks were envisaged, each of which is well suited to be used, as-is, in a real professional context.

Education for sustainable development in building higher studies

UNESCO highlights the crucial role of higher education in achieving each of the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). Thus, students should acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development. In this context, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has developed the Campus Bizia Lab programme as an initiative derived from the Project Erasmus University Educators for Sustainable Development. The aim of the initiative has been to promote a collaborative process between academic staff, service and administrative staff and students, creating a transdisciplinary community to respond to sustainability challenges within the university. In the framework of the programme, pedagogical approaches for sustainable development have been developed for the Grades of Technical Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU. The paper presents the methodologies developed and analyses the effect on learning process

Cyber-physical systems matrix control model

The Industry 4.0 technologies oriented for the modern industry as an application to solve the cyber-physical production control general task are viewed. A task to control is positioned as a hierarchy, which require some special schemes cyber-physical systems interaction organization to be developed. The control task hierarchy is converted to the control means hierarchy, within which they preserve the cyber-physical systems groups coordination unity organized in the company functional divisions in structure principle with variable equipment consistency. Information and functional cyber-physical systems interconnection are proposed to be defined within the technical architecture providing cyber-physical production complex automatizing. In the control system they underline the information component realizing not only calculation functions measuring but also net communication. Controlling and being controlled cyber-physical systems are proposed to be united into structures actively interacting with functional company divisions into closed automatic loops working out information and signal actions. There is a cyber-physical production hierarchy structure example given based on control processes tides formalized in physical and virtual levels. There is a cyber-physical systems matrix control model given to coordinate calculations, communications and industrial automatics functionality.

An Architectural Framework for Healthcare Dashboards Design

In today’s competitive environment, one of the new tools in the field of information technology is business or organizational dashboards that are a backup in the process of strategic management of organizations. The purpose of the current research is to provide a framework to design the healthcare dashboard through technical architecture with fulfilling the decision-makers’ requirements. In this study, a common qualitative research method, metasynthesis, is applied, including a seven-step set of research questions, conducting systematic literature search and selection of suitable papers, data extraction, analysis and findings of the qualitative composition, quality control, and presentation of findings. During this process, 102 articles were found by saturation of information resources and then 12 articles were selected for extracting data using acceptance and rejection criteria. A critical evaluation method was used to evaluate the quality of selected articles. After investigating the selected articles and scoring them, in terms of quality, one article was very good, 10 articles were good, and one article was moderate. Then, with regard to the principles and guidelines of technical architecture, the required information was extracted from the selected articles and was analyzed with the method of open, axial, and selective coding. Following the steps of metasynthesis methods, the principles extracted with major and minor titles principles and guidelines in the form of multilayered system architecture including presentation layer, application layer, data layer, and technical infrastructure layer were classified. In the obtained framework, 15 indicators as the main principles and 66 subcriteria as the subsidiary principles for the design and technical architecture of enterprise dashboards were identified.

APPLYING BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY TO RESHAPE THE SERVICE MODELS OF SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE FOR SMES IN CHINA

Supply chain finance refers to the financial service model in which banks rely on core enterprises to manage the capital flow and logistics of upstream and downstream small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It adopts the self-testing and closed-loop credit model to control funds and risks. It is an efficient route for SMEs to solve the problem of financing. However, at present, the market of supply chain finance in China still faces problems such as the inability of credit disassembly of core enterprises, which seriously hinder the development of the supply chain finance industry. Blockchain technology featuring decentralization, tamper-proofing and traceability had been widely adopted in the field of finance and provided a new vision to solve the bottleneck for the development of supply chain finance. In this paper, with regard to the characteristics of supply chain finance, we propose a novel blockchain-driven architecture to reshape the business process of supply chain finance, and we introduce the underlying technical implementations in detail. Our contributions in this paper include (1) proposing a novel technical architecture of blockchain-driven supply chain finance management system and detailing its underlying implementations; (2) designing the mechanism of the credit disassembly, which is implemented by blockchain technology, to improve financing efficiency; and (3) exploring the impact and potential of blockchain technology in traditional business models (e.g., receivables financing, inventory financing and prepayment financing) in supply chain finance.

Pedagogical Approaches for Sustainable Development in Building in Higher Education

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is one of the great challenges that university faculties have to face. Therefore, a multidisciplinary team from the faculty of Engineering of Gipuzkoa (EIG) at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has developed pedagogical approaches to apply in construction degrees, namely Civil Engineering and Technical Architecture. Pedagogical tools, such as problem-based learning (PBL) or research-based learning (RBL), and environmental tools, such as the life cycle assessment (LCA) and computational thinking (CT), have been used; in doing so, they acquire a sustainable approach to work “soft-skills” competencies into sustainability. For example, research-based tools have helped to revalorize waste both outside and inside the university; they have contributed to more sustainable industrial processes, collaborative research projects, and participation in conferences and scientific publications. Based on academic results, the designed tools are appropriate for teaching in Technical Architecture and Civil Engineering degrees; however, to demonstrate their potential in terms of sustainable education, holistic rubrics based on in-depth quantitative educational research are required. Thus, to analyze the ability of the students to incorporate sustainability principles in their work, the multidisciplinary team presenting this paper plans to collaborate with psychologists and sociologists within the framework of the Bizia-Lab program of the UPV/EHU.

Framework for Evaluation of Effectiveness of Integrated Financial Management Information Systems Architecture Implemented in Public Hospitals in Kenya.

Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), is an enterprise resource planning application that captures all functional processes and relevant financial flows within Public expenditure management. IFMIS is being adopted by the Public hospitals to promote efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, transparency, security of data management and comprehensive reporting. However the Public hospitals are loosing a lot of money through scandals and this has compromised service delivery to the Public. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of IFMIS as used in Public procurement services in Public Hospitals in Kenya and come up with an enhanced secure technical architecture. The objectives of the study were: to asses the extent to which IFMIS has been implemented in Public procurement services in Public hospitals in Kenya, to evaluate the effectiveness of IFMIS in enforcing logical access and technical controls in Public procurement services in Public Hospitals in Kenya and to develop a framework that will evaluate the effectiveness of IFMIS architecture that is implemented in Public procurement services in Public hospitals in Kenya .The study used mixed method research design targeting users of IFMIS. Stratified sampling was used to select the target population of 132 in 4 hospitals in Kenya. The target population was from 5 homogeneous stratum comprising of 44 Procurement Assistants, 36 Finance Assistants, 12 Audit Assistants, 28 Medical Practioneers and 12 ICT Staff. Proportional allocation method was used to calculate the sample size which was 99 respondents. The data was collected through questionnaires and direct observation. Content validity was done to ascertain the validity of the research instruments. Reliability of the instruments was carried out using test-retest technique. Internal consistence of data was computed using Cronbach Alpha Computation. Analysis of Quantitative and qualitative data was through descriptive and inferential statistics methods and content analysis respectively. The study developed a framework of enhanced technical architecture of IFMIS that would streamline procurement services in Public hospitals and improve provision of quality health care.