Innovation in consulting firms: an area to explore

Services are the most representative sector in developed economies due to their contribution to GDP and employment. Consulting firms are classified as part of the Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) and provide professional services to all types of organizations. Consulting firms usually innovate with their customers and suppliers in a nurturing environment for value co-creation. This environment is project-based, process-oriented and with intensive knowledge exchange among all stakeholders. Based on literature review, it has been found that despite the existence of frameworks for service innovation, none of them have specifically focused on consulting firms. Further implications on this issue are addressed for both academics and practitioners.

Network convergence and QoS for future multimedia services in the VISION project

The emerging use of real-time 3D-based multimedia applications imposes strict quality of service (QoS) requirements on both access and core networks. These requirements and their impact to provide end-to-end 3D videoconferencing services have been studied within the Spanish-funded VISION project, where different scenarios were implemented showing an agile stereoscopic video call that might be offered to the general public in the near future. In view of the requirements, we designed an integrated access and core converged network architecture which provides the requested QoS to end-to-end IP sessions. Novel functional blocks are proposed to control core optical networks, the functionality of the standard ones is redefined, and the signaling improved to better meet the requirements of future multimedia services. An experimental test-bed to assess the feasibility of the solution was also deployed. In such test-bed, set-up and release of end-to-end sessions meeting specific QoS requirements are shown and the impact of QoS degradation in terms of the user perceived quality degradation is quantified. In addition, scalability results show that the proposed signaling architecture is able to cope with large number of requests introducing almost negligible delay.

The Effect That Project Management Certification Has on Employability: Agent's Perceptions from Spain

This study analyses the effects that the project management certification has on employability. This analysis started with a participative process in which various groups of experts who are involved in the certification of people were consulted. A personal interview was carried out amongst 106 professionals —certifying bodies, training institutions, the civil service, and international organisations— and amongst professional who are certified in project management by the International Project Management Association in Spain. The results show that the certification emerges as a powerful tool for improving employability. The effects are demonstrated across two complementary aspects: internal company aspects and external aspects relating to the labour market. Finally, by compiling the different agents’ opinions, a series of measures emerge for improving the accreditation processes as an employability tool and increasing the mutual learning between public and private actors.

Semantic Service Discovery Techniques for the composable web

This PhD thesis contributes to the problem of resource and service discovery in the context of the composable web. In the current web, mashup technologies allow developers reusing services and contents to build new web applications. However, developers face a problem of information flood when searching for appropriate services or resources for their combination. To contribute to overcoming this problem, a framework is defined for the discovery of services and resources. In this framework, three levels are defined for performing discovery at content, discovery and agente levels. The content level involves the information available in web resources. The web follows the Representational Stateless Transfer (REST) architectural style, in which resources are returned as representations from servers to clients. These representations usually employ the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which, along with Content Style Sheets (CSS), describes the markup employed to render representations in a web browser. Although the use of SemanticWeb standards such as Resource Description Framework (RDF) make this architecture suitable for automatic processes to use the information present in web resources, these standards are too often not employed, so automation must rely on processing HTML. This process, often referred as Screen Scraping in the literature, is the content discovery according to the proposed framework. At this level, discovery rules indicate how the different pieces of data in resources’ representations are mapped onto semantic entities. By processing discovery rules on web resources, semantically described contents can be obtained out of them. The service level involves the operations that can be performed on the web. The current web allows users to perform different tasks such as search, blogging, e-commerce, or social networking. To describe the possible services in RESTful architectures, a high-level feature-oriented service methodology is proposed at this level. This lightweight description framework allows defining service discovery rules to identify operations in interactions with REST resources. The discovery is thus performed by applying discovery rules to contents discovered in REST interactions, in a novel process called service probing. Also, service discovery can be performed by modelling services as contents, i.e., by retrieving Application Programming Interface (API) documentation and API listings in service registries such as ProgrammableWeb. For this, a unified model for composable components in Mashup-Driven Development (MDD) has been defined after the analysis of service repositories from the web. The agent level involves the orchestration of the discovery of services and contents. At this level, agent rules allow to specify behaviours for crawling and executing services, which results in the fulfilment of a high-level goal. Agent rules are plans that allow introspecting the discovered data and services from the web and the knowledge present in service and content discovery rules to anticipate the contents and services to be found on specific resources from the web. By the definition of plans, an agent can be configured to target specific resources. The discovery framework has been evaluated on different scenarios, each one covering different levels of the framework. Contenidos a la Carta project deals with the mashing-up of news from electronic newspapers, and the framework was used for the discovery and extraction of pieces of news from the web. Similarly, in Resulta and VulneraNET projects the discovery of ideas and security knowledge in the web is covered, respectively. The service level is covered in the OMELETTE project, where mashup components such as services and widgets are discovered from component repositories from the web. The agent level is applied to the crawling of services and news in these scenarios, highlighting how the semantic description of rules and extracted data can provide complex behaviours and orchestrations of tasks in the web. The main contributions of the thesis are the unified framework for discovery, which allows configuring agents to perform automated tasks. Also, a scraping ontology has been defined for the construction of mappings for scraping web resources. A novel first-order logic rule induction algorithm is defined for the automated construction and maintenance of these mappings out of the visual information in web resources. Additionally, a common unified model for the discovery of services is defined, which allows sharing service descriptions. Future work comprises the further extension of service probing, resource ranking, the extension of the Scraping Ontology, extensions of the agent model, and contructing a base of discovery rules. Resumen La presente tesis doctoral contribuye al problema de descubrimiento de servicios y recursos en el contexto de la web combinable. En la web actual, las tecnologías de combinación de aplicaciones permiten a los desarrolladores reutilizar servicios y contenidos para construir nuevas aplicaciones web. Pese a todo, los desarrolladores afrontan un problema de saturación de información a la hora de buscar servicios o recursos apropiados para su combinación. Para contribuir a la solución de este problema, se propone un marco de trabajo para el descubrimiento de servicios y recursos. En este marco, se definen tres capas sobre las que se realiza descubrimiento a nivel de contenido, servicio y agente. El nivel de contenido involucra a la información disponible en recursos web. La web sigue el estilo arquitectónico Representational Stateless Transfer (REST), en el que los recursos son devueltos como representaciones por parte de los servidores a los clientes. Estas representaciones normalmente emplean el lenguaje de marcado HyperText Markup Language (HTML), que, unido al estándar Content Style Sheets (CSS), describe el marcado empleado para mostrar representaciones en un navegador web. Aunque el uso de estándares de la web semántica como Resource Description Framework (RDF) hace apta esta arquitectura para su uso por procesos automatizados, estos estándares no son empleados en muchas ocasiones, por lo que cualquier automatización debe basarse en el procesado del marcado HTML. Este proceso, normalmente conocido como Screen Scraping en la literatura, es el descubrimiento de contenidos en el marco de trabajo propuesto. En este nivel, un conjunto de reglas de descubrimiento indican cómo los diferentes datos en las representaciones de recursos se corresponden con entidades semánticas. Al procesar estas reglas sobre recursos web, pueden obtenerse contenidos descritos semánticamente. El nivel de servicio involucra las operaciones que pueden ser llevadas a cabo en la web. Actualmente, los usuarios de la web pueden realizar diversas tareas como búsqueda, blogging, comercio electrónico o redes sociales. Para describir los posibles servicios en arquitecturas REST, se propone en este nivel una metodología de alto nivel para descubrimiento de servicios orientada a funcionalidades. Este marco de descubrimiento ligero permite definir reglas de descubrimiento de servicios para identificar operaciones en interacciones con recursos REST. Este descubrimiento es por tanto llevado a cabo al aplicar las reglas de descubrimiento sobre contenidos descubiertos en interacciones REST, en un nuevo procedimiento llamado sondeo de servicios. Además, el descubrimiento de servicios puede ser llevado a cabo mediante el modelado de servicios como contenidos. Es decir, mediante la recuperación de documentación de Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) y listas de APIs en registros de servicios como ProgrammableWeb. Para ello, se ha definido un modelo unificado de componentes combinables para Mashup-Driven Development (MDD) tras el análisis de repositorios de servicios de la web. El nivel de agente involucra la orquestación del descubrimiento de servicios y contenidos. En este nivel, las reglas de nivel de agente permiten especificar comportamientos para el rastreo y ejecución de servicios, lo que permite la consecución de metas de mayor nivel. Las reglas de los agentes son planes que permiten la introspección sobre los datos y servicios descubiertos, así como sobre el conocimiento presente en las reglas de descubrimiento de servicios y contenidos para anticipar contenidos y servicios por encontrar en recursos específicos de la web. Mediante la definición de planes, un agente puede ser configurado para descubrir recursos específicos. El marco de descubrimiento ha sido evaluado sobre diferentes escenarios, cada uno cubriendo distintos niveles del marco. El proyecto Contenidos a la Carta trata de la combinación de noticias de periódicos digitales, y en él el framework se ha empleado para el descubrimiento y extracción de noticias de la web. De manera análoga, en los proyectos Resulta y VulneraNET se ha llevado a cabo un descubrimiento de ideas y de conocimientos de seguridad, respectivamente. El nivel de servicio se cubre en el proyecto OMELETTE, en el que componentes combinables como servicios y widgets se descubren en repositorios de componentes de la web. El nivel de agente se aplica al rastreo de servicios y noticias en estos escenarios, mostrando cómo la descripción semántica de reglas y datos extraídos permiten proporcionar comportamientos complejos y orquestaciones de tareas en la web. Las principales contribuciones de la tesis son el marco de trabajo unificado para descubrimiento, que permite configurar agentes para realizar tareas automatizadas. Además, una ontología de extracción ha sido definida para la construcción de correspondencias y extraer información de recursos web. Asimismo, un algoritmo para la inducción de reglas de lógica de primer orden se ha definido para la construcción y el mantenimiento de estas correspondencias a partir de la información visual de recursos web. Adicionalmente, se ha definido un modelo común y unificado para el descubrimiento de servicios que permite la compartición de descripciones de servicios. Como trabajos futuros se considera la extensión del sondeo de servicios, clasificación de recursos, extensión de la ontología de extracción y la construcción de una base de reglas de descubrimiento.

CumuloNimbo: A highly-scalable transaction processing platform as a service.

One of the main challenges facing next generation Cloud platform services is the need to simultaneously achieve ease of programming, consistency, and high scalability. Big Data applications have so far focused on batch processing. The next step for Big Data is to move to the online world. This shift will raise the requirements for transactional guarantees. CumuloNimbo is a new EC-funded project led by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) that addresses these issues via a highly scalable multi-tier transactional platform as a service (PaaS) that bridges the gap between OLTP and Big Data applications.

Identifying the core competence as a key requirement for business model innovation. The case of Airlines as a service industry

Core competencies form the basis of an organization’s skills and the basic element of a successful strategic execution. Identifying and strengthening the core competencies enhances flexibility thereby strategically positioning a firm for responding to competition in the dynamic marketplace and can be the difference in quality among firms that follow the same business model. A correct understanding of the concept of business models, employing the right core competencies, organizing them effectively and building the business model around the competencies that are constantly gained and assimilated can result in enhanced business performance and thus having implications for firms that want to innovate their business models. Flexibility can be the firm’s agility to shift focus in response to external factors such as changing markets, new technologies or competition and a firm’s success can be gauged by the ability it displays in this transition. Although industry transformations generally emanate from technological changes, recent examples suggests they may also be due to the introduction of new business models and nowhere is it more relevant than in the airline industry. An analysis of the business model flexibility of 17 Airlines from Asia, Europe and Oceania, that is done with core competence as the indicator reveals a picture of inconsistencies in the core competence strategy of certain airlines and the corresponding reduction in business performance. The performance variations are explained from a service oriented core competence strategy employed by airlines that ultimately enables them in having a flexible business model that not only increases business performance but also helps in reducing the uncertainties in the internal and external operating environments. This is more relevant in the case of airline industry, as the product (the air transportation of passengers) minus the service competence is all the same.

Propuesta de un modelo de sistema de información interorganizacional: aplicación en el sector de la domótica para la gestión de servicios del hogar digital

El sector de la edificación es uno de los principales sectores económicos en España y, además, es un componente básico de la actividad económica y social, debido a su importante papel como generador de empleo, proveedor de bienes e incentivador del crecimiento. Curiosamente, es uno de los sectores con menos regulación y organización y que, además, está formado mayoritariamente por empresas de pequeña y mediana dimensión (pymes) que, por su menor capacidad, a menudo, se quedan detrás de las grandes empresas en términos de adopción de soluciones innovadoras. La complejidad en la gestión de toda la información relacionada con un proyecto de edificación ha puesto de manifiesto claras ineficiencias que se traducen en un gasto innecesario bastante representativo. La información y los conocimientos aprendidos rara vez son transmitidos de una fase a otra dentro del proyecto de edificación y, mucho menos, reutilizados en otros proyectos similares. De este modo, no sólo se produce un gasto innecesario, sino que incluso podemos encontrar información contradictoria y obsoleta y, por tanto, inútil para la toma de decisiones. A lo largo de los años, esta situación ha sido motivada por la propia configuración del sector, poniendo de manifiesto la necesidad de una solución que pudiera solventar este reto de gestión interorganizacional. Así, la cooperación interorganizacional se ha convertido en un factor clave para mejorar la competitividad de las organizaciones, típicamente pymes, que componen el sector de la edificación. La información es la piedra angular de cualquier proceso de negocio. Durante la última década, una amplia gama de industrias han experimentado importantes mejoras de productividad con la aplicación eficiente de las TIC, asociadas, principalmente, a incrementos en la velocidad de proceso de información y una mayor coherencia en la generación de datos, accesibilidad e intercambio de información. La aplicación eficaz de las TIC en el sector de la edificación requiere una combinación de aspectos estratégicos y tácticos, puesto que no sólo se trata de utilizar soluciones puntuales importadas de otros sectores para su aplicación en diferentes áreas, sino que se buscaría que la información multi-agente estuviera integrada y sea coherente para los proyectos de edificación. El sector de la construcción ha experimentado un descenso significativo en los últimos años en España y en Europa como resultado de la crisis financiera que comenzó en 2007. Esta disminución está acompañada de una baja penetración de las TIC en la interorganizacionales orientadas a los procesos de negocio. El descenso del mercado ha provocado una desaceleración en el sector de la construcción, donde sólo las pymes flexibles han sido capaces de mantener el ritmo a pesar de la especialización y la innovación en los servicios adaptados a las nuevas demandas del mercado. La industria de la edificación está muy fragmentada en comparación con otras industrias manufactureras. El alto grado de esta fragmentación está íntimamente relacionado con un impacto significativo en la productividad y el rendimiento. Muchos estudios de investigación han desarrollado y propuesto una serie de modelos de procesos integrados. Por desgracia, en la actualidad todavía no se está en condiciones para la formalización de cómo debe ser la comunicación y el intercambio de información durante el proceso de construcción. El paso del proceso secuencial tradicional a los procesos de interdependencia recíproca sin lugar a duda son una gran demanda asociada a la comunicación y el flujo de información en un proyecto de edificación. Recientemente se está poniendo mucho énfasis en los servicios para el hogar como un primer paso hacia esta mejora en innovación ya que la industria de los servicios digitales interactivos tiene un alto potencial para generar innovación y la ventaja estratégica para las empresas existentes. La multiplicidad de servicios para el hogar digital (HD) y los proveedores de servicios demandan, cada vez más, la aparición de una plataforma capaz de coordinar a todos los agentes del sector con el usuario final. En consecuencia, las estructuras organizacionales tienden a descentralizarse en busca de esa coordinación y, como respuesta a esta demanda, se plantea, también en este ámbito, el concepto de cooperación interorganizacional. Por lo tanto, ambos procesos de negocio -el asociado a la construcción y el asociado a la provisión de servicios del hogar digital, también considerado como la propia gestión de ese hogar digital o edificio, inteligente o no- deben de ser vistos en su conjunto mediante una plataforma tecnológica que les dé soporte y que pueda garantizar la agregación e integración de los diversos procesos, relacionados con la construcción y gestión, que se suceden durante el ciclo de vida de un edificio. Sobre esta idea y atendiendo a la evolución permanente de los sistemas de información en un entorno de interrelación y cooperación daría lugar a una aplicación del concepto de sistema de información interorganizacional (SIIO). El SIIO proporciona a las organizaciones la capacidad para mejorar los vínculos entre los socios comerciales a lo largo de la cadena de suministro, por lo que su importancia ha sido reconocida por organizaciones de diversos sectores. Sin embargo, la adopción de un SIIO en diferentes ámbitos ha demostrado ser complicada y con una alta dependencia de las características particulares de cada sector, siendo, en este momento, una línea de investigación abierta. Para contribuir a esta línea de investigación, este trabajo pretende recoger, partiendo de una revisión de la literatura relacionada, un enfoque en un modelo de adopción de un SIIO para el objeto concreto de esta investigación. El diseño de un SIIO está basado principalmente, en la identificación de las necesidades de información de cada uno de sus agentes participantes, de ahí la importancia en concretar un modelo de SIIO en el ámbito de este trabajo. Esta tesis doctoral presenta el modelo de plataforma virtual de la asociación entre diferentes agentes del sector de la edificación, el marco de las relaciones, los flujos de información correspondientes a diferentes procesos y la metodología que subyace tras el propio modelo, todo ello, con el objeto de contribuir a un modelo unificado que dé soporte tanto a los procesos relacionados con la construcción como con la gestión de servicios en el hogar digital y permitiendo cubrir los requisitos importantes que caracterizan este tipo de proyectos: flexibilidad, escalabilidad y robustez. El SIIO se ha convertido en una fuente de innovación y una herramienta estratégica que permite a las pymes obtener ventajas competitivas. Debido a la complejidad inherente de la adopción de un SIIO, esta investigación extiende el modelo teórico de adopción de un SIIO de Kurnia y Johnston (2000) con un modelo empírico para la caracterización de un SIIO. El modelo resultante tiene como objetivo fomentar la innovación de servicios en el sector mediante la identificación de los factores que influyen en la adopción de un SIIO por las pymes en el sector de la edificación como fuente de ventaja competitiva y de colaboración. Por tanto, esta tesis doctoral, proyectada sobre una investigación empírica, proporciona un enfoque para caracterizar un modelo de SIIO que permita dar soporte a la gestión integrada de los procesos de construcción y gestión de servicios para el hogar digital. La validez del modelo de SIIO propuesto, como fuente y soporte de ventajas competitivas, está íntimamente relacionada con la necesidad de intercambio de información rápido y fiable que demandan los agentes del sector para mejorar la gestión de su interrelación y cooperación con el fin de abordar proyectos más complejos en el sector de la edificación, relacionados con la implantación del hogar digital, y contribuyendo, así a favorecer el desarrollo de la sociedad de la información en el segmento residencial. ABSTRACT The building industry is the largest industry in the world. Land purchase, building design, construction, furnishing, building equipment, operations maintenance and the disposition of real estate have an unquestionable prominence not only at economic but also at social level. In Spain, the building sector is one of the main drivers of economy and also a basic component of economic activity and its role in generating employment, supply of goods or incentive for growth is crucial in the evolution of the economy. Surprisingly, it is one of the sectors with less regulation and organization. Another consistent problem is that, in this sector, the majority of companies are small and medium (SMEs), and often behind large firms in terms of their adoption of innovative solutions. The complexity of managing all information related to this industry has lead to a waste of money and time. The information and knowledge gathered is frequently stored in multiple locations, involving the work of thousands of people, and is rarely transferred on to the next phase. This approach is inconsistent and makes that incorrect information is used for decisions. This situation needs a viable solution for interorganizational information management. So, interorganizational co-operation has become a key factor for organization competitiveness within the building sector. Information is the cornerstone of any business process. Therefore, information and communication technologies (ICT) offer a means to change the way business is conducted. During the last decade, significant productivity improvements were experienced by a wide range of industries with ICT implementation. ICT has provided great advantages in speed of operation, consistency of data generation, accessibility and exchange of information. The wasted money resulting from reentering information, errors and omissions caused through poor decisions and actions, and the delays caused while waiting for information, represent a significant percentage of the global benefits. The effective application of ICT in building construction sector requires a combination of strategic and tactical developments. The building sector has experienced a significant decline in recent years in Spain and in Europe as a result of the financial crisis that began in 2007. This drop goes hand in hand with a low penetration of ICT in inter-organizational-oriented business processes. The market decrease has caused a slowdown in the building sector, where only flexible SMEs have been able to keep the pace though specialization and innovation in services adapted to new market demands. The building industry is highly fragmented compared with other manufacturing industries. This fragmentation has a significant negative impact on productivity and performance. Many research studies have developed and proposed a number of integrated process models. Unfortunately, these studies do not suggest how communication and information exchange within the construction process can be achieved, without duplication or lost in quality. A change from the traditional sequential process to reciprocal interdependency processes would increase the demand on communication and information flow over the edification project. Focusing on home services, the digital interactive service industry has the potential to generate innovation and strategic advantage for existing business. Multiplicity of broadband home services (BHS) and suppliers suggest the need for a figure able to coordinate all the agents in sector with the final user. Consequently, organizational structures tend to be decentralized. Responding to this fact, the concept of interorganizational co-operation also is raising in the residential market. Therefore, both of these business processes, building and home service supply, must be complemented with a technological platform that supports these processes and guarantees the aggregation and integration of the several services over building lifecycle. In this context of a technological platform and the permanent evolution of information systems is where the relevance of the concept of inter-organizational information system (IOIS) emerges. IOIS improves linkages between trading partners along the supply chain. However, IOIS adoption has proved to be difficult and not fully accomplished yet. This research reviews the literature in order to focus a model of IOIS adoption. This PhD Thesis presents a model of virtual association, a framework of the relationships, an identification of the information requirements and the corresponding information flows, using the multi-agent system approach. IOIS has become a source of innovation and a strategic tool for SMEs to obtain competitive advantage. Because of the inherent complexity of IOIS adoption, this research extends Kurnia and Johnston’s (2000) theoretical model of IOIS adoption with an empirical model of IOIS characterization. The resultant model aims to foster further service innovation in the sector by identifying the factors influencing IOIS adoption by the SMEs in the building sector as a source of competitive and collaborative advantage. Therefore, this PhD Thesis characterizes an IOIS model to support integrated management of building processes and home services. IOIS validity, as source and holder of competitive advantages, is related to the need for reliable information interchanges to improve interrelationship management. The final goal is to favor tracking of more complex projects in building sector and to contribute to consolidation of the information society through the provision of broadband home services and home automation.

Application of user-centered design in the development of an atomated/assisted testing system for self-service devices

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are sensitive self-service systems that require important investments in security and testing. ATM certifications are testing processes for machines that integrate software components from different vendors and are performed before their deployment for public use. This project was originated from the need of optimization of the certification process in an ATM manufacturing company. The process identifies compatibility problems between software components through testing. It is composed by a huge number of manual user tasks that makes the process very expensive and error-prone. Moreover, it is not possible to fully automate the process as it requires human intervention for manipulating ATM peripherals. This project presented important challenges for the development team. First, this is a critical process, as all the ATM operations rely on the software under test. Second, the context of use of ATMs applications is vastly different from ordinary software. Third, ATMs’ useful lifetime is beyond 15 years and both new and old models need to be supported. Fourth, the know-how for efficient testing depends on each specialist and it is not explicitly documented. Fifth, the huge number of tests and their importance implies the need for user efficiency and accuracy. All these factors led us conclude that besides the technical challenges, the usability of the intended software solution was critical for the project success. This business context is the motivation of this Master Thesis project. Our proposal focused in the development process applied. By combining user-centered design (UCD) with agile development we ensured both the high priority of usability and the early mitigation of software development risks caused by all the technology constraints. We performed 23 development iterations and finally we were able to provide a working solution on time according to users’ expectations. The evaluation of the project was carried out through usability tests, where 4 real users participated in different tests in the real context of use. The results were positive, according to different metrics: error rate, efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction. We discuss the problems found, the benefits and the lessons learned in the process. Finally, we measured the expected project benefits by comparing the effort required by the current and the new process (once the new software tool is adopted). The savings corresponded to 40% less effort (man-hours) per certification. Future work includes additional evaluation of product usability in a real scenario (with customers) and the measuring of benefits in terms of quality improvement.

New QR Survey Methodologies to Analyze User Perception of Service Quality in Public Transport: The Experience of Madrid

Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSS) have become an important tool for public transport planners, as improvements in the perceived quality of service lead to greater use of public transport and lower traffic pollution. Until now, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) enhancements in public transport have traditionally included fleet management systems based on Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technologies, which can be used to optimize routing and scheduling, and to feed real-time information into passenger information channels. However, surveys of public transport users could also benefit from the new information technologies. As most customers carry their smartphones when traveling, Quick Response (QR) codes open up the possibility of conducting these surveys at a lower cost.This paper contributes to the limited existing literature by developing the analysis of QR codes applied to CSS in public transport and highlighting their importance in reducing the cost of data collection and processing. The added value of this research is that it provides the first assessment of a real case study in Madrid (Spain) using QR codes for this purpose. This pilot experience was part of a research project analyzing bus service quality in the same case study, so the QR code survey (155 valid questionnaires) was validated using a conventional face-to-face survey (520 valid questionnaires). The results show clearly that, after overcoming a few teething troubles, this QR code application will ultimately provide transport management with a useful tool to reduce survey costs

Enhanced reproducibility of SADI web service workflows with Galaxy and Docke

Background: Semantic Web technologies have been widely applied in the life sciences, for example by data providers such as OpenLifeData and through web services frameworks such as SADI. The recently reported OpenLifeData2SADI project offers access to the vast OpenLifeData data store through SADI services. Findings: This article describes how to merge data retrieved from OpenLifeData2SADI with other SADI services using the Galaxy bioinformatics analysis platform, thus making this semantic data more amenable to complex analyses. This is demonstrated using a working example, which is made distributable and reproducible through a Docker image that includes SADI tools, along with the data and workflows that constitute the demonstration. Conclusions: The combination of Galaxy and Docker offers a solution for faithfully reproducing and sharing complex data retrieval and analysis workflows based on the SADI Semantic web service design patterns.

Signing provision in connected TV: HBB4ALL project

This paper explains the work that the HBB4ALL project is carrying out to deploy signing services based on HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV). HbbTV is an open standard specification for the new Connected TV technology, enabling interoperability of broadcast and broadband contents on the TV set. HBB4ALL proposes to take advantage of this broadcast-broadband convergence for the deployment of access services, including signing, due to the restrictions that this service has traditionally suffered.

Smart and sustainable public transport systems through improving level and quality of service

Buses are considered a slow, low comfort and low reliability transport system, thus its negative and por image. In the framework of the 3iBS project (2012), several examples of innovative and/or effective solutions regarding the Level of Service (LoS) were analysed aiming to provide operators, practitioners and policy makers with a set of Good Practice Guidelines to strengthen the competitiveness of the bus in the urban environment. The identification of the key indicators regarding vehicles, infrastructure and operation was possible through the analysis of a set of case studies -among which Barcelona (Spain), Cagliari (Italy), London (United Kingdom), Paris and Nantes (France). A cross comparison between the case studies was carried out for contrasting the level of achievement of the different criteria considered. The information provided on Regulatory, Financial and Technical issues allows the identification of a number of specific factors influencing the implementation of a high quality transport scheme, and set the basis for the elaboration of a set of Guidelines for the implementation of an intelligent, innovative and integrated bus system, including the main barriers to be tackled.