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Research backbone networks like GÉANT2 and the national research and education networks are used by a variety of scientists and research projects. These users and the network engineers operating the networks would like to get access to network performance metrics to optimise their use of the network and to troubleshoot performance degradations when they happen. A variety of tools for performing network measurements already exist, and the perfSONAR architecture developed in the Joint Research Activity 1 (JRA1) of GÉANT2 aims at integrating them into a coherent framework. However, a harmonised definition of the most interesting metrics and how measurements must be carried out is still lacking.

This paper suggests some of the elementary metrics which are relevant for assessing network performance, along with an indication about how to post‐process (or “transform”, or “compose”) them in order to obtain derived summary values that can quickly and intuitively give an indication of network performance. Methods to perform the composition are presented, together with constraints which have to be taken into account to get accurate results. In particular, delay measurements are the most delicate ones to compose.

The authors carried out a series of experiments for proofing the validity of the composition of delay metrics, and briefly present some preliminary results, that confirm the applicability of the proposed methodology.

Future work needs to confirm the paper's findings on other data sets, possibly collected in different network locations.

The practical implication of the findings is that it is possible for a network operator to accurately predict high percentiles of delays on an end‐to‐end path starting from independent delay measurements on subsequent path sections.

The main original contribution of this paper is the application to a real data set of a post‐processing procedure that is derived from simple statistics theory.

The purpose of this paper is to show the results of having a full authentication and authorization scenario in a web service‐oriented architecture. The Joint Research Activity 1 in the EU‐funded GEANT₂ project, in cooperation with Internet2, the US Department of Energy's ESnet and the Brazilian National Research and Educational Network, has defined a general framework for a multi‐domain network measurement infrastructure. The implementation, called Performance‐focused Service Oriented Network Monitoring Architecture, contains a set of services delivering performance measurements in a multi‐domain environment. The main goal of this work is to provide a multi‐federation identity solution to perfSONAR.

This is a case study of applying authentication and authorization standards to a web service‐oriented architecture. The prototype is implemented thanks to eduGAIN.

A multi‐federation identity solution for highly distributed web services environment has been gained.

The paper shows that it is possible to have a multi‐federated environment for web and non‐web applications applying current technologies. This is useful for practitioners of distributed software, specially in national research and educational networks.

The purpose of this paper is to provide support for automation of the annotation process of large corpora of digital content.

The paper presents and discusses an information extraction pipeline from digital document acquisition to information extraction, processing and management. An overall architecture that supports such an extraction pipeline is detailed and discussed.

The proposed pipeline is implemented in a working prototype of an autonomous digital library (A‐DL) system called ScienceTreks that: supports a broad range of methods for document acquisition; does not rely on any external information sources and is solely based on the existing information in the document itself and in the overall set in a given digital archive; and provides application programming interfaces (API) to support easy integration of external systems and tools in the existing pipeline.

The proposed A‐DL system can be used in automating end‐to‐end information retrieval and processing, supporting the control and elimination of error‐prone human intervention in the process.

High quality automatic metadata extraction is a crucial step in the move from linguistic entities to logical entities, relation information and logical relations, and therefore to the semantic level of digital library usability. This in turn creates the opportunity for value‐added services within existing and future semantic‐enabled digital library systems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and sustainability using practitioners’ perspectives and by developing an analysis of comments and practices published in 1,651 blog posts in one of the leading sources of sustainability research: CSRwire.com.

A total of 1,651 posts, containing more than 1.5 million words, published by experts in the field of sustainability are analysed using Leximancer and content analysis.

The results reveal IC and sustainability to be complex topics under active discussion by practitioners, and several links to the IC literature are identified and compared. The findings focus on the managerial practices applied by leading companies, as discussed by practitioners, that show IC and sustainability influence each other in answering a plurality of demands or logics.

First, the authors identify the need to study the managerial practices proposed by practitioners, rather than their company reports. Second, the authors propose developing a trading zone for IC researchers and practitioners. Third, the authors reflect on the role of new communication tools, such as integrated reporting, to connect IC and sustainability. Finally, the authors conclude that the relationship between IC and sustainability could benefit from a fifth stage of IC research that considers justifications of the worth of IC and sustainability practices.

The paper is novel because it addresses concerns about the relationship between IC and sustainability by examining messages posted by practitioners, rather than examining company disclosures. This leads to an understanding of the impact of practices rather than the desires motivating practice. The results support the view that it is time to remove the boundaries of IC research and work towards reconciling the worth of IC to different people in different contexts. The authors argue that practitioners require scholars to reduce the ambiguity between IC and its expected results. This would open the door to a potentially productive way of understanding IC and the complexity of economic, social, and environmental value. In short, researchers should change their research questions from, “What is IC worth to investors, customers, society, and the environment?” to “Is managing IC a worthwhile endeavour?”

The purpose of this paper is to dissect the diffusion of the number of organizations that implemented multiple management systems (MSs), considering the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards (quality, environment and safety) in the South European countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain. In addition, based on the data collected, forecasting models were developed to assess at which extent the multiple certifications are expected to occur in each studied country.

Data concerning the evolution of the amount of multiple MSs in Italy, Portugal and Spain were collected for the period between 1999 and 2015. The behavior of the evolution of the number of MSs over the years was studied adopting both the Gompertz and the Logistic models. The results obtained with these two models were compared and analyzed to provide a forecast for the next years.

The diffusion throughout the years of the number of MSs presents an S-shaped behavior. The evolution of the amount of MSs in countries with a lower saturation level are properly fitted by the Gompertz model whereas the Logistic model fits more accurately when considering countries with a larger saturation level.

The data related to the early years are not available in some of the countries. To overcome this shortcoming missing data were extrapolated from the data set provided by the annual ISO survey. Additionally, the integration level attained by each company was not assessed and, on this regard and in the scope of this paper, an integrated management system is understood as implemented when organizations have multiple MSs implemented.

The results provide a cross-sectional portrayal of the diffusion of MSs certifications in the South European countries and enable a forecast for the trend in the next years.

This study aims for the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to analyze the diffusion of multiple MSs throughout the years.

Public service provision in the European Union has received great attention in the last decades. Waste management is among the most important public services and challenges for a sustainable world owing to its impact on the environment, economic development, human health, and equity. Throughout Europe, along with the circular economy, the related zero waste (ZW) framework is also rapidly spreading. This introduction provides information about research questions and methodology used to discuss the most relevant and critical issues for good management of waste service provision under the ZW framework.

Within the operations management literature, quality management (QM) has been one of the most popular research areas over the last few decades. The impact of QM systems on firm performance has been the subject of constant interest and challenge among researchers. Last such review was done in 2002 based on QM-related articles published between 1994 and 1999 and these were primarily on Total Quality Management (TQM). In the last 18 years, a large number of empirical studies have been attempted to investigate QM system-performance relationships in different contexts, covering not only TQM but also other QM systems such as ISO 9001, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Lean Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints (TOC), and Six Sigma Continuous Improvement projects. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Based on an extensive review of 263 papers published in 17 reputed journals during the period 2000 to 2017, this paper shows the reflections of QM systems with respect to study of different QM systems, type of research designs being used, performance categories and metrics being used, and application of tools/techniques.

The literature review has revealed several gaps in research in the area of QM and calls for research on: empirical longitudinal case studies; implementation of multiple QM systems; identification of leading indicators of firm’s performance; standardization of performance measures; safety, environment and health-related performance measures; the differences in the QM systems on firm’s performance for manufacturing vs service organizations; application of QM systems in developing countries including Asian countries; and impact of ISO 9001 QM system on firm’s performance.

The literature reviews in the past had considered only the TQM-related articles published in reputed journals and did not cover other QM systems such as TPM, TOC, Toyota Production System, Six Sigma, ISO 9001 QMS, etc., which have also been widely used in many organizations, more so in the last 15 years.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator management in fostering social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and external actors.

The paper offers a literature review on the NBIs and advances a comprehensive analytical framework of the networked incubation model. This framework is empirically illustrated through a case study research on a leading Italian private NBI, namely, H-Farm. The collection of primary data was conducted by means of face-to-face in-depth interviews and a survey. Data were processed through social network analysis (SNA) tools.

The results highlight the co-presence and interaction of social and business ties, which build up a vital environment nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Community-based relationships and the intermediation of incubator management are crucial for supporting tenants in product and business development activities.

These results pave the way to further research, oriented to the conceptualization of a NBI as a (small) cluster. Moreover, the application of the SNA tools adopted invites further research on networked incubators, applying the same methodology in new directions.

This paper adds to previous literature on NBIs by providing evidence of the intermediary role of incubator management in promoting and facilitating social and business relationships occurring among tenants, between tenants and the incubator management, as well as with external advisors, clients and suppliers.