\r\n\tAnother area of uncertainty is the potential effect following the suspension/ interruption of some chronic therapies in defined clinical situations.
\r\n
\r\n\t \r\n\tThe purpose of this text is to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of polytherapy in elderly subjects and when it should be necessary to take into consideration the regulated suspension (deprescribing) of one or more drugs. In particular, it would be important reducing or avoiding the prevalence of negative effects, which can even accelerate cognitive or physical decay, leading sometimes to premature death.
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Dr. Capelli was a member of the local Research Ethics Committee, he has held hundreds of seminars on the topics of EBHC, Clinical Governance, and Prescriptive Appropriateness.",coeditorOneBiosketch:"She is a senior pharmacist and she specializes in hepatology – virus hepatitis and liver transplant. She is an independent prescriber and has an academic post-graduate diploma with Bath University in Pharmaceutical Practice & Therapeutics. She is currently working at Plymouth University Hospitals NHS Trust where she runs her own viral clinic. 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From 2004 to 2019 he held various positions in Public Health, as a Clinical Methodologist and Researcher in the Organization of care pathways for Chronic Diseases. From 2012 to 2014 he was the referent for the care pathways for chronic diseases of the Emilia Romagna Region and from 2015 to 2019 he was Director of the Clinical Governance and Medical Library of the Local Health Authority of Modena.\nFrom 2017 to 2019 he was a member of the local Research Ethics Committee.\nDr. Capelli has held hundreds of seminars on the topics of EBHC, Clinical Governance, and Prescriptive Appropriateness. He is a co-author of numerous scientific articles, book chapters, and speeches at national and international conferences.",institutionString:"Local Health Authority of Modena",position:null,outsideEditionCount:0,totalCites:0,totalAuthoredChapters:"7",totalChapterViews:"0",totalEditedBooks:"2",institution:null}],coeditorOne:{id:"317210",title:"Dr.",name:"Maria Isabella",middleName:null,surname:"Bonacini",slug:"maria-isabella-bonacini",fullName:"Maria Isabella Bonacini",profilePictureURL:"https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/intech-files/0033Y00002sukYhQAI/Profile_Picture_1577101764343",biography:"Maria Isabella Bonacini graduated in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology in 2001.\nShe undertaken and successfully completed the Postgraduate General Level Programme in Pharmaceutical Practice & Therapeutics, University of Bath (September 2013) and the Pharmaceutical Technology Quality Assurance (PTQA), University of Manchester (September 2015).\n\nIn August 2019 she became a non-medical independent prescriber (UWE, Bristol).\n\n She has been working within NHS (Hospital) in the UK since November 2008 as a clinical pharmacist. 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1. Introduction
Serbia has been trying to implement important reforms in the area of social welfare in the last two decades, as a part of process for integration into the European Union. One of the main courses of reforms is in the area of child protection. Therefore, it has been necessary to develop a wide range of community-based services for supporting families to improve their quality of life and provide optimal conditions for the child development. As a part of that process, different services for children with disabilities and their families have been established, in contrast to the old, mostly overcome practice to “unburden” families by an institutional placement of their children that lead to their social and educational exclusion. The main reason for that turnover from institutional care to community-based services is based on the fact that children function optimally in their families included in the community if they obtain proper support.
Families who take care of children with disabilities are exposed to challenges of intensive and demanding, sometimes lifelong, care. They could face discrimination and increased risk of socioeconomic difficulties, too [1, 2, 3]. While the children with severe difficulties were placed in institutions, the majority of families had to rely on their own resources and provide permanent care for child with (or often without) help of other family members. It was difficult to find qualified persons for childcare, and it was too expensive for most of those families. That is, the reason why mothers often have to leave their work and stay at home to take care of their child. Increased expenses for childcare and decreased income because one or even both parents are unemployed have been keeping those families in poverty. There were some daycare centers but only in several larger cities in Serbia.
Another difficulty for them is very slow process of inclusion of those children in education system. Legislation rules support children with disabilities to be enrolled into public schools, but there was a lot of resistance to that processes. Teachers or even parents were not prepared for adopting such changes. Teachers who are not trained lack special skills and knowledge to deal with those children. Struggling to harmonize their needs with needs of other children and requests of educational programs, teachers experience additional burden and often feel burnout due to “useless effort” [4]. Parents are usually afraid of social rejection and failure of children compared with their peers.
In the last decades, the services have been focused on the child’s needs but also were oriented to provide support to families as well [5]. The family-centered approach is based on the holistic perspective, considering families as unique. Therefore, it was important to adjust the services to the family’s specific needs and unique experience of how the fact of having a child with disabilities influences the whole family. It must be carefully considered what should be the individual aims of the service, anticipating possible impact of that support. In other words, it should be considered which kind of specific activities could contribute to the optimal outcomes, reducing negative and promoting positive effects for families and children [6, 7]. The service users used to be the “objects of intervention” that assumes passive reception of services with a little control over the process. Their position slowly evolves to partnership that includes participation in the process of needs assessment, planning, and decision-making in order to individualize the content and way of service provision to the greatest possible extent [8]. Families and service providers contribute together to decisions based on information about the available services, considering the strengths and needs of all family members [9]. This approach is based on the assumption that parents are competent and eligible partners who know their children best.
All services were intended to support the children to remain within the family environment promoting their inclusion in the local community and to help the family to deal with daily difficulties intending to improve their life quality. Those services include daycare centers, “respite” care, and assistance at home. Children should be provided with a stimulating experience that is based on the individual planning with the case manager and service provider, whether services are received at home or outside in daycare centers. Daycare centers are available every day, except weekends, usually 8 h. The children spend time in small groups, engaging in different games or other stimulating activities. Home assistance provides activities with child at home 2–4 h usually 2 days per week. During that time, parents have time for other obligations at home or outside or free time to reset, which is a significant help for them. Even if these services have been focused primarily at children needs, parents could benefit from getting some useful advices and support for everyday care, but it does not include structured parent training focused on parents’ skills, strengthening their coping capacities, or improving their relation with the child.
The results of different studies confirm that support programs in the community, especially the ones focused on the family, increase parental self-confidence and competence, improve parental skills, or reduce parental stress [10, 11, 12, 13]. One of the most important measures in verifying the effectiveness of different policies, programs, and treatments is the impact of services on the quality of life of family members who are taking care of children with different types of disabilities [1, 3, 14, 15].
Quality of life is a multidimensional construct that includes objective indicators and subjective evaluation of physical, financial, social, and emotional well-being [16]. Besides the objective indicators such as material well-being, living condition, health, employment, education, social security, etc., it is important to include personal subjective perception of well-being. Cognitive evaluation of personal life and emotional experience of more positive than negative effects are the basic components of subjective well-being [17]. Although it is important to discern how a person lives and functions, it is also important to understand how somebody feels and how they perceive their own life. One of the most important components of subjective well-being is not just individual experience but also social relations and integration. It is determined by the individual’s perception of the effect of the social environment to personal benefit [6, 15].
According to the concept of general life quality, the family quality of life is defined as a valuable outcome of services and policies for children with disabilities and their families. It is important to emphasize that sometimes “child” is adult person who still needs help from his/her parents.
In the last few decades, there have been many studies about conceptualization and measurement of the quality of life of people with disabilities. Schalock et al. [18] defined eight domains of their quality: emotional well-being, interpersonal relations, financial well-being, personal development, physical well-being, self-determination, social inclusion, and disability-related rights.
The comparative studies of Brown and others [14] further contributed to the development of this theoretical concepts and its measurement. They included health, financial (material) well-being, family relationships, other people’s support, services and staff support, caregivers and care tools, spiritual and cultural life, free time, and community involvement as key components of life quality.
Based on a qualitative study of families, Poston defined the nine domains of life quality [15], but later analyses supported the solution of final five domains of family life quality: family interaction, parenting, emotional well-being, physical/financial well-being, and disability-related support [19, 20].
It is obvious why the focus on life quality is so important for those families who sometimes feel overwhelmed by the increased demand for care and support for their children with disabilities facing with limited financial resources and environmental support in a long term [21]. Even if they are facing specific difficulties related to certain types and levels of disability, the results of numerous studies indicate that parents and other family members have a lot of common difficulties, concerns, and needs for support that reflect their quality of life.
2. Aims and method of the study
Based on those findings, we conducted the study to analyze the effects of community-based services for children with disabilities on the quality of life of their families [22]. We were interested to find out if there is any improvement in the general perception of family life quality after 1 year of using the services and in which specific domain of life quality the changes are the most significant. Also, it was interesting to explore who has benefitted from the services the most, based upon the level of family quality of life at the beginning of receiving services as well as upon the level of the severity of disability of the child.
We examined 153 parents of children with disabilities who participated in the study at the beginning of using services and 1 year later. The services were offered to families, no matter what their socioeconomic status or child’s age or type of disability is. The parents were from different regions in Serbia, from rural and urban settings where services were offered. Most families used home assistance (55.6%), some of them used a daycare center (26.1%), and some used respite care (18.3%), which was sometimes combined with the other two services.
The data were collected by the Family Quality of Life Scale (FQOL), developed by Hoffman et al. [19]. The FQOL scale consists of 25 items that are grouped in five domains: (a) family interaction is a subscale that describes the quality of communication in the family, mutual support of family members, and the time they spent with each other; (b) parenting is a subscale that assesses a parental support to their children and feeling of closeness with them; (c) emotional well-being is a domain intended to evaluate the availability of social support from social environment, including extended family member and other people as an important stress regulator; (d) physical/material well-being is a subscale that measures the availability of various community services and the general feeling of security; and (e) disability-related support is a domain that evaluates the provision of specific external support for educational improvement, skills’ development, and inclusion in community, including contacts with the service provider.
The “family interaction” and “parenting” domains represent subjective perception of “internal” family recourses, while the other three domains are related to the perception of external support available to the family and child that contributes to their quality of life. Of course, the external support could significantly affect the first two domains.
The reliability of the subscales of the FQOL in our sample ranged from 0.81 to 0.94, which is similar compared with other results in different cultures [19].
3. Results
First of all, our findings confirmed that most of the families had been facing a lot of difficulties in everyday life. The fact that half of the families (49.7%) had no income from employment was an important indicator of their financial difficulties, so their quality of life, besides the permanent care for child, was affected by poverty, too. Most mothers (66.7%) were unemployed, due to the necessity of staying at home for childcare, but over one third of fathers (37.9%) were unemployed, too. Both parents worked only in 15.8% of cases. One third of families (32.7%) had income below 200 euros per month, including social benefits. Almost half of the mothers (42%) and a quarter of the fathers (24.2%) had a low level of education (only 4–8 years of education) which diminishes possibilities for employment or finding a well-paid job. Obviously, they cannot afford some external help, except from extended family members when it is available.
Another factor that influenced life quality is the fact that one third of mothers are a single parent (33.1%). This is higher than the average rate of divorce in Serbia, particularly in rural areas where half of the parents from the sample have lived. It is well-known that difficulties like permanent care for a child could affect partner’s relationship. The poverty and increased obligations at home could contribute to the social exclusion or isolation of the parents, particularly single one, and additionally interfere with their life quality.
Another factor that contributes to the lower level of life quality is the fact that almost one third of “children” (28.5%) were over the age of 18, which indicated prolonged, persistent, and sometime exhausting care for child. Most of those children (44.2%) had multiple disabilities, and according to the criteria based on the required additional support [23], 35.3% of them had severe or profound disabilities.
The family life quality was measured at the beginning and 1 year after using services for the child at home or in the daycare centers. The perception of families’ life quality confirmed positive significant changes in general life quality, as well as positive changes in all domains of life quality (Table 1).
Pretest
Posttest
F
dfb
dfw
sig.
η2
dRM
M
SD
M
SD
Family interaction
23.84
7.36
26.73
5.10
23.28
1
152
0.000
0.13
0.39
Parenting
22.89
7.01
26.18
5.14
27.58
1
152
0.000
0.15
0.42
Emotional well-being
13.00
4.87
15.53
4.31
27.77
1
152
0.000
0.15
0.43
Physical/material well-being
16.11
5.73
19.01
5.40
27.87
1
152
0.000
0.16
0.43
Disability-related support
14.98
4.94
17.25
3.34
27.31
1
152
0.000
0.15
0.42
Family quality of life total score
90.82
24.07
104.71
18.83
39.70
1
152
0.000
0.21
0.51
Table 1.
Analysis of variance with repeated measures on the FQOL scale (N = 153).
The association between specific services (daycare center, assistance in the home, and respite care) and changes in family’s quality of life showed that there were no significant differences between the families who had been using different types of services (F(2, 150) = 1.03, p = 0.361). The life quality was improved after 1 year of using service regardless of the type of services ([22], p. 5).
We were interested in understanding not just what has been changed but also who has been changed the most or who has not experienced changes at all, depending on the level of family quality of life at the beginning of receiving services. Therefore, we divided sample on three groups with high (33.3%), middle (31.4%), and low (35.3%) quality of life (by LCA). Analysis of variance shows that there is a strong interaction effect between level of family quality of life at the beginning of service provision and effect of service provision to the family quality of life after 1 year (F(2, 150) = 38.12; p < 000, η2 = 0.34). The perceived quality of life increased the most in the families who had the lowest scores at the FQOL scale at the beginning of using the services (Figure 1). On the other hand, the group that perceived the quality of their life very high at the beginning of service did not improve or in some cases even slightly decreased.
Figure 1.
Changes in the FQOL of groups based on the level of quality of life before services.
Also, in order to understand who has been improving depending on the level of severity of child disability, we compared the three groups of families with mild, moderate, and severe disability. Analysis of variance showed that there is an interaction effect between level of severity of disability and effect of service provision regarding family quality of life (F(2, 133) = 4.63; p = 0.011, η2 = 0.07). The most significant improvement of life quality was obtained in the families with children with mild disabilities. The families with children with severe or profound disability significantly improved, too, but for the group with the children with moderate disability, there was no evidence of positive effect of services (Figure 2). At the same time, they had the highest level of the FQOL at the beginning.
Figure 2.
Changes in the FQOL according the level of child disability.
Although the differences of pretest level of life quality among the groups were not significantly different, it is interesting to notice that the families with children with a mild disability have the lowest quality of life before services. At the same time, there is significantly higher percentage of single-parent families (43.1%) in this group comparing to families with children with moderate (34.8%) and severe disability ((20.8%), χ2(2, N = 134) = 6.32, p = 0.042, Cramer’s V is .22) ([22], p. 5). Also, those families mostly live in rural areas (58.6%) where external support is less available (χ2(4, N = 136) = 12.67, p = 0.013, Cramer’s V is .22).
The results showed that there is no interaction effect between age of child and effect of service provision regarding family quality of life (F(3, 137) = 0.37; p = 0.776).
4. Discussion
According our main goals that were to explore whether there have been improvements in the perception of different aspects of family life quality, it was expected that, after a year of using services, improvement was reflected in aspects of the quality of life on which the services had direct impact. The results of the study confirmed that expectations. Besides the general improvement of life quality, the changes were evident in the domains that initially had the lowest scores—material well-being, emotional well-being, and disability-related support. Those domains are mostly dependent on the services that were designed to affect these specific aspects of the family life quality.
Although the services were not particularly focused on communication and relations among family members, nor at the parenting practices, there was improvement in these domains, too. It seems that the services affected them indirectly. When families get more external support, they could experience some relief that might contribute to the improvement of interpersonal relations between parents, as well as to their parenting. It is interesting to emphasize that family interaction and parentingwere initially rated higher. Those domains have important role as internal family strengths in dealing with the everyday problems related to childcare in the context of a lack of external support. That is supported by other authors [24] who emphasized that the quality of life is dependent on establishing and maintaining a harmonious relationship within the family members and with external environment.
Results showed that the life quality was improved regardless of the type of services. We could assume that type of service would specifically contribute to different aspects of life quality, but any kind of proper support has an impact on positive changes in general. According to the systemic approach, the family is a dynamic system, so the change in some domain influences other domains and reflects improvement of system as a whole. For example, during home assistance services, parents were usually present, and they can observe the activities and interactions between the child assistant and child. That could contribute to improvement of parenting skills (how to stimulate child, play with him/her, etc.). On the other hand, daycare service could be more useful for child socialization, where children have opportunity to play and communicate with other children or adults and spend some time out of home. Those observations were confirmed through interviews with parents. But any positive change in some aspect reflects on other aspects of family life and their perception of child improvement.
We were also interested to find out who benefited from the services the most based upon initial level of life quality and severity of child disability. The results indicated that the quality of life improved the most in the families who had the lowest scores on the FQOL at the beginning of services. It is important to notice that the effects of services are the best for the families that needed them the most. On the other hand, the changes were not significant in the group who had higher scores on the FQOL before service use. Although particular progress was not expected among those who were already satisfied with their quality of life, this does not mean that they do not face difficulties and does not imply that they do not need any services. But it is also important to notice that their level of FOQL even decreased slightly (although not significantly). These findings suggest that, when designing community-based services, it is important to respond differently to the specific needs of families and tailor service to them individually. The question is what specific service they really need and how should it be provided. If the services strongly contribute to the improvement of life quality for families who needed them the most, that means that other families need something different. The practice of social work still has a lot to learn from families how they are facing difficulties, and, in that respect, it is important to assess family strengths and ways of adaptation to those persistent difficulties. It is necessary to flexibly adapt service support to them without minimizing their personal competencies. Probably, in the cases where we noticed a slight reduction of life quality after using services, parents could experience disregard of their coping skills or homeostatic balance. If they get what they might need and do not get what they did not ask for, it could be more helpful for them and will not be wasting the time and resources of families and service providers.
Our findings confirmed that the level of disability has impact to the quality of family life. The permanent care for the child with severe disability is often additionally burdened by poverty, which is much more challenging and might lead to physical and emotional exhaustion. Those families experienced significant benefit from services regarding life quality, too, although the level of progress is limited. But, it is interesting to notice that families who have a child with mild disability and experienced a lower level of life quality at the beginning of services compared to the other families who have children with moderate or severe disability progressed the most. Needs of those families and their children could be neglected from the service providers (assessed as “easier cases” who are not the priority of system’s support), so the external support is less available to them. Also, there is significantly higher percentage of single-parent families (43.1%) among that group than the other two groups. This finding is in accordance with our previous study that confirmed higher divorce rate in families who have child with less severe disability [25]. Less possibility of sharing care and obligations could contribute more pressure and lower life quality for a single parent. In comparison with parents who share efforts together and who get more external support, it seems reasonable to expect that it contributes to their lower level of life quality. So, when they get some external help, they progress the most.
But how could we explain that the parents of a child with severe or moderate disability have fewer divorces rate and experience higher life quality? Do the difficulties of everyday life contribute to them staying together, uniting their efforts, and relying on each other, which they can appreciate as an important part of their life quality? It should be the explored in future studies.
There is a lot of evidence that the age of the disabled person contributes to caregiver burden [26, 27, 28]; however, we did not confirm that prolonged and permanent care for the child contributes to lower life quality. It seems that there is a different experience of difficulties of the caregiver in parent-child (even grown-up child) relationships, than in other form of relations between caregivers (family member, but not parent) and adults with disability. Probably they develop some coping strategies and adaptation skills over time that diminishes the potentially negative effect of perennial care to their life quality. Parents with older children could be exhausted, but adapted and skillful, while families with younger children may still struggle with difficulties of acceptance of the child difficulties and the new organization of their life. It seems that each phase has specific challenges.
Besides the benefits of services, there are still a lot of problems that should be kept in mind during planning and establishing new services. First of all, there is a problem of sustainability of implemented services. That means that the service which had been provided for a while, without permanent support of local community, could be discontinued after the termination of project financial support. It may have impact to diminishing life quality, even to the lower level then before services had implemented. There were no monitoring or evaluations studies of those effects if families that faced with restriction of support on which they used on.
The other risk is that the services have been offered to all who might need them without careful assessment what exactly they need. The diversity of services had not yet been worked out or individualized according to specific family’s needs, and they depended more on service providers’ personal skills and resources. So, that increases the chances of imposing something that is not suitable (best fit) for service users. Anyway, the availability of support of the services contributes to positive change much more that that could damage it.
Most studies have confirmed that quality of life is a multidimensional construct [14, 15, 18, 24, 27]. Therefore, it would be useful to explore mutual influences of objective and subjective factors that play a role in life quality such as parents’ age, gender, health condition, attitudes, spiritual beliefs, level of stress, coping strategies, skills, social and family networks, etc. That would be a very helpful information for creating services, as well as for creating criteria to be used for them.
The importance of service evaluation has been highlighted in the last decade in Serbia. This requires the development of standardized and reliable instruments for the evaluation of the effects of services, which can measure specific aspects of the services. This would enable researchers to explore and understand what are the most helpful or effective aspects of service provision. That could provide useful information for researchers and policy makers, as well as for practitioners and service users.
The study confirmed benefits of community-based services to the family life quality, exploring some specific aspects and range of change, as well as the influence of level of child disability and previous perception of life quality to the extent of change. Unfortunately, there are still a large number of socially excluded families who live in poor communities that had no chance to use the services and experience an improvement in their quality of life. Social workers still have difficulties in providing sustainable services, which need to be overcome in the future. Meanwhile, the results of this study might be useful for planning further steps in developing and evaluating community services for children with disabilities and their parents who should receive flexible and individually tailored service that suits their specific needs best.
\n',keywords:"quality of life, children with disabilities, family support services, evaluation of services",chapterPDFUrl:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/67452.pdf",chapterXML:"https://mts.intechopen.com/source/xml/67452.xml",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/67452",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/67452",totalDownloads:356,totalViews:0,totalCrossrefCites:0,totalDimensionsCites:0,hasAltmetrics:0,dateSubmitted:"March 7th 2019",dateReviewed:"May 8th 2019",datePrePublished:"June 18th 2019",datePublished:"October 7th 2020",dateFinished:null,readingETA:"0",abstract:"Families that have children with disabilities are faced with numerous difficulties in Serbia mostly due to the prolonged effect of social and economic crises. Besides insufficient adequate and diverse community-based services, they often experience social isolation and poverty, too. During the last decades, there were efforts to improve support for parents by introducing community-based services for their children with disabilities. This chapter is based on the findings of the study that explored the effect of those services on the families’ quality of life. Although the findings confirmed that the services generally improved their life quality, particularly for those who perceived the lowest quality of life before, there are some additional observations about “side effects” that should be useful guidelines for developing flexible individually tailored service that support families’ needs and suit them best.",reviewType:"peer-reviewed",bibtexUrl:"/chapter/bibtex/67452",risUrl:"/chapter/ris/67452",book:{slug:"quality-of-life-biopsychosocial-perspectives"},signatures:"Tamara Džamonja Ignjatović",authors:[{id:"298118",title:"Dr.",name:"Tamara",middleName:null,surname:"Dzamonja Ignjatovic",fullName:"Tamara Dzamonja Ignjatovic",slug:"tamara-dzamonja-ignjatovic",email:"tamara.dzamonja@gmail.com",position:null,institution:null}],sections:[{id:"sec_1",title:"1. Introduction",level:"1"},{id:"sec_2",title:"2. Aims and method of the study",level:"1"},{id:"sec_3",title:"3. Results",level:"1"},{id:"sec_4",title:"4. Discussion",level:"1"}],chapterReferences:[{id:"B1",body:'Dunst CJ, Trivette CM, Hamby DW. Family Support Program Quality and Parent, Family and Child Benefits. Asheville, NC: Winterberry Press; 2006'},{id:"B2",body:'Hughes R. An investigation of coping skills of parents of children with disabilities. Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. 1999;34:271-280'},{id:"B3",body:'Turnbull AP, Turnbull HR, Erwin E, Soodak L. Families, Professionals, and Exceptionality: Positive Outcomes through Partnerships and Trust. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hal; 2007'},{id:"B4",body:'Jovanović V, Karić J, Mihajlović G, Džamonja-Ignjatović T, Hinić D. Work-related burnout syndrome in special education teachers working with children with developmental disorders—Possible correlations with some socio-demographic aspects and assertiveness. European Journal of Special Needs Education. 2019. 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Assessing family outcomes: Psychometric evaluation of the beach center family quality of life scale. Journal of Marriage and Family. 2006;68:1069-1083'},{id:"B20",body:'Park J, Hoffman L, Marquis J, Turnbull AP, Poston D, Mannan H, et al. Toward assessing family outcomes of service delivery: Validation of a family quality of life survey. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research. 2003;47:367-384'},{id:"B21",body:'Baker-Ericzén MJ, Brookman-Frazee L, Stahmer A. Stress levels and adaptability in parents of toddlers with and without autism spectrum disorders. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities. 2005;30:194-204'},{id:"B22",body:'Dzamonja Ignjatovic T, Milanovic M, Zegarac N. How services for children with disabilities in Serbia affect the quality of life of their families. 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Determinants of caregiving burden and quality of life in caregivers of stroke. Stroke. 2005;36:2181-2186'},{id:"B28",body:'Ra YA, Kim WH. Impact of employment and age on quality of life of individuals with disabilities: A multilevel analysis. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin. 2016;59(2):112-120'}],footnotes:[],contributors:[{corresp:"yes",contributorFullName:"Tamara Džamonja Ignjatović",address:"tamara.dzamonja@gmail.com",affiliation:'
Faculty of Political Sciences and Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University, Serbia
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Carleschi",slug:"alessia-carleschi"},{id:"290994",title:"Dr.",name:"Marzia",middleName:null,surname:"Pibiri",fullName:"Marzia Pibiri",slug:"marzia-pibiri"}]},{id:"68306",title:"KidsTime Workshops: Strengthening Resilience of Children of Parents with a Mental Illness",slug:"kidstime-workshops-strengthening-resilience-of-children-of-parents-with-a-mental-illness",signatures:"Klaus Henner Spierling, Kirsty Tahta-Wraith, Helena Kulikowska and Dympna Cunnane",authors:[{id:"287221",title:"Mr.",name:"Klaus Henner",middleName:null,surname:"Spierling",fullName:"Klaus Henner Spierling",slug:"klaus-henner-spierling"},{id:"288316",title:"Dr.",name:"Kirsty",middleName:null,surname:"Tatah-Wraith",fullName:"Kirsty Tatah-Wraith",slug:"kirsty-tatah-wraith"},{id:"288320",title:"Mrs.",name:"Helena",middleName:null,surname:"Kulikowska",fullName:"Helena Kulikowska",slug:"helena-kulikowska"},{id:"308129",title:"Dr.",name:"Dympna",middleName:null,surname:"Cunnane",fullName:"Dympna Cunnane",slug:"dympna-cunnane"}]},{id:"66457",title:"Mirage: Possibilities and Limitations of Experiencing Foster Home as a Family",slug:"mirage-possibilities-and-limitations-of-experiencing-foster-home-as-a-family",signatures:"Eva Mydlíková",authors:[{id:"284490",title:"Associate Prof.",name:"Eva",middleName:null,surname:"Mydlíková",fullName:"Eva Mydlíková",slug:"eva-mydlikova"}]},{id:"67729",title:"Family Therapy: When the Adolescents’ Discourse is the Principal Resource",slug:"family-therapy-when-the-adolescents-discourse-is-the-principal-resource",signatures:"Silvia Renata Lordello",authors:[{id:"283776",title:"Dr.",name:"Silvia",middleName:null,surname:"Lordello",fullName:"Silvia Lordello",slug:"silvia-lordello"}]},{id:"66010",title:"Group Process as a Resocialization Intervention: The Family - People Helping People Project",slug:"group-process-as-a-resocialization-intervention-the-family-people-helping-people-project",signatures:"David F. Allen, Keva Bethell, Marie Allen-Carroll and Flavia D’Alessandro",authors:[{id:"280476",title:"Dr.",name:"David",middleName:null,surname:"Allen",fullName:"David Allen",slug:"david-allen"},{id:"280479",title:"MSc.",name:"Keva",middleName:null,surname:"Bethell",fullName:"Keva Bethell",slug:"keva-bethell"},{id:"280480",title:"Dr.",name:"Marie",middleName:null,surname:"Allen-Carroll",fullName:"Marie Allen-Carroll",slug:"marie-allen-carroll"},{id:"280481",title:"MSc.",name:"Flavia",middleName:null,surname:"D'Alessandro",fullName:"Flavia D'Alessandro",slug:"flavia-d'alessandro"}]}]}]},onlineFirst:{chapter:{type:"chapter",id:"70825",title:"Smart Water—How to Master the Future Challenges of Water Management",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.90644",slug:"smart-water-how-to-master-the-future-challenges-of-water-management",body:'\n
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1. Introduction
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In Germany, approx. 6–7 billion EURO is invested every year in the renovation or new construction of buildings and plant technology in the municipal water and sanitation sector [1]. The German water and wastewater infrastructure has developed socially and spatially balanced in the past and has grown over many decades and guarantees today a comprehensive disposal with high drainage safety combined with an extremely long technical and economic service life. In opposite it results in a lack of operational flexibility for sewer network and sewage plant operators, e.g. in the event of extreme weather events as an effect of climate change, changed consumer behavior or the consequences of demographic change. Experts and decision-makers are therefore looking for ways to adapt the dimensioning and calculation of future investments more closely to real usage requirements and to dispense with previous inaccurate estimates. At the same time, the existing systems must be operated more flexibly and thus more efficiently, even under described changed conditions.
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Innovative digital developments from industry like autonomous machine controls based on intelligent data acquisition, collection and evaluation, promises better adapting municipal infrastructure systems to changing conditions. When the technology initiative KOMMUNAL 4.0 was developed as an idea in 2015, digitalization was not a central topic in German water management. As Industry 4.0 was present everywhere at these time the idea of transferring suitable parts of the basic idea of Industry 4.0 to municipal water management was born. In particular, it was necessary to implement consistent IT and IoT communication at all levels of water management tasks (Figure 1). The aim was not only to create a uniform structure for networking a wide variety of applications, but also to round off KOMMUNAL 4.0’s complete range of services with IoT for existing and newly developed products and solutions. Regardless of whether it concerns measurement and data technology applications, smart machines, SCADA or asset management systems, all application solutions contain a standardized core that guarantees standard data communication and also complying with safety and cybersecurity requirements.
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Figure 1.
Consistent IT and IoT communication of digital products and systems [2] (translation: IT-Sicherheit, Asset Management und Digitalisierung, Betriebsführung, Recht = IT security, asset management and digitization, operations management, law; Fernwirkung, Fernüberwachung = remote control, remote view; Automatisierung, software = automation, software; mess-und Datentechnik = measurement and data technology).
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Another important requirement was (and is) that all applications work as individual and independent solution. This enables the user to go down the path to digitization in individual steps, which are, however, coordinated with each other right from the start. The purchase of a complete system at the beginning of a digital process is not absolutely necessary. The user can start where there is currently the most urgent need at daily work without losing the network compatibility of individual elements that have to be adding later. One of the most important tasks in municipal water management, for example, is an effective and efficient management of the entire infrastructure. Data plays an increasingly important role at this topic. Only where data from different sources can be usefully related to each other real added value can be created. Various IT systems such as GIS, process control (SCADA) or asset and maintenance management systems are used for this purpose in water management. Systems are desirable which, like MS Office, function in both ways as individual solutions and offer high benefits by networking with each other. And just as every printer today communicates perfectly with MS Office smart products, measurement and data technology applications as well as Smart Machines should be integrated in a plug & play manner. Some of the products and solutions belonging to KOMMUNAL 4.0 already offer these requirements already today.
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2. Industry 4.0—a model for sustainable water management?
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The digitization offensive of the industry, known since 2013 in Germany as Industry 4.0 and initiated by the Federal Government, is intended to turn simple machines using the Internet into so-called Smart Machines. These are self-regulating production units (they are also called CPS = Cyber-Physical Systems) which leads to significant cost savings. For example, they are fed with orders directly from commercial databases, receive their technical instructions directly from CAD/EPLAN tools of development engineers, order necessary materials independently from suppliers, coordinate their interdependencies and report the completion of the manufactured products to logistics for dispatch. The entire industrial value chain is recorded in data form, analyzed and controlled or optimized by automatic processes. Can this approach be transferred to the level of water infrastructures as a model?
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In water management, the possible applications of intelligent and smart solutions are being intensively discussed and are already being used (see e.g. at [3, 4, 5, 6]). Modern automation technology for water management already has elements in its core that need not fear comparison with Industry 4.0 solutions. Real-time-based control or monitoring solutions are just as much in use as numerous intelligent sensor technologies. They form an important basic framework for future digital strategies. In order to obtain innovative and thus sustainable digitization solutions, such automation and IT systems must be extended by suitable analysis and evaluation tools (Big and Smart Data). Only this enables an intelligent networking of several objects with each other.
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For the municipal user, the question now arises with whom he can start digitization. There are many specialist providers for individual application solutions, but how will be done a well integration into a future platform solution? Whoever is faced with the procurement of new IT systems, e.g. in the GIS/PLS-SCADA/ERP/BFS areas, that is not an easy task to master. If there is a high degree of network compatibility due to a close technological relationship between the individual solutions (see example MS Office), this facilitates the start incl. a step-by-step development of a complete digitization.
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In the fields of municipal water management that are eligible for digitization, there are already a large number of established providers whose solutions in principle include these useful and expected functions. With regard to the basic functions, normal companies are moving forward in small steps. The differences in the functions can be recognized and evaluated more precisely after intensive use. If providers have several applications, there is concern on the user side not to obtain the supposedly best software for every task. If, however, a provider understands the current requirements of networking and has its own development of its product lines, this also has significant, clear advantages for the user compared to the sole availability of a special function. These range from interoperability up to the elimination of un-useful complex parameterizations. The importance of standardized user interfaces and dialogs, administration, data formats, menu navigation, etc., can be seen again when considering the development of the office world. For the KOMMUNAL 4.0 product lines, the overall system selection is based on the aspects of secure investment through technological sustainability as well as networking and usability. In this case, the technology is concerned with the methods, technologies and resources used in product development itself. They are essentially responsibilities for what is working today, in the future and what does not fit. At this point the user must inform himself accordingly early enough in order not to wait too long or also in vain for the necessary adaptations of his (special) provider in the future.
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In particular, the currently pending change through digitalization is a good way to orient himself comprehensively and to make new decisions if necessary. If the user succeeds in procuring systems from one platform and possibly from one provider, the networkability and operability of the overall solution will be simplified. The solution should also offer the possibility to integrate already existing software applications. The conversion and renewal of software and its entire technological basis also requires a lot of orientation, strength, competence and investment at the providers side. A changeover from classic client-server software to web systems, for example, also requires new thinking in development. As a result of the high challenges, only small steps or adaptations of the outer shell are often successful but no innovative progress or better results have to be achieved. Fitting usability and an intuitive using of a software can only be determined after several days of practical work. On the other hand users expect more today. They want deep horizontal and vertical networking of the systems, e.g. with asset/maintenance and SCADA systems. This has taken on a new and higher significance and it is the most discussed topic of interfaces or integration capability or networkability of the systems. Synchronization functions, uniform grammar, file formats, reliability and warranty are more and more in focus. Regarding these requirements the KOMMUNAL 4.0 world is already one step ahead and offers compatible web systems for GIS/PLS-SCADA/ERP/BFS tasks as well as integrated measurement and data technology applications and smart machines. The company HST (consortium leader of KOMMUNAL 4.0) for example has converted all its systems to platforms and web technology in recent years and comprehensively networked its systems. The widely used asset/maintenance management system KANiO and the process control system SCADA.web are today highly communicative networkable solutions with open standard interfaces as well as integration and synchronization functions also for third-party systems. Reliability and optimal operability have priority.
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An IT-supported ISMS (Information Security Management System) is already available (KANiO-ISMS) for secure compliance with the requirements of the IT German Security Act. It represents an important building block for the individual steps on the way to a legally compliant IT security structure and is available as a separate application and also as a component of the KANiO system. The use of the tool avoids uncoordinated individual measures that do not guarantee sufficiently secure IT operation. In addition, the tool ensures that the company’s own efforts to ensure secure IT operation can be proven to customers or legislators. Earlier measures can thus also be better aligned with the current security standard. In addition, almost all process engineering machines of HST are gradually being equipped with sensors and actuators (so-called IntelliSystems) so that SCADA and asset/maintenance management system can be directly networked and collaborated. This means that there are already solutions for integrated IT and IoT communication across all application levels, as shown in Figure 1.
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3. Why does digitization differ from earlier technology developments?
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Classical engineering-based research does not fully reflect the comprehensive developments of digitization. With digitization, something very big has happening with increasing speed. It has now also reached the water industry. An analysis of publications, studies and research carried out in the context of KOMMUNAL 4.0 in the field of industry 4.0 has shown that, in addition to technology patterns, other subject areas are important which will also have a serious impact on the water management. This applies, for example, to data sovereignty, data law and public procurement law.
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Thanks to the accompanying research of the federal technology program “Smart Service World”, in which the KOMMUNAL 4.0 project is embedded, and the associated networking with other Industry 4.0 research networks such as the federal technology program “Smart Data”, the project partners in KOMMUNAL 4.0 are able to access the current state of knowledge and expected developments not only at the field of IT security and legal issues. These coming topics, some of which have not even been discussed in the water industry until today, are already the subject of KOMMUNAL 4.0.
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Previous technology flows primarily arose from development ideas that were examined in individual objects or tasks. An example of this is the extended elimination of nitrogen in sewage treatment plants. When this aspect was investigated and applied broadly after being anchored in legislation, the effects were limited to the respective sewage treatment plant or the responsible organization. The other departments of a municipality, city or association were not affected. The same can be noticed for example for the so called fourth sewage treatment stage. From this point of view, research institutes and plant operators were able to investigate into such issues independently to get an isolated developed solution. Consequences of a lack of communication between research institutes were not significant due to low need of interdisciplinary interfaces. Although the existing scientific-technical exchange among experts is maintained and also inspires research initiatives, a mutual agreement on the research and development contents was not absolutely necessary for the previous form of technology development.
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In opposite to aforementioned situation the appearance of digitization must be judged differently. Since as a cross-sectional technology it has an almost unlimited influence on all technological and organizational environments. At the horizontal level individual objects such as rain basins, flood reservoirs, water treatment plants or sewage treatment plants have to be connected more and more with the entire infrastructure systems across city and municipal boundaries. At the organizational level (vertical level) different departments and organizations have to be linked to each other. In addition, regional and supra-regional administrative and authority units should also be integrated into these networking efforts.
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“It also applies to water management that everything that can be digitized has to be digitized”. This comment made by Martin Weyand, BDEW Managing Director Water/Wastewater [7] confirms the cognitions of KOMMUNAL 4.0. Previous technological developments in water management have had only a limited impact on organizations and working methods, but in contrast to this, digitalization is expected to bring about massive changes in the everyday working lives of individuals as it unfolds its full potential. Already from individual elements as part of growing complex systems more far-reaching effects are to be expected. This leads to the conclusion that an examination of new digital solutions must be more comprehensive and must go beyond the previous horizon of knowledge and understanding. This is where the holistic approach of KOMMUNAL 4.0 comes in, in which all relevant individual modules and their interaction with each other were taken into account from the very beginning. This approach allows a better assessment of how to deal with digitization, even if it increases the amount of work at the beginning. As a result, it is easier to assess the major consequences of individual solutions and thus enables the foresighted engineering of networked systems. Based on this, current and future products and solutions will be manufactured.
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4. The KOMMUNAL 4.0 project—a German beacon of digitization
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4.1 The funded project KOMMUNAL 4.0
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The cooperation project KOMMUNAL 4.0, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, will devote itself in a special way to the challenges described above. Current and expected future developments in the field of Industry 4.0 were examined for applicability in municipal water management. KOMMUNAL 4.0 was selected as one of the 16 winners in a pure industrial competition from 130 applicants [8]. The intended developments for digitization lead to higher efficiency, safety and control in the operation of water management plants and systems and can serve as a model for other infrastructure sectors. The current low adaptability of municipal infrastructures to changing conditions such as heavy rainfall or demographic change can be significantly increased with the help of the IT and organizational solutions from KOMMUNAL 4.0.
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The project consortium (see www.kommunal4null.de) under the cooperation management of HST Systemtechnik GmbH & Co. KG strives for the following essential goals:
Standardization of data acquisition and transmission from heterogeneous CPS (cyberphysical systems).
Development of a web-based data platform for collection, structuring and conversion of different data/data formats.
Development of flexible platform architecture for optional use as intranet or internet application.
Development of application tools in the areas of design/engineering, benchmarking, object/network monitoring, data fusion, procurement, end-to-end process chain and operational optimization.
Development of required IT security concepts.
Development of digital business models such as machine sharing.
Analysis of legal aspects of cloud computing.
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The developments focus on modular and step-oriented solutions. It starts with individual intelligent aggregates, so-called smart machines, and lead to the linking of several objects with each other up to a completely networked infrastructure system. Essential objects of the project are so-called pilot projects. Here, the developed application tools were installed at selected municipalities or operators in a real infrastructure environment incl. comprehensively testing.
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4.2 Association KOMMUNAL 4.0 e.V
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In order to maintain the previous ideas and the already established network of experts in the KOMMUNAL 4.0 funding project after the end of the project (31.12.2019), the Federal Association KOMMUNAL 4.0 (www.kommunal4null-ev.de) was founded in 2017. It supports the previous basic and competence transfer of the funding project and will work as a hub for the digitization of municipal infrastructures. It also takes care of central tasks such as public relations for digitization, training and further education, standardization and networking. The association sees itself as a central point of contact for planning and implementing the first steps toward the digitization of municipal infrastructures or for carrying out advanced technological expansions. Even though the current focus is on the municipal water sector due to the proximity to the funding project, all other relevant sectors of municipal infrastructure are to be added in the future.
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A central importance for the water sector is the establishment of a KOMMUNAL 4.0 academy. So far, the sector is not be able to offer any application-related further training courses. The Federal Association KOMMUNAL 4.0 will offer a corresponding service which covers the topics IT security, IT systems, operational management, process control engineering as well as measurement and automation engineering. But there will also be application-related offerings, e.g. how digitization can look specifically in water supply or wastewater disposal or in special structures such as pumps, rainwater basins, sewage treatment plants, etc. In addition, there will be special seminars for mayors, heads of offices and planners so that these industry participants can set their very special requirements in relation to the challenges of digitization.
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4.3 From smart machines to smart infrastructures
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Embedded systems have been around for a long time at the water management. The state of the art is that mechanical aggregates are connected to automation technology, which takes over monitoring, control and regulation functions based on various information (mostly from measurement sensors). Automation technology is also used for data acquisition and transmission to higher-level units such as SCADA systems. They form an important part of a complete networking solution (see Figure 1).
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The stored specifications of a smart machine follow clear assignments and rules, especially for control. Changes to the specifications are made by the operator via set points or directly at the PLC level by a programmer. Data is linked locally by cable. And how do smart machines emerge from this? Thanks to the availability of rapidly increasing web-based application options, the monitoring, control and regulation of actuators no longer needs to be carried out in isolation with locally recorded data and locally used automation technology. For example, additional information such as current precipitation data or status information from a piping system can be transferred from a central database to the local controller via a wireless Internet connection or data line. Based on corresponding algorithms, the controller permanently analyzes the functional environment (in real time) and independently adapts the control specifications (set points) to changing environmental conditions. This is illustrated by the example of a pumping station.
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Pumps are designed for an optimal but static operating point based at only one expected operating situation. However, fluctuating water volumes and losses due to unfavorable piping or other operating conditions cause pumps to run outside their selected characteristic curve. This is also due to the fact that, unaware of the actual delivery peaks, corresponding safety surcharges/reserves are provided while dimensioning the pumps. This results in higher energy consumption and less efficiency of the overall system and thus also reduces the service life of the units. Innovative pump controllers (software solutions such as so-called IntelliPump system) permanently evaluate the entire operating situation and, by using frequency control, enable operating sequences that permit several optimum operating points depending on the requirements. This permanently guarantees the intended pumping safety and thus reduces wear and energy consumption of the pump. Another advantage is the continuous monitoring of system operation. This enables faults to be detected more quickly and a better condition assessment of the machine, thus increasing overall operational safety. The formerly simple pump becomes a smart pump system.
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In the near future, smart machines will become standard equipment in water management, also as a result of the KOMMUNAL 4.0 project. The connection to web-based data portals, such as the precipitation portal NiRA.web, increases the adaptability and efficiency of individual machines and the system in complete. The virtual connection of the machines with the Internet allows access to all operating data from a central location. Selected operation-relevant data supports local machine control, link systems/objects with each other and ensure efficient operation throughout the entire infrastructure system. An example of this is a sewer network with various rainwater basins, pumping stations and a central connected sewage treatment plant.
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The interconnection of the objects, as shown in Figure 1, permits an optimal congestion, flushing and operating regime of the entire infrastructure network. A central data evaluation of all structures decides about the right time to empty storm water tank, e.g. to keep sufficient storage capacities free for a next heavy rainfall or flood event, or to make optimum use of capacities or to control the relief events from storm water tanks in the sense of optimum water protection. The more quantitative and qualitative data are available for each structure/object, the better and more efficiently each individual machine, each object and also the entire infrastructure system can be operated. Similar applications, e.g. the intelligent basin cleaning system IntelliGrid, the self-regulating occupancy control system IntelliScreen for increasing the material retention in horizontal bar screens or the EMA flow rate recording system at rainwater overflows, are increasingly being used in water management. In the course of the KOMMUNAL 4.0 project, the prerequisites are now being created for networking individual applications across buildings in order to create a genuine, smart infrastructure.
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5. Where to start? Start digitizing correctly!
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If, for example, current new installations of technical equipment are due, this can be the ideal start of digitization on the basis of individual measures. At this stage, it should be examined whether it makes sense to design the new technical equipment as a so-called smart machine or as a smart system. If digitization is started with a smart local solution, it must be ensured that this solution is also future-compatible with larger networking solutions, such as the KOMMUNAL 4.0 platform. A municipality benefits from this kind of digitization very early, for example by installing a smart machine. This is a comparatively simple way of approaching the complexity of digitization.
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Smart machines and solutions based on the Intelli principle work autonomously with the full advantages of digitization and can therefore be easily integrated into a higher-level networking system at a later point in time, even if an overall digital strategy for the municipality has not yet been defined. Figure 1 shows the systematics of networked products that are already prepared for a platform connection and cover almost the entire range of applications on a horizontal and vertical level. The same applies to upcoming new acquisitions of software solutions in the areas of asset/maintenance management systems and SCADA. The compatibility to the (smart) machine world has to be checked. The necessary knowledge can be acquired by the KOMMUNAL 4.0 experts.
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The example of the selection of a computer system on a relief threshold of a sewer system will illustrate how smart systems as described can be applied. Increasingly, screening systems are being used on discharge thresholds to reduce the amount of dirt discharged into water bodies during discharge events. Conventional systems automatically clean the screen bars at fixed intervals. The focus here is on ensuring the hydraulic capacity, regardless of whether the current operating condition requires this or not. Smart rakes equipped, for example, with the IntelliScreen system (see Smart Machines IoT level in Figure 1) use networked information from local machine, operating data, webcam data and precipitation data from data portals (see Measurement and Data Technology level in Figure 1) to achieve greater operational safety and water protection.
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While overflow screens have been cleaned by continuous comb and/or clearing devices up to now, screens equipped with Intelli systems have the advantage of recognizing their current and prognostic screenings. In addition, speed-controlled drives enable variable combing and clearing speeds and extended power reserves. Networking and the inclusion of precipitation data enables an even more accurate prognosis of the operating process and the combing and clearing requirements. On the basis of this expanded and improved information situation, the filter effect of the screenings is now used more intensively and for longer in terms of water protection on the one hand. On the other hand, in the case of heavy rainfall and overflow requirements, the spatial performance and thus the relief safety is increased. The machine works locally by integrating digital precipitation data from a web portal. In further steps, the machines are connected to a process control system (see level Telecontrol or remote monitoring technology in Figure 1) or integrated into an asset/maintenance management system for the organization of the necessary maintenance and repair work, in which the documentation requirements of the IT Security Act are also fulfilled by using an ISMS system (see IT Security, Asset Management and Digitization, Operations Management, Law in Figure 1).
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The integration of the various system modules as shown in Figure 2 into a data and service platform (e.g. KOMMUNAL 4.0) optimize the technical side of digitization. All data streams flow together at this platform and can be processed for further analyses and purposes such as Big and Smart Data or for operational support with a user-specified dashboard (see Figure 3). The system in Figure 1 can also be used in the form of a process template to derive the necessary organizational measures from the technical elements.
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Figure 2.
Increase pump efficiency with IntellPump software [4] (screenshot shows real pump characteristic curve and its adaptation by software to ideal curve).
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Figure 3.
Dashboard KOMMUNAL 4.0 [9] (screenshot shows example for a KOMMUNAL 4.0—cockpit = cockpit of a smart city. It shows different data monitoring systems of water facilities that includes energy consumptions, water level, traffic, dust, alarm events incl. local weather data).
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5.1 Start with “anyway” projects
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Even it is often propagated that the development of a comprehensive digital strategy is needed to start digitization, it is often better to start digitalization at a concrete and manageable practical case. Also at the beginning of KOMMUNAL 4.0, the planned application ideas were very strongly described from the perspective of an abstract digitization vision. Addressed municipal users (rightly) hardly understood these ideas and could not transfer them to their own application needs. More and more the communication of the project goals and the first results were changed to take the needs of the municipalities in clear focus. With this strategy suitable digitalization ideas could be discussed and subsequently projected. The most important result to achieve an ideal start was using a current and manageable investment project as an introduction to digitalization [10]. For this purpose, the project partners carried out an analysis of a possible “Anyway” project (investment project, which has already been determined for implementation) and examined how a KOMMUNAL 4.0 solution would serve the respective project objective. In many cases, individual measures have to be filtered out from these “Anyway” projects, in which digitization could be tested to a manageable extent. If the use of the selected digitization measures were reached, the ideas were transferred to the further measures of the “Anyway” projects or would be taken into account in future projects. One example is the above-mentioned development of standardized switchgear for digitized physical precipitation recording. In this pilot project a KOMMUNAL 4.0 idea was tested at 10 physical precipitation measuring stations. If the test run would be successful, the digitization technology of KOMMUNAL 4.0 will also be used in more than 200 measuring stations. The feasibility of more than 40 application development was checked at the project KOMMUNAL 4.0. Also corresponding application concepts and business model possibilities were examined. 20 ideas could be developed up to implementation maturity, half of which were put into practice and tested. The other half of ideas will be implemented outside of the KOMMUNAL 4.0 project starting in 2020 with the exception of four cases. This corresponds to an implementation rate of 80%. This high rate was only possible because almost all pilot projects were based on “Anyway” projects of the communal partners. Three exemplary applications are presented below.
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5.2 Predicting the flooding of gullies
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An exemplary example of a KOMMUNAL 4.0 pilot project is the so called “sinkbox management”. It was developed and tested as one of the first ideas in close coordination with the municipal partner. All sinkbox data were already stored in the HST asset/maintenance system KANiO before the project starts. However, at the beginning it was not possible on the basis of the existing data to estimate which sink boxes were under the risk of flooding during a rainfall event, so an effective preventive maintenance with regard to future heavy rainfall event was not possible. This had to be changed by the joint project.
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On the basis of 10 assessment criteria developed in cooperation with the operating people (Figure 4), a hazard matrix was developed that could be individually created for each sink box. The matrix was integrated into the KANiO software by connecting KOMMUNAL 4.0 platform elements. By linking the KANiO software to KOMMUNAL 4.0 platform and precipitation portal NiRA.web, an automatic data comparison of precipitation forecasts for selected urban areas with the data of the hazard matrix is now carried out. If, for example, a defined rainfall event is forecast for the selected period (e.g. >15 l/mm2 in the next 24 hours), the data of the hazard matrix is compared with the precipitation forecast of NiRA.web and those sink boxes are identified which are most at risk. The system automatically generates a work order for the endangered sink boxes so that the affected sink boxes can be emptied and cleaned as a precaution.
\n
Figure 4.
Input screen sink box management (screenshot shows the input screen for one sink box with different influencing criteria like e.g. heavy rain, leaves, high hydraulic flow, street gradient, root ingrowth snow, flow from dirt roads, drainage capacity; also geodetic and type date).
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5.3 Wastewater flexibility “Diemelsee 4.0”
\n
The municipality of Diemelsee in the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg/Germany is currently constructing a new biological wastewater treatment plant by using the SBR process in the holiday resort of Heringhausen. With its 400 inhabitants, the town has an estimated 4000 overnight guests and 1000 day visitors in the summer months. The large number of guests leads to an extremely fluctuating amount of wastewater monthly and daily. With the help of KOMMUNAL 4.0, the idea was developed to equip the infrastructure with digital control technology to increase the flexibility and efficiency of the sewage treatment plant and the sewer network. The idea was modeled on the pilot project “Digital Sewage Plant Söllingen”, which has already been reported on in detail elsewhere [11]. The wastewater treatment plant and the associated sewer network will be equipped with KOMMUNAL 4.0 control technology elements and networked with precipitation forecasts and tourism data. An additional innovative data analysis for the optimal coupling of the wastewater treatment plant with pressure pipes, pump stations, rainwater retention basins (which are connected upstream of the wastewater treatment plant), for the absorption of hydraulic peak loads and inlet fluctuations into the new SBR plant to be built and the associated sewer network are part of the project. A core element of the project is the Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) approach, which is a kind of artificial intelligence that learns from experience from previous events and derives improvements from it.
\n
\n
\n
5.4 Practice-integrated learning ensures effective knowledge transfer
\n
To ensure that even small measures from the “Anyway” projects are suitable as a start into digitization, a high level of learning and transmission success should be ensured. For this reason, KOMMUNAL 4.0 tested two further developments in practice in addition to the technical pilot projects. On the one hand it is about securing the knowledge of older employees and on the other hand it is about the question how planning, variant consideration, implementation and learning can be integrative and agilely interlinked in a common project execution. In view of the increase in municipal tasks and the simultaneous shortage of personnel and skilled workers, there is a lack of human resources to try out new developments as complementary projects. In the course of KOMMUNAL 4.0, the new methodology HELIP (Highly Efficient Learning in Projects/Processes) was developed in order to meet this challenge effectively. On the basis of current research results on learning and transfer research as well as from project management, measures such as the pilot projects presented are suitable for starting practical digitization at an early stage, even if many digitization topics still need to be learned [12]. The HELIP concept is based on a 360° reflection of the tasks and necessary learning content at the beginning of the planning phase. It assigns the necessary knowledge transfer of new contents to individual organizational contexts and the task of the respective municipality/department/division and integrates them into selected “Anything” projects. The appropriate practice-related task packages are also adapted to the further decisions and planning steps of the overall process. This ensures that the learning outcomes of smaller “Anyway” projects are optimally transferable to larger digitization projects. Learning takes place in everyday working life and is not separated from practice in remote seminars or training courses. The separation of planning/implementation and further training, which has been customary up to now, is thus abolished. In addition, HELIP supports the effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals No. 4, 6, 8, 11 and 13 of the United Nations and can be further developed as a basic principle for management and education in projects to achieve the goals No. 7, 9, 12, 14 and 15.
\n
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6. KOMMUNAL 4.0 ensures that infrastructures retain their value in the future
\n
Many small and medium-sized communities are faced with the challenge of reliably planning for the future in terms of maintaining and expanding their infrastructure in view of the consequences of demographic change. It is not unusual for the largest infrastructure assets to be hidden underground. Up to 70% of this can be accounted for by the sewer system with its special structures and sewage treatment plants [13]. Sufficient and reliable data is required to achieve optimum investment planning. Decisions, based on inaccurate assumptions and estimates, must be reduced to a minimum in the future. A major role is playing a value-preserving operation of existing plants and objects, e.g. through efficient control solutions or cost-saving condition monitoring.
\n
The basis for intelligent data management and the control and operation management is meaningful data acquisition and evaluation. This requires modern IT structures that can be used both locally and as web-based solutions. KOMMUNAL 4.0 pursues this premise and takes care of a fully comprehensive data and IT structure. This starts locally at the machines (CPS), networks the objects with each other and aims at a networked analysis and management of entire infrastructures via the web-based data and service platform. This will create a basic structure that is not limited to applications in water management alone, but will also be suitable for use in other infrastructure sectors. The start into digitization can be made from an overall strategic perspective by setting up a central data and service platform, but also on the basis of software-related or machine-related individual solutions. It must be ensured that all required individual components (see Figure 1) can be networked and thus integrated into the intended overall system.
\n
\n\n',keywords:"digitization, smart water, municipal 4.0",chapterPDFUrl:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/70825.pdf",chapterXML:"https://mts.intechopen.com/source/xml/70825.xml",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/70825",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/70825",totalDownloads:225,totalViews:0,totalCrossrefCites:0,dateSubmitted:"August 22nd 2019",dateReviewed:"November 25th 2019",datePrePublished:"February 13th 2020",datePublished:"February 24th 2021",dateFinished:"January 16th 2020",readingETA:"0",abstract:"Innovative digital developments from industry like autonomous machine controls based on intelligent data acquisition, collection and evaluation, promises better adapting municipal infrastructure systems to changing conditions. When the technology initiative KOMMUNAL 4.0 was developed as an idea in 2015, digitalization was not a central topic in water management. As Industry 4.0 was present everywhere in the media, the idea of transferring suitable parts of the basic idea of Industry 4.0 to municipal water management was born. In particular, it was necessary to implement consistent IT and IoT communication at all levels of water management tasks. The aim was not only to create a uniform structure for networking a wide variety of applications, but also to round off KOMMUNAL 4.0’s complete range of services with IoT for existing and newly developed products and solutions. Regardless of whether it concerns measurement and data technology applications, smart machines, SCADA or asset management systems, all application solutions contain a standardized network core that guarantees standard data communication and also complying with safety and cybersecurity requirements.",reviewType:"peer-reviewed",bibtexUrl:"/chapter/bibtex/70825",risUrl:"/chapter/ris/70825",signatures:"Günter Müller-Czygan",book:{id:"8098",title:"Resources of Water",subtitle:null,fullTitle:"Resources of Water",slug:"resources-of-water",publishedDate:"February 24th 2021",bookSignature:"Prathna Thanjavur Chandrasekaran, Muhammad Salik Javaid, Aftab Sadiq",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/8098.jpg",licenceType:"CC BY 3.0",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"167917",title:"Dr.",name:"Prathna",middleName:null,surname:"Thanjavur Chandrasekaran",slug:"prathna-thanjavur-chandrasekaran",fullName:"Prathna Thanjavur Chandrasekaran"}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},authors:[{id:"310790",title:"M.Sc.",name:"Guenter",middleName:null,surname:"Mueller-Czygan",fullName:"Guenter Mueller-Czygan",slug:"guenter-mueller-czygan",email:"guenter.mueller-czygan@hst.de",position:null,institution:null}],sections:[{id:"sec_1",title:"1. Introduction",level:"1"},{id:"sec_2",title:"2. Industry 4.0—a model for sustainable water management?",level:"1"},{id:"sec_3",title:"3. Why does digitization differ from earlier technology developments?",level:"1"},{id:"sec_4",title:"4. The KOMMUNAL 4.0 project—a German beacon of digitization",level:"1"},{id:"sec_4_2",title:"4.1 The funded project KOMMUNAL 4.0",level:"2"},{id:"sec_5_2",title:"4.2 Association KOMMUNAL 4.0 e.V",level:"2"},{id:"sec_6_2",title:"4.3 From smart machines to smart infrastructures",level:"2"},{id:"sec_8",title:"5. Where to start? Start digitizing correctly!",level:"1"},{id:"sec_8_2",title:"5.1 Start with “anyway” projects",level:"2"},{id:"sec_9_2",title:"5.2 Predicting the flooding of gullies",level:"2"},{id:"sec_10_2",title:"5.3 Wastewater flexibility “Diemelsee 4.0”",level:"2"},{id:"sec_11_2",title:"5.4 Practice-integrated learning ensures effective knowledge transfer",level:"2"},{id:"sec_13",title:"6. KOMMUNAL 4.0 ensures that infrastructures retain their value in the future",level:"1"}],chapterReferences:[{id:"B1",body:'\nUBA. Wasserwirtschaft in Deutschland, Wasserversorgung und Abwasserbeseitigung, Stand April 2014, Zahlen für. 2010\n'},{id:"B2",body:'\nBildquelle. Bundesverband KOMMUNAL 4.0 e.V.\n'},{id:"B3",body:'\nUwe Frigger, Günter Müller-Czygan, Tobias Wiese. Sichere Vor-Ort-Anlagenbedienung mit mobilen Geräten, Automation Blue 2. 2017\n'},{id:"B4",body:'\nGünter Fehr, Günter Müller-Czygan, Die Digitale Kläranlage Söllingen—Pilotprojekt in KOMMUNAL 4.0, Automation Blue 4. 2017\n'},{id:"B5",body:'\nGünter Müller-Czygan, Andreas Stolz, Digitalisierung von Entlastungsschwellen, Automation Blue 1. 2018\n'},{id:"B6",body:'\nChristopher Becker, Günter Müller-Czygan, Mit smarten Maschinen in die digitale Wasserwirtschaft starten, Wasser und Abfall 9/2016\n'},{id:"B7",body:'\nEUWIDD-Interview mit Martin Weyand (BDEW) in: EUWID Wasser und Abwasser 3. 2018\n'},{id:"B8",body:'\nAvailable from: http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Presse/pressemitteilungen,did=720380.html\n\n'},{id:"B9",body:'\nBildquelle: HST Systemtechnik GmbH & Co. KG\n'},{id:"B10",body:'\nBecker C, Müller-Czygan G. Mit smarten Maschinen in die digitale Wasserwirtschaft starten. In: Springer Vieweg, Wasser und Abfall, 9/2016. 2016\n'},{id:"B11",body:'\nFehr G, Müller-Czygan G. Die “Digitale Kläranlage Söllingen” – Pilotprojekt in KOMMUNAL 4.0. In: Vulkan-Verlag GmbH, Automation Blue, 4-2017. 2017\n'},{id:"B12",body:'\nMüller-Czygan G.. “Empirische Untersuchung zur Bedeutung von Lerntransfer-und Umsetzungsfaktoren im Digitalisierungsvorhaben “KOMMUNAL 4.0” unter besonderer Beachtung der Wechselwirkungen von Technik und Veränderungsmanagement” (Master Thesis business psychology at FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management Münster). 2018\n'},{id:"B13",body:'\nStefan Hattenbach. Markus Vogel “Das verborgene Vermögen der Kommunen: Entwicklung einer Strategie zum Werterhalt in einer Dorfgemeinde”, Tagungsband DWA Landesverbandstagung. 2015\n'}],footnotes:[],contributors:[{corresp:"yes",contributorFullName:"Günter Müller-Czygan",address:"guenter.mueller-czygan@hst.de",affiliation:'
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The proposed solutions should not only solve some technical and operational problems of the terminal, but they could allow the port to be included in the Trans‐European Network‐Transport Programme (TEN‐T), promoted by the European Union and aimed to develop the Trans‐European Networks of Transport. Accordingly, the selection of the solution with the most promising potential to satisfy the goals of the TEN‐T policy is a fundamental stage of the project. The case study is an actual AHP application to an evaluation process concerning a pre‐feasibility study of strategic solutions in the logistics and transport fields. 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Prof. Salomon has PhD in Industrial Engineering at University of Sao Paulo (USP), under supervision of Prof. Tamio Shimizu and Post-doctoral research in Decision Making, under Prof. Thomas Saaty. He was visiting scholar for University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and Tennessee State University, where he talked about Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and SCM. Prof. Salomon has published 40 articles in periodicals and he has presented more than 60 abstracts and papers in conferences and symposia. 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Our business values are based on those any scientist applies to their research. The values of our business are based on the same ones that all good scientists apply to their research. We have created a culture of respect and collaboration within a relaxed, friendly, and progressive atmosphere, while maintaining academic rigour.
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Integrity - We are consistent and dependable, always striving for precision and accuracy in the true spirit of science.
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IntechOpen is a dynamic, vibrant company, where exceptional people are achieving great things. We offer a creative, dedicated, committed, and passionate environment but never lose sight of the fact that science and discovery is exciting and rewarding. We constantly strive to ensure that members of our community can work, travel, meet world-renowned researchers and grow their own career and develop their own experiences.
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Integrity - We are consistent and dependable, always striving for precision and accuracy in the true spirit of science.
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Openness - We communicate honestly and transparently. We are open to constructive criticism and committed to learning from it.
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Disruptiveness - We are eager for discovery, for new ideas and for progression. We approach our work with creativity and determination, with a clear vision that drives us forward. We look beyond today and strive for a better tomorrow.
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What makes IntechOpen a great place to work?
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IntechOpen is a dynamic, vibrant company, where exceptional people are achieving great things. We offer a creative, dedicated, committed, and passionate environment but never lose sight of the fact that science and discovery is exciting and rewarding. We constantly strive to ensure that members of our community can work, travel, meet world-renowned researchers and grow their own career and develop their own experiences.
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If this sounds like a place that you would like to work, whether you are at the beginning of your career or are an experienced professional, we invite you to drop us a line and tell us why you could be the right person for IntechOpen.
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