Verifying Workflow Models with Data Values - a Case Study of SMR Spectrum Auctions

Industry takes a great interest in verification techniques to improve the reliability of process designs. Providing reliable design in application domains like spectrum auctions is crucial. Spectrum auction revenue is considered as one of the principal sources for governmental income. Hence, analyzing the auction design before applying it can ensure absence of undesirable results of an auction. Those results might even be bad, if they occur with a probability of just higher than zero. Current verification approaches are mainly devoted to verify control ows only, although data values play a significant role in real life applications. Thus, these approaches are not sufficient to support data-centered work ows as spectrum auctions. We address this issue by providing a new data-centered verification approach to analyze Simultaneous Multi-Round (SMR) auction design in BPMN format. We show how to enhance a BPMN model by including important information, namely data values used in the work ow, which the standard BPMN 2.0 does not support. An example of a data value in a SMR auction is the "auctioneer\u27s revenue". To enable the verification of data-centered properties, we have developed a transformation of a data-value enhanced BPMN model to Petri Nets respecting the semantics of certain data value usages. For that, we support dynamic and correlated data values. By employing a model checker and defining data-centered properties in CTL formula, we verify SMR auction models to find undesirable executions for auctioneers. For example, we can precisely detect the worst values of three important measures in auctions: efficiency, revenue, and bidder\u27s profit. With it, we can not only find the undesirable outcomes, but also provide a counter-example to help an auctioneer to improve the auction design

Analysis of tourist demand on Ramsar sites: Santay Island (Ecuador)

Las actividades recreacionales de naturaleza, como el ecoturismo, yacen sobre fantasías y emociones, y estas pueden explicar el comportamiento de compra de los turistas, eligiendo aquellos productos que tienen significados simbólicos de manera multidimensional desde el valor funcional, el emocional y el social, que van más allá de los precios, los atributos tangibles y la calidad percibida. Dado que la Isla Santay es una Área Nacional de Recreación, Área Nacional Protegida de Ecuador, goza de la denominación de sitio Ramsar de Importancia Internacional #1.041 del mundo, los trabajos de infraestructura realizados por el Gobierno Nacional dio como resultado el crecimiento del 3.118,0% en el número de visitas al lugar en el 2014; y, que la Asociación de Servicios Turísticos de la Isla Santay provee servicios de orden comunitario, justifican el interés por conocer y entender las relaciones existentes entre el valor percibido y las motivaciones, satisfacción y lealtad de los turistas que visitan la Isla Santay. Se ha realizado esta Tesis Doctoral basada en un estudio sobre la demanda turística que realiza ecoturismo en el sitio Ramsar: Isla Santay, con el objetivo de conocer las características de la visita, el perfil sociodemográfico de los turistas que acuden, el valor percibido que tiene la isla como destino turístico, la propensión a pagar por la conservación del espacio natural, la satisfacción y lealtad del turista hacia el destino. Lo significativo y valioso de este trabajo es que se ha podido realizar una segmentación turística a partir del valor percibido, se ha podido identificar que las motivaciones están condicionadas por el valor percibido y además éste último también condiciona el nivel de satisfacción y lealtad del turista hacia este espacio natural. Además, se ha podido identificar un precio promedio que el turista estaría dispuesto a pagar para contribuir con la conservación del Área Nacional Protegida y el impacto económico de la actividad turística sobre la comuna en el año 2016. Se ha realizado un análisis estadístico de los datos haciendo uso del programa SPSS, v. 23.0, con el que se ha recurrido al análisis factorial como herramienta para reducir los datos y así, encontrar grupos homogéneos desde el punto de vista del valor percibido que tienen los turistas de la Isla Santay. Tomando como referencia las dimensiones de percepción de valor extraídas, se ha hecho uso de la técnica multivariante de agrupación de casos (conglomerados jerárquicos y K-medias) con la intención de analizar la aproximación existente entre los datos obtenidos de las 894 encuestas válidas. También, se ha utilizado el análisis discriminante para certificar la agrupación de casos obtenidos en dichos conglomerados. Desde las dimensiones de valor percibido (hedónica, monetaria y funcional), se ha detectado cuatro segmentos o clústeres de turistas caracterizados en función del valor percibido (alta percepción, percepción medioalta, percepción media y percepción baja). Asimismo, las motivaciones de empuje son las que más estimulan a los turistas a visitar la isla, quienes declaran estar relativamente satisfechos tras la visita, destacándose el segmento de alta percepción como los más satisfechos, en quienes, a su vez, el grado de lealtad actitudinal es significativamente más elevado.Recreational activities in nature, such as ecotourism, lie in fantasies and emotions. These aspects can explain purchasing behavior of tourists, who choose products that have symbolic meanings in a multidimensional way, such as through functional, emotional and social value, which go beyond price, tangible attributes and perceived quality. Since Santay Island is a National Recreation Area and National Protected Area of Ecuador, it has the designation of being Ramsar Site of International Importance # 1041 in the world. The infrastructure created by the National Government resulted in a growth of 3,118.0% in the number of visits to the site in 2014 and Santay Island Tourist Services Association provides Community-Based tourism. This provides justification for the interest in knowing and understanding the relationships between the perceived value and the motivations, satisfaction and loyalty of tourists who visit the island. This doctoral thesis has been carried out based on a study of the tourist demand in a Ramsar Site: Santay Island, with the aim of knowing the characteristics of the visits, the sociodemographic profiles of the tourists who come, the perceived value over the island as a tourist destination, the propensity to pay for the conservation of the natural site, and the satisfaction and loyalty of the tourists towards the destination. The significant and valuable aspects of this work are that it has been possible to obtain a tourist segmentation based on their perceived value and to identify that motivations, as well as satisfaction and loyalty, are conditioned by the perceived value. In addition, it has been possible to identify an average price that tourists would be willing to pay to contribute to the conservation of the National Protected Area, and the economic impact of tourist activity on the commune in 2016. The statistical analysis of the data has been carried out using the SPSS v. 23.0 program, which was used to obtain a factor analysis as a tool for data reduction in order to find homogeneous groups from the variables of perceived value. Taking the dimensions of perceived value extracted as reference, a multivariate technique of grouping cases (hierarchical clusters and K-means) was used with the intention of analyzing the similarities between the data obtained from 894 valid surveys. Also, discriminant analysis was used to validate the grouping of cases obtained in said clusters. From the dimensions of perceived value (hedonic, monetary and functional), four segments or clusters of tourists have been detected and characterized by perceived value (high perception, medium-high perception, medium perception and low perception). Likewise, push motivations are found to be the ones that most stimulate tourists to visit the island, who also declare themselves to be relatively satisfied after the visit. This distinguishes the high perception segment as the most satisfied and for whom, in turn, the degree of attitudinal loyalty is significantly higher