198 research outputs found
Helping Naive Users to Reuse Ontology Design Patterns
The decisive launching of the Semantic Web depends on two key
factors: the design of sound methodologies for guiding users in the reuse of
available knowledge resources that speed up the ontology development, and the
suitability of those methodologies for an average user. In this paper we propose
a method for the reuse of ontology design patterns aimed at users with little
expertise in ontology development, i.e. naive users. The method workflow is
explained in the light of some examples of reuse of logical ontology design
patterns: the SubClassOf relation, Exhaustive Classes and Disjoint Classes
patterns
Design and implementation of an autonomous, proactive, and reactive software infrastructure to help improving the management level of projects
Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de CiĂȘncias e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia ElectrotĂ©cnica e de ComputadoresOver the years, collaboration between humans and organizations have been increasing and becoming vital to face new challenges and achieve the greatest common goals.
The development of new technologies and internet capabilities promoted the emergence of new collaboration types, i.e., collaboration using software connected through internet (Collaborative Workspaces software). The use of the internet amplifies the range of action and the speed of communication among the actors involved in a collaboration.
The collaboration amongst organizations is project-oriented (the common goal is to deal with projects) where several actors involved in the collaboration share their knowledge with each other. These actors are, indeed, the knowledge holders and the system which supports the collaboration has to collect and assess the knowledge from them. For this reason, this thesis aims to design and implement a software infrastructure to capture and capitalize the knowledge created over several projects.
Such software is human-centered and has an autonomous, proactive and reactive behaviour to handle all usersâ needs. This software promotes its own continuous learning by analysing humansâ behaviour over several projects, extracting information from that behaviour, and having Context-awareness. Additionally, it relies on Data mining technologies and semantic services, in order to provide a continuous monitoring of the whole project during its life cycle.
The software developed is called âCompanionâ and has been assessed as a part of the CoSpaces Integrated Project
Semantic Registration and Discovery System of Subsystems and Services within an Interoperable Coordination Platform in Smart Cities
Smart subsystems like traffic, Smart Homes, the Smart Grid, outdoor lighting, etc. are built in many urban areas, each with a set of services that are offered to citizens. These subsystems are managed by self-contained embedded systems. However, coordination and cooperation between them are scarce. An integration of these systems which truly represents a âsystem of systemsâ could introduce more benefits, such as allowing the development of new applications and collective optimization. The integration should allow maximum reusability of available services provided by entities (e.g., sensors or Wireless Sensor Networks). Thus, it is of major importance to facilitate the discovery and registration of available services and subsystems in an integrated way. Therefore, an ontology-based and automatic system for subsystem and service registration and discovery is presented. Using this proposed system, heterogeneous subsystems and services could be registered and discovered in a dynamic manner with additional semantic annotations. In this way, users are able to build customized applications across different subsystems by using available services. The proposed system has been fully implemented and a case study is presented to show the usefulness of the proposed method
Successful competitive strategies of large Croatian and Slovenian enterprises
In this research report, the authors identify and analyze the successful samples of strategic behaviour of large Croatian and Slovenian enterprises, as well as their similarities and dissimilarities. The research has encompassed the levels of corporate and business strategy (i.e. the strategy of a diversified firm and its strategic business units/areas), as well as the analysis of strategic performance and sources of competitive advantage. The research consists of two parts: the theoretical foundation for the analysis of the successful patterns of strategic behaviour and the empirical analysis, based on the primary data collected during the research project
Exploring mathematical activities and dialogue within a pre-service teachersâ calculus module: a case study.
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Local and international research findings have shown that high school learners, university students, as well as some of the practicing educators, struggle with calculus. The large numbers of unqualified or under-qualified mathematics educators are a major contributing factor to this problem. Many researchers agree on the fact that profound subject content knowledge is one of the contributing factors to effective teaching. Thus, this study seeks to explore what is counted as mathematics teaching and learning, what is counted as mathematics, as well as the nature of dialogue in a calculus lecture room.
The Mathematics for Teaching framework and the Cognitive Processes framework informed this study, in order to explore what was counted as mathematics teaching and learning in the calculus lecture room. The Mathematical Activities framework and the Legitimising Appeals framework informed this study, in order to explore what was counted as mathematics in the calculus lecture room. The Inquiry Co-operation Model also informed this study, in order to explore the nature of dialogue within the calculus lecture room.
The findings of this study showed that there are various mathematical activities that develop the studentsâ higher order thinking which is required for problem solving. These activities include mathematical activities that promote conjecturing, proving, investigations, the use of multiple representations, the use of symbols, the use of multiple techniques, as well as activities that promote procedural knowledge through conceptual understanding. These activities also keep the studentsâ cognitive demand at a high level. The findings of this study also showed that the types of questions that are asked by the lecturers have a positive impact on the development of the studentsâ high order thinking, as well as in terms of keeping the studentsâ cognitive demand at high levels. The study has also shown that the lecturers exhibited a variety of mathematics for teaching skills and this is done both explicitly and implicitly. It has also been revealed that introducing the rules of anti-differentiation as the reverse of differentiation is an alternative way to introducing the concepts of integral calculus. Based on these findings, it was recommended that students who enrol for the calculus module with low marks in mathematics, ought to use the derivative concept and the rules of differentiation as a foundation to build on the rules of anti-differentiation
A New Framework for Strategic Information Systems in Airline Industry
Stiff competition in the Airline sector mandates airlines to innovate ways to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals; however, without a strong IT the mission to attain this would be arduous. Large airlines do their best to maximise the use of enterprise systems to stream their business processes. Nonetheless, some airlines are not up to date with technology and are left with few choices when attempting to secure their existence in todayâs harsh market. One option is to implement bleeding edge systems concurrently (which is our focus in this paper) due to the fact that very scant research exists regarding this phenomenon, let alone the airline sector itself.
The aim of this study is explore and investigate the phenomenon of deploying multi enterprise systems concurrently due to its uniqueness and owing to the fact that this approach is not the common practice most airline undertake. We argue here that having multi Airline Solution Providers (ASP) working together concurrently to constitute a homogeneous solution generates many aspects that necessitate a deep understanding in such matters as competitor ASPs and technology leakage. In addition, the study explored various themes that unleash the phenomenon of the concurrent Multi- collaborative Enterprise Systems (MES). The role of cohesion factors that groups the rivals to work under the umbrella of an organisation was also embarked upon in this study. Various aspects contributing to the success of the MES phenomenon have been exposed with regarding ASPâs interplay, organisation, and other contextual surrounding MES. Finally, this study drew a strategic frame work for airlines that unleash the MES phenomenon.
A large airline and its collaborative airline solutions provider were taken as the scope of study; the airline had over twenty six thousand employees. Five reputable world class ASPs in the airline industry in various fields were also included. The twenty five participants in this study were professionals in IT and the airline business besides being involved heavily in the phenomenon of deploying concurrent multi enterprise systems. Grounded Theory techniques were used to analyse the large volume of data gathered underpinning this by using state of art software package such as nVivo.
This research has explored the phenomenon under study using grounded theory methodology to build a theoretical model that best presents the MES initiative. In addition, it has offered a well-founded framework that explains the MES phenomenon in details, which is relevant to both practitioners and researchers.This research has clearly explored and demonstrated the inhibitors and enablers in the undertaking of MES. In particular, it has focused on enablers of the organisation that received the MES. Furthermore, it has explored the interrelationship between ASPs and exposed some of the aspects that need more focus between rivals working on the same project.Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabi
Entrepreneurship and inequality in Latin America: social entrepreneurship for the generation of networking and absorptive capabilities
Presented at the GLOBELICS 6th International Conference 2008 22-24 September, Mexico City, Mexico.This paper intends to contribute to the current debate about the need of social and
productive technological change in LDCs. In particular, we analyse micro-enterprises and
SMEs' role in the tecno-economic paradigm change. Although commonly associated to
either traditional and retardant forces, the point we wish to make is that the vast majority
of the latent and emergent entrepreneurial force (i.e. micro-enterprises and SMEs) in
LDCs, at present largely disconnected from the national and transnational economic
circuit, represent a huge potential for the techno-economic paradigm change. By analogy,
these latent forces represent what Albert Einstein taught us about whereby a single brick
can be made to release a huge amount of energy in the form of an atomic explosion (De
Soto 2000). Latent entrepreneurship is comparable to the potential nuclear energy in
Einstein's brick, however, as should be clear by the end of the paper, our examination
departs from that of the De SotoÂŽs in some important aspects
A Strategic Approach to Enhancing Sustainable Practices in Public Building Projects :a Case Study of Indonesian Local Authorities
In the last few decades, there has been well documented evidence that the performance of the public building projects in local authorities in Indonesia does not fully meet the expectation of the stakeholders involved and demonstrates sustainable practices. This mediocre performance impacts on the competitiveness of building industry, and therefore would require the development of a strategic approach to address these fundamental structural and cultural issues. The strategic approach, which facilitates sustainable practices, to a large extent, depends on the local priorities, goals and success criteria, which are dynamic and influenced by the expectations of various stakeholders involved in the procurement of public buildings. This research aims to develop a conceptual framework that will help local authorities to enhance sustainable practices of public building management. The empirical research work adopted case study strategy involving interviews with 24 public building practitioners and investigation of building defects on 34 projects. This research proposes LACU model, which represents a triangular relationship between contractors, local authorities and building end-users to illustrate the interactions between parties when undertaking their tasks throughout the project lifecycle. A framework of Sustainable-Dynamic Capabilities was developed and applied to enhance understanding of sustainability provisions in public building development. Based on this framework and stakeholdersâ mapping illustrated by LACU model, this research has enhanced understanding on strategies of local authority to implement sustainable practices on public building projects. A template analysis through interview transcripts has been adopted to identify strategic approaches of local authority to deliver successful project by determining the roles of stakeholder at three different levels, provincial, regency or city and special authority. This research provides a novel empirically-based guidance for the local authorities to undertake sustainable public building procurement throughout project life cycle by adopting strategic approaches, such as employing innovative construction method, appropriate policy intervention by local leader, and changing business orientation
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