40 research outputs found

    AGILE ADOPTION IN INVESTMENT BANKS

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    Many companies and organizations, regardless of industries, countries, size, and cultures, are in the process of transiting from traditional project management methods to Agile. When it comes to financial industry, today’s investment banks, face more unstable market conditions, faster changes of worldwide politics, economies and technologies, stricter regulations, and greater pressure to meet customers’ requirements and sustain revenue growth. Investment banks are usually full-service global financial institutions, which provide advisory and financing banking services, as well as sales, market making, and research on financial products. Therefore, investment banks are in great need to transform from traditional PM concepts to Agile. However, a big issue in investment banks is the lack of applying Agile. To address this issue, this thesis is focusing on “what is the current status of adopting Agile in investment banks”, “why investment banks have not fully adopted Agile”, “why investment banks should adopt Agile methodology” and “how to apply agile in investment banks”. The research of this thesis will be conducted using two main approaches. To answer the first three questions mentioned above, two main approaches, researching the existing articles and questionnaire survey among the investment banks employees, will be used. Based on the findings and conclusions of the research and the survey, recommendations will be provided to address how investment banks can successfully apply Agile within the organization. The results of the research will be able to provide a guidance for investment banks on how to smoothly transit from traditional project management methods to Agile, and help to bring more attention to this topic and stimulate more related research in the future

    Understanding Agility in ISD Projects

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    Since the 2001 publication of the Agile Manifesto, agile information systems development (ISD) methods have enjoyed increasing popularity. Extant research has highlighted critical challenges and key benefits associated with agile methods. Notwithstanding, the contribution of the actions performed by actors involved in an ISD project toward the achievement of agility remains unclear. This issue motivated the present study, which addresses the question of “how do project teams achieve agility in ISD projects? . To answer this question a theoretical lens that accounts for the shared understanding that actors have of the ISD process as well as its actual unfolding is adopted. Building on extant conceptualizations of agility in ISD and its constituting facets, a study of three ISD projects within an organization is conducted. The main expected contribution of the study is to offer insight into the actions that contribute to the achievement of the various facets of agility in ISD

    Factors that contribute significantly to scrum adoption as perceived by scrum practitioners working within South Africa organisations

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    Text in EnglishScrum is the most adopted and under-researched Agile methodology. The research conducted on Scrum adoption is mainly qualitative. Therefore, there was a need for a quantitative study to investigate Scrum adoption challenges. The general objective of this study was to investigate the factors that have a significant relationship with Scrum adoption as perceived by Scrum practitioners working within South African organisations. To achieve this objective a narrative review to synthesise the existing challenges was conducted, followed by the use of these challenges in the development of a conceptual framework. After that, a survey questionnaire was used to test and evaluate the developed framework. The research findings indicate that relative advantage, complexity, and sprint management are factors that have a significant linear relationship with Scrum adoption. The findings are generalisable to the population, and the author recommends that organisations review the findings during their adoption phase of Scrum.Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)University of South Africa (UNISA)School of ComputingM.Sc. (Computing

    Framework to predict the metabolic syndrome without doing a blood test: based on machine learning for a clinical decision support system

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    Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of risk factors that increase the likelihood of heart disease and diabetes mellitus, and researchers have recently linked it to worse outcomes for the novel Covid-19 disease. It is crucial to get diagnosed with time to take preventive measures, especially for patients in locations without proper laboratories and medical consultations. This work presents a new model to diagnose metabolic syndrome using machine learning and non-biochemical variables that healthcare professionals can obtain from initial consultations. For evaluating and comparing the model, this work also proposes a new methodology for performing research on data mining called RAMAD. The methodology standardizes the novel model’s comparison with similar classification models, using their reported variables and previously obtained data from a study in Colombia, using the holdout and random subsampling validation methods to get performance evaluation indicators between the models. The resulting ANN model used three hidden layers and only Hip Circumference, dichotomous Waist Circumference, and dichotomous blood pressure variables. It gave an Area under Receiver Operating Characteristic curves (AROC) of 87.75% by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and 85.12% by Harmonized Diagnosis or Joint Interim Statement (HMS) diagnosis criteria, higher than previous models. Thanks to the new methodology, diagnosis models can be thoroughly documented for appropriate future comparisons, thus benefiting the studied diseases’ diagnosis. Medical personnel needs to know the factors involved in the syndrome to start a treatment. So, this work also presents the segmentation of metabolic syndrome in types related to each biochemical variable. It uses the RAMAD methodology together with several machine learning techniques to design a framework to predict MetS and their several types, without using a blood test and only anthropometric and clinical information. The results showed an excellent system for predicting six MetS types that combine several factors mentioned above that have an AROC with a range of 71% to 96%, and an AROC 82.86%. This thesis finishes with the proposal of using a SCRUM Thinking framework for creating mobile health applications to implement the new models and serve as decision tools for healthcare professionals. The standard and fundamental characteristics were analyzed, finding the quality attributes verified in the framework’s early stages. Keywords — Metabolic Syndrome, Segmentation, Quine–McCluskey, Random Subsampling validation, RAMAD, Machine learning, Framework, International Diabetes Federation (IDF), Harmonized Diagnosis or Joint Interim Statement (HMS).DoctoradoDoctor en Ingeniería de Sistemas y Computació

    Models of ICT Innovation. A Focus on the Cinema Sector

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    The report starts by looking at the competing and overlapping definitions of creative industries, media and content industries. Chapter 1 investigates the fate of R&D and innovation in the creative industries and in the broader Telecom Media and Technology sectors. Chapter 2 summarizes past studies on innovation in distinct media and content industries (videogames, music recording and newspapers publishing) and draws some lessons from them. Chapter 3 delves more deeply into the specific case of cinema. This chapter investigates the film industry's complex and evolving relationship with technologies and technological inventions. Chapter 4 offers a short cross-comparison with R&D in the book publishing industry. Chapter 5 deals with policy issues triggered by the observed digital changes. Chapter 6 concludes with a brief assessment of EU strengths and weaknesses, and offers some recommendations.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

    The COVID-19-crisis and the information polity: An overview of responses and discussions in twenty-one countries from six continents

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    Governments around the world are utilizing data and information systems to manage the COVID-19-crisis. To obtain an overview of all these efforts, this global report presents the expert reports of 21 countries regarding the relation between the COVID-19-crisis and the information polity. A comparative analysis of these reports highlights that governments focus on strengthening six functions: management of information for crisis management, publishing public information for citizens, providing digital services to citizens, monitoring citizens in public space, facilitating information exchange between citizens and developing innovative responses to COVID-19. The comparative overview of information responses to the COVID-19-crisis shows that these responses cannot only be studied from a rational perspective on government information strategies but need to be studied as political and symbolic interventions.Contributing Authors: Frank Bannister, Colin J. Bennett, Kaiping Chen, Heungsuk Choi, J. Ignacio Criado, Maria Alexandra Cunha, Mehmet Akif Demircioglu, Mila Gasco-Hernandez, Paul Henman, Douglas Kimemia, Veiko Lember, Karl Löfgren, Luis F. Luna-Reyes, Albert Meijer, Ines Mergel, David Murakami Wood, Giorgia Nesti, Erico Przeybilovicz, Aarthi Raghavan, Ola Svenonius, Rosamunde van Brakel, William Webster, Mete Yildi

    Juggling with the norms:Everyday practice in an emergency service in Niger

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    Risk Management

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    Every business and decision involves a certain amount of risk. Risk might cause a loss to a company. This does not mean, however, that businesses cannot take risks. As disengagement and risk aversion may result in missed business opportunities, which will lead to slower growth and reduced prosperity of a company. In today's increasingly complex and diverse environment, it is crucial to find the right balance between risk aversion and risk taking. To do this it is essential to understand the complex, out of the whole range of economic, technical, operational, environmental and social risks associated with the company's activities. However, risk management is about much more than merely avoiding or successfully deriving benefit from opportunities. Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks. Lastly, risk management helps a company to handle the risks associated with a rapidly changing business environment

    Proceedings of 31st Annual ARCOM Conference, vol 2

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    Time for a Nappy Change: beliefs and attitudes towards modern cloth nappies.

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    The United Nations Environment Programme highlights how the use of disposable nappies has become unsustainable, yet the practice of using modern cloth nappies (MCN) is niche. This study uses mixed methods of survey, story completion and focus group methods to explore how behaviour beliefs and attitudes to behaviour contribute to families’ decision making regarding the nappy system they use for their children. 1588 responded to the survey; 38 completed story completion activity; 24 participated in groups. This study finds that beliefs about the performance as a nappy, environmental credentials, financial considerations, laundry, effort, and hygiene differ according to the level of personal experience of using MCN. While beliefs about the environmentalcredentials of MCN create powerful drivers for the intention to use MCN, other beliefs about the upfront costs, laundry and effort contribute a negative attitude to MCN overall if their support network of other MCN users is not established. Current MCN users found using cloth nappy retailer websites, nappy libraries, and social media groups, including pre-loved and-sell groups, to be beneficial in improving attitude to MCN. This study concludes that interventions that simultaneously reduce or remove perceived barriers such as upfront costs, financial risks and too much effort, paired with campaigns which increase the likelihood of finding support, are more likely, than individual interventions, to be effective in increasing the number of families using MCN.Further study is needed to investigate the potential of interventions which reduce the financial risks such as, easy to access hire kits, spread the cost of MCN and pre-natal and newborn public services such as midwives and health visitors being well informed and encouraging of the use of MCN.<br/
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