An Analysis of Service Ontologies

Services are increasingly shaping the world’s economic activity. Service provision and consumption have been profiting from advances in ICT, but the decentralization and heterogeneity of the involved service entities still pose engineering challenges. One of these challenges is to achieve semantic interoperability among these autonomous entities. Semantic web technology aims at addressing this challenge on a large scale, and has matured over the last years. This is evident from the various efforts reported in the literature in which service knowledge is represented in terms of ontologies developed either in individual research projects or in standardization bodies. This paper aims at analyzing the most relevant service ontologies available today for their suitability to cope with the service semantic interoperability challenge. We take the vision of the Internet of Services (IoS) as our motivation to identify the requirements for service ontologies. We adopt a formal approach to ontology design and evaluation in our analysis. We start by defining informal competency questions derived from a motivating scenario, and we identify relevant concepts and properties in service ontologies that match the formal ontological representation of these questions. We analyze the service ontologies with our concepts and questions, so that each ontology is positioned and evaluated according to its utility. The gaps we identify as the result of our analysis provide an indication of open challenges and future work

Value proposition as a framework for value co-creation in crowd-funding ecosystem

The present paper suggests that crowd-funding in the arts and cultural sector occurs within a complex service ecosystem, where six categories of value propositions frame eight value co-creation processes, namely through ideation, evaluation, design, testing, launch, financing and authorship. Managerial contributions include the development of a crowd-funding service ecosystem model for arts managers, which offers not only a method of financing or economic value, but which also offers opportunities for strengthening bonds with customers and other stakeholders. Our paper is innovative in that we integrate value propositions categories with the micro – meso and macro contexts and analyse the different kind of co-creation are framed in the crowdfunding contextUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Integrating methods for ecosystem service assessment and valuation: mixed methods or mixed messages?

A mixed-method approach was used to assess and value the ecosystem services derived from the Dogger Bank, an extensive shallow sandbank in the southern North Sea. Three parallel studies were undertaken that 1) identified and quantified, where possible, how indicators for ecosystem service provision may change according to two future scenarios, 2) assessed members of the public's willingness-to-pay for improvements to a small number of ecosystem services as a consequence of a hypothetical management plan, and 3) facilitated a process of deliberation that allowed members of the public to explore the uses of the Dogger Bank and the conflicts and dilemmas involved in its management. Each of these studies was designed to answer different and specific research questions and therefore contributes different insights about the ecosystem services delivered by the Dogger Bank. This paper explores what can be gained by bringing these findings together post hoc and the extent to which the different methods are complementary. Findings suggest that mixed-method research brings more understanding than can be gained from the individual approaches alone. Nevertheless, the choice of methods used and how these methods are implemented strongly affects the results obtained

Strategies for sustainable socio-economic development and mechanisms their implementation in the global dimension

The authors of the book have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to effectively use modern approaches to developing and implementation strategies of sustainable socio-economic development in order to increase efficiency and competitiveness of economic entities. Basic research focuses on economic diagnostics of socio-economic potential and financial results of economic entities, transition period in the economy of individual countries and ensuring their competitiveness, assessment of educational processes and knowledge management. The research results have been implemented in the different models and strategies of supply and logistics management, development of non-profit organizations, competitiveness of tourism and transport, financing strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises, cross-border cooperation. The results of the study can be used in decision-making at the level the economic entities in different areas of activity and organizational-legal forms of ownership, ministries and departments that promote of development the economic entities on the basis of models and strategies for sustainable socio-economic development. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in modern concepts and mechanisms for management of sustainable socio-economic development of economic entities in the condition of global economic transformations and challenges

Environmental justice in agricultural systems. An evaluation of success factors and barriers by the example of the Philippine farmer network MASIPAG

A twofold challenge arises from the normative aim of environmental justice to the management of agricultural systems: (1) the improvement of food security and livelihood of the rural poor today; (2) the sustenance and enhancement of the long-term productivity and resilience of agricultural systems to future generations. The paper analyzes the success factors and barriers of the Philippine farmer network MASIPAG in simultaneously realizing both objectives - based philosophically on Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” (1971), conceptually on specific determinants of the relationship between the objectives, and empirically on the results of a comprehensive evaluation of the MASIPAG network.environmental justice, ecosystem services, agriculture, agrobiodiversity, Philippines