Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The doctoral research abstracts. Vol:7 2015 / Institute of Graduate Studies, UiTM

Foreword: The Seventh Issue of The Doctoral Research Abstracts captures the novelty of 65 doctorates receiving their scrolls in UiTM’s 82nd Convocation in the field of Science and Technology, Business and Administration, and Social Science and Humanities. To the recipients I would like to say that you have most certainly done UiTM proud by journeying through the scholastic path with its endless challenges and impediments, and persevering right till the very end. This convocation should not be regarded as the end of your highest scholarly achievement and contribution to the body of knowledge but rather as the beginning of embarking into high impact innovative research for the community and country from knowledge gained during this academic journey. As alumni of UiTM, we will always hold you dear to our hearts. A new ‘handshake’ is about to take place between you and UiTM as joint collaborators in future research undertakings. I envisioned a strong research pact between you as our alumni and UiTM in breaking the frontier of knowledge through research. I wish you all the best in your endeavour and may I offer my congratulations to all the graduands. ‘UiTM sentiasa dihati ku’ / Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Prof Ir Dr Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar , FASc, PEng Vice Chancellor Universiti Teknologi MAR

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Mobile Payments in the Netherlands: Adoption Bottlenecks and Opportunities, or… Throw Out Your Wallets

Het doel van dit onderzoek is het analyseren van de marktgrootte van mobiel betalen en de bijbehorende omzetbasis, alsmede de invoering van knelpunten, om inzicht te verkrijgen in de introductie en ontwikkeling van mobiele bankservices in Nederland. Het onderzoek beschrijft verscheidene aspecten van mobiel betalen/mobiel bankieren in Nederland. Onderwerpen als implementatie, wetgeving, geschatte businesscase, aanbevolen businessmodel, ontwikkelingsscenario’s, een SWOT - analyse van technische oplossingen, organisatorische knelpunten, een analyse van de redenen van succes en falen en openstaande problemen en uitdagingen komen aan de orde. Het voornaamste doel van het onderzoek is het trachten te beantwoorden van de vraag of er een markt voor mobiel betalen is in Nederland en een analyse geven van waarom mobiele bankservices niet succesvol zijn geweest in Nederland. Bovendien dient gemeld te worden dat de focus van dit verslag lag op microbetalingen, waar over het algemeen betalingen tot €10 onder verstaan worden.The purpose of this research report is to analyse the mobile payment market size and its revenue basis, as well as adoption bottlenecks, in view of establishing the adoption and deployment of mobile banking services in The Netherlands. The research report describes various aspects with regard to mobile payments/mobile banking in The Netherlands. Issues like implementation, regulatory framework, estimated business case, deployment scenario’s, recommended business model, a SWOT analysis of the technical solutions, organisational bottlenecks, an analysis of the reasons for success and failures, and open issues and challenges are addressed. The main aim is to try to answer the question whether there is a market in The Netherlands for mobile banking services, and providing an analysis of why M-banking services have not been so successful in The Netherlands. Furthermore, it needs to be mentioned that the focus of this paper was on micro-payments, which are generally considered to be payments of up to €10

A Framework for Controlling & Managing Traffic with Modern Technology

Thousands of people die on roads every day. Despite advances in technology, controlling vehicular traffic remains a challenge. Modern technologies can be very helpful in controlling and managing traffic. In particular, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning (ML) have created a new level of automation of services and applications, which have given rise to smart cities, smart health, smart business, and smart transportation. In this thesis, we shall provide a framework for better and comprehensive control and management of road traffic with the help of modern technology. The proposed system has four layers, namely Application Service Layer, Cloud Computing Layer, Fog Computing Layer, and Sensing and Objects Layer. We shall provide details of these layers and associated levels. The First level of the proposed solution addresses the issue of traffic congestion at intersections, with a proposal of a dynamic smart traffic light with the help of Image processing algorithms. The second level will deal with the surveillance of selected streets to provide information about possible hazards. The third level deals with data mining and machine learning algorithms to add information to the knowledgebase to enable better planning. The fourth level proposes several applications to assist general services like school buses, ambulance, parking, places of interest, pollution, emergency cases, etc. Congestion often occurs during peak hours. One of the causes of increased volume of traffic in town centres and business districts is a lack of suitable carparks. In this thesis, we also provide a framework for smart parking which can be extremely helpful in preventing frantic searches for parking, which are a cause of congestion. Road users often use various services like toll tax, parking-fee services, etc. These often require users to furnish their data to the service provider, who could potentially breach their privacy. We shall discuss ways to preserve the location and ID of the users. We shall also provide a framework for assisting with emergencies like accidents. Several measures proposed in this thesis may also be used in other situations

Internet of Things From Hype to Reality

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained significant mindshare, let alone attention, in academia and the industry especially over the past few years. The reasons behind this interest are the potential capabilities that IoT promises to offer. On the personal level, it paints a picture of a future world where all the things in our ambient environment are connected to the Internet and seamlessly communicate with each other to operate intelligently. The ultimate goal is to enable objects around us to efficiently sense our surroundings, inexpensively communicate, and ultimately create a better environment for us: one where everyday objects act based on what we need and like without explicit instructions

The impact on organisational performance as a result of investment in self-service technology within the South African financial services industry

The advent of self-service technology (SST) and the adoption thereof has occurred in many industries and sectors globally. The financial services and banking sector embraced the SST transformation and invested heavily into this channel including the South African industry. This study aims to understand the causal relationship between the investment into the SST channel and the impact it has on organisational performance within the South African context. This research exercise applied a single unit of analysis case study research strategy to examine the impact on the organisation's various performance criteria, namely profitability, productivity, cost efficiency and intangible benefits as a result of a SST investment strategy. Qualitative data was collected from interviews with key informants from the selected organisation and analysed thematically. The study adopted a theory based deductive approach using the DeLone and McLean model of IS success (2003) as its underlying research framework. The findings of this study deduced that with an appropriate investment strategy in SSTs, there would be a positive impact on the net benefits of the organisation with an explicit relationship dynamic. This study lends support to earlier studies of this nature, particularly with regard to the SST channel offering, as there is a lack of literature due to the evolution of perception and recency of this technology channel. The relationship dynamic aspects between the constructs of this study also contributes to the closing of gaps within the body of knowledge that exists. However it must be noted that these findings are based on a single unit of analysis case study research strategy which connotes limitations in terms of generalisations

Campus Communications Systems: Converging Technologies

This book is a rewrite of Campus Telecommunications Systems: Managing Change, a book that was written by ACUTA in 1995. In the past decade, our industry has experienced a thousand-fold increase in data rates as we migrated from 10 megabit links (10 million bits per second) to 10 gigabit links (10 billion bits per second), we have seen the National Telecommunications Policy completely revamped; we have seen the combination of voice, data, and video onto one network; and we have seen many of our service providers merge into larger corporations able to offer more diverse services. When this book was last written, A CUT A meant telecommunications, convergence was a mathematical term, triple play was a baseball term, and terms such as iPod, DoS, and QoS did not exist. This book is designed to be a communications primer to be used by new entrants into the field of communications in higher education and by veteran communications professionals who want additional information in areas other than their field of expertise. There are reference books and text books available on every topic discussed in this book if a more in-depth explanation is desired. Individual chapters were authored by communications professionals from various member campuses. This allowed the authors to share their years of experience (more years than many of us would care to admit to) with the community at large. Foreword Walt Magnussen, Ph.D. Preface Ron Kovac, Ph.D. 1 The Technology Landscape: Historical Overview . Walt Magnussen, Ph.D. 2 Emerging Trends and Technologies . Joanne Kossuth 3 Network Security . Beth Chancellor 4 Security and Disaster Planning and Management Marjorie Windelberg, Ph.D. 5 Student Services in a University Setting . Walt Magnussen, Ph.D. 6 Administrative Services David E. O\u27Neill 7 The Business Side of Information Technology George Denbow 8 The Role of Consultants . David C. Metz Glossary Michelle Narcavag

Convergence: the next big step

Recently, web based multimedia services have gained popularity and have proven themselves to be viable means of communication. This has inspired the telecommunication service providers and network operators to reinvent themselves to try and provide value added IP centric services. There was need for a system which would allow new services to be introduced rapidly with reduced capital expense (CAPEX) and operational expense (OPEX) through increased efficiency in network utilization. Various organizations and standardization agencies have been working together to establish such a system. Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a result of these efforts. IMS is an application level system. It is being developed by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) and 3GPP2 (3rd Generation Partnership Project 2) in collaboration with IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunication Standardization Sector), and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) etc. Initially, the main aim of IMS was to bring together the internet and the cellular world, but it has extended to include traditional wire line telecommunication systems as well. It utilizes existing internet protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting protocol), and COPS (Common Open Policy Service) etc, and modifies them to meet the stringent requirements of reliable, real time communication systems. The advantages of IMS include easy service quality management (QoS), mobility management, service control and integration. At present a lot of attention is being paid to providing bundled up services in the home environment. Service providers have been successful in providing traditional telephony, high speed internet and cable services in a single package. But there is very little integration among these services. IMS can provide a way to integrate them as well as extend the possibility of various other services to be added to allow increased automation in the home environment. This thesis extends the concept of IMS to provide convergence and facilitate internetworking of the various bundled services available in the home environment; this may include but is not limited to communications (wired and wireless), entertainment, security etc. In this thesis, I present a converged home environment which has a number of elements providing a variety of communication and entertainment services. The proposed network would allow effective interworking of these elements, based on IMS architecture. My aim is to depict the possible advantages of using IMS to provide convergence, automation and integration at the residential level