Assessing the Rental Value of Residential Properties: An Abductive Learning Networks Approach

This paper attempts to estimate rental value of residential properties using Abductive Learning Networks (ALN), and artificial intelligence technique. The results indicate that the ALN model provides an accurate estimation of rents with only seven input variables, while other multivariate statistical techniques do not. The ALN model automatically selects the best network structure, node types and coefficients, and therefore it simplifies the maintenance of the model. Once the final model is synthesized, the ALN model becomes very compact, rapidly executable and cost-effective.

Business Process Management Education in Academia: Status, challenges, and Recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise

Women in Power: Examining the Pathway to the Top

As more women begin to enter the upper management ranks of the business world, researchers have recognized several patterns in terms of common factors which influence career paths and choices. Based on this, I conducted a study with the purpose of identifying those influences and traits which women in the field most attributed to their individual success. This information could thereafter be used as a guide for young women such as myself who are about to begin their own career paths within this field. Through the use of survey and individual interview, my findings indicated that individual background, family support, education, and activities were shown to be the most influential aspects of professional development, while key personality traits necessary to success as noted by the participants included a mixture of both individual (self-motivation, perseverance, etc.) and interpersonal (communication, compassion, etc.) abilities. Advice offered by respondents again emphasized the need for individual motivation combined with the strong interpersonal skills which facilitate professional relationships

Cognitive Reserve and Its Effect in Older Adults on Retrieval of Proper Names, Logo Names and Common Nouns

Previous studies showed that high Cognitive Reserve (CR, years of education and experience and knowledge acquired in life) is correlated with language proficiency as measured with vocabulary size, verbal analogy, and semantic processing. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between CR and the ability in retrieving different categories of words: Proper Names, Logo Names, and Common Nouns. The hypothesis is that CR contributes more in retrieving Common Nouns and Logo Names which are highly semantically interconnected, than retrieving Proper Names which are pure referring expressions. Forty-six Italian healthy older adults underwent the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and their performances spanned from low to high global cognitive profile. They were also administered a picture naming task for Proper Names, Logo Names and Common Nouns. Latency and Accuracy were recorded. CR was measured with the Cognitive Reserve Index (CRI) questionnaire which provides a measure of education, working time activities, and leisure time activities. Participants were significantly faster and more accurate in name retrieval when CR was high. CRI and MoCA as interaction terms predicted naming Latency with a stronger effect of CRI when the global cognitive profile was in the low range. The effect of CRI on Accuracy was lower for Proper Names than for Common Nouns and Logo Names, which did not differ from each other. Our results show that name retrieval Accuracy can be predicted by CR, significantly more in the case of Logo Names and Common Nouns than in the case of Proper Names. As Proper Names have scarce semantic interconnections and are arbitrarily assigned to unique individuals, they are not much influenced by CR. Although Logo Names are also arbitrarily assigned to their bearers, they can be conceptually categorized and thus influenced by reserve. The weak relationship between Proper Names and CR might suggest a proper name task as a useful tool to detect early signs of dementia, in particular for persons with high CR

Identification of a selective G1-phase benzimidazolone inhibitor by a senescence-targeted virtual screen using artificial neural networks

Cellular senescence is a barrier to tumorigenesis in normal cells and tumour cells undergo senescence responses to genotoxic stimuli, which is a potential target phenotype for cancer therapy. However, in this setting, mixed-mode responses are common with apoptosis the dominant effect. Hence, more selective senescence inducers are required. Here we report a machine learning-based in silico screen to identify potential senescence agonists. We built profiles of differentially affected biological process networks from expression data obtained under induced telomere dysfunction conditions in colorectal cancer cells and matched these to a panel of 17 protein targets with confirmatory screening data in PubChem. We trained a neural network using 3517 compounds identified as active or inactive against these targets. The resulting classification model was used to screen a virtual library of ~2M lead-like compounds. 147 virtual hits were acquired for validation in growth inhibition and senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) assays. Among the found hits a benzimidazolone compound, CB-20903630, had low micromolar IC50 for growth inhibition of HCT116 cells and selectively induced SA-β-gal activity in the entire treated cell population without cytotoxicity or apoptosis induction. Growth suppression was mediated by G1 blockade involving increased p21 expression and suppressed cyclin B1, CDK1 and CDC25C. Additionally, the compound inhibited growth of multicellular spheroids and caused severe retardation of population kinetics in long term treatments. Preliminary structure-activity and structure clustering analyses are reported and expression analysis of CB-20903630 against other cell cycle suppressor compounds suggested a PI3K/AKT-inhibitor-like profile in normal cells, with different pathways affected in cancer cells

The discipline of Natural Design

If we define design work as those cognitive and practical things to which designers give their valuable effort, then our Natural Design framework allows the recording and replaying of design work. Natural Design provides a meta-structural framework that has developed through our observations of engineering design in safety and mission critical industries, such as aircraft design. Our previous work has produced parametrisable models of design work for software intensive systems, and we now look to make an initial assessment of our natural design framework for its fit to the more creative design practices. In this paper we briefly sketch the framework and subsequently attempt to locate ‘creativity’ in it. We find that, although there are good strong hooks for what the designer does, we are forced to find a role for the community of the designer in the creative process in our framework, something that was only implicit in our previous work. Keywords: Natural design; Engineering design; Creativity</p

Factors Affecting Application of ICT by Managers in the Nigerian Public Sector

The global revolution in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) experienced in the last two decades paved way for massive improvements in the manner management functions are executed worldwide. This study evaluates the impact and impediments to maximum utilization of ICT in enhancing management functions in the Nigerian Public Sector. With the aid of a questionnaire survey covering senior civil servants in the public sector and analysis of their responses, the paper empirically investigated causes of the officers’ inabilities to adopt ICT adequately in performing their functions.Among the findings one should mention that poor state of infrastructure, lack of technical know-how and non-availability of latest technology hinder the use of ICT in performing managerial functions in the Nigerian Public Secto

Decoding Data Products – Through the Lens of Work System Theory

Data products are seen as important levers in repurposing the large volumes of data that are captured in organizations and in satisfying the increasing demand for analytics. Despite the increasing popularity of the data product concept, it remains unclear how data can be productized. This article proposes work system theory to study the implications data products have for how organizations manage their data. Adopting a multimethod approach involving case studies and focus groups, we identify three types of data products and analyze how organizations coordinate their resources to build work systems around each data product type. Our findings contribute to the ongoing discourse on scaling data and analytics capabilities to repurpose and consume data effectively

Decoding Data Products through the Lens of Work System Theory

Data products are seen as important levers in repurposing the large volumes of data that are captured in organizations and in satisfying the increasing demand for analytics. Despite the increasing popularity of the data product concept, it remains unclear how data can be productized. This article proposes work system theory to study the implications data products have for how organizations manage their data. Adopting a multimethod approach involving case studies and focus groups, we identify three types of data products and analyze how organizations coordinate their resources to build work systems around each data product type. Our findings contribute to the ongoing discourse on scaling data and analytics capabilities to repurpose and consume data effectively