Rhythm from the linguistic and neurobiological perspectives

This article is about rhythm from the linguistic and neurobiological perspectives. Comparing data from both domains could enable clarification of (long–term) confusion in acoustic and conceptual ideas of rhythm as well as providing a multidimensional definition of this category with solid neurobiological grounding and taking aspects of modeling speech production into consideration.This article is about rhythm from the linguistic and neurobiological perspectives. Comparing data from both domains could enable clarification of (long–term) confusion in acoustic and conceptual ideas of rhythm as well as providing a multidimensional definition of this category with solid neurobiological grounding and taking aspects of modeling speech production into consideration

Education as a Complex System: Conceptual and Methodological Implications

Education is a complex system, which has conceptual and methodological implications for education research and policy. In this article, an overview is first provided of the Complex Systems Conceptual Framework for Learning (CSCFL), which consists of a set of conceptual perspectives that are generally shared by educational complex systems, organized into two focus areas: collective behaviors of a system, and behaviors of individual agents in a system. Complexity and research methodologies for education are then considered, and it is observed that commonly used quantitative and qualitative techniques are generally appropriate for studying linear dynamics of educational systems. However, it is proposed that computational modeling approaches, being extensively used for studying nonlinear characteristics of complex systems in other fields, can provide a methodological complement to quantitative and qualitative education research approaches. Two research case studies of this approach are discussed. We conclude with a consideration of how viewing education as a complex system using complex systems’ conceptual and methodological tools can help advance education research and also inform policy

Effective Teacher Professional Development Programs. A Case Study Focusing on the Development of Mathematical Modeling Skills

A concern in Mathematics Education is the professional development of the teacher and to promote effective training programs. The literature provides principles guiding the design of such programs, which were considered for an instruction intended to strengthen the teacher’s practice in relation to the development of mathematical skills. The objective of this work was to study if the designed program was effective, in relation to the impact on the teacher’s teaching. A case study on a group of in-service teachers focused on the ability of mathematical modeling (MM) and their perspectives of this skill was carried out. This was divided into three moments: before, during, and after the program. The findings show that, before the program, teachers conceived modeling from epistemological, pragmatic and conceptual perspectives; during the program, they focused on the pragmatic and educational perspectives; and at the end of the program, the group was stripped of the pragmatic, epistemological and conceptual perspectives to move towards the educational and socio-critical. They were also able to justify the choice or disassociation of one or more of them. The study advances towards the concretion of more specific and robust professional development programs for mathematics teachers

A Conceptual Framework for Integration Development of GSFLOW Model: Concerns and Issues Identified and Addressed for Model Development Efficiency

In Coupled Groundwater and Surface-Water Flow (GSFLOW) model, the three-dimensional finite-difference groundwater model (MODFLOW) plays a critical role of groundwater flow simulation, together with which the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) simulates the surface hydrologic processes. While the model development of each individual PRMS and MODFLOW model requires tremendous time and efforts, further integration development of these two models exerts additional concerns and issues due to different simulation realm, data communication, and computation algorithms. To address these concerns and issues in GSFLOW, the present paper proposes a conceptual framework from perspectives of: Model Conceptualization, Data Linkages and Transference, Model Calibration, and Sensitivity Analysis. As a demonstration, a MODFLOW groundwater flow system was developed and coupled with the PRMS model in the Lehman Creek watershed, eastern Nevada, resulting in a smooth and efficient integration as the hydrogeologic features were well captured and represented. The proposed conceptual integration framework with techniques and concerns identified substantially improves GSFLOW model development efficiency and help better model result interpretations. This may also find applications in other integrated hydrologic modelings

Tackling Dierent Business Process Perspectives

Business Process Management (BPM) has emerged as a discipline to design, control, analyze, and optimize business operations. Conceptual models lie at the core of BPM. In particular, business process models have been taken up by organizations as a means to describe the main activities that are performed to achieve a specific business goal. Process models generally cover different perspectives that underlie separate yet interrelated representations for analyzing and presenting process information. Being primarily driven by process improvement objectives, traditional business process modeling languages focus on capturing the control flow perspective of business processes, that is, the temporal and logical coordination of activities. Such approaches are usually characterized as \u201cactivity-centric\u201d. Nowadays, activity-centric process modeling languages, such as the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard, are still the most used in practice and benefit from industrial tool support. Nevertheless, evidence shows that such process modeling languages still lack of support for modeling non-control-flow perspectives, such as the temporal, informational, and decision perspectives, among others. This thesis centres on the BPMN standard and addresses the modeling the temporal, informational, and decision perspectives of process models, with particular attention to processes enacted in healthcare domains. Despite being partially interrelated, the main contributions of this thesis may be partitioned according to the modeling perspective they concern. The temporal perspective deals with the specification, management, and formal verification of temporal constraints. In this thesis, we address the specification and run-time management of temporal constraints in BPMN, by taking advantage of process modularity and of event handling mechanisms included in the standard. Then, we propose three different mappings from BPMN to formal models, to validate the behavior of the proposed process models and to check whether they are dynamically controllable. The informational perspective represents the information entities consumed, produced or manipulated by a process. This thesis focuses on the conceptual connection between processes and data, borrowing concepts from the database domain to enable the representation of which part of a database schema is accessed by a certain process activity. This novel conceptual view is then employed to detect potential data inconsistencies arising when the same data are accessed erroneously by different process activities. The decision perspective encompasses the modeling of the decision-making related to a process, considering where decisions are made in the process and how decision outcomes affect process execution. In this thesis, we investigate the use of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard in conjunction with BPMN starting from a pattern-based approach to ease the derivation of DMN decision models from the data represented in BPMN processes. Besides, we propose a methodology that focuses on the integrated use of BPMN and DMN for modeling decision-intensive care pathways in a real-world application domain

Integrated Exploration of Data-Intensive Business Processes

Modeling and reasoning over business processes require enterprises to manage and integrate large amounts of information. Despite process designers and engineers may benefit from a unified view of process and data models, integrating these two perspectives is challenging, especially when considering conceptual models. In this paper, we provide a uniform formal representation of a process model, the schema of a related database, and the data operations connecting them. Then, we show how we can use such a formal representation to identify interesting information during the integrated conceptual modeling and analysis of processes and related databases, from a process (re-)design and improvement perspective. Finally, we discuss the evaluation of the proposed approach through a controlled experiment and a proof-of-concept implementation that considers both relational and XML database technologies

Capability-actor-resource-service : a conceptual modelling approach for value-driven strategic sourcing

This PhD research addresses a problem within strategic sourcing, which is a critical area of strategic management that is centered on decision-making related to procurement. Strategic sourcing is related to two disciplines: (i) procurement and supply management and (ii) strategic management. Sourcing is the strategic part of procurement that refers to tasks like determining cost saving and value-driven opportunities, choosing the most appropriate go-to market strategies, and selecting and evaluating suppliers for building long-term and short-term contractual relationships. Many companies face challenges in obtaining the benefits associated with effective strategic sourcing. Although the concept of strategic sourcing is fairly well recognized, managers are still challenged by many barriers to its implementation. The main problem is the lack of practical instruments (i.e., tools and techniques) to implement the value-driven management approach to strategic sourcing, while at the same time preparing companies for fact-based decision-making by delivering data management and data analytics capabilities. This is the problem which is addressed with this PhD research. To address this problem, the research goal has been defined as “develop a modeling approach that enables companies 1) to drive fact-based decision-making with respect to procurement data management and procurement analytics”; and 2) to implement strategic sourcing toward achieving value-driven targets”. We apply conceptual modeling as our main solution approach to achieve the above research goal. We define three major areas where conceptual modeling can contribute to strategic sourcing decision-making: conceptualization, design and computer support. The proposed conceptual modeling approach is characterized by four different perspectives: (i) a way of thinking (i.e., a conceptual foundation), (ii) a way of modeling (i.e., a modeling language and method to use it), (iii) a way of working (i.e., a model-based analysis approach), and (iv) a way of supporting (i.e., a computer-aided design tool). The scope of PhD research is limited to the first three perspectives, while for the fourth perspective a solution architecture will be proposed as part of future research. This PhD dissertation is a paper-based dissertation consisting of six chapters. Three chapters (chapter 3, 4, 5) of this dissertation have been submitted to international peer-reviewed journals (chapter 4 is published and chapters 3 and 5 are accepted) and one chapter (chapter 2) has been published in the post-conference proceedings of an international workshop