Experiencing adaptive case management capabilities with Cognoscenti

In a world with rapidly changing customer requirements and the increased role of technology, companies need more flexible systems to adapt their processes and react dynamically to changes. Adaptive Case Management (ACM) comes into consideration by providing a concept to adapt to changing business conditions. Within our research project we did a first foundational evaluation of the potential of ACM in supporting unpredictable sales processes. Based on a set of criteria we tested the concept of ACM with the open source tool Cognoscenti. The evaluation gave us the possibility to experience the concept of ACM. Hence we were able to provide a statement about the potential of ACM within the context of an unpredictable sales process, setting the path to further research and discussion of ACM in the area of sales processes

I Create; Therefore, I Am: Design Endeavors as a Signal of Self

abstract: This interpretive research examines the phenomenon of people who engage in designing for themselves in a world in which this is no longer necessary. For in this Schumpeterian society – one can simply purchase from a plethora of products and services that are designed by professionals, generated by producers, and made available for purchase via a myriad of channels. So why do people bother designing for ourselves? Drawing on in-depth interviews, this research provides insights into individuals who choose to participate in the design process. The findings that follow are from a representative study of individuals who recently were involved in designing their home kitchen. Results show that by engaging in design endeavors these informants received not only instrumental value (speed, efficiency) and economic value (money saved), but also socio-psychological value (signaling identity, desire for uniqueness) and transcendental value (joy, wonder, satisfaction). Framing these findings according to three foundational design actions – using, ideating, and making, the researcher developed a segmentation typology of the multi-faceted roles that people play in the act of designing. This study contributes to the existing literature by: (1) broadening the dyadic perspectives of provider and consumer roles in the realization of a design outcome; (2) revealing that when one engages in designing a desired outcome they create a deeper, more authentic, and abiding signaler of self than when we purchase what we seek; (3) extending design theory beyond the prevailing view that embeds the value of a design in outcome – the tool; and humans as homer faber, tool makers. Managerial and design practice implications offer specific suggestions for building and nurturing people in their design endeavors.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Design 201

Public Investment in Climate Resiliency: Lessons from the Law and Economics of Natural Disasters

This Article takes issue with an important claim in the public choice and climate disaster literature: that American political markets will not allow appropriate investments in disaster preparedness and prevention, even when those investments are cost-benefit bargains. The claim is significant because the costs of climate disasters in the twenty-first century are estimated to be in the trillions of dollars due to the presence of legacy greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Thus, even assuming a sustained, successful global campaign to limit future greenhouse gases, the ingredients for decades of droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods are already locked into the atmosphere. Yet, for fifteen years, public choice economists have modeled disaster politics as a political commons riddled with externalities that lead to tragic underinvestment in disaster preparedness and resiliency. This Article is the first to offer a sustained critique of the public choice claim. It argues that the claim has both theoretical and empirical limitations. As importantly, resiliency faces challenges that the public choice claim masks. These include the possibility of other institutional constraints standing in the way of optimal resiliency investments, as well as the possibility of resiliency haves and have-nots: of wealthier communities even going on resiliency “binges” while poorer communities suffer disinvestment and decades of disasteraugmented poverty. The Article invites a new wave of scholarly attention to resiliency’s prospects

In-service training for computer-aided design in building surveying

The investigation was undertaken firstly to identify, classify and assess requirements and methods for in-service training in the use of computer-aided design (CAD) systems in UK building surveying practice. The second purpose was to develop, test and assess alternative instructional methods for practitioners to acquire and develop capabilities for appropriate use of CAD. Requirements, opportunities and constraints were informed through discussion with practitioners, suppliers of CAD systems or associated services, and a postal survey of 50 UK building surveying practices. Collated information was considered within Romiszowski's (1984) framework for problem solving in the organisation. Conventional methods for CAD training in the UK construction industry, and relevant instructional theory, were investigated in a literature search. Alternative instructional models and methods were identified and developed through an action research methodology based upon Cohen and Manion (1989). Proposals were assessed conceptually using the first three of Popper's (1959) four tests for theories. Prototyping core components, substantially by computer-based methods, and classroom experiments with students of building surveying, or clients of the Leicester CAD Centre, both at De Montfort University, were used in place of Popper's fourth test. The research findings contribute detailed analysis of requirements, provision and constraints to a sparse knowledge base for use of CAD in building surveying. They also provide a critical review of conventional methods for developing users of the technology in this domain. Three core principles are proposed to guide the policies and actions of building surveying practices in relation to CAD, emphasising integration of staff development within an overall CAD strategy. An alternative instructional model, synthesised from results across the research programme, is recommended for developing relevant practical capabilities with CAD. Corresponding specifications are made for a hybrid of manual, interpersonal and computer-based methods for its implementation. The model is set in the context of wider considerations for effective use of CAD technology, and is independent of particular software systems, types of workplace and trainee. Theoretically the model is capable of rapidly enabling staff in any practice to apply relevant CAD hardware and software effectively to authentic tasks, and subsequently contribute to developing application methods in the workplace. In conjunction with recommended operational principles the alternative instructional model improves significantly upon conventional methods identified for in-service training in CAD by provision for strategic integration, system independence, and responsiveness to local requirements. The investigation concluded by identifying four foci for further research and development to overcome constraints on implementing the model by the methods prototyped. A fifth focus recommends investigation of an optimal model and methods to develop capabilities of staff in building surveying practices for appraising, implementing, managing and developing the use of CAD systems

Benefit or Burden: Providing Access and Engagement with Wales’s Garden and Park Heritage

In this dissertation I aim to chart the development and practice of garden landscape visiting, from a pastime for the cognoscenti to an essential element of national heritage tourism that has helped in saving and cherishing places of cultural importance, while promoting public health and wellbeing. However, there is still a dearth of information on how the admission of visitors has influenced their management and I therefore seek to remedy the omission from the hitherto somewhat neglected perspective of owners and managers in the public, private and charitable sectors. The main thrust of this sub-set of the academic discourse and practice is concentrated in Wales but, of necessity, largely because of the historic, societal cross-border connections with England and the overarching reach of relevant legislation and regulatory practice, this study is rooted partially in England. It concludes in the era of climate change and proposes some changes in approach, including a reversal of the Arcadian concept of art triumphing over nature

It Might Have Been: Risk, Precaution, and Opportunity Costs

This Article, which is part of a larger project on the competing merits of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the precautionary principle (PP) examines one specific plank of the case against the PP: the claim that the principle’s ignorance of the opportunity costs of precaution leads to indeterminate or impoverishing policy advice. Because PP defenders emphasize the limits of human knowledge and the frequency of unpleasant surprises from technology and industrial development, they prefer an ex ante stance of precaution whenever a proposed activity meets some threshold possibility of causing severe harm to human health or the environment. Importantly, they prefer this stance even in the face of potential benefits—such as those promised by the use of nanoparticles in groundwater remediation or skin protection—that may themselves be ameliorative of environmental, health, and safety dangers. Although their reasoning has never been perfectly clear, advocates of the PP regard such foregone benefits as conceptually distinct from, and somehow less central than, the more affirmative consequences that may result from allowing potentially harmful activities to proceed

FRIEND: A Cyber-Physical System for Traffic Flow Related Information Aggregation and Dissemination

The major contribution of this thesis is to lay the theoretical foundations of FRIEND — A cyber-physical system for traffic Flow-Related Information aggrEgatioN and Dissemination. By integrating resources and capabilities at the nexus between the cyber and physical worlds, FRIEND will contribute to aggregating traffic flow data collected by the huge fleet of vehicles on our roads into a comprehensive, near real-time synopsis of traffic flow conditions. We anticipate providing drivers with a meaningful, color-coded, at-a-glance view of flow conditions ahead, alerting them to congested traffic. FRIEND can be used to provide accurate information about traffic flow and can be used to propagate this information. The workhorse of FRIEND is the ubiquitous lane delimiters (a.k.a. cat\u27s eyes) on our roadways that, at the moment, are used simply as dumb reflectors. Our main vision is that by endowing cat\u27s eyes with a modest power source, detection and communication capabilities they will play an important role in collecting, aggregating and disseminating traffic flow conditions to the driving public. We envision the cat\u27s eyes system to be supplemented by road-side units (RSU) deployed at regular intervals (e.g. every kilometer or so). The RSUs placed on opposite sides of the roadway constitute a logical unit and are connected by optical fiber under the median. Unlike inductive loop detectors, adjacent RSUs along the roadway are not connected with each other, thus avoiding the huge cost of optical fiber. Each RSU contains a GPS device (for time synchronization), an active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag for communication with passing cars, a radio transceiver for RSU to RSU communication and a laptop-class computing device. The physical components of FRIEND collect traffic flow-related data from passing vehicles. The collected data is used by FRIEND\u27s inference engine to build beliefs about the state of the traffic, to detect traffic trends, and to disseminate relevant traffic flow-related information along the roadway. The second contribution of this thesis is the development of an incident classification and detection algorithm that can be used to classify different types of traffic incident Then, it can notify the necessary target of the incident. We also compare our incident detection technique with other VANET techniques. Our third contribution is a novel strategy for information dissemination on highways. First, we aim to prevent secondary accidents. Second, we notify drivers far away from the accident of an expected delay that gives them the option to continue or exit before reaching the incident location. A new mechanism tracks the source of the incident while notifying drivers away from the accident. The more time the incident stays, the further the information needs to be propagated. Furthermore, the denser the traffic, the faster it will backup. In high density highways, an incident may form a backup of vehicles faster than low density highways. In order to satisfy this point, we need to propagate information as a function of density and time

Chronic illness and the college student experience : an anti-deficit achievement study of resilience in higher education

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health indicates that students with chronic illness graduate college at half the rate of non-ill college students (18% vs. 32%) (Herts, Wallis & Maslow, 2014). Statistics such as this might explain much of the current discourse around college students with chronic illnesses centers on deficits and failure points (Devine, 2016; Agarwal, Moya, Yasui, & Seymour, 2015; Lombardi, Kowitt, & Staples, 2015; Oswald, Huber, & Bonza, 2015; Sniatecki, Perry, & Snell, 2015). Understanding challenges and barriers faced by these students is certainly important, however focusing on deficits has provided little insight into how the students who are staying succeed, which leads to the main research question of this dissertation: how do students with chronic illnesses use assets and resources to build resiliency as they navigate their educational path? To challenge the idea of deficit modeling as the right fit for explaining the phenomena of college students and chronic illness on campus, I employed an anti-deficit achievement and resiliency framework in the current study. The resiliency framework in and of itself is an anti-deficit theory that focuses on how someone uses internal assets and external resources to navigate risk (Stoddard, Zimmerman, & Bauermeister, 2012). At the same time, I wanted a theory that framed the entire research experience, from questioning to analysis in an anti-deficit light. The anti-deficit achievement framework developed by Harper (2010), was originally applied to black males in STEM fields, but provided the perfect mindset and framing for resiliency theory to reside, as the theory's line of questioning and interest in the student's past was strengths focused. The phenomenological approach was the best fit to explore the lived experiences of 13 college students with chronic illnesses in a large public university in the Midwest in this study. Participants were recruited through advertisements in the all-campus bulletin and through flyers around campus. Interviews of each participant were conducted at the beginning and end of the semester. During the course of the semester they also maintained journals to document their experience in real time. Once data was collected, themes were found among each participant and then across all participants in the study. Several important findings came out of the current study. First, participant's reported using internal assets in combination with external resources to build resiliency to navigate risks associated with their chronic illness, but also educational risk. Internal asset findings included development of personality characteristics, such as positivity, personal agency, and faith in a higher power as well as an overarching adaptability that was realistic and self-aware. External resource findings indicated that family, significant others, friends and professors were a major source of support. Institutional resources were also identified as important, in particular the disability center and student health. The findings resulted in rich knowledge of the participant's experience in higher education with a chronic illness. Findings resulted in significant recommendations for research, policy and practice, which are included in chapter 5. However, what is clear is that this population needs additional attention, and the best resource for understanding students with chronic illnesses are the students themselves. If higher education institutions and leaders intend to support their students at a high level that leads to satisfaction and matriculation, this population can no longer be ignored.Includes bibliographical reference

The Impact of Positive Human Interest Stories on Raising Hope Through Social Media in Kentucky\u27s Promise Zone Counties

During the past decade, social media has gained dominance over traditional media in an agenda-setting role for journalists, often dictating the news of the day (Pfeffer et al., 2014). With data collected from Kentucky’s Promise Zone counties and C. R. Snyder’s (1991) Hope Scale instrument, this study looks at how the use of social media affects hope, while considering five decades of news media negative stereotypical views of those who live in the mountains of Appalachia (Bowler, 1985). This study examines data from those who live in Kentucky’s designated Promise Zone counties, a 2014 designation by President Barack Obama. Kentucky’s PZ counties: Bell, Clay, Harlan, Knox, Leslie, Letcher, Perry, and Whitley, in some cases geographically and in others socioeconomically, overlap the Kentucky towns of Inez and Paintsville and neighboring communities of Neon, Happy Hollow, Beauty, and Thornton Gap, initially featured in mainstream media reporting from Appalachia when America’s War on Poverty was declared in 1964. News media has continued to report at these locations during War on Poverty milestone years or when poverty becomes part of a political agenda, most often during discussions and debates of entitlement reform (Berke, 1992). This study is also informed by a 2017 report from the United Nations (Alston, 2017) that supports the notion that news media continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes among the poorest and most economically disadvantaged populations within Appalachia. This study also touches on economic research, which has recently emerged, suggesting a correlation between higher hope and the economic success of a region (Wuepper & Lybbert, 2017)