Entity Ranking on Graphs: Studies on Expert Finding

Todays web search engines try to offer services for finding various information in addition to simple web pages, like showing locations or answering simple fact queries. Understanding the association of named entities and documents is one of the key steps towards such semantic search tasks. This paper addresses the ranking of entities and models it in a graph-based relevance propagation framework. In particular we study the problem of expert finding as an example of an entity ranking task. Entity containment graphs are introduced that represent the relationship between text fragments on the one hand and their contained entities on the other hand. The paper shows how these graphs can be used to propagate relevance information from the pre-ranked text fragments to their entities. We use this propagation framework to model existing approaches to expert finding based on the entity's indegree and extend them by recursive relevance propagation based on a probabilistic random walk over the entity containment graphs. Experiments on the TREC expert search task compare the retrieval performance of the different graph and propagation models

Being Omnipresent To Be Almighty: The Importance of The Global Web Evidence for Organizational Expert Finding

Modern expert nding algorithms are developed under the assumption that all possible expertise evidence for a person is concentrated in a company that currently employs the person. The evidence that can be acquired outside of an enterprise is traditionally unnoticed. At the same time, the Web is full of personal information which is sufficiently detailed to judge about a person's skills and knowledge. In this work, we review various sources of expertise evidence out-side of an organization and experiment with rankings built on the data acquired from six dierent sources, accessible through APIs of two major web search engines. We show that these rankings and their combinations are often more realistic and of higher quality than rankings built on organizational data only

The right expert at the right time and place: From expertise identification to expertise selection

We propose a unified and complete solution for expert finding in organizations, including not only expertise identification, but also expertise selection functionality. The latter two include the use of implicit and explicit preferences of users on meeting each other, as well as localization and planning as important auxiliary processes. We also propose a solution for privacy protection, which is urgently required in view of the huge amount of privacy sensitive data involved. Various parts are elaborated elsewhere, and we look forward to a realization and usage of the proposed system as a whole

Skills for self employment

This small scale, explorative research study looks at the hitherto relatively under-researched question of the role of skills and training in the development of self employment. It draws on a literature review, data analysis from the Labour Force Survey, and a series of expert interviews. We summarise here the main findings from the research and, where appropriate, we highlight possible policy implications of those findings, although given the small scale, exploratory nature of the study, some of these issues would benefit from further investigation(and the report highlights possible avenues for new research to fill these gaps: see section 6.7). In thinking about policy we do not, for the most part, recommend specific interventions. Rather we highlight the kinds of considerations that policy-makers should be aware of when designing interventions" -- page i (Evidence Report). "This Annex presents an analysis of Labour Force Survey data, to provide descriptive statistics on the nature and extent of self-employment in the UK" -- page 1 (Annex)

Beyond the Threshold: Investing in Women-led Small and Growing Businesses

This collaborative research project was designed to address the need for greater depth, insight, and clarity on the problems of underinvestment in Women-led Small and Growing Businesses (WSGBs), including those led by younger women (18-35 years old). It is an intentionally exploratory process intended to foster collaboration among ANDE members while also contributing to the existing body of knowledge and identifying areas for further exploration, study, and action. The research recognizes that women entrepreneurs are not a homogenous group, and attempts where possible to make distinctions based on other socioeconomic and demographic factors, as well as to acknowledge the variance in preferences even among those narrower groups

Factors for success in Swedish biogas

The energy sector of modern time is currently faced with several challenges. These are both production oriented and environmental oriented in nature. The energy of the future is intended to support an increasing demand while at the same time reduce its environmental affection. This stresses a development towards production methods of renewable energy. Among the existing methods, biogas is presented as an attractive alternative. Further, biogas is also perceived as an attractive business concept within the agricultural sector, since this sector contains a good supply of substrate that can be used in the biogas process. As an effect, biogas would enable renewable energy production in combination with biological waste treatment and thus there are several environmental benefits with using this method. The potential for producing biogas in Sweden today, is relatively unexploited. Studies shows that there still is a large potential for producing biogas in Sweden, where a large share is represented by agricultural products. This study aims at identifying factors that are important for a further development in agricultural based biogas production. The study have been based on interviews with 31 agricultural biogas producers, where the findings has been analyzed using resource based view and Diffusion theory. The study has shown that agricultural biogas production in Sweden needs to develop in order to become competitive. To enable such a development, factors such as support from external parties and investments in technological development is viewed as important.Energisektorn är i dagsläget en sektor som innehåller flera problem. Dels finns det miljömässiga som produktionsmässiga problem. Framtidens energi ska dels kunna bistå en ökande population med energi samtidigt som den ska minska sin miljöpåverkan. Detta kommer att kräva nya metoder för att producera energi. Biogas presenteras som ett attraktivt alternativ för att producera förnyelsebar energi. Vidare är biogas ett intressant affärskoncept inom jordbrukssektorn, då det finns god tillgång till substrat som kan användas i biogas processen. Effekten av biogas skulle innebära produktion av förnyelsebar energi kombinerat med biologisk avfallshantering. Således finns det flera miljömässiga effekter med biogas produktion. Potentialen för att producera biogas är i dagsläget i relativt liten i Sverige. Studier visar att det finns stor potential att utöka produktionen av biogas, där en stor andel beräknas komma från jordbruks produkter. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera framgångs faktorer för den Svenska jordbruksbaserade biogas produktionen, för att utforska möjligheterna till en fortsatt utveckling. Studien baseras på intervjuer från 31 jordbruksbaserade biogas producenter där insamlad data har analyserats med resursbaserad teori och spridnings teori. Studien visar att jordbruksbaserad biogas produktion är i behov av utveckling för att bli konkurrenskraftigt. För att möjligöra en sådan utveckling, pekas faktorer såsom inverkan från externa parter samt vidare satsningar i teknik ut som viktiga

Enterprise Systems Adoption and Firm Performance in Europe: The Role of Innovation

Despite the ubiquitous proliferation and importance of Enterprise Systems (ES), little research exists on their post-implementation impact on firm performance, especially in Europe. This paper provides representative, large-sample evidence on the differential effects of different ES types on performance of European enterprises. It also highlights the mediating role of innovation in the process of value creation from ES investments. Empirical data on the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Knowledge Management System (KMS), and Document Management System (DMS) is used to investigate the effects on product and process innovation, revenue, productivity and market share growth, and profitability. The data covers 29 sectors in 29 countries over a 5-year period. The results show that all ES categories significantly increase the likelihood of product and process innovation. Most of ES categories affect revenue, productivity and market share growth positively. Particularly, more domainspecific and simpler system types lead to stronger positive effects. ERP systems decrease the profitability likelihood of the firm, whereas other ES categories do not show any significant effect. The findings also imply that innovation acts as a full or partial mediator in the process of value creation of ES implementations. The direct effect of enterprise software on firm performance disappears or significantly diminishes when the indirect effects through product and process innovation are explicitly accounted for. The paper highlights future areas of research.Enterprise Systems; ERP; SCM; CRM; KMS; DMS; IT Adoption; Post-implementation Phase; IT Business Value; Innovation; Firm Performance; Europe

European experience and Ukrainian realities in the policy of financial support entrepreneurial sector

Aim/purpose – We want to provide recommendations to bridge the gap in access to financing of the entrepreneurial sector in Ukraine based on the analysis of European experience, EBF approaches, financial funds for SMEs and the current state of the credit market in Ukraine. Design/methodology/approach – We used the general scientific methods of knowledge, conceptual tenets of the theory of market economy, abstract logical analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, historical (to determine the nature and causes of bank investment in SMEs, refine categories and terms); formalization, systems analysis (to determine factors of investment banking, institutional and legal environment); statistical, retrospective analysis. The results of surveys conducted by the EBF on the issues of support and development of SMEs are used, own research of 120 Ukrainian SMEs, which was conducted during the period from January to July 2016. The nature of the research questions was reinforced by the decision to survey only SMEs. Independent reporting (from entrepreneurs or CEOs) was used to account for both business activity and the external sources of information. Findings – Policy initiatives should primarily be developed at the national level in the field of lending to SMEs based on the European experience and Ukrainian realities; it is necessary to develop an understanding of the need for access to certain types of information; SMEs are the main providers and the most valuable source of credit information. Research implications/limitations – When using the methods of calculation creditworthiness perhaps to take into account the methods for assessing the quality of management, the image of the enterprise, ISO certificates. Originality/value/contribution – Based on the cross-country comparison of the EU and Ukraine, highlight the necessity of focusing on some legal unification of SME lending procedures for the development of a culture of sustainable entrepreneurship on the European continent

Referent tracking for corporate memories

For corporate memory and enterprise ontology systems to be maximally useful, they must be freed from certain barriers placed around them by traditional knowledge management paradigms. This means, above all, that they must mirror more faithfully those portions of reality which are salient to the workings of the enterprise, including the changes that occur with the passage of time. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how theories based on philosophical realism can contribute to this objective. We discuss how realism-based ontologies (capturing what is generic) combined with referent tracking (capturing what is specific) can play a key role in building the robust and useful corporate memories of the future