Building case-based reasoning applications with myCBR and COLIBRI Studio

myCBR and COLIBRI Studio are two well-established opensource frameworks for building case-based reasoning (CBR) applications, though they follow different approaches and support different phases of the CBR application development. In a nutshell: Where myCBR supports its users in developing a knowledge model for representing cases, it more or less leaves the software developers alone when they try to develop an application that uses the generated knowledge model. COLIBRI Studio, on the other hand, is focused in the development of applications that use that knowledge model. As soon as you have a knowledge model COLIBRI Studio offers templates for a variety of application types and supports in generating its source code. This paper explains the strengths and weaknesses of both frameworks regarding the rapid development of CBR applications. It also shows how to use both of them in conjunction

Unpacking Dynamic Capabilities in the Small to Medium Software Enterprise: Process, Assets and History

Previous studies of commercial software enterprises have employed industry-level analyses, or have focused on major players in the industry. There is, therefore, a dearth of in-depth research on small-to-medium software enterprises (SMSE). The need to understand the institutional contexts and firm-specific capabilities of such firms is important, as they account for over 90% of software enterprises operating in Europe and the US. This paper adopts a dynamic capabilities perspective to help understand the social and institutional web of conditions and factors that shaped and influenced capability development in one European SMSE. The findings illustrate that a commitment to learn and to evolve this firm’s intangible knowledge assets underpinned the development of dynamic business and IT capabilities. Another contribution is this paper’s identification of—and distinction between—‘soft’ and ‘hard’ IT capabilities, which were embedded in the firm’s organizational and managerial processes. The lessons learned here are applicable to other European SMSEs, as they share similar institutional contexts with the organization studied—for example, European SMSEs can access direct and indirect R&D funding from EU and individual member states. This study is, therefore, well timed as the EU has, in 2003, set aside a significant proportion of its 16 billion euro 6th Framework R&D budget for small-to-medium enterprises. Finally, this paper presents a dynamic capabilities model that captures the firm-specific capabilities and assets of innovative SMSEs

Knowledge formalization in experience feedback processes : an ontology-based approach

Because of the current trend of integration and interoperability of industrial systems, their size and complexity continue to grow making it more difficult to analyze, to understand and to solve the problems that happen in their organizations. Continuous improvement methodologies are powerful tools in order to understand and to solve problems, to control the effects of changes and finally to capitalize knowledge about changes and improvements. These tools involve suitably represent knowledge relating to the concerned system. Consequently, knowledge management (KM) is an increasingly important source of competitive advantage for organizations. Particularly, the capitalization and sharing of knowledge resulting from experience feedback are elements which play an essential role in the continuous improvement of industrial activities. In this paper, the contribution deals with semantic interoperability and relates to the structuring and the formalization of an experience feedback (EF) process aiming at transforming information or understanding gained by experience into explicit knowledge. The reuse of such knowledge has proved to have significant impact on achieving themissions of companies. However, the means of describing the knowledge objects of an experience generally remain informal. Based on an experience feedback process model and conceptual graphs, this paper takes domain ontology as a framework for the clarification of explicit knowledge and know-how, the aim of which is to get lessons learned descriptions that are significant, correct and applicable