BlogForever D3.2: Interoperability Prospects

This report evaluates the interoperability prospects of the BlogForever platform. Therefore, existing interoperability models are reviewed, a Delphi study to identify crucial aspects for the interoperability of web archives and digital libraries is conducted, technical interoperability standards and protocols are reviewed regarding their relevance for BlogForever, a simple approach to consider interoperability in specific usage scenarios is proposed, and a tangible approach to develop a succession plan that would allow a reliable transfer of content from the current digital archive to other digital repositories is presented

The Role and Contribution of Knowledge and Knowledge Management Practices in Policing. The Case of An Garda Síochána

Thisresearch was undertaken in response to knowledge, and particularly knowledge management practice in policing that finds it complex, multifaceted, under researched and lacking in structure and cohesion. This exploratory research sets out to evaluate the role and contribution of knowledge and knowledge management practices in policing, and using An Garda Síochána, (the Police Service ofthe Republic of Ireland), as the underlying case exemplar in this work, it will contribute to the extant literature and understanding in the area by use of a study which contains unprecedented insider access to a modern police force, practical findings for knowledge change predicated on structured methodological data analysis, and viable recommendations for knowledge in policing based on these.Secondary data was initially collected from within and outside An Garda Síochána. This data provided the context and content for the topic list utilised to collect the primary data. Primary data was collected via in-depth interviews, which were conducted with key informants from within the organisation, and one with a key informant from the Irish Parliament. These semi-structured interviews were then analysed in a sequential three-stage data analytical process, using process coding, followed by in-vivo coding, and thematic analysis. Access to the organisation was obtained as a result of rigorous security clearance protocols and granted as the researcher is also serving police officer

Barry Smith an sich

Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński

Case Retrieval Nets as a Model for Building Flexible Information Systems

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird das Modell der Case Retrieval Netze vorgestellt, das ein Speichermodell für die Phase des Retrievals beim fallbasierten Schliessen darstellt. Dieses Modell lehnt sich an Assoziativspeicher an, insbesondere wird das Retrieval als Rekonstruktion des Falles betrachtet anstatt als eine Suche im traditionellen Sinne. Zwei der wesentlichen Vorteile des Modells sind Effizienz und Flexibilität: Effizienz beschreibt dabei die Fähigkeit, mit grossen Fallbasen umzugehen und dennoch schnell ein Resultat des Retrievals liefern zu können. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird dieser Aspekt formal untersucht, das Hauptaugenmerk ist aber eher pragmatisch motiviert insofern als der Retrieval-Prozess so schnell sein sollte, dass der Benutzer möglichst keine Wartezeiten in Kauf nehmen muss. Flexibilität betrifft andererseits die allgemeine Anwendbarkeit des Modells in Bezug auf veränderte Aufgabenstellungen, auf alternative Formen der Fallrepräsentation usw. Hierfür wird das Konzept der Informationsvervollständigung diskutiert, welches insbesondere für die Beschreibung von interaktiven Entscheidungsunterstützungssystemen geeignet ist. Traditionelle Problemlöseverfahren, wie etwa Klassifikation oder Diagnose, können als Spezialfälle von Informationsvervollständigung aufgefasst werden. Das formale Modell der Case Retrieval Netze wird im Detail erläutert und dessen Eigenschaften untersucht. Anschliessend werden einige möglich Erweiterungen beschrieben. Neben diesen theoretischen Aspekten bilden Anwendungen, die mit Hilfe des Case Retrieval Netz Modells erstellt wurden, einen weiteren Schwerpunkt. Diese lassen sich in zwei grosse Richtungen einordnen: intelligente Verkaufsunterstützung für Zwecke des E-Commerce sowie Wissensmanagement auf Basis textueller Dokumente, wobei für letzteres der Aspekt der Wiederbenutzung von Problemlösewissen essentiell ist. Für jedes dieser Gebiete wird eine Anwendung im Detail beschrieben, weitere dienen der Illustration und werden nur kurz erläutert. Zuvor wird allgemein beschrieben, welche Aspekte bei Entwurf und Implementierung eines Informationssystems zu beachten sind, welches das Modell der Case Retrieval Netze nutzt.In this thesis, a specific memory structure is presented that has been developed for the retrieval task in Case-Based Reasoning systems, namely Case Retrieval Nets (CRNs). This model borrows from associative memories in that it suggests to interpret case retrieval as a process of re-constructing a stored case rather than searching for it in the traditional sense. Tow major advantages of this model are efficiency and flexibility: Efficiency, on the one hand, is concerned with the ability to handle large case bases and still deliver retrieval results reasonably fast. In this thesis, a formal investigation of efficiency is included but the main focus is set on a more pragmatic view in the sense that retrieval should, in the ideal case, be fast enough such that for the users of a related system no delay will be noticeable. Flexibility, on the other hand, is related to the general applicability of a case memory depending on the type of task to perform, the representation of cases etc. For this, the concept of information completion is discussed which allows to capture the interactive nature of problem solving methods in particular when they are applied within a decision support system environment. As discussed, information completion, thus, covers more specific problem solving types, such as classification and diagnosis. The formal model of CRNs is presented in detail and its properties are investigated. After that, some possible extensions are described. Besides these more theoretical aspects, a further focus is set on applications that have been developed on the basis of the CRN model. Roughly speaking, two areas of applications can be recognized: electronic commerce applications for which Case-Based Reasoning may provide intelligent sales support, and knowledge management based on textual documents where the reuse of problem solving knowledge plays a crucial role. For each of these areas, a single application is described in full detail and further case studies are listed for illustration purposes. Prior to the details of the applications, a more general framework is presented describing the general design and implementation of an information system that makes uses of the model of CRNs

Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies - Part 2

Modern technology has eliminated barriers posed by geographic distances between people around the globe, making the world more interdependent. However, in spite of global collaboration within research domains, fragmentation among research fields persists and even escalates. Disintegrated knowledge has become subservient to the competition in the technological and economic race, leading in the direction chosen not by reason and intellect but rather by the preferences of politics and markets. To restore the authority of knowledge in guiding humanity, we have to reconnect its scattered isolated parts and offer an evolving and diverse but shared vision of objective reality connecting the sciences and other knowledge domains and informed by and in communication with ethical and esthetic thinking and being. This collection of articles responds to the second call from the journal Philosophies to build a new, networked world of knowledge with domain specialists from different disciplines interacting and connecting with the rest of the knowledge-producing and knowledge-consuming communities in an inclusive, extended natural-philosophic, human-centric manner. In this process of reconnection, scientific and philosophical investigations enrich each other, with sciences informing philosophies about the best current knowledge of the world, both natural and human-made, while philosophies scrutinize the ontological, epistemological, and methodological foundations of sciences

Strategic Assessment of Organizational Commitment

The concept of organizational commitment has been widely studied over recent decades, yet it remains one of the most challenging concepts in organizational research. While commitment is understood to be highly valuable in today’s dynamic business environment, its multifaceted nature is not necessarily understood adequately. The purpose of this study was to examine the concept of organizational commitment and its measurement issues within organizations, and to develop a practical evaluation tool for management, which is based on previous scientific research. First, a theoretical framework discussing organizational commitment and engagement was established. Based on the literature research, three ontologies were developed addressing organizational commitment and engagement, as well as academic engagement. The ontologies were constructed as a synthesis of existing theories. With the help of the ontologies and the created evaluation system, it is possible to better understand these concepts, gain a collective view of the organization’s current state and vision for the future, and to open a dialogue between members of the organization regarding their development. The results of the empirical case studies are presented at the end of this thesis, as well as in the attached research papers. The empirical results indicate that, by using these applications, it is possible to gain insights about the respondents’ feelings and aspirations, which can be used to support effective decision-making and as the basis for creating development actions within the organization.Organisaatiositoutumisen käsitettä on tutkittu laajasti kuluneiden vuosikymmenten aikana, kuitenkin se on edelleen yksi organisaatiotutkimuksen haastavimmista käsitteistä. Sitoutuminen on laajalti ymmärretty erittäin tärkeäksi tämän päivän liiketoimintaympäristössä mutta sen moniulotteista luonnetta ei yrityksissä ole välttämättä ymmärretty riittävästi. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tarkastella organisatorisen sitoutumisen käsitettä ja sen mittaamisen ongelmallisuutta sekä kehittää aikaisempaan tieteelliseen tutkimukseen perustuva käytännön sovellus sitoutumisen tason määrittämiseksi. Tutkimuksen ensimmäisessä osassa laadittiin organisaatioon sitoutumista käsittelevä teoreettinen viitekehys, jonka perusteella kehitettiin kolme ontologiaa. Ontologiat käsittelevät organisaation sitoutumista eri näkökulmista sekä opiskelijoiden akateemista sitoutumista. Ontologioiden sekä laaditun arviointijärjestelmän avulla on mahdollista ymmärtää sitoutumiseen liittyviä käsitteitä, saada yhteinen näkemys organisaation nykytilasta ja tulevaisuuden näkemyksestä sekä löytää mahdollisia kehityskohteita. Empiiristen case-tutkimusten tuloksia on esitetty tämän työn loppuosassa sekä liitteenä olevissa tutkimusartikkeleissa. Tulokset osoittavat, että laadittujen sovellusten avulla on mahdollista saada tietoa vastaajien tuntemuksista ja pyrkimyksistä. Tätä tietoa voidaan hyödyntää päätöksenteon tukena sekä perustana kehitystoimien luomiselle.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Security Challenges from Abuse of Cloud Service Threat

Cloud computing is an ever-growing technology that leverages dynamic and versatile provision of computational resources and services. In spite of countless benefits that cloud service has to offer, there is always a security concern for new threats and risks. The paper provides a useful introduction to the rising security issues of Abuse of cloud service threat, which has no standard security measures to mitigate its risks and vulnerabilities. The threat can result an unbearable system gridlock and can make cloud services unavailable or even complete shutdown. The study has identified the potential challenges, as BotNet, BotCloud, Shared Technology Vulnerability and Malicious Insiders, from Abuse of cloud service threat. It has further described the attacking methods, impacts and the reasons due to the identified challenges. The study has evaluated the current available solutions and proposed mitigating security controls for the security risks and challenges from Abuse of cloud services threat

Ontology Pattern-Based Data Integration

Data integration is concerned with providing a unified access to data residing at multiple sources. Such a unified access is realized by having a global schema and a set of mappings between the global schema and the local schemas of each data source, which specify how user queries at the global schema can be translated into queries at the local schemas. Data sources are typically developed and maintained independently, and thus, highly heterogeneous. This causes difficulties in integration because of the lack of interoperability in the aspect of architecture, data format, as well as syntax and semantics of the data. This dissertation represents a study on how small, self-contained ontologies, called ontology design patterns, can be employed to provide semantic interoperability in a cross-repository data integration system. The idea of this so-called ontology pattern- based data integration is that a collection of ontology design patterns can act as the global schema that still contains sufficient semantics, but is also flexible and simple enough to be used by linked data providers. On the one side, this differs from existing ontology-based solutions, which are based on large, monolithic ontologies that provide very rich semantics, but enforce too restrictive ontological choices, hence are shunned by many data providers. On the other side, this also differs from the purely linked data based solutions, which do offer simplicity and flexibility in data publishing, but too little in terms of semantic interoperability. We demonstrate the feasibility of this idea through the actual development of a large scale data integration project involving seven ocean science data repositories from five institutions in the U.S. In addition, we make two contributions as part of this dissertation work, which also play crucial roles in the aforementioned data integration project. First, we develop a collection of more than a dozen ontology design patterns that capture the key notions in the ocean science occurring in the participating data repositories. These patterns contain axiomatization of the key notions and were developed with an intensive involvement from the domain experts. Modeling of the patterns was done in a systematic workflow to ensure modularity, reusability, and flexibility of the whole pattern collection. Second, we propose the so-called pattern views that allow data providers to publish their data in very simple intermediate schema and show that they can greatly assist data providers to publish their data without requiring a thorough understanding of the axiomatization of the patterns

The Illusion of Risk Control: What Does it Take to Live With Uncertainty?

risk management; black swans; safety; high-risk organisations; FonCSI; complexity in risk management; risk assessmen

Tools for enterprises collaboration in virtual enterprises

Virtual Enterprise (VE) is an organizational collaboration concept which provides a competitive edge in the globalized business environment. The life cycle of a VE consists of four stages i.e. opportunity identification (Pre-Creation), partner selection (Creation), operation and dissolution. The success of VEs depends upon the efficient execution of their VE-lifecycles along with knowledge enhancement for the partner enterprises to facilitate the future formation of efficient VEs. This research aims to study the different issues which occur in the VE lifecycle and provides a platform for the formation of high performance enterprises and VEs. In the pre-creation stage, enterprises look for suitable partners to create their VE and to exploit a market opportunity. This phase requires explicit and implicit information extraction from enterprise data bases (ECOS-ontology) for the identification of suitable partners. A description logic (DL) based query system is developed to extract explicit and implicit information and to identify potential partners for the creation of the VE. In the creation phase, the identified partners are analysed using different risks paradigms and a cooperative game theoretic approach is used to develop a revenue sharing mechanism based on enterprises inputs and risk minimization for optimal partner selection. In the operation phases, interoperability remains a key issue for seamless transfer of knowledge information and data. DL-based ontology mapping is applied in this research to provide interoperability in the VE between enterprises with different domains of expertise. In the dissolution stage, knowledge acquired in the VE lifecycle needs to be disseminated among the enterprises to enhance their competitiveness. A DL-based ontology merging approach is provided to accommodate new knowledge with existing data bases with logical consistency. Finally, the proposed methodologies are validated using the case study. The results obtained in the case study illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of proposed methodologies in each stage of the VE life cycle