House price volatility metamodel for managing house price volatility knowledge

A change in house price is a situation that is very dynamic and unpredictable. The study found that changes in house price volatility are more dynamic than the changes in the price of goods or household income. Demographic changes, market forces and the rise of speculation are among the factors that influence the volatility in house prices. Through this research all the determining factors associated with changes in house price volatility were identified because the changes on the determinant factors have an impact on the pattern of the house price market. For the purposes of showing a comprehensive relationship between the determinants of house price with house price volatility, the methods in modelling the concept in software engineering known as metamodelling has been adapted. Through metamodelling, an artifact known as 'metamodel' is produced. Specifically for this study, the metamodel is known as House Price Volatility Metamodel (HPVM). By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the development of HPVM implemented using 8 Step Metamodelling Creation process, where HPVM is capable of modeling the determinant factors that determine the volatility in house prices in three major categories: i) Socio-Economic view, ii) Economic view and iii) HPV Significant Value view. Three types of validation technique, Expert Review (Face to Face Validation), Frequency-Base Selection and Tracing (Case Study) in three states in Malaysia, namely Penang, Johor and Kuala Lumpur have been used to assess the effectiveness of the metamodel. Metamodel development is believed to be beneficial to various stakeholders in the domain of property market such as the government like from Ministry of Finance, real estate investors, economists, buyers and real estate practitioners where they are able to get a variety of views and considerations in assessing house price market and house price volatility. These considerations are very important in evaluating the real estate market, as it will be an input in decisionmaking basis for this field

Development and validation of a disaster management metamodel (DMM)

Disaster Management (DM) is a diffused area of knowledge. It has many complex features interconnecting the physical and the social views of the world. Many international and national bodies create knowledge models to allow knowledge sharing and effective DM activities. But these are often narrow in focus and deal with specified disaster types. We analyze thirty such models to uncover that many DM activities are actually common even when the events vary. We then create a unified view of DM in the form of a metamodel. We apply a metamodelling process to ensure that this metamodel is complete and consistent. We validate it and present a representational layer to unify and share knowledge as well as combine and match different DM activities according to different disaster situations