Adaptive Time- and Process-Aware Information Systems

For the digitized enterprise the proper handling of the temporal aspects of its business processes is vital. Delivery times, appointments and deadlines must be met, processing times and durations be monitored, and optimization objectives shall be pursued. However, contemporary Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs)--the go-to solution for the computer-aided support of business processes—still lack a sophisticated support of the time perspective. Hence, there is a high demand for a more profound support of temporal aspects in PAISs. Accordingly, both the specification and the operational support of temporal aspects constitute fundamental challenges for the further development and dissemination of PAISs. The aim of this thesis is to propose a framework for supporting the time perspective of business processes in PAISs. As PAISs enable the design, execution and evolution of business processes, the designated framework must support these three fundamental phases of the process life cycle. The ATAPIS framework proposed by this thesis essentially comprises three major com-ponents. First, a universal and comprehensive set of time patterns is provided. Respective time patterns represent temporal concepts commonly found in business processes and are based on empirical evidence. In particular, they provide a universal and comprehensive set of notions for describing temporal aspects in business processes. Moreover, a precise formal semantics for each of the time patterns is provided based on an in-depth analysis of a large set of real-world use cases. Respective formal semantics enable the proper integration of the time patterns into PAISs. In turn, the latter will allow for the specification of time-aware process schemas. Second, a generic framework for implementing the time patterns based on their formal semantics is developed. The framework and its techniques enable the verification of time-aware process schemas regarding their temporal consistency, i. e., their ability to be successfully executed without violating any of their temporal constraints. Subsequently, the framework is extended to consider advanced aspects like the contingent nature of activity durations and alternative execution paths as well. Moreover, an algorithm as well as techniques for executing and monitoring time-aware process instances in PAISs is provided. Based on the presented concepts, it becomes possible to ensure that a time-aware process instance may be executed without violating any of its temporal constraints. Third, a set of change operations for dynamically modifying time-aware process instances during run time is suggested. Respective change operations ensure that a modified time-aware process instance remains temporally consistent after the respective modification. Moreover, to reduce the complexity involved when applying multiple change operations a sophisticated approximation-based technique is presented. Overall, the developed change operations allow providing the flexibility required by business processes in practice. Altogether, the ATAPIS framework provides fundamental concepts, techniques and algorithms for integrating the time perspective into PAISs. As beauty of this framework the specification, execution and evolution of business processes is supported by an integrated approach

The emergence of hybrid markets from urban innovations : the case of the bus rapid transit market in Curitiba, Brazil

Orientadora: Profª. Drª. Andréa Paula SegattoTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração. Defesa : Curitiba, 07/03/2020Inclui referências: p. 185-201Resumo: O objetivo desta tese de doutorado é entender como mercados híbridos (mercados influenciados por múltiplas lógicas institucionais em seus quatro elementos componentes, ou seja, alocação de recursos e infraestrutura de mercado, regulamentação, classificação de atores e produtos no mercado e avaliação por públicos internos e externos) emergem a partir da complexidade institucional e do trabalho institucional realizado pelos atores sociais no contexto da inovação urbana nos sistemas de transporte público. Problematizamos a partir da literatura existente de sociologia dos mercados, complexidade institucional e trabalho institucional, bem como nos campos da organização híbrida para elaborar um conceito de mercados híbridos e identificar ferramentas analíticas para investigar o fenômeno do surgimento de mercados híbridos. Conduzimos uma investigação aprofundada com base em um estudo de caso único qualitativo do desenvolvimento do sistema de transporte rápido de ônibus em Curitiba, Brasil. Coletamos dados por meio de 24 entrevistas semiestruturadas com 23 informantes-chave, além de coletar 98 arquivos documentais e 614 artigos de jornal a partir de dados de cobertura da mídia. Adotamos a metodologia Grounded Theory para analisar os dados e para apresentar uma teoria emergente processual sobre o surgimento de mercados híbridos por meio de trabalho institucional em contextos institucionalmente complexos. Nossos resultados mostram que o processo de emergência do mercado híbrido começa com um trabalho relacional, simbólico e material para reforçar a lógica da relação custo-eficácia, mas também sofre influência de uma lógica alternativa, na alocação de recursos e na construção de infraestrutura de mercado (trabalho de alocação). O próximo estágio em que múltiplas lógicas influenciam o trabalho institucional é criar e/ou alterar a estrutura de regulamentação do mercado (trabalho de regulação). Também encontramos complexidade e trabalho institucional estabelecendo os atores que poderiam operar no mercado híbrido e com que tipo de produto (trabalho de classificação). Finalmente, nossos resultados demonstram que todas as lógicas institucionais identificadas (lógica de custo-eficácia, ambiental, estética e humanizadora) influenciam o processo de expansão e difusão do mercado, alterando a forma como o público (interno e externo) avalia o sistema de transporte baseado em ônibus rápido (trabalho de avaliação). Vimos também que o número de múltiplas lógicas que influenciam o mercado de transporte rápido de ônibus cresceu à medida que o mercado híbrido evoluiu através dos estágios de desenvolvimento, ou seja, argumentamos que a hibridação do mercado envolve o processo de escalada da complexidade institucional. Argumentamos que o processo de desenvolvimento do sistema de transporte rápido de ônibus em Curitiba contribui com a indústria global de ônibus, especialmente em termos de uso das relações organizacionais e interorganizacionais (trabalho relacional), alterando a estrutura física das cidades e seus equipamentos (trabalho material) e utilizando o discurso e a linguagem (trabalho simbólico) para reduzir os custos de transporte público (custo-eficácia), mitigar o impacto causado ao meio ambiente (ecológica), levar desenvolvimento socioeconômico para áreas empobrecidas e justiça social para os cidadãos das cidades modernas (humanizadora), e fazer tudo isso através de um design inteligente que faz do transporte público parte da paisagem urbana moderna (estética). Palavras-chave: Bus rapid transit. Complexidade institucional. Inovações Urbanas. Mercados híbridos. Trabalho institucional.Abstract: The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to understand how hybrid market (markets which are influenced by multiple institutional logics in their four composing elements, that is, allocation of resources and market infrastructure, regulation, classification of the actors and products in the market, and evaluation by internal and external audiences) can emerge through the institutional complexity and institutional work performed by social actors in the context of urban innovation in transport systems. We problematize from the extant literature in the sociology of markets, institutional complexity and institutional work, as well as in the hybrid organization fields to elaborate a concept of hybrid markets and analytical tools for the phenomenon of hybrid markets' emergence. We conduct an in-depth investigation based on a qualitative single case study of the development of the bus rapid transit system in Curitiba, Brazil. We collected data through 24 semi-structured interviews with 23 key informants as well as gathered 98 archival material and 614 newspaper articles from media coverage data. We adopt a Grounded Theory methodology for analyzing the data to present an emerging process theory about the emergence of hybrid markets through institutional work in institutionally complex contexts. Our results show that the process of hybrid market emergence starts with relational, symbolic and material work to reinforce the cost-efficacy logic, but also suffering influence of an alternative logic, in the allocation of resources and on the construction of market infrastructure (allocation work). The next stage in which multiple logics influence institutional work is at creating and/or changing the regulatory structure of the market (regulation work). We also find institutional complexity and institutional work by establishing the actors that would be allowed to operate in the hybrid market and with which kind of product (classification work). Finally, our results show that all institutional logics identified (costefficacy, environmental, aesthetic, and humanizing logics) influence the process of market expansion and diffusion by changing how the audience (internal and external) valued bus-based transport system (evaluation work). We also find that the number of multiple logics influencing the bus rapid transit market has grown as the hybrid market evolved through the stages of development, that is, we argue that market hybridizing involves the process of escalating institutional complexity throughout the time. We argue that the process of development of the Bus Rapid Transit system in Curitiba contributes to the whole bus industry even at a global level, especially in terms of using the organizational and interorganizational relationships (relational work), changing the physical structure of cities and its equipment (material work), and using the discourse and language (symbolic work) reducing the costs of public transport (cost-efficacy logic), mitigating the impact caused to the environment in terms of polluting gases emission (ecology logic), bringing development to impoverished areas and taking social justice for the citizens of modern cities (humanizing logic), and making all these things through an intelligent design that is able to turn the public transport into an harmonious part of the modern urban landscape (aesthetic logic). Keywords: Bus rapid transit systems. Hybrid markets. Institutional complexity. Institutional work. Urban Innovations

Role-based Data Management

Database systems build an integral component of today’s software systems and as such they are the central point for storing and sharing a software system’s data while ensuring global data consistency at the same time. Introducing the primitives of roles and their accompanied metatype distinction in modeling and programming languages, results in a novel paradigm of designing, extending, and programming modern software systems. In detail, roles as modeling concept enable a separation of concerns within an entity. Along with its rigid core, an entity may acquire various roles in different contexts during its lifetime and thus, adapts its behavior and structure dynamically during runtime. Unfortunately, database systems, as important component and global consistency provider of such systems, do not keep pace with this trend. The absence of a metatype distinction, in terms of an entity’s separation of concerns, in the database system results in various problems for the software system in general, for the application developers, and finally for the database system itself. In case of relational database systems, these problems are concentrated under the term role-relational impedance mismatch. In particular, the whole software system is designed by using different semantics on various layers. In case of role-based software systems in combination with relational database systems this gap in semantics between applications and the database system increases dramatically. Consequently, the database system cannot directly represent the richer semantics of roles as well as the accompanied consistency constraints. These constraints have to be ensured by the applications and the database system loses its single point of truth characteristic in the software system. As the applications are in charge of guaranteeing global consistency, their development requires more effort in data management. Moreover, the software system’s data management is distributed over several layers, which results in an unstructured software system architecture. To overcome the role-relational impedance mismatch and bring the database system back in its rightful position as single point of truth in a software system, this thesis introduces the novel and tripartite RSQL approach. It combines a novel database model that represents the metatype distinction as first class citizen in a database system, an adapted query language on the database model’s basis, and finally a proper result representation. Precisely, RSQL’s logical database model introduces Dynamic Data Types, to directly represent the separation of concerns within an entity type on the schema level. On the instance level, the database model defines the notion of a Dynamic Tuple that combines an entity with the notion of roles and thus, allows for dynamic structure adaptations during runtime without changing an entity’s overall type. These definitions build the main data structures on which the database system operates. Moreover, formal operators connecting the query language statements with the database model data structures, complete the database model. The query language, as external database system interface, features an individual data definition, data manipulation, and data query language. Their statements directly represent the metatype distinction to address Dynamic Data Types and Dynamic Tuples, respectively. As a consequence of the novel data structures, the query processing of Dynamic Tuples is completely redesigned. As last piece for a complete database integration of a role-based notion and its accompanied metatype distinction, we specify the RSQL Result Net as result representation. It provides a novel result structure and features functionalities to navigate through query results. Finally, we evaluate all three RSQL components in comparison to a relational database system. This assessment clearly demonstrates the benefits of the roles concept’s full database integration

The development of a cooperative model to analyze the effects of differential member treatment

Cooperatives are becoming increasingly aware that to remain a competitive business form they must deal with the changing composition of their membership. Differential treatment of patrons is already used by noncooperatives and should also be considered by cooperative decision-makers as a possible operational strategy;The heterogeneity of cooperative members can be seen by looking at the different sizes, financial situations, and ages of the patrons. Although the cooperative membership can be categorized into many different groups, not all classifications can and/or should be used as a basis for differential treatment. The key to which classification systems can legally be used depends on whether there is a cost difference in servicing these patron groups. Many different methods of applying differential treatment are possible, however the most obvious ways are through prices, patronage refund policies, and stock requirements;Although there are many different ways to categorize and differentially treat members, the feasibility of any program depends on its adherence to the Rochdale Principles, its legality, and its acceptance by members. The principle of operation at cost is the keystone to the justification of any differential treatment policy. If each member is expected to pay only for the actual costs incurred by the cooperative in providing the service, then this infers that patrons can be differentially treated;Both a general model and an application of it are developed that enables the cooperative decision-maker to determine the effects of differentially treating members. Each member\u27s profit function is specified and maximized subject to that patron\u27s constraints. The cooperative firm\u27s model includes submodels for the production-pricing and financial decisions. These two submodels are solved in a stepwise manner with the endogenous variables of the first submodel being the exogenous variables in the second. The levels of the endogenous variables of the second model are then used to make adjustments in the first. The Kuhn-Tucker conditions are derived and interpreted. These conditions provide the decision-maker with guidelines in maximizing both individual and cooperative profits

Dynamical Systems in Spiking Neuromorphic Hardware

Dynamical systems are universal computers. They can perceive stimuli, remember, learn from feedback, plan sequences of actions, and coordinate complex behavioural responses. The Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) provides a general recipe to formulate models of such systems as coupled sets of nonlinear differential equations and compile them onto recurrently connected spiking neural networks – akin to a programming language for spiking models of computation. The Nengo software ecosystem supports the NEF and compiles such models onto neuromorphic hardware. In this thesis, we analyze the theory driving the success of the NEF, and expose several core principles underpinning its correctness, scalability, completeness, robustness, and extensibility. We also derive novel theoretical extensions to the framework that enable it to far more effectively leverage a wide variety of dynamics in digital hardware, and to exploit the device-level physics in analog hardware. At the same time, we propose a novel set of spiking algorithms that recruit an optimal nonlinear encoding of time, which we call the Delay Network (DN). Backpropagation across stacked layers of DNs dramatically outperforms stacked Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks—a state-of-the-art deep recurrent architecture—in accuracy and training time, on a continuous-time memory task, and a chaotic time-series prediction benchmark. The basic component of this network is shown to function on state-of-the-art spiking neuromorphic hardware including Braindrop and Loihi. This implementation approaches the energy-efficiency of the human brain in the former case, and the precision of conventional computation in the latter case