Towards an Ontological Foundation of Services Science: The General Service Model

Despite the ubiquity of services, there is still no consensus ontheir exact nature and structure. This consensus, however, isnecessary to unambiguously describe and trade servicesphysically as well as in an Internet of Service. To make someprogress towards a shared conceptualization, we present in thispaper a general service model based on the DOLCE foundationalontology. In our understanding, a service is essentially composedof a service process whose core actions (delivered by a serviceproducer to a service consumer) comply with the exposeddescription of a service provider’s commitment. Each servicebelongs to a larger service system process which obeys legal andpricing constraints. We illustrate the model’s usefulness andrelevance by the means of a continuous example

KSNet-Approach to Knowledge Fusion from Distributed Sources

The rapidity of the decision making process is an important factor in different branches of the human life (business, healthcare, industry, military applications etc.). Since responsible persons make decisions using available knowledge, it is important for knowledge management systems to deliver necessary and timely information. Knowledge logistics is a new direction in the knowledge management addressing this. Technology of knowledge fusion, based on the synergistic use of knowledge from multiple distributed sources, is a basis for these activities. The paper presents an overview of a Knowledge Source Network configuration approach (KSNet-approach) to knowledge fusion, multi-agent architecture and research prototype of the KSNet knowledge fusion system based on this approach

Preselection of Electronic Services by Given Business Service Based on Measuring Semantic Heterogeneity within the Application Area of Logistics

According to the service orientation design paradigm there are business (BS) and electronic services (ES). BS encapsulate business concerns. ES encapsulate computing systems, information systems and software applications. In environments with a high number of BS and ES the decision on which ES provides the most suitable support for a certain BS is not a trivial task. The objective of the thesis is to provide models, methods, and techniques for preselection of ES for a given BS. Preselection is about reducing the large amount of ES to a significant smaller amount under the consideration of a particular BS

Diagnóstico de fallos y optimización de la planificación en un marco de e-mantenimiento.

324 p.El objetivo principal es demostrar el potencial de mejora que las técnicas y metodologías relacionadas con la analítica prescriptiva, pueden proporcionar en aplicaciones de mantenimiento industrial. Las tecnologías desarrolladas se pueden agrupar en tres ámbitos: - El e-mantenimiento, relacionado fundamentalmente con el desarrollo de plataformas colaborativas e inteligentes que permiten la integración de nuevos sensores, sistemas de comunicaciones, estándares y protocolos, conceptos, métodos de almacenamiento y análisis etc. que entran continuamente en nuestro abanico de posibilidades y nos ofrecen la posibilidad de seguir una tendencia de mejora en la optimización de activos y procesos, y en la interoperabilidad entre sistemas.- Las Redes Bayesianas (Bayesian Networks ¿ BNs) junto con otras metodologías de recogida de información utilizadas en ingeniería nos ofrecen la posibilidad de automatizar la tarea de diagnóstico y predicción de fallos.- La optimización de las estrategias de mantenimiento, mediante simulaciones de fallos y análisis coste-efectividad, que ayudan a la toma de decisiones a la hora de seleccionar una estrategia de mantenimiento adecuada para el activo. Además, mediante el uso de algoritmos de optimización logramos mejorar la planificación del mantenimiento, reduciendo los tiempos y costes para realizar las tareas en un parque de activos

Fellow Travellers: What do users trust on recommender websites? A case study of TripAdvisor.com

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Saudi-Arab Emerging Video Game Cultures, Archetypes, Narratives, and User Experiences

Arab representation in media has been a major focus of many works of renowned scholars, such as Edward Said (1978), Shaheen (2000), Karim (2005) and others. Journalism, film, television, and ancient literature have all been studied in these works. A recent addition to the study of Arab representation is the medium of video games. This was first examined by Reichmuth and Werning (2006) and Machin and Suleiman (2006) and extended by many works that are discussed in this thesis. The vast majority of the literature on Arab representation in video games focuses on Western video games and the reaction of Arab developers to these representations. Lack of specificity is another characteristic of this field. Both characteristics manifest in repeated comparative studies, where scholars select one local culture as an archetype, then embark on a comparative study of the global gaming community. In so doing, there is an unfair generalisation of Arab identity across broad and diverse regions, in terms of ethnic, ideological, national, historical, and even linguistic components. The present investigation critiques the shortcomings of this previous literature, while testing some alternative methods and approaches needed to re-examine the lack of access, language barriers and the aforementioned generalisations that have limited this field until now. Rather than assuming a single archetype for Saudi culture, this thesis departs from previous scholarship by examining the various aspects of the transformation process leading to what could be called an emergent “Saudiness”. Specifically, this study examines the construction and depiction of Saudi-Arab identity through the narratives and audiovisual content of video games, paying close attention to recent developments in Saudi cultural and media policy and the mandates set forth by the Vision 2030 development plan (SCEDA, 2016). Using theories on participatory culture (Jenkins, 2009) and spreadable media (Jenkins, Ford, and Green, 2013) as well as a content analysis of previously understudied material shared by a cohort of Saudi gamers, this research investigates the particular markers and strategies used to distinguish the spectrum of cultural aspects and elements with which Saudi gamers identify. To achieve this, the analysis focuses on three distinct archetypes of Saudi Arabs in video games: (a) the Saudis in Western video games, as suggested by previous works; (b) the Saudi citizen archetype, as recommended by state policy; and (c) the Saudi culture, as represented by Saudi gamers and Saudi game producers -- who in many cases reject the idea of a single archetype. In sum, this research sheds new light on the interactions between centralised and decentralised media in Saudi Arabia, as well as the Saudi gamers\u27 sense of agency, demonstrating how Saudis perceive Saudi representations in video games as part of a complex spectrum of interactions within a larger global gaming community

Resilience-Building Technologies: State of Knowledge -- ReSIST NoE Deliverable D12

This document is the first product of work package WP2, "Resilience-building and -scaling technologies", in the programme of jointly executed research (JER) of the ReSIST Network of Excellenc