Stylized Facts as an Instrument for Literature Review and Cumulative Information Systems Research

The accumulation of scientific knowledge is an important objective of information systems (IS) research. Although different review approaches exist in the continuum between narrative reviews and meta-analyses, most reviews in IS are narrative or descriptive—with all related drawbacks concerning objectivity and reliability—because available under¬lying sources in IS do typically not fulfil the requirements of formal approaches such as meta-analyses. To discuss how cumulative IS research can be effectively advanced using a more formalized approach fitting the current situation in IS research, in this paper, we point out the potential of stylized facts (SFs). SFs are interesting, sometimes counterintuitive patterns in empirical data that focus on the most relevant aspects of observable phenomena by abstracting from details (stylization). SFs originate from the field of economics and have been successfully used in different fields of research for years. In this paper, we discuss their potential and challenges for literature reviews in IS. We supplement our argumentation with an application example reporting our experience with SFs. Because SFs show considerable potential for cumulative research, they seem to be a promising instrument for literature reviews and especially for theory development in IS

Enhancing BPMN Conformance Checking with OR Gateways and Data Objects

Äriprotsessimudel ja -notatsioon (BPMN) on arenev standard äriprotsesside graafiliseks kujutamiseks. Protsessimudel kirjeldab, kuidas äriprotsess peaks toimima. Kui äriprotsessi tegelikust käitamisest on saadaval ka sündmuste logi, on võimalik vastata küsimusele, kas protsessimudel vastab tegelikkusele. Vastavusanalüüs püüab tuvastada mittevastavusi protsessimudeli ja äriprotsessi käitamisel tekkinud sündmuste logi vahel. BPMN vastavuseanalüsaator on üks Itaalia ettevõtte SIAV-i poolt arendatud protsessikaeve tööriista osadest. Nimetatud tööriistal on aga puudujäägid formaalse semantika osas. Nimelt keskendub vastavusanalüüs järgnevuse voole (control-flow) protsessis, kuid jätab arvesse võtmata andmetevahelisi sõltuvusi. Lisaks ei ole vastavusanalüüsil võimalik kasutada protsessimudeleid, mis sisaldavad OR väravaid (OR gateway). OR-join omab mitme-tähenduslikku semantikat. Se lle konstruktsiooni jaoks on pakutud mitmeid formaalseid semantikaid sarnastes keeltes, nagu EPCs ja YAWL. Nimetatud semantikate kasutatamine mudelite käitamisel ja vastavuse analaüüsil on aga arvutuslikult kulukas. Seega on käesolevas lõputöös implementeeritud OR värava aktiveerimine lineaarse ajalise sõltuvusega mudeli suuruse suhtes. Kuna SIAV-i vastavusanalüsaator ei võta arvesse andmetevahelisi sõltuvusi, võib puudulik analüüs viia vigase vastavusdiagnostikani. Näiteks võib andmeatribuut anda infot selle kohta, et käitati vale tegevus. Kirjeldatud põhjustel ei peaks vastavusanalüsaator tegelema vaid järgnevuse voo vastavuse analüüsiga, vaid peaks arvesse võtma ka andmeid ja nendevahelisi sõltuvusi ning aega. Käesoleva töö teises osas täiendati olemasolevat andmeanalüsaatorit andmeatribuutidega.The Business Process Model and Notation is a developing standard for capturing business processes. Process models describe how the business process is expected to be executed. When a log is available from process executions, this situation raises the interesting question “Are the model and the log conformant?". Conformance checking, also referred to as conformance analysis, aims at the detection of inconsistencies between a process model and its corresponding execution log.The BPMN conformance checker, as a part of a process mining tool, developed an Italian company called SIAV, however, this tool lacks some formal semantics. In particular, the previous conformance checking approach in SIAV tends to focus on the control-flow in a process, while abstracting from data dependencies and process models containing OR gateways could not be used.OR-join has an ambiguous semantics. The several formal semantics of this construct have been proposed for similar languages such as EPCs and YAWL. However, executing and verifying models using these semantics is computationally expensive. Therefore, in this thesis, we implemented enablement of an OR-join in linear time in the size of the workflow graph.Data dependencies are also not considered in conformance checker developed in SIAV, which may lead to misleading conformance diagnostics. For example, a data attribute may provide strong evidence that the wrong activity was executed. That’s why the conformance checker should not only describe the process behaviour from the control flow point of view, but also from other perspectives like data or time. In the second part of the thesis, we enhanced the existing conformance checker with data attributes

A GIS-Based Methodology for Speedy Energy Efficiency Mapping: A Case Study in Bologna

The paper reports a methodology developed to map energy consumption of the building stock at the urban scale on a GIS environment. Energy consumption has been investigated, focusing on the shift from the individual building scale to the district one with the purpose of identifying larger homogenous energy use areas for addressing policies and plans to improve the quality and the performance levels at the city scale. The urban planning zoning concept was extended to the energy issue to include the energy behavior of each zone that depends on the performance of its individual buildings. The methodology generates GIS maps providing a district scale visualization of energy consumption according to shared criteria. A case study in Bologna city (Italy) is provided. In the specific case, the last update of Emilia-Romagna regional urban planning regulation required a mapping action regarding energy efficiency of homogeneous urban portions defined by the General Urban Plan. The main achieved results are (a) a methodology to identify homogeneous areas for analyzing energy consumption; (b) an updated energy map of Bologna Municipality

Monitoring System Analysis for Evaluating a Building’s Envelope Energy Performance through Estimation of Its Heat Loss Coefficient

The present article investigates the question of building energy monitoring systems used for data collection to estimate the Heat Loss Coefficient (HLC) with existing methods, in order to determine the Thermal Envelope Performance (TEP) of a building. The data requirements of HLC estimation methods are related to commonly used methods for fault detection, calibration, and supervision of energy monitoring systems in buildings. Based on an extended review of experimental tests to estimate the HLC undertaken since 1978, qualitative and quantitative analyses of the Monitoring and Controlling System (MCS) specifications have been carried out. The results show that no Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) methods have been implemented in the reviewed literature. Furthermore, it was not possible to identify a trend of technology type used in sensors, hardware, software, and communication protocols, because a high percentage of the reviewed experimental tests do not specify the model, technical characteristics, or selection criteria of the implemented MCSs. Although most actual Building Automation Systems (BAS) may measure the required parameters, further research is still needed to ensure that these data are accurate enough to rigorously apply HLC estimation methods.This work was supported by: Spanish Economy and Competitiveness Ministry and European Regional Development Fund through the IMMOEN project: "Implementation of automated calibration and multiobjective optimization techniques applied to Building Energy Model simulations by means of monitored buildings". Project reference: ENE2015-65999-C2-2-R (MINECO/FEDER); European Commission through the A2PBEER project "Affordable and Adaptable Public Buildings through Energy Efficient Retrofitting". Grant agreement No.: 609060; Laboratory for the Quality Control of Buildings (LCCE) of the Basque Government; University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Framework agreement: Euro-regional Campus of Excellence within the context of their respective excellence projects, Euskampus and IdEx Bordeaux. Funder reference: PIFBUR 16/26

Einfache EPK-Semantik durch praxistaugliche Stilregeln

Bekannte Ansätze zur Semantikdefinition von EPKs beschreiten zwei grundsätzlich unterschiedliche Wege, um die bestehenden Probleme (insbesondere mit nicht-lokalen Konnektoren) zu lösen: Entweder die Klasse der „gültigen“ EPKs wird stark eingeschränkt oder ein komplexer Algorithmus berechnet die Semantik (oder stellt fest, dass für die vorliegende EPK keine vernünfige Semantik existiert). Wir versuchen, einen Mittelweg zu finden und fragen, ob es wenige einfache Stilregeln für EPKs gibt, die eine einfache und eindeutige Semantikdefinition ermöglichen. Die Stilregeln sollen nicht unnötig streng sein. d.h. sie sollen möglichst viele in der Praxis vorhandenen Modelle abdecken. Wir schlagen einige einfache Stilregeln vor, die die o.g. Anforderungen erfüllen. An 285 EPK-Modellen, die wir aus verschiedensten Quellen gewonnen haben, wurde geprüft, ob das Modell die Regeln einhält. Diese Untersuchung zeigte, dass in den Fällen, in denen die Stilregeln verletzt waren, tatsächlich auch das Modell einer Ver- besserung bedurfte

Performance Analysis of Business Process Models with Advanced Constructs

The importance of actively managing and analysing business processes is acknowledged more than ever in or- ganisations nowadays. Business processes form an essential part of an organisation and their application areas are manifold. Most organisations keep records of various activities that have been carried out for auditing pur- poses, but they are rarely used for analysis purposes. This paper describes the design and implementation of a process analysis tool that replays, analyses and visualises a variety of performance metrics using a process definition and its corresponding execution logs. The replayer uses a YAWL process model example to demon- strate its capacity to support advanced language constructs

24th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases

In the last three decades information modelling and knowledge bases have become essentially important subjects not only in academic communities related to information systems and computer science but also in the business area where information technology is applied. The series of European – Japanese Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases (EJC) originally started as a co-operation initiative between Japan and Finland in 1982. The practical operations were then organised by professor Ohsuga in Japan and professors Hannu Kangassalo and Hannu Jaakkola in Finland (Nordic countries). Geographical scope has expanded to cover Europe and also other countries. Workshop characteristic - discussion, enough time for presentations and limited number of participants (50) / papers (30) - is typical for the conference. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: 1. Conceptual modelling: Modelling and specification languages; Domain-specific conceptual modelling; Concepts, concept theories and ontologies; Conceptual modelling of large and heterogeneous systems; Conceptual modelling of spatial, temporal and biological data; Methods for developing, validating and communicating conceptual models. 2. Knowledge and information modelling and discovery: Knowledge discovery, knowledge representation and knowledge management; Advanced data mining and analysis methods; Conceptions of knowledge and information; Modelling information requirements; Intelligent information systems; Information recognition and information modelling. 3. Linguistic modelling: Models of HCI; Information delivery to users; Intelligent informal querying; Linguistic foundation of information and knowledge; Fuzzy linguistic models; Philosophical and linguistic foundations of conceptual models. 4. Cross-cultural communication and social computing: Cross-cultural support systems; Integration, evolution and migration of systems; Collaborative societies; Multicultural web-based software systems; Intercultural collaboration and support systems; Social computing, behavioral modeling and prediction. 5. Environmental modelling and engineering: Environmental information systems (architecture); Spatial, temporal and observational information systems; Large-scale environmental systems; Collaborative knowledge base systems; Agent concepts and conceptualisation; Hazard prediction, prevention and steering systems. 6. Multimedia data modelling and systems: Modelling multimedia information and knowledge; Contentbased multimedia data management; Content-based multimedia retrieval; Privacy and context enhancing technologies; Semantics and pragmatics of multimedia data; Metadata for multimedia information systems. Overall we received 56 submissions. After careful evaluation, 16 papers have been selected as long paper, 17 papers as short papers, 5 papers as position papers, and 3 papers for presentation of perspective challenges. We thank all colleagues for their support of this issue of the EJC conference, especially the program committee, the organising committee, and the programme coordination team. The long and the short papers presented in the conference are revised after the conference and published in the Series of “Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence” by IOS Press (Amsterdam). The books “Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases” are edited by the Editing Committee of the conference. We believe that the conference will be productive and fruitful in the advance of research and application of information modelling and knowledge bases. Bernhard Thalheim Hannu Jaakkola Yasushi Kiyok