Translating stakeholders needs to application requirements for e-government development projects

Most public organizations nowadays undertake implementations of e-government projects. Such projects are usually the organization’s response to its operational needs. Sometimes though, they are linked to a wider perspective or central planning initiative sponsored by a government and involving a large number of public service organizations. In their majority e-government projects aim at addressing citizens’ and businesses’ needs in their interaction with public authorities. Thus such projects directly reflect public administration’s mission as it is defined with reference to its external environment. In addition public administration stakeholder requirements are examined, with compatibilities and / or conflicts and their effects on the design of e-Government implementations identified. This can be used in resolving conflicting requirements at a higher level before the design and implementation of individual components of a system that correspond to tasks and procedures are affected

Systems of Systems as a Conceptual Framework for Spatial Data Infrastructures

This paper proposes Systems of Systems (SoS) as a conceptual framework to support the creation, evolution and study of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). After reviewing the relationship between SDIs and generic Information Infrastructures (IIs), a comparison of the latter and SoS is presented. The conclusions of this comparison lead us to propose that IIs can be considered as SoS with several distinctive characteristics. This would allow the SDI community to consider a new set of techniques, methods and tools, coming from the SoS community, to advance in SDI research and development

MAPPING E-GOVERNMENT STAKEHOLDER REQUIREMENTS TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OPERATIONAL NEEDS

This paper proposes a framework for e-government development projects aiming at the detection of inconsistencies, incompatibilities and mistakes during the early design stages. This is achieved by applying a Requirements Engineering methodology for the identification of stakeholder requirements and dependencies. Furthermore, a generic identification of public administration’s functions is being proposed making it possible to detect deficits in service provision. Using a Goal Oriented Requirements Engineering methodology and relevant tools, stakeholders’ and functional goals are mapped. An example of a knowledge management system, presenting the case of a Greek e-government application is discussed here in relation to the proposed framework

Cognition-based approaches for high-precision text mining

This research improves the precision of information extraction from free-form text via the use of cognitive-based approaches to natural language processing (NLP). Cognitive-based approaches are an important, and relatively new, area of research in NLP and search, as well as linguistics. Cognitive approaches enable significant improvements in both the breadth and depth of knowledge extracted from text. This research has made contributions in the areas of a cognitive approach to automated concept recognition in. Cognitive approaches to search, also called concept-based search, have been shown to improve search precision. Given the tremendous amount of electronic text generated in our digital and connected world, cognitive approaches enable substantial opportunities in knowledge discovery. The generation and storage of electronic text is ubiquitous, hence opportunities for improved knowledge discovery span virtually all knowledge domains. While cognition-based search offers superior approaches, challenges exist due to the need to mimic, even in the most rudimentary way, the extraordinary powers of human cognition. This research addresses these challenges in the key area of a cognition-based approach to automated concept recognition. In addition it resulted in a semantic processing system framework for use in applications in any knowledge domain. Confabulation theory was applied to the problem of automated concept recognition. This is a relatively new theory of cognition using a non-Bayesian measure, called cogency, for predicting the results of human cognition. An innovative distance measure derived from cogent confabulation and called inverse cogency, to rank order candidate concepts during the recognition process. When used with a multilayer perceptron, it improved the precision of concept recognition by 5% over published benchmarks. Additional precision improvements are anticipated. These research steps build a foundation for cognition-based, high-precision text mining. Long-term it is anticipated that this foundation enables a cognitive-based approach to automated ontology learning. Such automated ontology learning will mimic human language cognition, and will, in turn, enable the practical use of cognitive-based approaches in virtually any knowledge domain --Abstract, page iii

Formal and quantitative approach to non-functional requirements modeling and assessment in software engineering

In the software market place, in which functionally equivalent products compete for the same customer, Non Functional Requirements (NFRs) become more important in distinguishing between the competing products. However, in practice, NFRs receive little attention relative to Functional Requirements (FRs). This is mainly because of the nature of these requirements which poses a challenge when taking the choice of treating them earlier in the software development. NFRs are subjective, relative and they become scattered among multiple modules when they are mapped from the requirements domain to the solution space. Furthermore, NFRs can often interact, in the sense that attempts to achieve one NFR can help or hinder the achievement of other NFRs at particular software functionality. Such an interaction creates an extensive network of interdependencies and tradeoffs among NFRs which is not easy to trace or estimate. This thesis contributes towards achieving the goal of managing the attainable scope and the changes of NFRs. The thesis proposes and empirically evaluates a formal and quantitative approach to modeling and assessing NFRs. Central to such an approach is the implementation of the proposed NFRs Ontology for capturing and structuring the knowledge on the software requirements (FRs and NFRs), their refinements, and their interdependencies. In this thesis, we also propose a change management mechanism for tracing the impact of NFRs on the other constructs in the ontology and vice-versa. We provide a traceability mechanism using Datalog expressions to implement queries on the relational model-based representation for the ontology. An alternative implementation view using XML and XQuery is provided as well. In addition, we propose a novel approach for the early requirements-based effort estimation, based on NFRs Ontology. The effort estimation approach complementarily uses one standard functional size measurement model, namely COSMIC, and a linear regression techniqu

Um framework para o e-Judiciário estadual baseado na governança e gestão do conhecimento

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia e Gestão do Conhecimento, Florianópolis, 2017.Esta tese aborda a relação entre estratégia e estrutura organizacional com foco no conhecimento, prática organizacional e governança organizacional. Tem por contexto o conceito de e-Judiciário. O objetivo geral da tese é analisar a eficácia da estrutura organizacional operacional de Administração do Poder Judiciário estadual (PJE). Analisa-se a especialização funcional, seus impactos na eficácia organizacional tanto quantitativamente quanto qualitativamente. O trabalho é interdisciplinar e multiparadigmático, como tal sintetiza e concilia diferentes linhas teóricas, de diferentes disciplinas como a Administração, a Engenharia e Gestão do Conhecimento, Economia e o Direito. A abordagem é holística e sistêmica; científica-tecnológica. O estudo é teórico-empírico; hipotético-dedutivo e posteriormente indutivo (desenvolvimento do framework Judiciário Virtual Especializado - JVE); é qualitativo e quantitativo (mixed research) com elementos de Grounded Theory. Aplicam-se diversas técnicas: pesquisa de campo, documental, coleta e análise de dados, estudo de caso e entrevistas. Similarmente há um grande conjunto de instrumentos de pesquisa, incluindo triangulacão quantitativa-qualitativa, sistemas de gerenciamento de banco de dados, questionários, metodologia CommonKADs, Software de modelagem de dados Unified Modeling Language (UML), software de análise estatística, editor de ontologias, dentre outros. Os resultados confirmam as hipóteses: comarcas já especializadas são mais eficazes (+47%); estas também apresentam maior qualidade na prestação jurisdicional e grau de inovação. Propõe-se o JVE que propicia a especialização funcional do Juiz desde o início da carreira por meio de uma estrutura organizacional matricial geográfico-temática na qual há especialição em matérias de direito de forma geograficamente distribuída utilizando-se os documentos eletrônicos e teleconferências. O JVE por meio de engenharia do conhecimento, permite load balance para distribuição de processos entre juízes especializados em diferentes localizações geográficas especializados no mesmo tema, envolto em uma robusta estrutura de gestão e governança estratégica do conhecimento no poder judiciário estadual.Abstract : This thesis addresses the relationship between organizational strategy and organizational structure. It relies on knowledge, organizational practice and governance. Its context is the concept of e-Judiciary. The research objective is to analyze the effectiveness of the operational organizational structure of the State Judicial System (PJE) which is the first instance of Justice in Brazil. We analyze the impact of functional specialization on organizational effectiveness both quantitatively and qualitatively. The work is interdisciplinary and multiparadigmatic, as consequence it synthesizes and reconcile different theoretical lines, from different disciplines such as Administration, Engineering and Knowledge Management, Economics and Law. The approach is holistic and systemic; Scientific-technological. The study is theoretical-empirical; Hypothetical-deductive and later inductive (on the Specialized Virtual Judiciary - JVE - framework development); it is qualitative and quantitative (mixed theory) with Grounded Theory elements. Several techniques are applied: field research, data collection and analysis, case study and interviews among others. In this paper we present the results of the UML data modeling software, statistical analysis software, ontology publisher, and others, including quantitative-qualitative triangulation, database management systems, questionnaires and CommonKADs methodology. The results confirm the raised hypotheses: specialized courts are more efficient (+ 47%); the JVE, an organizational framework at tactical and operational level, provides a functional specialization of Judge. Thus, he may specialize from the beginning of the career through the geographic-thematic matrix (as organizational structure) in which there is specialization in different law subjects in a geographically distributed way using electronic documents and teleconferences. The JVE through knowledge engineering and knowledge systems, allows work load balancing to distribute cases between judges in different geographic locations, all of that wrapped in a robust management structure with strategic governance of Knowledge in the state judiciary

Ontology-based active requirements engineering framework

Software-intensive systems are systems of systems that rely on complex interdependencies among themselves as well as with their operational environment to satisfy the required behavior. As we integrate such systems to create information infrastructures that are critical to the quality of our lives and the businesses they support, the need to effectively predict, control and evolve their behavior is ever increasing. To deal with their complexity, an important first step is to understand and model software-intensive systems, their environments and the interdependencies among them at different levels of abstractions from multiple dimensions. In this paper, we present an Ontology-based Active Requirements Engineering (Onto-ActRE [onto-�kt�r]) framework that adopts a mixed-initiative approach to elicit, represent and analyze the diversity of factors associated with software-intensive systems. The Onto-ActRE framework integrates various RE modeling techniques with complementary semantics in a unifying ontological engineering process. We also present examples from the practice of our framework with appropriate tool support that combines theoretical and practical aspects. 1