Compact Indexes Based on Core Content in Personal Dataspace Management System

A Personal DataSpace Management System is a platform to manage personal data with heterogeneous data types, in which keyword query is a primary query form for users who know little about the structure of the dataspace. Unlike exploratory queries in web search, a user in a personal dataspace usually has a specific search target and wants to find some known items in mind. To improve result quality in terms of query relevance in a personal dataspace, we propose the concept of compact index in this paper. We refer to the most important and representative semantics from documents as core content, and build compact index on it. We propose algorithm for selecting core content from a document based on semantic analysis, which can process English and Chinese documents uniformly. Furthermore, a software platform named Versatile is introduced for flexible personal data management, in which core content is extracted for building compact indexes and generating query-biased snippet efficiently and accurately. Finally, extensive experiments have been conducted to show the effectiveness and feasibility of compact indexes in personal dataspace management system

Mining Dynamic Document Spaces with Massively Parallel Embedded Processors

Currently Océ investigates future document management services. One of these services is accessing dynamic document spaces, i.e. improving the access to document spaces which are frequently updated (like newsgroups). This process is rather computational intensive. This paper describes the research conducted on software development for massively parallel processors. A prototype has been built which processes streams of information from specified newsgroups and transforms them into personal information maps. Although this technology does speed up the training part compared to a general purpose processor implementation, however, its real benefits emerges with larger problem dimensions because of the scalable approach. It is recommended to improve on quality of the map as well as on visualisation and to better profile the performance of the other parts of the pipeline, i.e. feature extraction and visualisation

DANP-Evaluation of AHP-DSS

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the analytic network process (ANP) are important multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods for solving strategic decision problems. In the field of the research and teaching projects of a university’s Management Science Department, the use of adequate decision support systems (DSS) enables an appropriate application and acceptance of these methods. By reason of the great variety of AHP-DSS, the aim of this paper is the selection of AHP-supporting software. Owing to the interdependencies of the software quality criteria, these influences can be evaluated appropriately by the ANP. As for the various requirements of the different department members, the ANP procedure is linked with the DEMATEL approach. Within such a combined framework (DANP), the alternate software products and their quality selection criteria are transparently analysed and evaluated from a multi-personal point of view. The described procedure is an object of reference to solve such structuring and evaluation problems by support of parallel and/or distributed computing architecture

Navigating The Leading Edge: A Prototype Curriculum for Software Systems Management

This article presents a meaningful and advantageous new direction for information technology education, embodying principles for systematically optimizing the functioning of the business. Our curriculum was built on the thesis that every aspect of software systems management can be understood and described as a component of four universal, highly correlated behaviors: abstraction, product creation, product verification and validation, and process optimization. Given this, our model curriculum was structured to provide the maximum exposure to current best practice in six thematic areas, which taken together as an integrated set, makes-up the attributes that differentiate us from the other computer disciplines: Abstraction: understanding and description of the problem space Design: models for framing artifact to meet criteria 3, 4, 5, and 6 Process Engineering: application of large models such as IEEE 12207 Organizational Control Systems: SQA and configuration management Evaluation with Measurement: with an emphasis on testing and metrics Construction: professional programming languages with emphasis on reusability Our teaching strategy approaches this as a hierarchy of similar activities. In every course we require the student to define and implement all three interfaces and be able to clearly communicate this as a logically consistent model before working out the details of the solution. The focus of all understanding is top-down from the information interface. Our curriculum centers on the application of software engineering standards (such as those promulgated by IEEE) and the software process improvement, or quality standards (such as those promulgated by SEI and ISO) under the assumption that this embodies the common body of knowledge and state of best practice in software production and management. The practical realization of this is an integration of the large subject areas of: software engineering (methods, models and criteria), process and product quality management (software quality assurance and metrics), software project management (work decomposition, planning, sizing and estimating), and software configuration management. Reconciliation of project and configuration management is accomplished by cross-referencing the problems, tools, notations and solutions (through explicit identification, authorization and validation procedures). As a side agenda, we have also stressed the need for re-engineering the vast number of software products currently on the shelves. This model plus germane simulated real-world experience introduces all of the relevant principles to the student within the (currently understood) framework. It allows them to develop and internalize their own comprehensive understanding and formulate a personal model of the disciplinary body of knowledge

Position paper on management of personal data in environment and health research in Europe

Management of datasets that include health information and other sensitive personal information of European study participants has to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Within scientific research, the widely subscribed'FAIR' data principles should apply, meaning that research data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable. Balancing the aim of open science driven FAIR data management with GDPR compliant personal data protection safeguards is now a common challenge for many research projects dealing with (sensitive) personal data. In December 2020 a workshop was held with representatives of several large EU research consortia and of the European Commission to reflect on how to apply the FAIR data principles for environment and health research (E&H). Several recent data intensive EU funded E&H research projects face this challenge and work intensively towards developing solutions to access, exchange, store, handle, share, process and use such sensitive personal data, with the aim to support European and transnational collaborations. As a result, several recommendations, opportunities and current limitations were formulated. New technical developments such as federated data management and analysis systems, machine learning together with advanced search software, harmonized ontologies and data quality standards should in principle facilitate the FAIRification of data. To address ethical, legal, political and financial obstacles to the wider re-use of data for research purposes, both specific expertise and underpinning infrastructure are needed. There is a need for the E&H research data to find their place in the European Open Science Cloud. Communities using health and population data, environmental data and other publicly available data have to interconnect and synergize. To maximize the use and re-use of environment and health data, a dedicated supporting European infrastructure effort, such as the EIRENE research infrastructure within the ESFRI roadmap 2021, is needed that would interact with existing infrastructures

Internal and contextual factors, knowledge processes and performance: From the Chinese provider's perspective

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Expert Systems with Applications. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This paper explores the influences of two internal factors, i.e. supplier team’s IT-based skills and communication with client’s team, and two contextual factors, i.e. supplier team’s understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team, on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services from the Chinese provider’s perspective. Knowledge processes are characterized by knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management, and performance is measured by product success and personal satisfaction. Data have been collected in 13 companies in Xi’an Software Park, with 26 in-depth, semi-structured interviews held with top and middle managers, and 200 structured questionnaires distributed to knowledge workers who are involved in global sourcing projects. The results indicate that supplier team’s IT-based skills, communication with client’s team, cultural understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team are positively associated with knowledge process and performance. Also, knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management are found to be crucial for those influential factors to function positively and contribute to the performance. The findings of this study suggest that the effects of key factors on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services appear to transcend the social and cultural differences; however, contextual factors seem to have more significant influences on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services.National Natural Science Foundation of Chin

Recent Topical Research on Global, Energy, Health & Medical, and Tourism Economics, and Global Software: An Overview

The paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted “global†in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on economics, thereby making it "global economics". In this sense, the paper is concerned with papers on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, as well as global software algorithms that have global economic impacts. The topics covered include re-opening the Silk Road to transform Chinese trade, education and skill mismatches, code of practice and indicators for quality management of official statistics, projections of energy use and carbon emissions, multi-fuel allocation for power generation using genetic algorithms, optimal active energy loss with feeder routing and renewable energy for smart grid distribution, demand for narcotics with policy implications, computer technology to improve medical information, heritage tourism, ecotourism impacts on the economy, society and environment, taxi drivers' cross-cultural communication problems and challenges, hybrid knowledge discovery system based on items and tags, game development platform to improve advanced programming skills, quadratic approximation of the newsvendor problem with imperfect quality, classification of workflow management systems for emails, academic search engine for personalized rankings, creative and learning processes using game-based activities, personal software process with automatic requirements traceability to support start-ups, and comparing statistical and data mining techniques for enrichment ontology with instances

Recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software

The paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted “global” in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on economics, thereby making it “global economics”. In this sense, the paper is concerned with papers on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, as well as global software algorithms that have global economic impacts. The topics covered include re-opening the Silk Road to transform Chinese trade, education and skill mismatches, education policy for migrant children, code of practice and indicators for quality management of official statistics, projections of energy use and carbon emissions, multifuel allocation for power generation using genetic algorithms, optimal active energy loss with feeder routing and renewable energy for smart grid distribution, demand for narcotics with policy implications, access to maternal and child health services of migrant workers, computer technology to improve medical information, heritage tourism, ecotourism impacts on the economy, society and environment, taxi drivers’ cross-cultural communication problems and challenges, hybrid knowledge discovery system based on items and tags, game development platform to improve advanced programming skills, quadratic approximation of the newsvendor problem with imperfect quality, classification of workflow management systems for emails, academic search engine for personalized rankings, creative and learning processes using game-based activities, personal software process with automatic requirements traceability to support start-ups, and comparing statistical and data mining techniques for enrichment ontology with instances

Organization Global Software Development Challenges of Software Product Quality

Leaders of global software development (GSD) processes in organizations have been confronting low software product quality. Managers of these processes have faced challenges that have been affecting customer satisfaction and that have resulted in negative social impacts on public safety, business financial performance, and global economic stability. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple case study was to discover a common understanding shared by managers in Canadian GSD organizations of how to meet software product quality goals and enhance customer satisfaction. The conceptual framework for the study was based on Deming\u27s 14 principles of quality management. The purposeful sample included 30 knowledgeable participants who worked in Canada as GSD managers. Semistructured interviews conducted through telephone and audioconference tools, along with the review of related documents, were used to gather data. Eight themes emerged from the data analysis: developing a clear purpose and work principles, improving processes and employee skills, developing adequate personnel management strategies, promoting autonomy and personal worker development, formulating life cycle and development techniques, identifying challenges, formulating solutions, and focusing on product quality. The research findings have implications for positively influencing social change through the provision of methods and process knowledge to GSD organizational leaders. This information consists of best management and industry practices that can be applied to achieve software product quality and customer satisfaction, create management systems, maintain a competitive advantage, and prevent global software development project failures

An empirical evaluation of client-vendor relationships in high maturity Indian software outsourcing companies

The study presented in this thesis investigates offshore software outsourcing relationships. Offshore software outsourcing has been increasing continuously for the last decade. More and more software vendor companies from different countries such as India, Russia, Brazil and China are joining the offshore `bandwagon'. Indian software companies especially have managed to secure a leading position as offshore software outsourcing vendors. However, with more client companies outsourcing their software operations offshore, issues associated with the establishment and management of offshore outsourcing relationships have become more important. With the growing volume of offshore outsourcing, the number of failures is also increasing. A review of the literature suggests that success or failure is mainly dependent on the management of relationships between client and vendor. Subsequently, it is imperative to identify critical factors that can help to better manage offshore software outsourcing relationships. Furthermore, it is also important to identify the difficulties faced in managing offshore relationships and also how clients and vendors develop mutual trust. Trust is important to understand in the offshore software outsourcing context as it has been reported as the most significant contributor to the management of any human relationship. Nonetheless, different advantages that motivate clients to outsource are also important in understanding offshore software outsourcing. In this study, motivators, difficulties, critical relationship management factors and trust building factors are studied by means of empirical investigation into eighteen high maturity Indian software companies and six of their clients based in the USA and Europe. Multiple case studies with grounded theory analysis techniques are used to conduct the empirical investigation. Grounded theory, which is a part of qualitative research, helps to develop emergent model from empirical data. Furthermore, multiple case studies are used as objects to collect qualitative data and organise overall investigation. The research methods used were piloted with two Indian software companies before conducting the full empirical investigation. The results of this investigation suggest that client companies are motivated to outsource their software offshore by cost savings, quality, flexibility, core competence, skills availability, higher productivity, faster development, technical expertise and high maturity of vendor. The results also uncovered difficulties faced by clients and vendors in managing relationships. Difficulties include managing cultural differences, expectation mismatch, language differences, loss of control, distance, time zone differences, workforce reshuffling and post-contractual matters. This investigation further identifies critical factors to managing offshore outsourcing relationships such as effective communication, a process driven approach, commitment to the project, transparency in actions, consistency in performance, value addition and allocating resources effectively in the project. Furthermore, results from this study suggest that previous work reference, experience and reputation in the offshore outsourcing business, background of the key vendor employees, investments, prototyping and personal visits from the client are important for achieving trust. This study also identifies that to maintain trust in the relationship both clients and vendors perceive critical factors such as commitment, process driven approach, communication, confidentiality, performance, honesty, transparency, demonstrability, personal relationships and working together in outsourcing project. Based on the results of the empirical results and their discussions, this study presents an emergent model and practical guidelines for managing offshore software outsourcing relationships. The uniqueness of this investigation is in its large scale empirical investigation into high maturity software companies. Furthermore, most previous studies have investigated either clients or vendors, whereas this study investigates vendors and their corresponding clients. An investigation into trust in offshore software outsourcing relationships is also a significant addition to the existing literature relevant to software outsourcing. The empirical investigation gave rise to proposals for discussions and to an emergent empirical model. Thus the current body of knowledge in offshore software outsourcing is enhanced by this work. Moreover, practical guidelines, based on empirical results are proposed for client and vendors to help them manage their offshore software outsourcing relationships