Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The Invention of Health Law

By default, the courts are inventing health law. The law governing the American health system arises from an unruly mix of statutes, regulations, and judge-crafted doctrines conceived, in the main, without medical care in mind. Courts are ill-equipped to put order to this chaos, and until recently they have been disinclined to try. But political gridlock and popular ire over managed care have pushed them into the breach, and the Supreme Court has become a proactive health policy player. How might judges make sense of health law\u27s disparate doctrinal strands? Scholars from diverse ideological starting points have converged toward a single answer: the law should look to deploy medical resources in a systematically rational manner, so as to maximize the benefits that every dollar buys. This answer bases the orderly development of health care law upon our ability to reach stable understandings, in myriad circumstances, of what welfare maximization requires. In this Article, I contend that this goal is not achievable. Scientific ignorance, cognitive limitations, and normative disagreements yield shifting, incomplete, and contradictory understandings of social welfare in the health sphere. The chaotic state of health care law today reflects this unruliness. In making systemic welfare maximization the lodestar for health law, we risk falling so far short of aspirations for reasoned decision making as to invite disillusion about the possibilities for any sort of rationality in this field. Accordingly, I urge that we define health law\u27s aims more modestly, based on acknowledgment that its rationality is discontinuous across substantive contexts and changeable with time. This concession to human limits, I argue, opens the way to health policy that mediates wisely between our desire for public action to maximize the well being of the many and our intimate wishes to be treated non-instrumentally, as separate ends. I conclude with an effort to identify the goals that health law, so constructed, should pursue and to suggest how a strategy of accommodation among these goals might apply to a variety of legal controversies

Future Transportation

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with transportation activities account for approximately 20 percent of all carbon dioxide (co2) emissions globally, making the transportation sector a major contributor to the current global warming. This book focuses on the latest advances in technologies aiming at the sustainable future transportation of people and goods. A reduction in burning fossil fuel and technological transitions are the main approaches toward sustainable future transportation. Particular attention is given to automobile technological transitions, bike sharing systems, supply chain digitalization, and transport performance monitoring and optimization, among others

Perspectives on Firm Decision Making During Risky Technology Acquisitions

A novel survey dataset on computed tomography (CT) machine acquisition is used to explore which theories best answer two questions from the decision making literature. First, what determines how much uncertainty a firm has when investing in updated technology? Second, what determines the value of the acquisition? In answering these questions, two theoretical comparisons are conducted. In the first, economic theory, behavioral theory (the Behavioral Theory of the Firm and Prospect Theory), and Bounded Rationality are tested as potential determinants of acquisition uncertainties. In the second, economic theory and Prospect Theory are tested as potential determinants of the value of the machine acquired. To answer these questions, hospitals were surveyed about the acquisition of their most valuable computed tomography machine. From the survey data, support was found for the Bounded Rationality hypothesis; firms have less uncertainty about an acquisition’s performance on attributes that correspond to more strongly held objectives. Support was also found for the behavioral theory hypothesis; firms whose prior machines perform below aspiration levels seek more uncertainty in their subsequent acquisitions, while firms whose machines perform above aspiration levels seek less uncertainty. No support was found for the normative hypothesis; acquisition uncertainty is determined by economic attributes. In the second comparison, partial support was found for the normative theory hypothesis and no support was found for Prospect Theory hypothesis. The value of the acquisition increased as the minimum lifespan of the acquisition increased. Perceived revenue, operating cost, and financial factor uncertainty did not significantly influence acquisition value, providing no support for Prospect Theory. However, greater uncertainty over the acquisition’s ability to fulfill customer desires was associated with the acquisition of a less expensive machine. Studies of the influence of uncertainty on capital investment decision making have traditionally focused on financial forms of uncertainty. The results of this study suggest that the influence of uncertainty related to an acquisition’s ability to fulfill customer desires may have an even stronger influence on the value of an acquisition than variables related to the non-perceptual characteristics of the acquirer

Free Access to Public Information - More Transparency, Less Corruption: The Case of Republic of Macedonia

The traditional model of not transparent administration today disappears step by step. Citizens are increasingly becoming an equal entity with state institutions which have responsibility to ensure protection of their rights, accountability, openness and transparency in its operations - as the basic principles upon which rests the principle of good governance. Therefore, adoption of a law of free access to public information in many countries in the world which seek to enhance democracy in their societies today is a trend (process) that can not stop. Nowadays, countries that don’t have such a law can not claim that they have full democracy. One of the reasons for passing this law is reducing corruption. Corruption is based on secrecy. Citizens and institutions become corrupted when the public has no insight into their work. If the work of public institutions is transparent and offered for public inspection, then the chance for them to be corrupt is smaller. Republic of Macedonia has adopted the Law of free access to public information in 2006. This paper analyzes the law and its application; the situation in Macedonia after the adoption of the law; concluding that despite some inconsistencies, the law has contributed to increasing transparency and reducing corruption. Keywords: Free access, information, transparency, corruption