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

Social Space and Social Media: Analyzing Urban Space with Big Data

This dissertation focuses on the key role that big data can play in minimizing the perceived disconnect between social theory and quantitative methods in the discipline of geography. It takes as its starting point the geographic concept of space, which is conceptualized very differently in social theory versus quantitative methodology. Contrary to this disparity, an examination of the disciplinary history reveals a number of historic precedents and potential pathways for a rapprochement, especially when combined with some of the new possibilities of big data. This dissertation also proposes solutions to two common barriers to the adoption of big data in the social sciences: accessing and collecting such data and, subsequently, meaningful analysis. These methods and the theoretical foundation are combined in three case studies that show the successful integration of a quantitative research methodology with social theories on space. The case studies demonstrate how such an approach can create new and alternative understandings of urban space. In doing so it answers three specific research questions: (1) How can big data facilitate the integration of social theory on space with quantitative research methodology? (2) What are the practical challenges and solutions to moving “beyond the geotag” when utilizing big data in geographical research? (3) How can the quantitative analysis of big data provide new and useful insight in the complex character of social space? More specifically, what insights does such an analysis of relational social space provide about urban mobility and cognitive neighborhoods

Mobility in Higher Education's contribution to economic competitiveness and cohesion in EU: trends and outcomes

Mestrado Bolonha em Economia Internacional e Estudos EuropeusEuropean Union and its Member States have been faced with gaps and disparities in economic competitiveness and cohesion. There are clear divides in the EU and countries and its regions grow and react to crisis in very different manners. This work explores how knowledge, education and R&I became associated with economic competitiveness and how that has been impacted by EU’s strategies and policies. The desire to turn EU in a knowledge economy, where innovation and competitiveness are closely related to a highly skilled society, reinforced the role of Higher Education and, consequently, students’ mobility. By analysing trends in economic competitiveness and higher education mobility, it’s possible to notice that the same group of countries stands out has more competitive and more attractive for students, while clear differences are set between Member States.A competitividade económica e a coesão na União Europeia e entre os seus Estados-Membros têm sido pautadas por lacunas e disparidades. Existem claras divisões na UE e os seus países e as suas regiões crescem e reagem a crises de forma muito diferente. Este trabalho explora como o conhecimento, a educação e R&I estão ligadas à competitividade económica e como têm sido influenciadas pelas políticas e estratégias da UE. O desejo de tornar a União Europeia numa economia do conhecimento, onde a inovação e a competitividade estão fortemente associadas a uma sociedade altamente qualificada, reforçou o papel do Ensino Superior e, consequentemente, da mobilidade de estudantes. Ao analisar tendências e na competitividade económica e na mobilidade no Ensino Superior, é possível detetar que o mesmo grupo de países se destaca como mais competitivo e atrativo para estudantes, marcando diferenças claras entre Estados-Membros.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Quasi-experimental and experimental approaches to environmental economics

This paper argues that an increased application of quasi-experimental and experimental techniques will improve understanding about core environmental economics questions. This argument is supported by a review of the limitations of associational evidence in assessing causal hypotheses. The paper also discusses the benefits of experiments and quasi-experiments, outlines some quasi-experimental methods, and highlights threats to their validity. It then illustrates the quasi-experimental method by assessing the validity of a quasi-experiment that aims to estimate the impact of the Endangered Species Act on property markets in North Carolina. The paper's larger argument is that greater application of experimental and quasi-experimental techniques can identify efficient policies that increase social welfare