Proactive services ecosystem framework

Dissertation presented to obtain the degree of Doctor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, specialization on Collaborative Enterprise NetworksCollaborative-Networks (CN) have experienced a fast evolution in the last two decades. The collaboration among independent entities or professionals supported by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has attracted the research community to establish the conceptual basis for this scientific discipline. Service Orientation has been one of the key selected paradigms for that conceptual basis. Nevertheless, the service concept itself does not have a common understanding in the Business and ICT worlds. In the former, client satisfaction, resources management and business process models are some example concerns, whilst the later deals with interoperability, remote function calling or communication protocols. If for example an enterprise provides some service, it may hire specialists to wrap such service into web-services, expecting to reach worldwide potential new clients. In fact, nowadays Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) are the technological elements most commonly used. However, these are passive elements in the sense they do not perform any action towards pursuing business interests, which constitute a limiting factor from a business perspective. Another approach for the above mentioned enterprise is to follow the Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) approach, as the pro-activity is a keyword in such contexts. Nevertheless, as MAS approaches are not so commonly used and not so robust yet, the worldwide potential set of new clients is reduced; which also constitutes an inhibitor factor from the business perspective. This dissertation proposes a Pro-Active Services Ecosystem Framework, gathering inspiration from both the SOA and MAS research areas, trying to bridge the business and ICT worlds through the base concepts for the creation of a Services’ Ecosystem where business services are represented in a pro-active manner towards pursuing business interests, like finding collaboration opportunities or improving the chances each CN member has to see its services selected among competitors, for example. This work also includes a prototype system applied / validated in the area of a Professional Virtual Community of Senior Professionals

Disruptive Innovation Within the Legal Services Ecosystem

Many law firms have done little to address the opportunities and threats presented by potentially disruptive technology (DT), such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that some law firm leaders use to address the potentially detrimental influences of DT on their organizations. The systems approach to management was employed as the conceptual framework. Data were collected from 6 participants at 2 international law firms with offices in California, using semi-structured interviews and organizational artifacts. Data were analyzed using inductive and deductive coding and thematic analysis, resulting in 4 themes: (1) recognizing the legal ecosystem and legal firms are open systems, but organizational subsystems often function as semi-closed systems; (2) acknowledging that while DT represents the most significant potential challenge in the near future, the immediate challenge is improving technology, which requires organizational adjustments; (3) recognizing the need for firms to invest more heavily in innovation generation activities; and (4) realizing the need for increased utilization of augmenting technologies, such as AI or ML, to streamline non-advisory outputs. The findings of this study suggest that, while DI may pose a moderate threat, there are also significant advantages to adopting DI as a formal aspect of organizational strategy. The results of this study may contribute to social change by outlining ways in which firms can lower costs to clients while increasing access to legal services for those in underserved communities

Service-Based Wireless Energy Crowdsourcing

We propose a novel service-based ecosystem to crowdsource wireless energy to charge IoT devices. We leverage the service paradigm to abstract wireless energy crowdsourcing from nearby IoT devices as energy services. The proposed energy services ecosystem offers convenient, ubiquitous, and cost-effective power access to charge IoT devices. We discuss the impact of a crowdsourced wireless energy services ecosystem, the building components of the ecosystem, the energy services composition framework, the challenges, and proposed solutions.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, This is an invited paper and it will appear in the proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC

Mobile Life: A Research Foundation for Mobile Services

The telecom and IT industry is now facing the challenge of a second IT-revolution, where the spread of mobile and ubiquitous services will have an even more profound effect on commercial and social life than the recent Internet revolution. Users will expect services that are unique and fully adapted for the mobile setting, which means that the roles of the operators will change, new business models will be required, and new methods for developing and marketing services have to be found. Most of all, we need technology and services that put people at core. The industry must prepare to design services for a sustainable web of work, leisure and ubiquitous technology we can call the mobile life. In this paper, we describe the main components of a research agenda for mobile services, which is carried out at the Mobile Life Center at Stockholm University. This research program takes a sustainable approach to research and development of mobile and ubiquitous services, by combining a strong theoretical foundation (embodied interaction), a welldefined methodology (user-centered design) and an important domain with large societal importance and commercial potential (mobile life). Eventually the center will create an experimental mobile services ecosystem, which will serve as an open arena where partners from academia and industry can develop our vision an abundant future marketplace for future mobile servíces

THE BRIGHT AND DARK SIDE OF FINANCIAL SERVICES ECOSYSTEM

In this brief contribution we focus on the co-evolution of cybercrime and cybersecurity practices in the banking and financial sector. We draw on previous studies on outlaw innovation and organizational morphing to reconstruct the parallel and mutually influenced evolution of the bright and dark side of financial services. We identify five phases from the late 90s to the post-2015 period that show the paired configuration in actors, techniques, collaborative actions, and venues in the morphing of the two opposing sides. This paper constitutes the first step towards a broader empirical analysis on the generativity of opposing forces in digital ecosystems

Service Semantics Classification: an Approach Towards Modular Service Ontology

Since service systems are becoming increasingly complex in emerging technology, business, legal and economics environments, service abstractions are necessary to master this complexity. However, the term ‘service’ means different things to different people in different disciplines, which implies that any attempt to define general purpose service abstractions must address the disambiguation of the term. Service ontologies and service knowledge management efforts mainly aim at elucidating service semantics. Each discipline has multiple biased service-related concepts, so that in order to build comprehensive multi-disciplinary service models, the service-related concepts of the involved disciplines have to be integrated and structured in a consistent way. We claim that this requires a modular approach in which general purpose service semantics can be further extended or specialised with domain-specific concepts. Service-related and domain-specific concepts can be integrated and structured in many different ways. This paper proposes a semantics classification scheme based on service aspects that are essential for a services ecosystem

Addressing the wicked problem of water resource management: An ecosystem services approach

This paper develops a systematic assessment of the sustainability of ecosystem services provided by rivers impacted by water storage projects. Given the conflicting preferences amongst stakeholders and the incomplete, uncertain and contradictory understanding about river ecology it is recognized that managing water resources sustainably is a wicked problem. In order to address this wicked problem, the methods of multi-criteria analysis and graph analysis are applied, in accordance with integrated water resource management, to assess the potential of investing in water storage projects and explore for sustainable solutions through the construction of an ecosystem services index.Ecosystem services, ecosystem services index, graph analysis, integrated water resource management, multi-criteria analysis, sustainability, wicked problems, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q15, Q25, Q27, Q51, Q58, Q57,

Natural vs. financial insurance in the management of public-good ecosystems

In the face of uncertainty, ecosystems can provide natural insurance to risk averse users of ecosystem services. We employ a conceptual ecological-economic model to analyze the allocation of (endogenous) risk and ecosystem quality by risk averse ecosystem managers who have access to financial insurances, and study the implications for individually and socially optimal ecosystem management, and policy design. We show that while an improved access to financial insurance leads to lower ecosystem quality, the effect on the free-rider problem and on welfare is determined by ecosystem properties. We derive conditions on ecosystem functioning under which, if financial insurance becomes more accessible, (i) the extent of optimal regulation increases or decreases; and (ii) welfare, in the absence of environmental regulation, increases or decreases.ecosystem quality, ecosystem services, ecosystem management, endogenous environmental risk, insurance, risk-aversion, uncertainty

Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver

Over the past decade, efforts to value and protect ecosystem services have been promoted by many as the last, best hope for making conservation mainstream – attractive and commonplace worldwide. In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation, while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale. Here, we propose a conceptual framework and sketch out a strategic plan for delivering on the promise of ecosystem services, drawing on emerging examples from Hawai‘i. We describe key advances in the science and practice of accounting for natural capital in the decisions of individuals, communities, corporations, and governments