Semantic technologies: from niche to the mainstream of Web 3? A comprehensive framework for web Information modelling and semantic annotation

Context: Web information technologies developed and applied in the last decade have considerably changed the way web applications operate and have revolutionised information management and knowledge discovery. Social technologies, user-generated classification schemes and formal semantics have a far-reaching sphere of influence. They promote collective intelligence, support interoperability, enhance sustainability and instigate innovation. Contribution: The research carried out and consequent publications follow the various paradigms of semantic technologies, assess each approach, evaluate its efficiency, identify the challenges involved and propose a comprehensive framework for web information modelling and semantic annotation, which is the thesis’ original contribution to knowledge. The proposed framework assists web information modelling, facilitates semantic annotation and information retrieval, enables system interoperability and enhances information quality. Implications: Semantic technologies coupled with social media and end-user involvement can instigate innovative influence with wide organisational implications that can benefit a considerable range of industries. The scalable and sustainable business models of social computing and the collective intelligence of organisational social media can be resourcefully paired with internal research and knowledge from interoperable information repositories, back-end databases and legacy systems. Semantified information assets can free human resources so that they can be used to better serve business development, support innovation and increase productivity

Framework for a business interoperability quotient measurement model

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova da Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial (MEGI)Over the last decade the context of Interoperability has been changing rapidly. It has been expanding from the largely technically focused area of Information Systems towards Business Processes and Business Semantics. However, there exists a need for more comprehensive ways to define business interoperability and enable its performance measurement as a first step towards improvement of interoperability conditions between collaborating entities. Through extensive literature reviews and analysis of European Research initiatives in this area, this dissertation presents the State of the Art in Business Interoperability. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a model that closely captures the factors that are responsible for Business Interoperability in the context of Collaborative Business Processes. This Business Interoperability Quotient Measurement Model (BIQMM), developed in this dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach to capture the key elements responsible for collaboration performance. Through the quantification of the relevance of each element to the particular collaboration scenario in question, this model enables a quantitative analysis of Business Interoperability, so that an overall interoperability score can be arrived at for enhanced performance measurements.Finally, the BIQMM is applied to a business case involving Innovayt and LM Glassfiber to demonstrate its applicability to different collaboration scenarios

Evaluating the adoption of enterprise application integration in multinational organisations

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.A review of normative literature, in the field of Information Systems (IS) integration, indicates that traditional approaches to applications integration have failed to result in flexible and maintainable IT infrastructures. In addressing this issue, a new technology called Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) has emerged and addresses most of integration problems by resulting in the development of reusable and manageable IT infrastructures. Enterprise application integration is a new research area with many research issues needing to be investigated. At this end, EAI adoption has not efficiently studied with organisations and researchers needing to understand and analyse EAI adoption. This work examines the introduction of enterprise application integration in multinational organisations and proposes a novel model for its adoption. The model is based on a comprehensive set of factors that influence the introduction of EAI in organisations. Since there is an absence of theoretical models for EAI adoption, the proposed model adapts factors that influence the adoption of other integration technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDT). Additional factors like an evaluation framework that supports decision making have been considered by the author as factors that influence EAI adoption. In moving from the conceptual to the empirical, the work is based on a qualitative case study approach to examine the concepts of the proposed model for the adoption of EAI. In doing so, two case studies were conducted at multinational organisations and presented and analysed. However, during the empirical research complementary factors also emerged, which resulted in modifications being made to the previously presented conceptual model. In interpreting from empirical data, it appears that ten main factors influence the adoption of EAT namely: (a) benefits; (b) barriers; (c) costs; (d) internal pressures; (e) external pressures; (f) IT infrastructure; (g) IT sophistication; (h) an evaluation framework for the assessment of integration technologies; (i) evaluation framework for the assessment of EAT packages and, (j) support. The proposed model makes novel contribution at two levels. First, at the conceptual level, as it incorporates factors identified separately in previous studies as influencing adoption of other integration technologies. These factors are used for the development of a consistent model for the adoption and evaluation of EAT. Secondly, the concepts of the proposed model can be used for the adoption of inter-organisational information systems. The proposed model can be used as a decision-making tool to support management when taking decisions regarding the adoption of EAI. Additionally, it can be used by researchers to analyse and understand the adoption of application integration.This work is funded by the Brunel University Department of Information Systems and Computing

An investigation into enterprise structure and ERP implementations:a contribution to praxis

This professional doctoral research reports on the relationship between Enterprise Systems, specifically Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, and enterprise structures. It offers insights and guidance to practitioners on factors for consideration in the implementation of ERP systems in organisations operating in modern enterprise structures. It reports on reflective ethnographic action research conducted in a number of companies from a diverse range of industries covering supply chains for both goods and services. The primary contribution is in highlighting areas in which clients, practitioners and ERP software vendors can bring a greater awareness of internet era enterprise structures and business requirements into the ERP arena. The concepts and insights have been explored in a focus group setting, comprised of practitioners from the enterprise systems implementation and consulting fraternity and revealed limitations and constraints in the implementation of enterprise systems. However, it also showed that current systems do not have the full capabilities required to support, in use, modern era enterprise structures, as required by practitioners and decision makers

Exploring strategic leadership challenges in achieving an ICT enabled transformational government

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThis empirical research focuses on exploring the role of strategic leadership in the shift from Electronic Government (eGovernment) to Transformational Government (tGovernment). Despite the fact that many countries have implemented eGovernment, the literature reports a number of themhave failed to reach the promised seamless transformation. Moreover, there is a dearth of research into the domain of tGovernment; the research which exists is limited in extent thus leaving scope for timely and novel research contributions. This thesis reveals that a valuable contribution to knowledge could be derived from exploring the domain of transformational government. The leadership motivationand incentives to conduct a radical government organisational change have become an area of great importance. There is limited research on the strategic role of leadership in achieving transformational government domain; hence, the implications of seamless integration for transformational government have yet to be explored. This research discusses transformational government by using a qualitative, multiple case study research strategy. Data is triangulated and analysed according to its explanatory properties and underlying structural context. This researchextends established norms in literature for tGovernment implementation by incorporating established theories in organisational change from other related disciplines. This is to explain the significance of the underlying philosophical nature of the emerging themes, thus enabling government leaders to create robust strategic proposals for tGovernment. This empirical research is conducted in a Middle Eastern cultural context based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The research arrives at several key findings and themesthat contribute to the body of knowledge. A primary finding is the need for a radical change and an innovative managerial approach in using ICT to enable radical change in government organisations. A related finding of this research is that many assumptions underlying the various tGovernment models for transformation fall short to empirically explain the transformational government domain.The government visionary leadership has been proven to be a powerful driver for change in terms of initiating and leading the process for transformational government

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business

BIM for infrastructure: An overall review and constructor perspective

The subject of building information modelling (BIM) has become a central topic to the improvement of the AECOO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Owner and Operator) industry around the world, to the point where the concept is being expanded into domains it was not originally conceived to address. Transitioning BIMinto the domain of infrastructure projects has provided challenges and emphasized the constructor perspective of BIM. Therefore, this study aims to collect the relevant literature regarding BIM within the Infrastructure domain and its use from the constructor perspective to review and analyse the current industry positioning and research state of the art, with regards to the set criteria. The review highlighted a developing base of BIM for infrastructure. Fromthe analysis, the related research gapswere identified regarding information integration, alignment of BIM processes to constructor business processes & the effective governance and value of information. From this a unique research strategy utilising a framework for information governance coupled with a graph based distributed data environment is outlined to further progress the integration and efficiency of AECOO Infrastructure projects