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

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate

On the Adoption Dynamics of Internet Technologies: Models and Case Studies

Today, more than any time in history, our life-styles depend on networked systems, ranging from power grids to the Internet and social networks. From shopping online to attending a conference via P2P technologies, the Internet is changing the way we perform certain tasks, which incentivizes more users to join the network. This user population growth as well as higher demand for a better access to the Internet call for its expansion and development, and therefore, fuel the emergence of new Internet technologies. However, many such technologies fail to get adopted by their target user population due to various technical or socio-economical problems. Understanding these (adoption) problems and the factors that play a significant role in them, not only gives researchers a better insight into the dynamics of Internet technology adoption, but also provides them with enhanced guidelines for designing new Internet technologies. The primary motivation of this thesis is, therefore, to provide researchers and network technology developers with an insight into what factors are responsible for, or at least correlated with, the success or failure of an Internet technology. We start by delving deeply into (arguably) the salient adoption problem the Internet has faced in its 40+ years of existence, and continues to face for at least a foreseeable future, namely, IPv6 adoption. The study is composed of an extensive measurement component, in addition to models that capture the roles of different Internet stakeholders in the adoption of IPv6. Then, we extend it to a broad set of Internet protocols, and investigate the factors that affect their adoptions. The findings show performance as the primary factor that not only affected the adoption of IPv6, but also plays a role in the adoption of any other network data plane protocol. Moreover, they show how backward compatibility as well as other factors can affect the adoption of various protocols. The study provides a number of models and methodologies that can be extended to other similar problems in various research areas, such as network technology adoption and design, two-sided markets, and network economics

Flexpop: A popularity-based caching strategy for multimedia applications in information-centric networking

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) is the dominant architecture for the future Internet. In ICN, the content items are stored temporarily in network nodes such as routers. When the memory of routers becomes full and there is no room for a new arriving content, the stored contents are evicted to cope with the limited cache size of the routers. Therefore, it is crucial to develop an effective caching strategy for keeping popular contents for a longer period of time. This study proposes a new caching strategy, named Flexible Popularity-based Caching (FlexPop) for storing popular contents. The FlexPop comprises two mechanisms, i.e., Content Placement Mechanism (CPM), which is responsible for content caching, and Content Eviction Mechanism (CEM) that deals with content eviction when the router cache is full and there is no space for the new incoming content. Both mechanisms are validated using Fuzzy Set Theory, following the Design Research Methodology (DRM) to manifest that the research is rigorous and repeatable under comparable conditions. The performance of FlexPop is evaluated through simulations and the results are compared with those of the Leave Copy Everywhere (LCE), ProbCache, and Most Popular Content (MPC) strategies. The results show that the FlexPop strategy outperforms LCE, ProbCache, and MPC with respect to cache hit rate, redundancy, content retrieval delay, memory utilization, and stretch ratio, which are regarded as extremely important metrics (in various studies) for the evaluation of ICN caching. The outcomes exhibited in this study are noteworthy in terms of making FlexPop acceptable to users as they can verify the performance of ICN before selecting the right caching strategy. Thus FlexPop has potential in the use of ICN for the future Internet such as in deployment of the IoT technology

The 2P-K Framework: A Personal Knowledge Measurement Framework for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Knowledge is a dynamic human process to justify our personal belief in pursuit of the truth. The intellectual output of any organisation is reliant upon the individual people within that organisation. Despite the eminent role of personal knowledge in organisations, personal knowledge management and measurement have received little attention, particularly in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the pillars of the global economy and a knowledge-intensive sector where knowledge is described as the second product after medicines. The need of measurement to achieve effective management is not a new concept in management literature. This study offers an explanatory framework for personal knowledge, its underlying constructs and observed measures in the pharmaceutical manufacturing context. Following a sequential mixed method research (MMR) design, the researcher developed a measurement framework based on the thematic analysis of fifteen semi-structured interviews with industry experts and considering the extant academic and regulatory literature. A survey of 190 practitioners from the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector enabled quantitative testing and validation of the proposed models utilising confirmatory factor analysis. The pharmaceutical personal knowledge framework was the fruit of a comprehensive study to explain and measure the manifestations of personal knowledge in pharmaceutical organisations. The proposed framework identifies 41 personal knowledge measures reflecting six latent factors and the underlying personal knowledge. The hypothesised factors include: regulatory awareness, performance, wisdom, organisational understanding, mastership of product and process besides communication and networking skills. In order to enhance the applicability and flexibility of the measurement framework, an abbreviated 15-item form of the original framework was developed. The abbreviated pharmaceutical personal knowledge (2P-K) framework demonstrated superior model fit, better accuracy and reliability. The research results reveal that over 80% of the participant pharmaceutical organisations had a form of structured KM system. However, less than 30% integrated KM with corporate strategies suggesting that KM is still in the early stages of development in the pharmaceutical industry. Also, personal knowledge measurement is still a subjective practice and predominately an informal process. The 2P-K framework offers researchers and scholars a theoretically grounded original model for measuring personal knowledge. Also, it offers a basis for a personal knowledge measurement scale (2P-K-S) in the pharmaceutical manufacturing context. Finally, the study had some limitations. The framework survey relied on self-ratings. This might pose a risk of social desirability bias and Dunning–Kruger effect. Consequently, a 360- degree survey was suggested to achieve accurate assessments. Also, the model was developed and tested in an industry-specific context. A comparative study in similar manufacturing industries (e.g. chemical industries) is recommended to assess the validity of the current model or a modified version of it in other industries

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate

Understanding links between social media use, sleep and mental health: recent progress and current challenges

Purpose of Review: Sleep and mental health researchers are increasingly recognising the need to update our approaches to understanding the unique social, emotional and cognitive aspects of social media use, rather than simply considering it as just another hour of total daily “screen time”. In this review, we highlight some recent developments in this area, discuss ongoing challenges facing this field and offer recommendations for future steps. Recent Findings: The sleep and mental health research literatures have made recent advances towards a more nuanced understanding of social media use: moving beyond a focus on simply duration of use, towards new insights into the role of content, context and experience of these online interactions. Summary: As this research area moves forward, a focus on high-quality measurement—combined with collaborative multidisciplinary approaches that triangulate insight from different methodologies and perspectives—can inform a more holistic understanding of sleep and mental health in today’s connected world

Earth observing system. Data and information system. Volume 2A: Report of the EOS Data Panel

The purpose of this report is to provide NASA with a rationale and recommendations for planning, implementing, and operating an Earth Observing System data and information system that can evolve to meet the Earth Observing System's needs in the 1990s. The Earth Observing System (Eos), defined by the Eos Science and Mission Requirements Working Group, consists of a suite of instruments in low Earth orbit acquiring measurements of the Earth's atmosphere, surface, and interior; an information system to support scientific research; and a vigorous program of scientific research, stressing study of global-scale processes that shape and influence the Earth as a system. The Eos data and information system is conceived as a complete research information system that would transcend the traditional mission data system, and include additional capabilties such as maintaining long-term, time-series data bases and providing access by Eos researchers to relevant non-Eos data. The Working Group recommends that the Eos data and information system be initiated now, with existing data, and that the system evolve into one that can meet the intensive research and data needs that will exist when Eos spacecraft are returning data in the 1990s

Engineering Bureaucracy: The Genesis of Formal Policies, Positions, and Structures in High-Technology Firms

[Excerpt] This article examines the impact of organizational founding conditions on several facets of bureaucratization—managerial intensity, the proliferation of specialized managerial and administrative roles, and formalization of employment relations. Analyzing information on a sample of technology start-ups in California\u27s Silicon Valley, we characterize the organizational models or blueprints espoused by founders in creating new enterprises. We find that those models and the social composition of the labor force at the time of founding had enduring effects on growth in managerial intensity (i.e., reliance on managerial and administrative specialists) over time. Our analyses thus provide compelling evidence of path dependence in the evolution of bureaucracy—even in a context in which firms face intense selection pressures—and underscore the importance of the logics of organizing that founders bring to new enterprises. We find less evidence that founding models exert persistent effects on the formalization of employment relations or on the proliferation of specialized senior management titles. Rather, consistent with neo-institutional perspectives on organizations, those superficial facets of bureaucracy appear to be shaped by the need to satisfy external gatekeepers (venture capitalists and the constituents of public corporations), as well as by exigencies of organizational scale, growth, and aging. We discuss some implications of these results for efforts to understand the varieties, determinants, and consequences of bureaucracy