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

Student Health Benefits Plan Market Research and Analysis

The University of New Hampshire (UNH) in Durham, New Hampshire requires all full-time students to have health insurance meeting set requirements as a condition of enrollment. UNH offers its own health plan, entitled the Student Health Benefits Plan (SHBP) through its Health Services Center to students as a way to procure this insurance if they lack insurance, or if their current insurance is insufficient or does not meet the insurance requirements. Health Services at UNH is looking for market research on current attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs of both students at UNH, and the parents of students who currently have a child utilizing the SHBP of health insurance knowledge, involvement, and the SHBP. As a way to measure this, separate surveys were administered to each of these two segments. The results show that UNH students have little knowledge of health insurance, and almost no involvement in choosing their health insurance, but would be likely to discuss it with their parents if they found a good alternative in the SHBP. Parents with children on the SHBP are generally satisfied with the plan as a whole, save for some aspects such as pharmaceutical coverage and Basix Dental Savings. The framework for a marketing campaign to increase enrollment based on this research is discussed, including a new slogan, logo, and potential new name for the SHBP. However, the campaign itself has yet to start, but will likely be implemented in 2015 or 2016

Creative output in a market context

The main contributions of this thesis to existing literature is the introduction of a new methodology for researching the effect of copyright law on creative output using dynamic markets created in a lab experiment. The markets of interest are creative industries, examples of these markets are markets such as, book and music publishing, where copyright is an important part of how the markets operate. Motivating creative production in such industries is more complex compared to motivating production in industries with more mechanic or algorithmic tasks. The methodology presented in the thesis is a contribution to existing literature on copyright and motivation, as previous literature does not utilise a dynamic experimental environment. The results of this research indicate that both pay structure and the availability of information regarding the actions and performance of other competitors can influence creativity. There is some evidence that public information/attribution was important to market participants, as it in some cases provides an incentive for higher production and in other cases it cancels out an effect which are otherwise found when only tournament pay/economic rights were present. There is evidence of lower satisfaction in tournament pay/economic rights groups which suggest that individuals exert overconfidence before participating in the market causing lower satisfaction due to below expected performance. This might also result in over supply in winner-takes-all markets as participants overestimate the probability of their own success when entering the market. Besides this, the lower satisfaction could increase turnover in the creative industries and thus decrease overall human capital in the market as the unsuccessful experienced individuals leave the market due to low satisfaction

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

Improving the Effectiveness of Skills Training Programs

Politische Entscheidungsträger sind zunehmend besorgt über die hohe und steigende Einkommens- und Vermögensungleichheit weltweit (Kanbur, 2019; Wood, 2018). Ein wesentlicher Faktor ist die ungleiche Verteilung von Bildung und produktiven Fähigkeiten innerhalb von Gesellschaften sowie zwischen Ländern (Martin, 2018; Stijn et al., 2019). Die Förderung von benachteiligten Bevölkerungsgruppen neue Kompetenzen zu erwerben ist daher ein wichtiger politischer Hebel zur Bekämpfung von Ungleichheiten (OECD, 2019). Diese Dissertation liefert neue Erkenntnisse darüber, wie Trainingsmaßnahmen gestaltet werden können, um das wirtschaftliche Wohlergehen von Teilnehmer effektiv zu verbessern. Auf der Grundlage kontrafaktischer Wirkungsevaluierungen wird in den vier Kapiteln die Effektivität von Trainingsmaßnahmen in drei zentralen Politikbereichen analysiert: berufliche Fähigkeiten, Unternehmertum und finanzielle Bildung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, wie wichtig es ist, zielgerichtete und maßgeschneiderte Maßnahmen zu entwickeln, welche gleichzeitig auf verschiedene Bedürfnisse, Einschränkungen und Chancen von geringer-qualifizierten, benachteiligten Personen eingehen.Policymakers are increasingly concerned about high and rising inequality of earnings and wealth globally (Kanbur, 2019; Wood, 2018). One key driver is the unequal distribution of productive skills within societies and across countries (Martin, 2018; Stijn et al., 2019). Improving opportunities for disadvantaged population groups to acquire new skills, therefore, presents an important policy lever to tackle inequalities (OECD, 2019). This thesis provides new evidence on how to design skills trainings that effectively improve participants’ economic well-being. Based on counterfactual impact evaluations, the four chapters assess the effectiveness of training pro-grams in three core policy areas: vocational skills, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy. The findings demonstrate the importance of designing well-targeted and tailored interventions that simultaneously address the multi-faceted needs, constraints, and opportunities faced by lower-skilled, disadvantaged individuals

A Functional Assessment of the Use of Virtual Simulations to Train Distance Preservice Special Education Teachers to Conduct Individualized Education Program Team Meetings

The individualized education program (IEP) is a critical component of providing special education services to children with disabilities, outlining the services and modifications that will be provided to help them make progress towards the general curriculum. While simulations have been shown to be an effective means of teaching special education policies and procedures, this can be challenging when working with distance students. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine how virtual simulations function to train preservice teachers learning to conduct IEP team meetings. Seven preservice special education teachers enrolled in a mild/moderate distance degree and licensure program participated in this research. Through multiple case study analysis, this study examined the specific behaviors emitted by each participant throughout these simulated meetings, as well as the antecedent stimuli and consequences controlling these behaviors. Additionally, participants were each asked to construct rules, based on their own simulated experiences, to govern their future behaviors for in vivo individualized education program team meetings. Results indicate that virtual simulations served a variety of functions for training teachers to work on a collaborative team, including increased practice opportunities and self-efficacy to collaborate with parents in the future. Although teacher trainees had difficulty generating complete verbal statements to govern future behaviors, each was able to identify discrete antecedents, behaviors, and consequences responsible for controlling their actions throughout the simulations

Accounting for spatial substitution patterns and bioeconomic feedback loops: an economic approach to managing inland recreational fisheries

2011 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation consists of three papers which address separate but related issues in recreational fisheries management. Paper one estimates the economic contribution of the private, recreation-based aquaculture industry in the Western United States. Paper two presents a method for combining models of site selection with input-output models in order to better estimate the true economic impacts of augmentation or deterioration of recreational sites. Finally, paper three presents a dynamic, bioeconomic model of a recreational fishery and uses that model to simulate what would happen over time to anglers and fish populations (as well as value to anglers) if fish stocking were to be halted at a single recreational fishery. All three papers are policy relevant today given the increased pressure from (and litigation filed by) environmental groups to reduce fish stocking due to conflicts with native and endangered species. Paper one explores the economic contribution of the private, recreation-based aquaculture industry in the Western United States. New sectors are constructed in IMPLAN input-output software using data gathered between 2007 and 2010 from producers and their direct customers (stocked fisheries). Information from a third survey of anglers in Colorado and California is integrated to predict the short-term shocks that would occur to various industries if anglers at privately stocked fisheries were to discontinue fishing (simulating a hypothetical collapse of the industry). Accounting for both the backward and forward linkages of the private, recreation-based aquaculture industry's production, model results indicate that for every dollar of fish stocking, $36 dollars of recreational angler-related expenditures are supported, and that the total economic contribution of this industry in the Western United States is roughly$2 billion annually. This is the first study addressing the forward linkages and total economic contribution of this industry in the Western United States. Paper two addresses a similar issue as paper one, but goes further to account for substitution patterns among anglers. Using information from a survey of anglers in 2009, a repeated nested logit (RNL) model of angler spatial substitution behavior is estimated. Then, the RNL is used to predict changes in angler days associated with changes in fishery attributes. By linking the RNL and input-output model, better insight is gained into the economic losses associated with augmentation or deterioration of stocked fishing sites. Results indicate that if a single site is closed within the region of analysis, of the 29,500 anglers that will no longer fish at that site, only 6,500 anglers will leave the region of analysis (the rest substituting to other in-region sites). Standard impact analysis would therefore overestimate the economic impacts of such a policy by 450%. Results are similar when catch rates are reduced by 50% at one site, with 14,000 anglers leaving that site but only 3,000 leaving the region. The third and final paper of this dissertation presents a means by which managers may manage inland recreational fisheries from a dynamic bioeconomic perspective. A discrete-time, discrete-space, infinite time horizon numerical model of a fishery is built in GAMS software to reflect responses of anglers to the fishery and responses of the fishery to anglers over time. A data-driven random utility model is used to inform angler response and value functions in this dynamic bioeconomic model. Results from one region in California indicate that a) current fish stocking levels may be inefficiently high, and b) elimination of fish stocking programs at popular lakes may not lead to a crash in fishery populations, since anglers will simply substitute to other nearby fisheries (rather than "fish-out" the lake). Managers who can predict the intertemporal effects of fishery management alternatives in this way will be able to better meet the demands of recreational anglers

Anthropology & Apologetics: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Apologetic Method Through Their Anthropological Assumptions

This thesis argues that contemporary apologetic approaches correlate to, or derive their methods from, different anthropological models with various degrees of accuracy, and that an interdisciplinary study of humanity leads to proper conclusions for apologetic method. Three of the most utilized contemporary apologetic methods are Traditional Apologetics, Presuppositionalism, and Experiential/Narratival Apologetics. Each method reflects an assumption of human persons as thinkers, believers, or desirers, respectively. Interdisciplinary research from theology, sociology, psychology, economics, and neuroscience corroborates the anthropological assumption of humans as essentially desirers. This research leads to at least three important implications for apologetic method, including a focus on persuasion over argumentation, creativity over rigidity, and community over individuality