ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE AS A MEANS FOR COORDINATION – AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON ACTUAL AND POTENTIAL PRACTICE

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is considered a means to guide the alignment of business- and IT-related concerns from an enterprise-wide perspective. Our goal in this paper is to understand by which means EAM supports this coordination task today and potentially in the future. We designed a questionnaire and conducted an empirical study (n=95) with participants from the field of EAM. Based on common coordination mechanisms from literature, we analyze (1) the relation between coordination mechanism and their current EAM support, (2) to what degree participants are aware of opportunities of EAM supporting coordination mechanisms, and (3) what the perceived gap between potential and realized EAM coordination support is. An exploratory factor analysis leads to three factors that represent coordination mechanisms in enterprises. Using these factors, we group participating enterprises in three different clusters: (1) non-coordinators, (2) dominators and (3) negotiators. We find that a similar awareness of opportunities exists in all three clusters, yet there are gaps in the realization of EAM coordination support: non-coordinators show the lowest realization, negotiators the highest. Based on this clustering, we provide implications on further EAM development options

Crossing the Line: Overcoming Knowledge Boundaries in Enterprise Transformation

Enterprise transformations are fundamental changes in an organization. Such changes typically affect different stakeholder groups (e.g., program managers, business managers) that exhibit a significant diversity regarding their members’ knowledge, goals, and underlying assumptions. Yet, creating shared understanding among diverse stakeholder groups in transformations is a main antecedent for success. The paper analyzes which properties of enterprise architecture models contribute to syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic capacities which helps to create shared understanding among stakeholder groups involved in enterprise transformation. The differences among stakeholder groups are assessed through the lens of knowledge boundaries, and enterprise architecture models are assessed through the lens of boundary objects. A research model is developed and empirically tested that describes which boundary object properties are required to overcome three progressively complex knowledge boundaries – syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. The findings show which boundary object properties contribute to a respective capacity needed to overcome each of the three knowledge boundaries. Specifically, the results show that for (1) a syntactic capacity, concrete and modular enterprise architecture (EA) models are helpful; (2) a semantic capacity, visual EA model properties are relevant, and (3) a pragmatic capacity, broad stakeholder participation is conductive

Understanding Coordination Support of Enterprise Architecture Management – Empirical Analysis and Implications for Practice

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is a means to guide the consistent evolution of business and IT artifacts from an enterprise-wide perspective. This paper aims at understanding the means by which EAM supports this coordination task. Informed by theory of coordination and based on empirical data (n=95) we group participating enterprises in different clusters: (1) non-coordinators, (2) dominators and (3) negotiators. We find that a similar awareness of opportunities exists in all three clusters, yet there are gaps in the realization of EAM coordination support: non-coordinators show the lowest realization, negotiators the highest. Based on this clustering and two follow-up focus groups, we provide implications about the occurrence of the clusters in enterprises and on further EAM development options

Álbum ilustrado del consumo de drogas y percepción visual en estudiantes de diseño gráfico de una Universidad Privada, los Olivos 2023

El propósito del estudio se basó en Determinar la relación entre el álbum ilustrado sobre consecuencias del consumo de drogas y la percepción visual en dicentes de diseño gráfico de una universidad de Los Olivos 2023. La investigación se elaboró según el enfoque cuantitativo implementando el método hipotético deductivo de nivel correlacional , la población estuvo constituida por 180 estudiantes de la carrera de diseño gráfico del distrito de Los Olivos considerando una muestra de 155 estudiantes elegidos a partir del muestreo no probabilístico, quienes respondieron dos formularios conformados por 9 interrogantes respecto a la variable Álbum ilustrado y 7 interrogantes en cuanto a la variable Percepción visual con respuestas en escala de Likert. Los resultados tuvieron una significancia de 0.000 y un coeficiente de 0.488 entre las variables. permitiendo concluir que existe relación positiva moderada entre Álbum ilustrado y percepción visual

Charting Coordination Needs in Large-Scale Agile Organisations with Boundary Objects and Methodological Islands

Large-scale system development companies are increasingly adopting agile methods. While this adoption may improve lead-times, such companies need to balance two trade-offs: (i) the need to have a uniform, consistent development method on system level with the need for specialised methods for teams in different disciplines (e.g., hardware, software, mechanics, sales, support); (ii) the need for comprehensive documentation on system level with the need to have lightweight documentation enabling iterative and agile work. With specialised methods for teams, isolated teams work within larger ecosystems of plan-driven culture, i.e., teams become agile “islands”. At the boundaries, these teams share knowledge which needs to be managed well for a correct system to be developed. While it is useful to support diverse and specialised methods, it is important to understand which islands are repeatedly encountered, the reasons or factors triggering their existence, and how best to handle coordination between them. Based on a multiple case study, this work presents a catalogue of islands and the boundary objects between them. We believe this work will be beneficial to practitioners aiming to understand their ecosystems and researchers addressing communication and coordination challenges in large-scale development

The Interplay Between Strictness of Policies and Individuals’ Self-Regulatory Efforts: Associations with Handwashing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background Patterns of protective health behaviors, such as handwashing and sanitizing during the COVID-19 pandemic, may be predicted by macro-level variables, such as regulations specified by public health policies. Health behavior patterns may also be predicted by micro-level variables, such as self-regulatory cognitions specified by health behavior models, including the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA). Purpose This study explored whether strictness of containment and health policies was related to handwashing adherence and whether such associations were mediated by HAPA-specified self-regulatory cognitions. Methods The study (NCT04367337) was conducted among 1,256 adults from Australia, Canada, China, France, Gambia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, and Switzerland. Self-report data on cross-situational handwashing adherence were collected using an online survey at two time points, 4 weeks apart. Values of the index of strictness of containment and health policies, obtained from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker database, were retrieved twice for each country (1 week prior to individual data collection). Results Across countries and time, levels of handwashing adherence and strictness of policies were high. Path analysis indicated that stricter containment and health policies were indirectly related to lower handwashing adherence via lower self-efficacy and self-monitoring. Less strict policies were indirectly related to higher handwashing adherence via higher self-efficacy and self-monitoring. Conclusions When policies are less strict, exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus might be higher, triggering more self-regulation and, consequently, more handwashing adherence. Very strict policies may need to be accompanied by enhanced information dissemination or psychosocial interventions to ensure appropriate levels of self-regulation

Winding number and non-BPS bound states of walls in nonlinear sigma models

Non-supersymmetric multi-wall configurations are generically unstable. It is proposed that the stabilization in compact space can be achieved by introducing a winding number into the model. A BPS-like bound is studied for the energy of configuration with nonvanishing winding number. Winding number is implemented in an ${\cal N}=1$ supersymmetric nonlinear sigma model with two chiral scalar fields and a bound states of BPS and anti-BPS walls is found to exist in noncompact spaces. Even in compactified space $S^1$, this nontrivial bound state persists above a critical radius of the compact dimension.Comment: 20pages, 14 figures, minor misprint corrections, figures added, explanation of winding number adde

Rotation and Internal Structure of Population III Protostars

We analyze the cosmological simulations performed in the recent work of Greif et al. (2012), which followed the early growth and merger history of Pop III stars while resolving scales as small as 0.05 R_sol. This is the first set of cosmological simulations to self-consistently resolve the rotation and internal structure of Pop III protostars. We find that Pop III stars form under significant rotational support which is maintained for the duration of the simulations. The protostellar surfaces spin from ~50% to nearly 100% of Keplerian rotational velocity. These rotation rates persist after experiencing multiple stellar merger events. In the brief time period simulated (~ 10 yr), the protostars show little indication of convective instability, and their properties furthermore show little correlation with the properties of their host minihaloes. If Pop III protostars within this range of environments generally form with high degrees of rotational support, and if this rotational support is maintained for a sufficient amount of time, this has a number of crucial implications for Pop III evolution and nucleosynthesis, as well as the possibility for Pop III pair-instability supernovae, and the question of whether the first stars produced gamma-ray bursts.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, to appear in MNRA

The Pheno- and Genotypic Characterization of Porcine Escherichia coli Isolates

Escherichia (E.) coli is the main causative pathogen of neonatal and post-weaning diarrhea and edema disease in swine production. There is a significant health concern due to an increasing number of human infections associated with food and/or environmental-borne pathogenic and multidrug-resistant E. coli worldwide. Monitoring the presence of pathogenic and antimicrobial-resistant E. coli isolates is essential for sustainable disease management in livestock and human medicine. A total of 102 E. coli isolates of diseased pigs were characterized by antimicrobial and biocide susceptibility testing. Antimicrobial resistance genes, including mobile colistin resistance genes, were analyzed by PCR and DNA sequencing. The quinolone resistance-determining regions of gyrA and parC in ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates were analyzed. Clonal relatedness was investigated by two-locus sequence typing (CH clonotyping). Phylotyping was performed by the Clermont multiplex PCR method. Virulence determinants were analyzed by customized DNA-based microarray technology developed in this study for fast and economic molecular multiplex typing. Thirty-five isolates were selected for whole-genome sequence-based analysis. Most isolates were resistant to ampicillin and tetracycline. Twenty-one isolates displayed an ESBL phenotype and one isolate an AmpC β-lactamase-producing phenotype. Three isolates had elevated colistin minimal inhibitory concentrations and carried the mcr-1 gene. Thirty-seven isolates displayed a multi-drug resistance phenotype. The most predominant β-lactamase gene classes were blaTEM-1 (56%) and blaCTX-M-1 (13.71%). Mutations in QRDR were observed in 14 ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates. CH clonotyping divided all isolates into 51 CH clonotypes. The majority of isolates belonged to phylogroup A. Sixty-four isolates could be assigned to defined pathotypes wherefrom UPEC was predominant. WGS revealed that the most predominant sequence type was ST100, followed by ST10. ST131 was detected twice in our analysis. This study highlights the importance of monitoring antimicrobial resistance and virulence properties of porcine E. coli isolates. This can be achieved by applying reliable, fast, economic and easy to perform technologies such as DNA-based microarray typing. The presence of high-risk pathogenic multi-drug resistant zoonotic clones, as well as those that are resistant to critically important antibiotics for humans, can pose a risk to public health. Improved protocols may be developed in swine farms for preventing infections, as well as the maintenance and distribution of the causative isolates