The design and engineering of innovative mobile data services: An ontological framework founded on business model thinking

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This research investigates mobile service design and engineering in the mobile telecommunications industry. The mobile telecommunication business is shifting from one that was voice-centric to one that is almost all data-centric; thanks to recent rapid advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The underlying reasons behind this shift can be traced back to two main issues that are interlinked. The first and major reason is that telecoms (telecommunication companies) are trying to generate new revenue streams based on data and information transmissions, given the saturation of the voice market. This is rational given the market opportunities in one direction and the pressures being generated by the current economic downturn from the other direction. The second reason relates to the flexibility of data, compared to voice. Indeed, the number of services that can be developed on the basis of data are much greater than those that can be developed on the basis of voice. However, the design and engineering of successful and innovative mobile data services has proven to be a complex undertaking. The number of effective mobile data services is relatively small and the revenue generated from such offerings has generally been below expectations. This research develops an ontological framework to help in changing this situation, and making mobile services engineering more effective and successful, following the design-science research paradigm. Design-science research, in general, aims to solve unstructured but relevant organizational or social problems through the development of novel and useful artefacts. As the current research aims to help in solving the mobile data services engineering dilemma by developing a purposeful ontological framework, the design-science research paradigm is deemed fitting. Within this paradigm, the author develops a novel design approach specified for ontology engineering, termed “OntoEng”. This design approach is used in this research for developing the ontological framework. The developed ontological framework is founded on business model thinking. The idea is that creating innovative mobile data services requires developing innovative business models. Indeed, innovative business models can help translate technological potential into economic value and allow telecoms to achieve their strategic objectives. The ontological framework includes the development of an ontology, termed “V4 Mobile Service BM Ontology” as well as “Mobile Key Value Drivers” for designing and engineering innovative mobile data services. The V4 Mobile Service BM Ontology incorporates four design dimensions: (1) value proposition including targeting; (2) value architecture including technological and organizational infrastructure; (3) value network dealing with aspects relating to partnerships and co-operations; and finally (4) value finance relating to costs, pricing, and revenue structures. Within these four dimensions, sixteen design concepts are identified along with their constituent elements. Relationships and interdependencies amongst the identified design constructs are established and clear semantics are produced. The research then derives six key value drivers for mobile service engineering as follows: (a) Market Alignment; (b) Cohesion; (c) Dynamicity; (d) Uniqueness; (e) Fitting Network-Mode; and (f) Explicitness. The developed ontological framework in this research is evaluated to ensure that it can be successfully implemented and performs correctly in the real world. The research mainly utilizes case analysis methods to ensure the semantic correctness of the ontological framework. Indeed, the developed ontological framework is employed as an analytical lens to examine the design and engineering of three key real-life cases in the mobile telecommunications industry. These cases are: (1) Apple’s iPhone Services and Applications; (2) NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode Services; and (3) Orange Business Services. For further validation, the developed ontological framework is evaluated against a set of criteria synthesized from ontology engineering and evaluation literature. These criteria are: Clarity; Coherence; Conciseness; Preciseness; Completeness; and Customizability. The developed ontological framework is argued to make significant contributions for theory, practice, and methodology. For theory, this research provides (1) a novel ontological framework for designing and engineering mobile data services; (2) a unified framework of the business model concept; and (3) a new design approach for ontology engineering in information systems. For practice, the current research provides practitioners in the telecommunications industry with systematic and customizable means to design, implement, analyze, evaluate, and change new and existing mobile data services to make them more manageable, effective, and creative. For methodology, the use of the design- science research paradigm for ontology engineering signifies the focal methodological contribution in this research given its novelty. This research also contributes to the understanding of the design-science research paradigm in information systems as it is relatively new. It provides a working example in which the author illustrates how recognizing design-science research as a paradigm is essential and useful to the research in information systems discipline

Conceptual Modelling and The Quality of Ontologies: Endurantism Vs. Perdurantism

Ontologies are key enablers for sharing precise and machine-understandable semantics among different applications and parties. Yet, for ontologies to meet these expectations, their quality must be of a good standard. The quality of an ontology is strongly based on the design method employed. This paper addresses the design problems related to the modelling of ontologies, with specific concentration on the issues related to the quality of the conceptualisations produced. The paper aims to demonstrate the impact of the modelling paradigm adopted on the quality of ontological models and, consequently, the potential impact that such a decision can have in relation to the development of software applications. To this aim, an ontology that is conceptualised based on the Object-Role Modelling (ORM) approach (a representative of endurantism) is re-engineered into a one modelled on the basis of the Object Paradigm (OP) (a representative of perdurantism). Next, the two ontologies are analytically compared using the specified criteria. The conducted comparison highlights that using the OP for ontology conceptualisation can provide more expressive, reusable, objective and temporal ontologies than those conceptualised on the basis of the ORM approach

The Impact of CRM Infrastructural and Cultural Resources and Capabilities on Business Performance: An Application of the Resource-based View in the Mobile Telecommunications Industry

Based on the Resource-Based View (RBV) literature, this study aims at developing and imple-menting a novel and comprehensive model so as to measure the effect of CRM resources on CRM capabilities and the effect of the latter on business performance. CRM resources are de-fined as infrastructural CRM resources (i.e. technological resources, human resources, and or-ganizational resources), and cultural CRM resources (i.e. customer orientation, learning orien-tation, and result orientation). CRM capabilities are measured through an organization’s cus-tomer interaction capability, customer relationship upgrading capability, and customer win-back capability. As for performance, this study measures business performance comprehensively from financial and marketing perspectives. Although the results indicate that CRM infrastruc-tural resources has a positive and direct effect on CRM capabilities, the effect of customer orien-tation culture and learning orientation culture on CRM capabilities was significantly stronger. Further, the results indicate the CRM capabilities significantly and positively affect business per-formance from marketing and financial standpoints. However, the effect of CRM capabilities on marketing performance was found to be stronger than effect on financial performance and mar-keting performance was found to partially mediate the relationship between CRM capabilities and financial performance

Method development and validation of simultaneous determination of seventeenmetals in water by ICP/MS

A simple, precise, accurate, and sensitive method is developed and validated for simultaneous determination of seventeen metals (Li, Sr, Ba, Tl, Pb, Bi, Al, K, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mo, Ag, and Cd) in water by ICP-MS. The optimum conditions of the ICP-MS are as follows: nebulizer gas (argon) flow rate: 0.9 L/min, auxiliary gas (argon) flow 0.3 L/min, plasma (argon) gas flow: 15 L/min, reaction gas flow (helium) 4mL/min. This method is validated according to the requirements for new methods, which include linearity and range, accuracy, precision, selectivity, limit of detection (LOD), and limit of quntitation (LOQ). The current method demonstrates good linearity over the range of 1-1000 ppb with r2 greater than 0.999 for the seventeen metals. The recovery of the metals from water samples ranges from 97.5 to 101.7%. The method is selective where minimal interferences between the metals is observed (CeO/Ce = 1%, and Ce+2/Ce+1 = 1%), and with good resolution (0.8 amu at 10% height). The method is also precise where the RSD of the responses (cps) of replicates of the metals at three concentration levels is less than 1%. Low LOD and LOQ of metals using this method enable the detection and quantitation of these metals at low concentrations. Real water samples from West Bank in Palestine (groundwater) were analyzed for their trace metals content using this method

Analysis of Different Rare Metals, Rare Earth Elements, and other Common Metals in Groundwater of South West Bank/Palestine by ICP/MS-Data and Health Aspects

Ground water samples are collected from south West Bank/Palestine and analyzed for different rare elements (Rb, Zr, U, P, Ti, V), rare earth elements (La, Ce, and Nd), and other common trace metals (Li, Na, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, K, Bi) that most of them usually have no maximum acceptable limits as either they are considered not to be toxic to human health or there is no sufficient data about their toxicity to human health. This study was conducted to determine the water quality of ground water which is used for drinking in the study area. Water samples from ten groundwater wells were obtained in three different dates of the year (November 2012, March 2013, and April 2013). Three water samples were obtained from each well for each sampling date; so a total of 90 water samples were collected from the ten wells. The results obtained from this study suggest a possible risk to the population of the study area given the high concentration of some metals that have no maximum allowed concentration, and the fact that for many people in the study area, ground water is a main source of their water supply.The authors are grateful for the German research funding organisation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), DFG for their financial support through TRION project

DETERMINATION OF MIXING HEIGHT IN RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA

Twice-daily mixing heights, one morning and one afternoon were calculated by using the computational program MIXHTS. MIXHTS utilizes the meteorological data collected from the King Khalid International Airport (KKIA) surface and upper air stations in Riyadh city during the year 2002. Climatic data shows that the city of Riyadh has in general, a hot and dry weather in summer and cold and dry in wintertime, whereas strong insolation is dominant all over the year. Monthly average afternoon mixing heights are ranged from 1629 m to 3971 m, whereas the morning mixing heights are ranged from as low as 935 m to 2920 m. Estimation of mixing heights obtained by this work were found in a good agreement with the daily maximum value obtained from the dry adiabatic temperature method