Business process modeling pluralized

Traditional centralized business process management approaches pose difficulties in coping with rapid changes and evolving process models. We developed the Plural method to allow for decentralized modeling of processes. The Plural method enables process participants, rather than a centralized group of process engineers or managers, to model and maintain their processes. In previous works, we introduced the Plural method and discussed its applications in case studies. This paper elaborates more into the notation component of the Plural method. We describe the diagram types used for capturing process information. We also present a case study performed in a small web application development company. We discuss the results together with a synthesis of the findings and lessons learned from our previous case studies

How Question Answering Technology Helps to Locate Malevolent Online Content

The inherent lack of control over the Internet content resulted in proliferation of online material that can be potentially detrimental. For example, the infamous “Anarchist Cookbook” teaching how to make weapons, home made bombs, and poisons, keeps re-appearing in various places. Some websites teach how to break into computer networks to steal passwords and credit card information. Law enforcement, security experts, and public watchdogs started to locate, monitor, and act when such malevolent content surfaces on the Internet. Since the resources of law enforcement are limited, it may take some time before potentially malevolent content is located, enough for it to disseminate and cause harm. Currently applied approach for searching the content of the Internet, available for law enforcement and public watchdogs is by using a search engine, such as Google, AOL, MSN, etc. We have suggested and empirically evaluated an alternative technology (called automated question answering or QA) capable of locating potentially malevolent online content. We have implemented a proof-of-concept prototype that is capable of finding web pages that may potentially contain the answers to specified questions (e.g. “How to steal a password?”). Using students as subjects in a controlled experiment, we have empirically established that our QA prototype finds web pages that are more likely to provide answers to given questions than simple keyword search using Google. This suggests that QA technology can be a good replacement or an addition to the traditional keyword searching for the task of locating malevolent online content and, possibly, for a more general task of interactive online information exploration

A maturity model for care pathways

Over the last recent decades, increasing the quality of healthcare services while reducing costs has been among the top concerns in the healthcare landscape. Several healthcare institutions have initiated improvement programs and invested considerably in process orientation and management. Care pathways are receiving increasing attention from clinicians, healthcare managers, and academics, as a way to standardize healthcare processes to improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of healthcare services. Despite considerable literature on the definition of care pathways, to date there is no agreement on their key process characteristics and the way they traverse from an immature to a mature state. Such a model would guide healthcare institutions to assess pathways’ level of maturity and generate a roadmap for improving towards higher levels. In this paper, we propose a maturity model for care pathways that is constructed taking a generic business process maturity model as a basis. The model was refined through a Delphi study with nine domain experts to address healthcare domain specific concerns. To evaluate its validity, we applied it in assessing the maturity of a particular care pathway taking place in 11 healthcare institutions. The results indicate the usefulness of the proposed model in assessing pathway’s maturity and its potential to provide guidance for its improvement

Business model prototyping for intelligent transport systems: a service-dominant approach

Case Study for Praktijkproef Amsterdam Fase 2 deelproject Zuidoos