Twenty Years of Boundary Spanning and Brokering in ISD: Implications for the Data Warehouse Domain

Data warehouse (DWH) systems are developed to support the process of decision making. Due to the number of involved communities and the complexity of their collaboration, DWH projects are costly. Nevertheless, despite a growing amount of research on DWH project management, success factors of DWH development projects and so forth, we still lack a thorough understanding of how processes on the borders between participating communities, namely boundary spanning and brokering, influence the DWH development process per se. To our knowledge very few studies and with no extensive research have examined this topic. We therefore conducted literature review of a more general research domain, namely information systems development (ISD). As a result, we found helpful implications for the development of DWHs

Eliciting And Connecting Information Requirements: A Study Of Brokering Situations In Data Warehouse Development

Information management and logistics rely on underlying data warehouse (DWH) systems. The development of DWHs brings together different communities of practice. In this paper, we concentrate on the role of DWH professionals as a brokering community in DWH development projects. We argue that each time they engage in brokering activities towards neighboring communities of practice, representatives from these communities take brokering roles as well. As a result, a so-called brokering situation resides within the social structure, which builds a brokering community. To closer observe the roles of DWH professionals within these brokering situations, we conducted in-depth interviews with experienced DWH professionals. Based on the analysis, we argue that the selection of the community’s representatives with experience in neighboring communities can improve brokering situations. Objects exchanged between communities of practice during brokering situations can have either positive or negative effects, depending on their capacity and the type of complexity on the boundary

BROKERING SITUATIONS IN DATA WAREHOUSE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Data Warehouse (DWH) projects bring together different communities of practice to create one body of knowledge and help increase the competitive advantages of companies. In this paper we concentrate on the role of DWH professionals as a spanning community in DWH development projects. We argue that each time DWH professionals engage in a spanning activity towards neighboring communities of practice, representatives from these communities take spanning roles as well. As a result, a brokering situation resides within the social structure created by bridging multiple communities together, building a brokering community. In order to observe the roles of DWH professionals within these brokering situations more closely, we conducted interviews with experienced DWH professionals in two interconnected phases. Based on the results gathered, we argue that the selection of the community’s representatives with experience in the boundary communities can improve brokering situations

THE ROLE OF BOUNDARY OBJECTS AND BOUNDARY SPANNING IN DATA WAREHOUSING – A RESEARCH-IN-PROGRESS REPORT

Data warehouse projects bring together different communities of practice, with the primary objective of producing one body of information which is capable of comparative advantages in business analysis. Due to the number of involved communities and the complexity of their collaboration, data warehouse projects are costly. In this paper we give a closer look at communication problems on boundaries between participating data warehouse projects’ communities. Our analysis enlightens the potential relation between the early creation of language communities of the involved communities and lowering data warehouse project development costs. As today, there is hardly any methodology available for analyzing and aligning mutual understanding between data warehouse project participants. In this paper, we propose a data warehouse development scheme for project improvement based on our discussion as a first step in a design science project

The Role of Brokering Situations in Data Warehouse Development: Creating Knowledge Fit with Brokers and Boundary Objects

Due to their complex nature, data warehouse (DWH) development projects often fail or significantly exceed budgets. Prior literature has revealed that achieving common understanding in the requirements elicitation phase is a key factor for the successful knowledge transfer and overall success of information systems (IS) development. To closer observe these phenomena, we conducted in-depth interviews with participants of several DWH projects. We propose the concept of \u27brokering situations\u27 to examine social interactions between project stakeholders and we analyze multiple brokering situations in reported DWH projects. Brokering situations help to understand the time-dependent development of brokers, the boundary objects, and their relations with regard to knowledge transfer. We augment Carlile’s (2004) classification of the boundary objects according to boundary complexity and development time. We discovered that in case of a low knowledge fit between project participants, involvement of a \u27knowledgeable\u27 broker seems important

A Multithreaded Soft Processor for SoPC Area Reduction

The growth in size and performance of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) has compelled System-on-a-Programmable-Chip (SoPC) designers to use soft proces-sors for controlling systems with large numbers of intellec-tual property (IP) blocks. Soft processors control IP blocks, which are accessed by the processor either as peripheral de-vices or/and by using custom instructions (CIs). In large systems, chip multiprocessors (CMPs) are used to execute many programs concurrently. When these programs require the use of the same IP blocks which are accessed as periph-eral devices, they may have to stall waiting for their turn. In the case of CIs, the FPGA logic blocks that implement the CIs may have to be replicated for each processor. In both of these cases FPGA area is wasted, either by idle soft processors or the replication of CI logic blocks. This paper presents a multithreaded (MT) soft processor for area reduction in SoPC implementations. An MT proces-sor allows multiple programs to access the same IP without the need for the logic replication or the replication of whole processors. We first designed a single-threaded processor that is instruction-set compatible to Altera’s Nios II soft processor. Our processor is approximately the same size as the Nios II Economy version, with equivalent performance. We augmented our processor to have 4-way interleaved mul-tithreading capabilities. This paper compares the area us-age and performance of the MT processor versus two CMP systems, using Altera’s and our single-threaded processors, separately. Our results show that we can achieve an area savings of about 45 % for the processor itself, in addition to the area savings due to not replicating CI logic blocks. 1

INFLUENCE OF MULTIENZYME PREPARATIONS ON PRODUCTION RESULTSAND ON SELECTED BIOCHEMICAL INDICATORS IN THE BLOOD OF PIGS FROM 10 TO 24 KG BODY MASS

Abstract Vrandic N., L. Rupic, V. Ba(!ar-Huskic, S. Bogdan, M. Dominis-Kramaric: Influence of Multienzyme Preparations on Production Results and on Selected Biochemical Indicators in the Blood of Pigs from 10 to 24 kg Body Mass. Acta vet. Bmo 1995,64: 235-242. Nutritional effects of two multienzyme preparations (PLIV A and Kemzyme) on the production and selected biochemical parameters in the blood of pigs weighing between 9.8 and 24 kg were studied during a period of 28 days. Yorkshire and Swedish Landrace crossbreds of 9.8 kg starting body mass were used. A total of 54 pigs were divided in three groups, a control (C) and two trial (TI and T2 ) groups with 18 pigs (9 males and 9 females) in each. They were fed the same starter diet. The control group received no enzyme supplement while the first group (TI) received the multienzyme preparation made by PLIVA and the second group (T2) was given a multienzyme preparation, Kemzyme (Kemin, Iowa, USA). Both diets (TI and T2) contained 0.1% of the multienzyme preparations. Pigs were kept in boxes and offered water and feed ad libitum. Nutritional parameters were measured at the end of the trial (after 28 days), while blood plasma biochemical parameters were ascertained on days I, 14 and 28. Pigs in the control group (C) and in both trial groups (T I and T 2) reached comparable average daily gains and average finishing body mass within the 28 days under study. The control group (e) consumed 10.9% more feed than the group T I (PLIV A multienzyme preparation), and 4.53% more feed than the groupT 2 (Kemzyme) during the 28 trial days. Both experimental groups fed diets enriched with multienzyme additives PLIV A or Kemzyme, had better food conversion than the control (C) group. No adverse effects of multienzyme preparations by PLIV A or Kemzyme on health status of pigs was found as indicated by biochemical analyses. Neither death nor sickness occurred during the trial. Nutrition, blood plasma, protein, lipid, glucose, AST, ALT, enzyme additives Although research of the effect of different enzyme additions to the feed of domestic animals started in the 1960's, many questions have not been answered and many problems have not been solved yet. Enzymes used in animal feed are mostly of bacterial (genus Bacillus) or fungal (genuses Aspergillus, Trichoderma, Penicillium) origin (In borr 1989). Although enzymes are of various origin, molecular weight and amino acid sequences, they have similar effects on the digestive tract of animals. Enzyme activities depend on environmental conditions such as pH, temperature, activating substrate, inhibitors, and other factors that induce chemical reactions in the digestive tract. The effect of the addition of enzymes to animal feed is tightly connected to the species and age of animal, to the meal composition, and to the kind and number of enzymes in certain enzyme preparation. Trial results confirmed that the nutritive effect of enzymatic preparations is greater in young animals in which the entire enzyme system of digestive tract is not fully in function yet, especially when the fodder containing large portions of vegetable origin of smaller nutritive value is fed. In young pigs the enzymatic system is not fully developed, so that feeding the weaned piglets weighing about 10 kg with powdered food often results in reduced gain and onset of diarrhoe

European guideline on obesity care in patients with gastrointestinal and liver diseases – Joint European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism / United European Gastroenterology guideline

Background: Patients with chronic gastrointestinal (GI) disease such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), celiac disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), pancreatitis, and chronic liver disease (CLD) often suffer from obesity because of coincidence (IBD, IBS, celiac disease) or related pathophysiology (GERD, pancreatitis and CLD). It is unclear if such patients need a particular diagnostic and treatment that differs from the needs of lean GI patients. The present guideline addresses this question according to current knowledge and evidence. Objective: The objective of the guideline is to give advice to all professionals working in the field of gastroenterology care including physicians, surgeons, dietitians and others how to handle patients with GI disease and obesity. Methods: The present guideline was developed according to the standard operating procedure for European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism guidelines, following the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network grading system (A, B, 0, and good practice point [GPP]). The procedure included an online voting (Delphi) and a final consensus conference. Results: In 100 recommendations (3x A, 33x B, 24x 0, 40x GPP, all with a consensus grade of 90% or more) care of GI patients with obesity – including sarcopenic obesity – is addressed in a multidisciplinary way. A particular emphasis is on CLD, especially fatty liver disease, since such diseases are closely related to obesity, whereas liver cirrhosis is rather associated with sarcopenic obesity. A special chapter is dedicated to obesity care in patients undergoing bariatric surgery. The guideline focuses on adults, not on children, for whom data are scarce. Whether some of the recommendations apply to children must be left to the judgment of the experienced pediatrician. Conclusion: The present guideline offers for the first time evidence-based advice how to care for patients with chronic GI diseases and concomitant obesity, an increasingly frequent constellation in clinical practice