Interface Management: An approach to support IT-Managers in decision making

Information systems are critical assets for modern enterprises. They must be updated continuously to reflect business needs, leaving cumulative effects on the system complexity. Information systems are normally composed of multiple subsystems or components. Interfaces arise wherever one subsystem or component interacts with another. This interaction can be achieved through interoperation or integration. However, both require a comprehensive knowledge about existing interfaces, which suffer from lack of documentations. This, as a result, has bad influence on managing the interfaces and could lead to wrong decisions. In our research-in-progress, we point to the problems companies face with their interfaces and present our solution to support IT managers in taking decisions regarding the interfaces in each phase in their lifecycle. Managing the interfaces includes analysing dependencies and the attributes of interfaces with their weight and influence on assessing the related risk

Introducing a new Workflow for Pig Posture Classification based on a combination of YOLO and EfficientNet

This paper introduces a pipeline for image-based pig posture classification by applying YOLOv5 for pig detection and EfficientNet for subsequent pig posture classification into 'lying' and 'notLying'. A high-quality dataset consisting of 5311 heterogeneous images from different sources with 78215 bounding box annotations was created. The bounding box annotations were then used to create a separate dataset for image classification, consisting of 9209 and 7855 images for each 'lying' and 'notLying'. The YOLOv5 model achieves an AP of 0.994 for pig detection, while EfficientNet achieves a precision of 0.93 for pig posture classification. Comparing the results of the proposed method with other approaches found in literature, it shows that significant improvements in terms of accuracy can be achieved by splitting the classification of pig posture into separate models. This research provides a foundation for the continued development of real-time monitoring and assistance systems in pig Precision Livestock Farming

Applying Software Quality Criteria to Blockchain Applications: A Criteria Catalog

The selection of the suitable blockchain software ecosystem has become very complex, given the growing market. More and more products with different functionality (mainly consensus algorithms and smart contracts) are available on the market. To identify the correct blockchain system for the respective application, a catalog of criteria with a focus on software quality is developed in this work. This catalog supports the selection of the right application and can be individually weighted

The Obstacles of Sustainable Business Model Innovations

The continuous innovation process of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector shape the way businesses redefine their business models. Though, current drivers of innovation processes focus solely on a technical dimension, while disregarding social and environmental drivers. However, examples like Nokia, Yahoo or Hewlett-Packard show that even though a profitable business model exists, a sound strategic innovation process is needed to remain profitable in the long term. A sustainable business model innovation demands the incorporation of all dimensions of the triple bottom line. Nevertheless, current management processes do not take the responsible steps to remain sustainable and keep being in denial of the evolutionary direction in which the markets develop, because the effects are not visible in short term. The implications are of substantial effect and can bring the foundation of the company’s business model in danger. This work evaluates the decision process that lets businesses decide in favor of un-sustainable changes and points out the barriers that prevent the development towards a sustainable business model that takes the new balance of forces into account

Building a Connection Between Decision Maker and Data-Driven Decision Process

It is quite common that most of companies’ decisions are made based on feelings, intuitions or personal experiences. The reasons for such patterns have organizational, technical and process oriented backgrounds. For instance, there is no structured way to deal with the analytical results on both sides simultaneously – organizational and technical. Usually, in case of analytics the ones doing analysis (e.g. data scientists) and the ones using results of analytics (e.g. decision makers) are different persons. As a result, such a structure leads to ambiguity and misunderstanding between the involved parties. In order to bridge the existing gap between data scientists and decision makers, we introduced the Data Product Profile which links both data science and data-driven decision processes

An MADM risk-based evaluation-selection model of free-libre open source software tools

Free-Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) tools are free-cost license highly attractive to be implemented by organizations. However, not of all the FLOSS tools are mature, and failed implementations can occur. Thus, FLOSS evaluation-selection frameworks and FLOSS success-failure implementation factors studies have been conducted. In this research, we advance on such studies through an integrated FLOSS evaluation-selection model with a risk-based decision making approach. Our model was built upon the other two literatures, and it was structured as a Multi-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) model which contains 12 variables grouped in four risk categories: financial, organizational, end-user and technical ones. We illustrated its utilization in the domain of Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) FLOSS tools. Hence, our model contributes to the FLOSS literature with the inclusion of the risk management approach and to the FLOSS evaluation-selection praxis with the provision of an innovative and essential risk-based model

A risk-based MADM model for selecting free-libre open source software tools in the domain of IT service management

The availability of free-libre open source software (FLOSS) has stimulated their organizational implementation in many countries. The main attractiveness for it is the free-cost license of usage regarding with acquisition of COTS (components of the shelf) commercial software, among other factors such as: maturity status, available technical community support, popularity, and compliance to international standards. However, not of the all FLOSS tools released from such FLOSS development projects achieve the expected qualities, and thus organizations interested in using them must conduct a careful evaluation-selection process. With this in mind, several evaluation-selection frameworks for FLOSS have been reported in the literature and some studies have identified a set of organizational factors associated to successful and failed utilizations of FLOSS tools in organizations. In this research, we elaborate a FLOSS Evaluation-Selection model by combining both sets of literature on FLOSS evaluation models and FLOSS implementation models. This model is implemented with a MADM (Multi-Attribute Decision-Making) risk-based mechanism. We illustrate this model with the evaluation-selection of a FLOSS tool in the domain of Information Technology Service Management (ITSM). Hence, this paper contributes to our body of knowledge with the provision of a simplified evaluation-selection model for FLOSS tools derived from two core sets of FLOSS literatures, under an innovative risk-based approach

Semantic Web and Adaptivity: Towards a New Model

AbstrAct The chapter aims at proposing a model that gives an abstraction to the functionalities and data involved in adaptive applications for the Semantic Web. As the quantity of provided information on the Web is getting larger, the need for adaptation in software is getting more and more necessary in order to maximize the productivity of individuals, and more issues are emerging that have to be considered in the new generation of hypertext systems. With the advent of Semantic Web, adaptation can be performed autonomously and in runtime, making the whole process of information adapting transparent to the user