Ontology Matching Techniques for Enterprise Architecture Models

Abstract. Current Enterprise Architecture (EA) approaches tend to be generic, based on broad meta-models that cross-cut distinct architectural domains. Integrating these models is necessary to an effective EA process, in order to support, for example, benchmarking of business processes or assessing compliance to structured requirements. However, the integration of EA models faces challenges stemming from structural and semantic heterogeneities that could be addressed by ontology matching techniques. For that, we used AgreementMakerLight, an ontology matching system, to evaluate a set of state of the art matching approaches that could adequately address some of the heterogeneity issues. We assessed the matching of EA models based on the ArchiMate and BPMN languages, which made possible to conclude about not only the potential but also of the limitations of these techniques to properly explore the more complex semantics present in these models. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a practice to support the analysis, design and implementation of a business strategy in an organization, considering its relevant multiple domains. In recent years, a variety of Enterprise Architecture To support the matching tasks we have used AgreementMakerLight (AML

Using ontologies for enterprise architecture analysis

Abstract-Enterprise architecture aligns business and information technology through the management of different elements and domains. An architecture description encompasses a wide and heterogeneous spectrum of areas, such as business processes, metrics, application components, people and technological infrastructure. Views express the elements and relationships of one or more domains from the perspective of specific system concerns relevant to one or more of its stakeholders. As a result, each view needs to be expressed in the description language that best suits its concerns. However, enterprise architecture languages tend to advocate a rigid "one-model fits all" approach where an all-encompassing description language describes several architectural domains. This approach hinders extensibility and adds complexity to the overall description language. On the other hand, integrating multiple models raises several challenges at the level of model coherence, consistency and traceability. Moreover, EA models should be computable so that the effort involved in their analysis is manageable. This work advocates the employment of ontologies and associated techniques in EA for contributing to the solving of the aforementioned issues. Thus, a proposal is made comprising an extensible architecture that consists of a core domain-independent ontology that can be extended through the integration of domain-specific ontologies focusing on specific concerns. The proposal is demonstrated through a real-world evaluation scenario involving the analysis of the models according to the requirements of the scenario stakeholders

Does fasting plasma glucose values 5.1-5.6 mmol/l in the first trimester of gestation a matter?

ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to investigate the effect of treatment on pregnancy outcomes among women who had fasting plasma glucose (FPG) 5.1-5.6 mmol/l in the first trimester of pregnancy.MethodsWe performed a secondary-analysis of a randomized community non-inferiority trial of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) screening. All pregnant women with FPG values range 5.1-5.6 mmol/l in the first trimester of gestation were included in the present study (n=3297) and classified to either the (i) intervention group who received treatment for GDM along with usual prenatal care (n=1,198), (ii) control group who received usual-prenatal-care (n=2,099). Macrosomia/large for gestational age (LGA) and primary cesarean-section (C-S) were considered as primary-outcomes. A modified-Poisson-regression for binary outcome data with a log link function and robust error variance was used to RR (95%CI) for the associations between GDM status and incidence of pregnancy outcomes.ResultsThe mean maternal age and BMI of pregnant women in both study groups were similar. There were no statistically significant differences in the adjusted risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including macrosomia, primary C-S, preterm birth, hyperbilirubinemia, preeclampsia, NICU-admission, birth trauma, and LBW both groups.ConclusionsIt is found that treating women with first-trimester FPG values of 5.1-5.6 mmol/l could not improve adverse pregnancy outcomes including macrosomia, Primary C-S, Preterm birth, hypoglycemia, hypocalcemia, preeclampsia, NICU admission, Birth trauma and LBW. Therefore, extrapolating the FPG cut-off point of the second trimester to the first –which has been proposed by the IADPSG, might therefore not be appropriate.Clinical Trial Registrationhttps://www.irct.ir/trial/518, identifier IRCT138707081281N1

Integrated Enterprise Modeling Ontology

Dissertação de mestrado, Engenharia Informática, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2011A modelagem empresarial é definida como uma representação da estrutura, atividades, processos, informações, pessoas, comportamento, objetivos e limitações de uma empresa, de empresas, governos ou outros [75]. Nos últimos ano este tipo de modelagem tem sido utilizado com sucesso e a demanda para a modelagem de empresa tem vindo a aumentar devido a oportunidade que dá para facilitar a comunicação entre pessoas num negócio, melhorando a empresa os seus processos de engenharia de sistemas e de criação de interoperabilidade entre sistemas empresariais. Além disso, permite às empresas obter uma visão abrangente dos seus negócios sob diferentes perspectivas. Os modelos empresariais podem ser representados através de ontologias. As ontologias são especificações explícitas de uma conceitualização compartilhada [1]. Além destas oportunidades, a sua utilização na prática ainda é limitada devido à falta de representação formal destas ontologias. Uma ontologia formal é aquela que tem a capacidade de ser processada com ferramentas baseadas em computador. Neste trabalho é formalizada um ontologia empresarial integrada, manualmente num trabalho de mestrado prévio realizado por Ricardo Daniel Figueiredo Freire. O resultado de seu trabalho é especificado na forma de um glossário. O maior problema da sua obra é a necessidade de ser formalizada, a fim de poder ser processada por um computador. Para abordar esta questão, este trabalho apresenta o processo de formalização da dita ontologia, começando pela sua conversão na sua forma inicial glossário em mapas conceptuais e finalizando na sua especificação na linguagem Ontology Web Language (OWL) usando o editor de ontologias Protegé. A ontologia é então validada através de um conjunto seleccionada de perguntas.Enterprise Modeling is defined as a representation of the structure, activities, processes, information, people, behavior, goals and constraints of a business, government or other enterprise [75]. In recent years this kind of modeling has been used successfully and the demand for enterprise modeling has been increasing due to the great opportunities it gives in facilitating communication between people in business, improving the enterprise system engineering processes and creating interoperability between enterprise systems. Furthermore, it allows enterprises to get a comprehensive vision of its business from different perspectives. Enterprise models can be represented with ontologies which is a “formal, explicit specifications of a shared conceptualization” [1]. Beside these opportunities that enterprise modeling‟s give, their use in practice is still limited. This is due to the lack of formal representation of these ontologies. A formal ontology is an ontology which has the ability to be process with computer-based tools. We have formalized an integrated enterprise ontology, which was merged manually by Ricardo Daniel Figueiredo Freire. The result of his work is specified in the form of a glossary. The major problem of his work is the need to be formalized in order to be processed by computer-based means. To address this issue, this work presents a process to formalize the integrated enterprise ontology of Freire, starting by converting its initial glossary form into conceptual maps and from there into the Ontology Web Language (OWL) using Protégé. The correctness of the ontology is validated with a set of competency questions

Effect of Self-Care Education on the Illness Perception in Patients With Hemodialysis: A Randomized Control Trial

Introduction: The results of studies have shown that inadequate awareness and self-care of patients with chronic renal failure, leads to an incorrect illness perception in these patients. Considering the importance of this issue, this study aimed to investigate the effect of self-care education in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Methods: This was a simple randomized clinical trial. The statistical society of the study consisted of 120 patients undergoing hemodialysis in dialysis department of Bu-Ali Sinai Hospital in Qazvin from December 2016 to February 2017. The samples were assigned randomly to two groups of control (routine care) and intervention (illness perception intervention). Both groups completed the demographic information questionnaire, illness perception questionnaire before the intervention. The intervention group received self-care education based on illness perception in the patient’s bedside and before initiation of dialysis in 3 sessions of 30 minutes. A training booklet was also given at the second session of the patient’s delivery, which was provided by the researcher and under the supervision of the professors. Four weeks later, the questionnaire of illness perception was completed by both groups. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistical tools in SPSS 20. Results: The results of this study showed that there was not a significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic information, except for the duration of dialysis (P<0.014). The ANOVA test results showed a significant difference in terms of patient’s illness perception between the intervention and control group (F(1, 112)=13.88, P<0.001). Conclusion: Self-care educational intervention based on illness perception increased the perception of the disease in hemodialysis patients

Legal Aspects for Digital Preservation Domain: Poster (Text) - iPRES 2014 - Melbourne

Long term digital preservation serves the preservation of data substance and operability, so that future users are enabled to use stored data and rerun the preserved processes to gain the stored information. Furthermore, Law is becoming an essential application domain for technology developments. In case copyright protected data has to be digitally preserved, every process of a digital preservation system may violate this right, when the rightholder who has the exclusive rights did not grant the relevant rights of use. This paper shows a Legal Ontology that provides a hierarchical overview of how legal constraints and obligations (e.g. IP rights and licensing issues) could be implemented in an automated process of a DP system. In simply terms, difficulties with legal taxonomies may arises when the creators and the users don’t share the same perspective. This would be the case when the creators of the taxonomy are lawyers and the users not. Legal taxonomies for digital preservation can be represented with ontologies which are an explicit account of a shared understanding in any domain. Through the use of ontologies the communication can be improved, which, in turn, can give rise to greater reuse, sharing, transparency, and interoperability. Every DP activity must ensure the authenticity and legitimacy of the performed actions and processes. Hence to validate the correctness of our legal ontology we used a set of competency questions defined in a specific case study. The goal is to obtain a clearer taxonomical view of the necessary legal knowledge that will address the concerns of industrial use-case DP stakeholders. Therefore, we recommend using the Legal Ontology for the DP domain, in order to integrate different legal perspectives and perform reasoning and inference over legal knowledge and information

Using Ontologies for Enterprise Architecture Integration and Analysis

Enterprise architecture facilitates the alignment between different domains, such as business, applications and information technology. These domains must be described with description languages that best address the concerns of its stakeholders. However, current model-based enterprise architecture techniques are unable to integrate multiple descriptions languages either due to the lack of suitable extension mechanisms or because they lack the means to maintain the coherence, consistency and traceability between the representations of the multiple domains of the enterprise. On the other hand, enterprise architecture models are often designed and used for communication and not for automated analysis of its contents. Model analysis is a valuable tool for assessing the qualities of a model, such as conformance and completeness, and also for supporting decision making. This paper addresses these two issues found in model-based enterprise architecture: (1) the integration of domain description languages, and (2) the automated analysis of models. This proposal uses ontology engineering techniques to specify and integrate the different domains and reasoning and querying as a means to analyse the models. The utility of the proposal is shown through an evaluation scenario that involve the analysis of an enterprise architecture model that spans multiple domains

Prevalence and risk factors of low birth weight in the Southeast of Iran

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and related factors of low birth weight (LBW) in the Southeast of Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in Kerman province. Data were collected from Iranian Maternal and Neonatal Network at public and private hospitals. All live births from March 2014 to March 2015 considered as the source population. The risk factors including maternal age, gravida, parity, abortion, pregnancy risk factors, maternal nationality, maternal education, maternity insurance, place of living, consanguinity, neonate sex, preterm labor, place of birth, delivery manager, and delivery type were compared between LBW and normal birth weight groups. Results: The prevalence of LBW was 9.4% in the present study. Preterm labor (odds ratio [OR]: 22.06; P 35 years (OR: 1.21; P = 0.001), delivery by cesarean section (OR: 1.17; P = 0.002), pregnancy risk factors (OR: 1.67; P < 0.001), maternal illiteracy (OR: 1.91; P < 0.001), living in the rural area (OR: 1.19; P < 0.001), consanguineous (OR: 1.08; P = 0.025), and delivery by obstetrician (OR: 1.12; P = 0.029) were identified as significant factors associated with LBW in this study. Conclusions: Prevention of preterm labor, consanguineous marriage, pregnancy age 35 years old, and maternal medical risk factors are some critical interventions to reduce its burden. Increasing the access to high-quality health-care services in rural and deprived areas is another effective strategy for the prevention of LBW

A Cluster Randomized Noninferiority Field Trial of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Screening

Context Although it is well-acknowledged that gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is associated with the increased risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes, the optimal strategy for screening and diagnosis of GDM is still a matter of debate. Objective This study was conducted to demonstrate the noninferiority of less strict GDM screening criteria compared with the strict International Association of the Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Groups (IADPSG) criteria with respect to maternal and neonatal outcomes. Methods A cluster randomized noninferiority field trial was conducted on 35 528 pregnant women; they were scheduled to have 2 phases of GDM screening based on 5 different prespecified protocols including fasting plasma glucose in the first trimester with threshold of 5.1 mmol/L (92 mg/dL) (protocols A, D) or 5.6 mmol/L (100 mg/dL) (protocols B, C, E) and either a 1-step (GDM is defined if one of the plasma glucose values is exceeded [protocol A and C] or 2 or more exceeded values are needed [protocol B]) or 2-step approach (protocols D, E) in the second trimester. Guidelines for treatment of GDM were consistent with all protocols. Primary outcomes of the study were the prevalence of macrosomia and primary cesarean section (CS). The null hypothesis that less strict protocols are inferior to protocol A (IADPSG) was tested with a noninferiority margin effect (odds ratio) of 1.7. Results The percentages of pregnant women diagnosed with GDM and assigned to protocols A, B, C, D, and E were 21.9%, 10.5%, 12.1%, 19.4%, and 8.1%, respectively. Intention-to-treat analyses satisfying the noninferiority of the less strict protocols of B, C, D, and E compared with protocol A. However, noninferiority was not shown for primary CS comparing protocol E with A. The odds ratios (95% CI) for macrosomia and CS were: B (1.01 [0.95-1.08]; 0.85 [0.56-1.28], C (1.03 [0.73-1.47]; 1.16 [0.88-1.51]), D (0.89 [0.68-1.17]; 0.94 [0.61-1.44]), and E (1.05 [0.65-1.69]; 1.33 [0.82-2.00]) vs A. There were no statistically significant differences in the adjusted odds of adverse pregnancy outcomes in the 2-step compared with the 1-step screening approaches, considering multiplicity adjustment. Conclusions The IADPSG GDM definition significantly increased the prevalence of GDM diagnosis. However, the less strict approaches were not inferior to other criteria in terms of adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes

The Process Model Matching Contest 2015

none27siAntunes, Gonçalo; Bakhshandeh, Marzieh; Borbinha, José Luis; Cardoso, João; Dadashnia, Sharam; Di Francescomarino, Chiara; Dragoni, Mauro; Fettke, Peter; Gal, Avigdor; Ghidini, Chiara; Hake, Philip; Khiat, Abderrahmane; Klinkmüller, Christopher; Kuss, Elena; Leopold, Henrik; Loos, Peter; Meilicke, Christian; Niesen, Tim; Pesquita, Catia; Péus, Timo; Schoknecht, Andreas; Sheetrit, Eitam; Sonntag, Andreas; Stuckenschmidt, Heiner; Thaler, Tom; Weber, Ingo; Weidlich, MatthiasAntunes, Gonçalo; Bakhshandeh, Marzieh; Borbinha, José Luis; Cardoso, João; Dadashnia, Sharam; Di Francescomarino, Chiara; Dragoni, Mauro; Fettke, Peter; Gal, Avigdor; Ghidini, Chiara; Hake, Philip; Khiat, Abderrahmane; Klinkmüller, Christopher; Kuss, Elena; Leopold, Henrik; Loos, Peter; Meilicke, Christian; Niesen, Tim; Pesquita, Catia; Péus, Timo; Schoknecht, Andreas; Sheetrit, Eitam; Sonntag, Andreas; Stuckenschmidt, Heiner; Thaler, Tom; Weber, Ingo; Weidlich, Matthia