UTILIZING PATTERNS IN DEVELOPING DESIGN THEORIES

Aside from specialized design artifacts solving \u27wicked\u27 problems in a distinct organizational context, prescriptive (design) theories for solving classes of problems are well-accepted results of design science research. Especially for intricate problem fields, as IT service management or EA management, the development of such theories remains a highly complex research endeavor spanning a longer period of time. In this paper, we discuss how patterns, i.e. practice-proven, re-usable solutions to recurring problems, can be used to ease the establishment of a design theory, and to provide practice-relevant intermediary results prior to theory completion

Charting the landscape of enterprise architecture management

Todays enterprises are faced with the challenge of an everchanging environment, which they continuously have to adaptto. A commonly accepted means to support an enterprisein the transformation process and furthermore enhance thealignment between business and IT is enterprise architecture(EA) management, which provides a holistic perspectiveon the enterprise. In order to support an enterprise inthe transformation process, EA management creates architecturaldescriptions of current, planned, and future statesof the enterprise. Reecting the aforementioned importanceof EA management a plurality of approaches for establishingan EA management function in an enterprise have beenproposed by researchers, practitioners, and standardizationbodies. The approaches vary widely in respect to the proposedmethods, models, and languages.The objective of this article is to analyze the state-of-theartin EA and EA management respectively. Therefore, anextensive literature survey on publications in the area is performed.Criteria for the analysis are inter alia the distribution of papers over time, their regional distribution, type ofpublication, number of references of an article, and the involvedauthors groups. Thereby the article seeks to give anoverview on the current research occupation in the eld ofEA management

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE MANAGEMENT FROM A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE – RESULTS FROM AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Within the context of EAM numerous approaches proposed by researches exist. Still, it is not easy for companies to choose the most suitable one from the multitude of architecture frameworks and methods. Additionally trends in the global economy and the resulting pressure on the part of competitors force companies to introduce more effective management processes. As a consequence, EAM faces the similar challenge as that of knowledge management that is identifying, collecting and maintaining process-specific information in an efficient way. This research article addresses the aforementioned challenge by identifying weaknesses of existing approaches to enterprise architecture management and proposing future areas of research. Thereby, the future research topics are identified in two steps. Firstly, an extensive literature analysis from a knowledge management perspective derives hypotheses on possible fields for improvement and future research. These hypotheses are evaluated according to their relevance in practice in an online survey conducted among enterprise architecture management practitioners from companies belonging to various industry branches in Europe

Phosphocholine-Modified Lipooligosaccharides of Haemophilus influenzae Inhibit ATP-Induced IL-1beta Release by Pulmonary Epithelial Cells

Phosphocholine-modified bacterial cell wall components are virulence factors enabling immune evasion and permanent colonization of the mammalian host, by mechanisms that are poorly understood. Recently, we demonstrated that free phosphocholine (PC) and PC-modified lipooligosaccharides (PC-LOS) from Haemophilus influenzae, an opportunistic pathogen of the upper and lower airways, function as unconventional nicotinic agonists and efficiently inhibit the ATP-induced release of monocytic IL-1beta. We hypothesize that H. influenzae PC-LOS exert similar effects on pulmonary epithelial cells and on the complex lung tissue. The human lung carcinoma-derived epithelial cell lines A549 and Calu-3 were primed with lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli followed by stimulation with ATP in the presence or absence of PC or PC-LOS or LOS devoid of PC. The involvement of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors was tested using specific antagonists. We demonstrate that PC and PC-LOS efficiently inhibit ATP-mediated IL-1beta release by A549 and Calu-3 cells via nicotinic acetylcholine receptors containing subunits alpha7, alpha9, and/or alpha10. Primed precision-cut lung slices behaved similarly. We conclude that H. influenzae hijacked an endogenous anti-inflammatory cholinergic control mechanism of the lung to evade innate immune responses of the host. These findings may pave the way towards a host-centered antibiotic treatment of chronic airway infections with H. influenzae

A Pattern-based Approach to Quantitative Enterprise Architecture Analysis

Enterprise Architecture (EA) management involves tasks that substantially contribute to the operations of an enterprise, and to its sustainable market presence. One important aspect of this is the availability of services to customers. However, the increasing interconnectedness of systems with other systems and with business processes makes it difficult to get a clear view on change impacts and dependency structures. While management level decision makers need this information to make sound decisions, EA models often do not include quality attributes (such as availability), and very rarely provide quantitative means to assess them. We address these shortcomings by augmenting an information model for EA modeling with concepts from Probabilistic Relational Models, thus enabling quantitative analysis. A sample business case is evaluated as an example of the technique, showing how decision makers can benefit from information on availability impacts on enterprise business services

The upgrade of the ALICE TPC with GEMs and continuous readout

The upgrade of the ALICE TPC will allow the experiment to cope with the high interaction rates foreseen for the forthcoming Run 3 and Run 4 at the CERN LHC. In this article, we describe the design of new readout chambers and front-end electronics, which are driven by the goals of the experiment. Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detectors arranged in stacks containing four GEMs each, and continuous readout electronics based on the SAMPA chip, an ALICE development, are replacing the previous elements. The construction of these new elements, together with their associated quality control procedures, is explained in detail. Finally, the readout chamber and front-end electronics cards replacement, together with the commissioning of the detector prior to installation in the experimental cavern, are presented. After a nine-year period of R&D, construction, and assembly, the upgrade of the TPC was completed in 2020.publishedVersio

The ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a general-purpose, heavy-ion detector at the CERN LHC which focuses on QCD, the strong-interaction sector of the Standard Model. It is designed to address the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma at extreme values of energy density and temperature in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Besides running with Pb ions, the physics programme includes collisions with lighter ions, lower energy running and dedicated proton-nucleus runs. ALICE will also take data with proton beams at the top LHC energy to collect reference data for the heavy-ion programme and to address several QCD topics for which ALICE is complementary to the other LHC detectors. The ALICE detector has been built by a collaboration including currently over 1000 physicists and engineers from 105 Institutes in 30 countries. Its overall dimensions are 161626 m3 with a total weight of approximately 10 000 t. The experiment consists of 18 different detector systems each with its own specific technology choice and design constraints, driven both by the physics requirements and the experimental conditions expected at LHC. The most stringent design constraint is to cope with the extreme particle multiplicity anticipated in central Pb-Pb collisions. The different subsystems were optimized to provide high-momentum resolution as well as excellent Particle Identification (PID) over a broad range in momentum, up to the highest multiplicities predicted for LHC. This will allow for comprehensive studies of hadrons, electrons, muons, and photons produced in the collision of heavy nuclei. Most detector systems are scheduled to be installed and ready for data taking by mid-2008 when the LHC is scheduled to start operation, with the exception of parts of the Photon Spectrometer (PHOS), Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) and Electro Magnetic Calorimeter (EMCal). These detectors will be completed for the high-luminosity ion run expected in 2010. This paper describes in detail the detector components as installed for the first data taking in the summer of 2008

Centrality evolution of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density over a broad pseudorapidity range in Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=2.76TeV

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