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Academic Journal
BIS

“A Case-based Reasoning Framework for Workflow Model Management”

In order to support efficient workflow design, recent commercial workflow systems are providing templates of common business processes. These templates, called cases, can be modified individually or collectively into a new workflow to meet the business specification. However, little research has been done on how to manage workflow models, including issues such as model storage, model retrieval, model reuse and assembly. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to support workflow modeling and design by adapting workflow cases from a repository of process models. Our approach to workflow model management is based on a structured workflow lifecycle and leverages recent advances in model management and case-based reasoning techniques. Our contributions include a conceptual model of workflow cases, a similarity flooding algorithm for workflow case retrieval, and a domain-independent AI planning approach to workflow case composition. We illustrate the workflow model management framework with a prototype system called Case-Oriented Design Assistant for Workflow Modeling (CODAW).
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Academic Journal
BIS

“A GRASP Heuristic for Solving an Extended Capacitated Concentrator Location Problem”

Local Access Networks (LACNs) are often considered the "last mile" over the Internet provided that they are connected to some existing Wide Area Network backbone. In this paper, a revised LACN-WAN interconnection model is presented as an extension to the conventional Capacitated Concentrator Location Problem (CCLP). An efficient heuristic is also developed to seek near-optimal deployment of telecommunication devices (e.g. links, concentrators, etc.) while minimizing the total connection costs for the network interconnection. Our solution algorithm could serve as a decision-making tool in solving problems with a real world size (i.e. 120 nodes and 30 concentrators).
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Academic Journal
BIS

“A Normative Model for Assessing SME IT Effectiveness”

Information technology (IT) is a key enabler of modern small businesses, yet fostering reliably
effective IT systems remains a significant challenge. This paper presents a light weight IT
effectiveness model for small businesses to assess their IT and formulate strategies for
improvement. Employing an action research approach we investigate a mixed method analysis of
120 survey responses from small family businesses and user participation in 10 semi-structured
interviews. We then conduct critical reflection to identify refinements which are validated using
72 survey responses from university students. The results present compelling evidence that
employees’ normative patterns (norms) are a significant driver of IT effectiveness in a second
order PLS predictive model able to explain 26% of observed variance.
A norms-based approach to IT effectiveness helps fill a significant research and managerial gap
for organizations unable or unwilling to adopt IT best practice frameworks used by large
organizations. Our findings imply that comparing norms to IT best practices may offer a less
technical approach to assessing IT operations, which may be well suited to small businesses.
Although further investigation cycles are needed to systematically test this model, we encourage
small business managers to: 1) anticipate IT risks and mitigate them; 2) identify measures of IT
performance, and monitor them, and 3) review/synchronize business and IT goals.
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Academic Journal
BIS

“Aggregating Automatically Extracted Regulatory Pathway Relations”

Automatic tools to extract information from biomedical texts are needed to help researchers leverage the vast and increasing body of biomedical literature. While several biomedical relation extraction systems have been created and tested, little work has been done to meaningfully organize the extracted relations. Organizational processes should consolidate multiple references to the same objects over various levels of granularity, connect those references to other resources, and capture contextual information. We propose a feature decomposition approach to relation aggregation to support a five-level aggregation framework. Our BioAggregate tagger uses this approach to identify key features in extracted relation name strings. We show encouraging feature assignment accuracy and report substantial consolidation in a network of extracted relations.
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Academic Journal
BIS

“An Efficient Heuristic for Solving an Extended Capacitated Concentrator Location Problem”

In this paper, a mathematical model and a solution algorithm are developed for solving an extended capacitated concentrator location problem. Our model extends the conventional formulation by simultaneously addressing the two capacity constraints, total connection ports and maximum data processing rate, on each concentrator to be selected for satisfying the communication demands of the given end-user nodes. Since the problem is NP-complete, an efficient and effective Lagrangian heuristic is developed and tested by solving 100 randomly generated test problems with sizes ranging from 30(nodes)×30(concentrators) to150×30. Altogether 58% of the tested problems are solved optimally with an average solution gap 0.36% from the optimality and average solution times are from a few seconds to one half of a minute.
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Academic Journal
BIS

“Aspects of 'Relevance' in the Alignment of Curriculum with Educational Standards”

Retrieval of useful digitized learning objects is a key objective for educational digital libraries, but imprecise definitions of alignment hinder the development of effective retrieval mechanisms. With over 63,000 U.S. K-12 science and mathematics education standards and a rapid proliferation of Web-enabled curriculum, retrieving curriculum that aligns with the standards to which teachers must teach is increasingly important. Previous studies of such alignment use single-dimensional and binary measures of relevance. Perhaps as a consequence they suffer from low inter-rater reliability (IRR), with experts agreeing about alignments only some 20-40% of the time. We present the results of an experiment in which the dependent variable ‘alignment’ is operationalized using the Saracevic model of relevance in which; i.e., alignment is defined and measured through ‘clues’ from the everyday practice of K-12 teaching. Results show higher inter-rater reliability on all clues with significantly higher IRR on several specific alignment dimensions. In addition, a (linear) model of ‘overall alignment’ is derived and estimated. Both the structure and explanatory power of the model differ significantly between searching vs. assessment. These results illustrate the usefulness of clue-based relevance measures for information retrieval and have important consequences for both the formulation of automated retrieval mechanisms and the construction of a gold standard set of standard-curriculum alignments.
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