ICEIS 2016 Abstracts

Area 1 - Databases and Information Systems Integration
Full Papers Short Papers
Area 2 - Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems
Full Papers Short Papers
Area 3 - Information Systems Analysis and Specification
Full Papers Short Papers
Area 4 - Software Agents and Internet Computing
Full Papers Short Papers
Area 5 - Human-Computer Interaction
Full Papers Short Papers
Area 6 - Enterprise Architecture
Full Papers Short Papers

Area 1 - Databases and Information Systems Integration

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 32
Title:

An Allegory on the Role of the Action Researcher to Enable User Engagement and Change Management in the Early Phases of Information Systems Implementation
Authors:

Antonio Ghezzi
Abstract: Genres of communications significantly influence the evolution of a field of research. In the Information Systems (IS) domain, a debate has recently emerged on the chance to implement alternative genres to generate unconventional ways of looking at IS-related issues. This study hence proposes to apply allegory as an alternative genre to write publications accounting IS research. To exemplify the use of the allegory genre, the study tackles the role of the action researcher to enable user engagement and change management in the early phases of Information Systems implementation. The allegory is applied to the case of a Small- Medium-Enterprise undergoing ERP implementation. Reflecting on the allegory and its interpretation, it is argued that the action researcher can take a paramount role in IS change management as “user engagement enabler”; from a writing genre perspective, it is claimed that allegory is particularly suitable for writing action research accounts.
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Paper Nr: 89
Title:

The Data-driven Factory - Leveraging Big Industrial Data for Agile, Learning and Human-centric Manufacturing
Authors:

Christoph Gröger, Laura Kassner, Eva Hoos, Jan Königsberger, Cornelia Kiefer, Stefan Silcher and Bernhard Mitschang
Abstract: Global competition in the manufacturing industry is characterized by ever shorter product life cycles, increasing complexity and a turbulent environment. High product quality, continuously improved processes as well as changeable organizational structures constitute central success factors for manufacturing companies. With the rise of the internet of things and Industrie 4.0, the increasing use of cyber-physical systems as well as the digitalization of manufacturing operations lead to massive amounts of heterogeneous industrial data across the product life cycle. In order to leverage these big industrial data for competitive advantages, we present the concept of the data-driven factory. The data-driven factory enables agile, learning and human-centric manufacturing and makes use of a novel IT architecture, the Stuttgart IT Architecture for Manufacturing (SITAM), overcoming the insufficiencies of the traditional information pyramid of manufacturing. We introduce the SITAM architecture and discuss its conceptual components with respect to service-oriented integration, advanced analytics and mobile information provisioning in manufacturing. Moreover, for evaluation purposes, we present a prototypical implementation of the SITAM architecture as well as a real-world application scenario from the automotive industry to demonstrate the benefits of the data-driven factory.
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Paper Nr: 91
Title:

Resources Planning in Database Infrastructures
Authors:

Eden Dosciatti, Marcelo Teixeira, Richardson Ribeiro, Marco Barbosa, Fábio Favarim, Fabrício Enembreck and Dieky Adzkiya
Abstract: Anticipating resources consumption is essential to project robust database infrastructures able to support transactions to be processed with certain quality levels. In Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), for example, it could help to construct Service Level Agreements (SLA) to intermediate service customers and providers. A proper database resources assessment can avoid mistakes when choosing technology, hardware, network, client profiles, etc. However, to be properly evaluated, a database transaction usually requires the physical system to be measured, which can be expensive an time consuming. As most information about resource consumption are useful at design time, before developing the whole system, is essential to have mechanisms that partially open the black box hiding the in-operation system. This motivates the adoption of predictive evaluation models. In this paper, we propose a simulation model that can be used to estimate performance and availability of database transactions at design time, when the system is still being conceived. By not requiring real time inputs to be simulated, the model can provide useful information for resources planning. The accuracy of the model is checked in the context of a SLA composition process, in which database operations are simulated and model estimations are compared to measurements collected from a real database system.
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Paper Nr: 108
Title:

A Graph and Trace Clustering-based Approach for Abstracting Mined Business Process Models
Authors:

Yaguang Sun and Bernhard Bauer
Abstract: Process model discovery is a significant research topic in the business process mining area. However, existing workflow discovery techniques run into a stone wall while dealing with event logs generated from highly flexible environments because the raw models mined from such logs often suffer from the problem of inaccuracy and high complexity. In this paper, we propose a new process model abstraction technique for solving this problem. The proposed technique is able to optimise the quality of the potential high level model (abstraction model) so that a high-quality abstraction model can be acquired and also considers the quality of the submodels generated where each sub-model is employed to show the details of its relevant high level activity in the high level model.
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Paper Nr: 184
Title:

SJClust: Towards a Framework for Integrating Similarity Join Algorithms and Clustering
Authors:

Leonardo Andrade Ribeiro, Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Karen Aline Alves Bezerra and Ben Hur Bahia do Nascimento
Abstract: A critical task in data cleaning and integration is the identification of duplicate records representing the same real-world entity. A popular approach to duplicate identification employs similarity join to find pairs of similar records followed by a clustering algorithm to group together records that refer to the same entity. However, the clustering algorithm is strictly used as a post-processing step, which slows down the overall performance and only produces results at the end of the whole process. In this paper, we propose SjClust, a framework to integrate similarity join and clustering into a single operation. Our approach allows to smoothly accommodating a variety of cluster representation and merging strategies into set similarity join algorithms, while fully leveraging state-of-the-art optimization techniques.
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Paper Nr: 186
Title:

Efficient Self-similarity Range Wide-joins Fostering Near-duplicate Image Detection in Emergency Scenarios
Authors:

Luiz Olmes Carvalho, Lucio F. D. Santos, Willian D. Oliveira, Agma J. M. Traina and Caetano Traina Jr.
Abstract: Crowdsourcing information is being increasingly employed to improve and support decision making in emergency situations. However, the gathered records quickly become too similar among themselves and handling several similar reports does not add valuable knowledge to assist the helping personnel at the control center in their decision making tasks. The usual approaches to detect and handle the so-called near-duplicate data rely on costly twofold processing. Aimed at reducing the cost and also improving the ability of duplication detection, we developed a framework model based on the similarity wide-join database operator. We extended the wide-join definition empowering it to surpass its restrictions and accomplish the near-duplicate task too. In this paper, we also provide an efficient algorithm based on pivots that speeds up the entire process, which enables retrieving the top similar elements in a single-pass processing. Experiments using real datasets show that our framework is up to three orders of magnitude faster than the competing techniques in the literature, whereas also improving the quality of the result in about 35 percent.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 11
Title:

Migration Results to a Private Cloud by using the M2CCF
Authors:

Abílio Cardoso and Fernando Moreira
Abstract: The cloud computing paradigm is transforming the way IT services are provided and consumed by changing IT products to services. The migration of in-house IT services to cloud computing must be performed carefully so as not to cause high losses in the institution. In this paper, we present the use of the framework developed by the same authors, to the migration of services, applications, data and infrastructures to cloud computing, M2CCF, compatible with Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The work also discusses the results gathered from the real implementation of the framework in the migration of IT services to a private cloud.
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Paper Nr: 22
Title:

Assessment of Factors Influencing Business Process Harmonization - A Case Study in an Industrial Company
Authors:

J. J. M. Trienekens, H. L. Romero and L. Cuenca
Abstract: While process harmonization is increasingly mentioned and unanimously associated with several benefits, there is a need for more understanding of how it contributes to business process redesign and improvement. This paper presents the application, in an industrial case study, of a conceptual harmonization model on the relationship between drivers and effects of process harmonization. The drivers are called contextual factors which influence harmonization. Assessment of these contextual factors in a particular business domain, clarifies the extent of harmonization that can be achieved, or that should be strived at. From both qualitative, as well as some quantitative, assessment results, insights are being discussed on the extent of harmonization that can be achieved, and on action plans regarding business (process) harmonization and (IT) integration.
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Paper Nr: 67
Title:

Physical Data Warehouse Design on NoSQL Databases - OLAP Query Processing over HBase
Authors:

Lucas C. Scabora, Jaqueline J. Brito, Ricardo Rodrigues Ciferri and Cristina Dutra de Aguiar Ciferri
Abstract: Nowadays, data warehousing and online analytical processing (OLAP) are core technologies in business intelligence and therefore have drawn much interest by researchers in the last decade. However, these technologies have been mainly developed for relational database systems in centralized environments. In other words, these technologies have not been designed to be applied in scalable systems such as NoSQL databases. Adapting a data warehousing environment to NoSQL databases introduces several advantages, such as scalability and flexibility. This paper investigates three physical data warehouse designs to adapt the Star Schema Benchmark for its use in NoSQL databases. In particular, our main investigation refers to the OLAP query processing over column-oriented databases using the MapReduce framework. We analyze the impact of distributing attributes among column-families in HBase on the OLAP query performance. Our experiments showed how processing time of OLAP queries was impacted by a physical data warehouse design regarding the number of dimensions accessed and the data volume. We conclude that using distinct distributions of attributes among column-families can improve OLAP query performance in HBase and consequently make the benchmark more suitable for OLAP over NoSQL databases.
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Paper Nr: 68
Title:

On the Support of a Similarity-enabled Relational Database Management System in Civilian Crisis Situations
Authors:

Paulo H. Oliveira, Antonio C. Fraideinberze, Natan A. Laverde, Hugo Gualdron, Andre S. Gonzaga, Lucas D. Ferreira, Willian D. Oliveira, Jose F. Rodrigues-Jr., Robson L. F. Cordeiro, Caetano Traina Jr., Agma J. M. Traina and Elaine P. M. Sousa
Abstract: Crowdsourcing solutions can be helpful to extract information from disaster-related data during crisis management. However, certain information can only be obtained through similarity operations. Some of them also depend on additional data stored in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). In this context, several works focus on crisis management supported by data. Nevertheless, none of them provide a methodology for employing a similarity-enabled RDBMS in disaster-relief tasks. To fill this gap, we introduce a methodology together with the Data-Centric Crisis Management (DCCM) architecture, which employs our methods over a similarity-enabled RDBMS. We evaluate our proposal through three tasks: classification of incoming data regarding current events, identifying relevant information to guide rescue teams; filtering of incoming data, enhancing the decision support by removing near-duplicate data; and similarity retrieval of historical data, supporting analytical comprehension of the crisis context. To make it possible, similarity-based operations were implemented within one popular, open-source RDBMS. Results using real data from Flickr show that our proposal is feasible for real-time applications. In addition to high performance, accurate results were obtained with a proper combination of techniques for each task. Hence, we expect our work to provide a framework for further developments on crisis management solutions.
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Paper Nr: 75
Title:

4D-SETL - A Semantic Data Integration Framework
Authors:

Sergio de Cesare, George Foy and Mark Lycett
Abstract: Although successfully employed as the foundation for a number of large-scale government and energy industry projects, foundational ontologies have not been widely adopted within mainstream Enterprise Systems (ES) data integration practice. However, as the closed-worlds of ES are opened to Internet scale data sources, there is an emerging need to better understand the semantics of such data and how they can be integrated. Foundational ontologies can help establish this understanding and therefore, there is a need to investigate how such ontologies can be applied to underpin practical ES integration solutions. This paper describes research undertaken to assess the effectiveness of such an approach through the development and application of the 4D-Semantic Extract Transform Load (4D-SETL) framework. 4D-SETL was employed to integrate a number of large scale datasets and to persist the resultant ontology within a prototype warehouse based on a graph database. The advantages of the approach included the ability to combine foundational, domain and instance level ontological objects within a single coherent system. Furthermore, the approach provided a clear means of establishing and maintaining the identity of domain objects as their constituent spatiotemporal parts unfolded over time, enabling process and static data to be combined within a single model.
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Paper Nr: 105
Title:

Towards an SDLC for Projects Involving Distributed Systems
Authors:

Rodrigo Augusto dos Santos, Avelino F. Zorzo and Sabrina Marczak
Abstract: Since the 1970’s, Distributed Systems have been turning into a more viable and reliable option for the implementation of information systems. This evolution continued ever since, and now they are applicable to a variety of purposes, such as online games, cloud computational solutions, etc. It is possible then to assume that today, Distributed Systems are found everywhere, and that there is a great probability for any given in-progress software development project to be using this paradigm as part of its delivery. Thus, it is relevant to study the impacts that Distributed Systems bring to Project Management. In this paper we discuss those impacts and challenges, as well as propose a Software Development Lifecycle and some associated practices that are to be used for software development projects involving Distributed Systems. Such practices are optimized for implementation under a Waterfall model, but are also adaptable for use with well known agile framework Scrum. The preliminary validation with industry professionals suggests that our proposals do support more appropriate management and execution of projects involving Distributed Systems solutions.
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Paper Nr: 162
Title:

An Evaluation of the Challenges of Multilingualism in Data Warehouse Development
Authors:

Nedim Dedić and Clare Stanier
Abstract: In this paper we discuss Business Intelligence and define what is meant by support for Multilingualism in a Business Intelligence reporting context. We identify support for Multilingualism as a challenging issue which has implications for data warehouse design and reporting performance. Data warehouses are a core component of most Business Intelligence systems and the star schema is the approach most widely used to develop data warehouses and dimensional Data Marts. We discuss the way in which Multilingualism can be supported in the Star Schema and identify that current approaches have serious limitations which include data redundancy and data manipulation, performance and maintenance issues. We propose a new approach to enable the optimal application of multilingualism in Business Intelligence. The proposed approach was found to produce satisfactory results when used in a proof-of-concept environment. Future work will include testing the approach in an enterprise environment.
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Paper Nr: 168
Title:

Towards Keyword-based Pull Recommendation Systems
Authors:

María del Carmen Rodríguez-Hernández, Sergio Ilarri, Raquel Trillo-Lado and Francesco Guerra
Abstract: Due to the high availability of data, users are frequently overloaded with a huge amount of alternatives when they need to choose a particular item. This has motivated an increased interest in research on recommendation systems, which filter the options and provide users with suggestions about specific elements (e.g., movies, restaurants, hotels, books, etc.) that are estimated to be potentially relevant for the user. In this paper, we describe and evaluate two possible solutions to the problem of identification of the type of item (e.g., music, movie, book, etc.) that the user specifies in a pull-based recommendation (i.e., recommendation about certain types of items that are explicitly requested by the user). We evaluate two alternative solutions: one based on the use of the Hidden Markov Model and another one exploiting Information Retrieval techniques. Comparing both proposals experimentally, we can observe that the Hidden Markov Model performs generally better than the Information Retrieval technique in our preliminary experimental setup.
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Paper Nr: 171
Title:

On the Design of a Traffic Observatory Application based on Bus Trajectories
Authors:

Kathrin Rodriguez, Marco A. Casanova, Luiz André Paes Leme, Hélio Lopes, Rafael Nasser and Bruno Guberfain do Amaral
Abstract: Buses, equipped with active GPS devices that continuously transmit their positions, can be understood as mobile traffic sensors. Indeed, bus trajectories provide a useful data source for analyzing traffic, if the city is served by a dense bus network and the city traffic authority makes the bus trajectories available openly, timely and in a continuous way. This paper explores the design of a traffic observatory application based on bus trajectories, defined as an application developed to detect when the traffic patterns of selected streets of a city, observed during certain periods of time, deviate from the typical traffic patterns. The major contributions of the paper are a list of requirements for traffic observatory applications, a detailed discussion of key operations on bus trajectories and a description of experiments with a traffic observatory prototype using bus trajectories made available by the traffic authority of the City of Rio de Janeiro.
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Paper Nr: 217
Title:

A New Tool for Textual Aggregation In Information Retrieval
Authors:

Mustapha Bouakkaz, Sabine Loudcher and Youcef Ouinten
Abstract: We present in this paper a system for textual aggregation from scientific documents in the online analytical processing (OLAP) context. The system extracts keywords automatically from a set of documents according to the lists compiled in the Microsoft Academia Search web site. It gives the user the possibility to choose their methods of aggregation among the implemented ones. That is TOP-Keywords, TOPIC, TUBE, TAG, BienCube and GOTA. The performance of the chosen methods, in terms of recall, precision, F-measure and runtime, is investigated with two real corpora ITINNOVATION and OHSUMED with 600 and 13,000 scientific articles respectively, other corpora can be integrated to the system by users.
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Paper Nr: 241
Title:

Semantic Integration between Context-awareness and Domain Data to Bring Personalized Queries to Legacy Relational Databases
Authors:

Vinícius Maran, Alencar Machado, Iara Augustin and José Palazzo M. de Oliveira
Abstract: Context-awareness is a key feature in ubiquitous middleware. Mainly, it is applied to adapt services and interfaces of applications that use ubiquitous features. The application of context information to personalize data queries is a recent topic in computing and still presents a large number of challenges. One of the main gaps evidenced by this research field is the lack of integration between context information, which is designed and used by ubiquitous middleware, and domain data, which are frequently persisted in relational databases. This integration is necessary because context can be used as a filter for content query. This position paper presents a motivational scenario that clarifies the necessity of the integration between context, used by ubiquitous middleware, and relational data, a comparison between the state of the art of the field, a list of research opportunities in the field, and a proposal of a framework that uses ontologies to integrate context and domain data, modeled and stored in relational databases.
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Paper Nr: 254
Title:

Knowledge Management Framework using Enterprise Architecture and Business Intelligence
Authors:

Oswaldo Moscoso-Zea, Sergio Luján-Mora, Cesar Esquetini Cáceres and Norman Schweimanns
Abstract: Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged as a tool which enables the efficient creation, use, distribution and transfer of knowledge in organizations. In the core of KM there are three dimensions of analysis: people, processes and technology. KM Frameworks presented in the past have had a strong theoretical background, but they have not been well explained in terms of how to implement them in practice to cover all KM dimensions. In this paper, a novel KM framework is presented. This framework was designed as a practical guide to implement KM endeavours in organizations. To accomplish our research objective, two management practices are incorporated in the framework: Enterprise Architecture and Business Intelligence. Enterprise Architecture allows companies to visualize organizational objects in different areas (business, applications and technology) through the use of models. Moreover, Business Intelligence technologies as data warehouses, data mining and visualization can enable the capture, transfer and the creation of new and purposeful knowledge. This work is intended to be a good resource for companies or individuals that want to implement a KM initiative.
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Paper Nr: 81
Title:

Towards a Synthetic Data Generator for Matching Decision Trees
Authors:

Taoxin Peng and Florian Hanke
Abstract: It is popular to use real-world data to evaluate or teach data mining techniques. However, there are some disadvantages to use real-world data for such purposes. Firstly, real-world data in most domains is difficult to obtain for several reasons, such as budget, technical or ethical. Secondly, the use of many of the real-world data is restricted or in the case of data mining, those data sets do either not contain specific patterns that are easy to mine for teaching purposes or the data needs special preparation and the algorithm needs very specific settings in order to find patterns in it. The solution to this could be the generation of synthetic, “meaningful data” (data with intrinsic patterns). This paper presents a framework for such a data generator, which is able to generate datasets with intrinsic patterns, such as decision trees. A preliminary run of the prototype proves that the generation of such “meaningful data” is possible. Also the proposed approach could be extended to a further development for generating synthetic data with other intrinsic patterns.
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Paper Nr: 86
Title:

Document-oriented Models for Data Warehouses - NoSQL Document-oriented for Data Warehouses
Authors:

Max Chevalier, Mohammed El Malki, Arlind Kopliku, Olivier Teste and Ronan Tournier
Abstract: There is an increasing interest in NoSQL (Not Only SQL) systems developed in the area of Big Data as candidates for implementing multidimensional data warehouses due to the capabilities of data structuration/storage they offer. In this paper, we study implementation and modeling issues for data warehousing with document-oriented systems, a class of NoSQL systems. We study four different mappings of the multidimensional conceptual model to document data models. We focus on formalization and cross-model comparison. Experiments go through important features of data warehouses including data loading, OLAP cuboid computation and querying. Document-oriented systems are also compared to relational systems.
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Paper Nr: 103
Title:

Faceted Queries in Ontology-based Data Integration
Authors:

Tadeusz Pankowski
Abstract: The aim of using ontology-based data integration is to provide users with a unified view, in a form of a global application domain ontology, over a multitude of data sources. The terminological component of this ontology is then presented as the global schema of the system and is used as the reference model for formulating queries. The extensional knowledge consists of RDF data sets (graphs) stored in local databases. In such scenario, a faceted query interface is a desired solution for end-user data access. Then there is a need for effective query answering utilizing both extensional and intentional knowledge representation. In this paper, we propose and discuss a possible solution to this issue. We show how a class of deductive rules, in particular Datalog rules and rules defining functionality, can be incorporated in the process of ontology-enhanced query answering in ontology-based data integration systems.
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Paper Nr: 115
Title:

The Concept of Project Management Platform using BI and Big Data Technology
Authors:

Jolanta Pondel and Maciej Pondel
Abstract: In current world, organizations need to adapt to the changing business environment. They decide to conduct projects that result with new business processes, new products or services. Very often the goal of the project is to streamline specific area of company or a whole business. The projects become a very complex set of activities that require a sophisticated IT tools to support the efficiency of all the actions. Probably none single software application is able to handle every aspect of the project. That is why the authors decided to identify the kinds of software necessary for supporting the project and choose the applications that from their perspective can aid specific project activities. We have to remember that projects can generate a significant amount of data. If we are able to transform data into relevant information, we can maximize the possibility of success (both project and organization). In this paper authors propose the foundation of a complex platform supporting project management and execution with an emphasis on the analytical and reporting part by usage of Business Intelligence and Big Data technologies. Evaluation of such a platform is the subject for the future work.
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Paper Nr: 130
Title:

Conceptual Mappings to Convert Relational into NoSQL Databases
Authors:

Myller Claudino de Freitas, Damires Yluska Souza and Ana Carolina Salgado
Abstract: Sometimes, data belonging to Relational databases need to be transferred to NoSQL ones. However, the data conversion process between Relational to NoSQL databases is considered as not trivial, since it is necessary to have considerable knowledge about the data models at hand. Regarding the structural heterogeneity underlying this problem, we propose an approach, named as R2NoSQL, which defines conceptual mappings to enhance the data conversion process. In this paper, we present our approach and some implementation and experimental results, which show that, by using the defined conceptual mappings, we obtain a consistent target NoSQL database with respect to a source Relational one.
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Paper Nr: 134
Title:

Identification of Organization Name Variants in Large Databases using Rule-based Scoring and Clustering - With a Case Study on the Web of Science Database
Authors:

Emiel Caron and Hennie Daniels
Abstract: This research describes a general method to automatically clean organizational and business names variants within large databases, such as: patent databases, bibliographic databases, databases in business information systems, or any other database containing organisational name variants. The method clusters name variants of organizations based on similarities of their associated meta-data, like, for example, postal code and email domain data. The method is divided into a rule-based scoring system and a clustering system. The method is tested on the cleaning of research organisations in the Web of Science database for the purpose of bibliometric analysis and scientific performance evaluation. The results of the clustering are evaluated with metrics such as precision and recall analysis on a verified data set. The evaluation shows that our method performs well and is conservative, it values precision over recall, with on average 95% precision and 80% recall for clusters.
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Paper Nr: 139
Title:

The Impact of the Implementation of ERP Satisfaction of End Users in Major Moroccan Companies
Authors:

Fatima Jalil, Abdellah Zaouia and Rachid El Bouanani
Abstract: In recent years, the implementation of ERP is as a lever for development and inter-organizational collaboration. Despite the benefits of ERP, the success of their implementation is not always assured. The introduction of an ERP in a company requires organizational changes that may provoke resistance to cause adverse effects on the success of these projects. This article proposes a model and tests to evaluate the success of a system "Enterprise Resource Planning "(ERP) based on a measure of user satisfaction. Referring to the model DeLone & McLean and the work of Seddon & Kiew The criteria that can influence user satisfaction, to ensure the successful implementation of the ERP system are identified. The results of the exploratory study, carried out on 60 users in 40 Moroccan companies, shows that user satisfaction of ERP is explained by the quality of the ERP system, perceived usefulness and quality of information provided by this type of system. The study also found that the quality engineering change is a predictor of satisfaction measured by user involvement in the implementation of ERP, the quality of communication within such a project and the quality of training given to users.
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Paper Nr: 204
Title:

Adaptation Services-oriented Systems LifeCycle
Authors:

I. Elmagrouni, A. Kenzi, M. Lethrech and A. Kriouile
Abstract: This work presents the approach of the Development of adaptable Services-oriented Systems. Not the only adaptability is important for the survival and success of Services-oriented Systems, but it is also important for the rapid changes in technology, organizational structure, human perception and needs. This paper discusses the shortcomings of current solutions for adaptive service-oriented System. To address those shortcomings, some techniques are used to build and evolve proactive Services-oriented Systems. Using those techniques in an integrated way is described along the phases of the service lifecycle.
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Paper Nr: 262
Title:

Business Opportunity Detection in the Big Data
Authors:

Lyes Limam, Jean Lecouffe and Stéphane Chau
Abstract: Modern enterprise information systems are characterized by large amounts of data issued from various internal and external business applications, often stored and archived in different supports (databases, documents, etc. The nature of this data (voluminous, unstructured, heterogeneous, inconsistent, etc.) makes them difficult to use for analysis. In fact, it is typically an issue of big data analytics. The main objective of our research project is to design a solution to detect opportunities (projects, new markets, skills, tenders, etc.) in the continually growing data, while adapting to its constraints. The extracted information should help users to take proactive actions to improve their business (e.g., identify a consultant skill that can be aligned with a given tender). In this project we are interested in text data. There are two main reasons. The first reason is that text data is the most difficult to analyse by humans, especially when it is voluminous. The second reason is that we are convinced that valuable information is usually textual. Therefore, we define six research axes: • Intelligent Information Sensing • Text Mining • Knowledge Representation (semantics) • Querying the knowledge • Results Interpretation • Self-learning.
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Area 2 - Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 29
Title:

A Multiagent-based Simulation of the Infection of the Macrophage by Trypanosoma Cruzi in the Acute Phase of Chagas’ Disease: Influence of the Initial Inoculum and Protozoan Escape Factor
Authors:

Willian Cordeiro Farago, Alcione de Paiva Oliveira, Rodrigo Siqueira-Batista, Andréia Patrícia Gomes, Juliana Lopes Rangel Fietto, Fábio Ribeiro Cerqueira and Luiz Alberto Santana
Abstract: Chagas’ disease presents a wide distribution in Latin America. Some epidemiological studies show that there are a prevalence of 16 to 18 million people affected by the disease and at least 100 million people at risk of being infected on these areas. Recently, due to the globalization, the disease, which was previously endemic only in countries of Central America and South America, is now presenting cases in other regions such as North America and Europe. Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent, has the ability to promote changes in the tissues of the vertebrate host with significant morbidity, according to the degree of infection. This article presents a simulation of the human immune system using a multiagent system approach. More specifically, we propose a simulation study aimed at the acute phase of Chagas’ disease, related to the macrophage-Trypanosoma interaction. The simulation showed that the initial number of T. cruzi influences in the outcome of infection and was found a relationship between the escape factor and the total elimination of T. cruzi.
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Paper Nr: 38
Title:

The Use of the Generalised Knapsack Problem in Computer Aided Strategic Management
Authors:

Dorota Kuchta, Radosław Ryńca, Dariusz Skorupka and Artur Duchaczek
Abstract: There are many methods and tools in the literature that are helpful in strategic management. Some of them are related to the aspect of sustainability in terms of controlling and balancing the level of fulfilment of the different, sometimes conflicting, objectives which must be considered while building strategies. These tools include product portfolio methods. However, their use is often intuitive and detached from the quantitative aspects of management, such as cost-related restrictions or other quantitative restrictions imposed by the market or by internal circumstances. This article presents a proposal for the modification of portfolio methods aimed at enforcing the portfolio’s quantitative aspect through the use of a discrete optimisation problem, namely the knapsack problem. Interacting with the decision maker, the quantitative parameters of the situation and the strategic goals are determined. Following this, a proposal solution is generated by a computer system in which the respective algorithms for the generalised knapsack problem (also called the generalised assignment problem) are embedded. The decision maker can accept the solution or change the parameters if the solution does not suit them or if they simply want to have other solutions for comparison. The outline of the system and the interaction between the decision maker and the system is illustrated by means of an example of constructing strategies for a university.
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Paper Nr: 73
Title:

Flexible Job-shop Scheduling Problem with Sequence-dependent Setup Times using Genetic Algorithm
Authors:

Ameni Azzouz, Meriem Ennigrou and Lamjed Ben Said
Abstract: Job shop scheduling problems (JSSP) are among the most intensive combinatorial problems studied in literature. The flexible job shop problem (FJSP) is a generalization of the classical JSSP where each operation can be processed by more than one resource. The FJSP problems cover two difficulties, namely, machine assignment problem and operation sequencing problem. This paper investigates the flexible job-shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times to minimize two kinds of objectives function: makespan and bi-criteria objective function. For that, we propose a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve this problem. To evaluate the performance of our algorithm, we compare our results with other methods existing in literature. All the results show the superiority of our GA against the available ones in terms of solution quality.
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Paper Nr: 97
Title:

A Hybrid Interaction Model for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Authors:

Douglas M. Guisi, Richardson Ribeiro, Marcelo Teixeira, André P. Borges, Eden R. Dosciatti and Fabrício Enembreck
Abstract: The main contribution of this paper is to implement a hybrid method of coordination from the combination of interaction models developed previously. The interaction models are based on the sharing of rewards for learning with multiple agents in order to discover interactively good quality policies. Exchange of rewards among agents, when not occur properly, can cause delays in learning or even cause unexpected behavior, making the cooperation inefficient and converging to a non-satisfactory policy. From these concepts, the hybrid method uses the characteristics of each model, reducing possible conflicts between different policy actions with rewards, improving the coordination of agents in reinforcement learning problems. Experimental results show that the hybrid method can accelerate the convergence, rapidly gaining optimal policies even in large spaces of states, exceeding the results of classical approaches to reinforcement learning.
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Paper Nr: 116
Title:

Evacuation Simulation under Different Conditions using a Safest Path Routing Algorithm
Authors:

Denis Shikhalev, Renat Khabibulin, Ulrich Kemloh and Sergey Gudin
Abstract: In this contribution we propose a safest path route algorithm for determination of the safest path directions of pedestrians in case of fire. The model and the algorithms are implemented in an open source framework (JuPedSim) which is a research platform to simulate pedestrian dynamics. We found that increasing the importance of the obstruction criteria (responsible for people’s density) leads to a reduction of the total evacuation time. The proposed algorithm allows the even distribution of the evacuees to all available emergency exits, when there is an uneven distribution of people on the escape routes while avoiding a place with fire hazards. We simulate the evacuation of a shopping centre and showed that the application of the algorithm can reduce the total evacuation time up to 63% depending on the settings of the algorithm.
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Paper Nr: 145
Title:

A Hypercube Queuing Model Approach to the Police Units Allocation Problem
Authors:

Nilson Felipe Matos Mendes and André Gustavo dos Santos
Abstract: Providing security requires efficient police services. Considering this, we deal in this paper with the police units allocation problem. To describe the problem a probabilistic model based on Hypercube Queuing Model is proposed. Considering an action radius and constraints for minimal coverage and mandatory closeness, the model aims to allocate police units on several points of an urban area to minimize the expected distance traveled by these units when they are answering calls for service. A VND heuristic is used to solve the model, and we analyse the improvement of using a Tabu Serach method instead of a random initialization. We experiment the methods in scenarios with different parameters values to verify the robustness and suitability of the proposed model. The results presented a high influence of service time on solutions quality, some difficulties in getting feasible solutions.
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Paper Nr: 251
Title:

Event Classification System to Reconsider the Production Planning
Authors:

Andrés Boza, Faustino Alarcón, M. M. E. Alemany and Llanos Cuenca
Abstract: On-going production planning can be affected by unexpected events that modify the planned scenario. Decision makers must react in some way to avoid problems in the production system when these events appear. Thus providing information about these events can be critical for decision makers, as events can affect not only operational processes but also previously made decisions. We herein propose an event monitoring system that classifies events into different impact levels. This information helps production decision-makers to consider changes in the on-going production planning. Furthermore, a risk matrix can be built, which determines the significance of the risk from the impact level and the likelihood. This likelihood of occurrences of these events can be estimated from the historical information of the event monitoring system. A prototype has been built following this proposal.
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Paper Nr: 252
Title:

Towards an Efficient API for Optimisation Problems Data
Authors:

Rodrigo Lankaites Pinheiro, Dario Landa-Silva, Rong Qu, Edson Yanaga and Ademir Aparecido Constantino
Abstract: The literature presents many application programming interfaces (APIs) and frameworks that provide state of the art algorithms and techniques for solving optimisation problems. The same cannot be said about APIs and frameworks focused on the problem data itself because with the peculiarities and details of each variant of a problem, it is virtually impossible to provide general tools that are broad enough to be useful on a large scale. However, there are benefits of employing problem-centred APIs in a R&D environment: improving the understanding of the problem, providing fairness on the results comparison, providing efficient data structures for different solving techniques, etc. Therefore, in this work we propose a novel design methodology for an API focused on an optimisation problem. Our methodology relies on a data parser to handle the problem specification files and on a set of efficient data structures to handle the information on memory, in an intuitive fashion for researchers and efficient for the solving algorithms. Also, we present the concepts of a solution dispenser that can manage solutions objects in memory better than built-in garbage collectors. Finally, we describe the positive results of employing a tailored API to a project involving the development of optimisation solutions for workforce scheduling and routing problems.
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Paper Nr: 263
Title:

Further Developments on Router Nodes Positioning for Wireless Networks using Artificial Immune Systems
Authors:

Pedro Henrique Gouvêa Coelho, J. L. M. do Amaral, J. F. M. do Amaral, L. F. de A. Barreira and A. V. de Barros
Abstract: This paper shows further developments on the positioning of intermediate router nodes using artificial immune systems for use in industrial wireless sensor networks. These nodes are responsible for the transmission of data from sensors to the gateway in order to meet criteria, especially those that lead to a low degree of failure and reducing the number of retransmissions by routers. In the present paper positioning configurations on environments in presence of obstacles is included. Affinity functions which roles are similar to optimization functions are explained in details and case studies are included to illustrate the procedure. As was done in previous papers, positioning is performed in two stages, the first uses elements of two types of immune networks, SSAIS (Self-Stabilising Artificial Immune System) and AINET (Artificial Immune Network), and the second uses potential fields for positioning the routers such that the critical sensors attract them while obstacles and other routers repel them.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 14
Title:

Decision Guidance Approach to Power Network Analysis and Optimization
Authors:

Roberto Levy, Alexander Brodsky and Juan Luo
Abstract: This paper focuses on developing an approach and technology for actionable recommendations on the operation of electric power network components. The overall direction of this research is to model the major components of a Hybrid Renewable Energy System (HRES), including power generation, transmission/distribution, power storage, energy markets, and end customer demand. First, we propose a conceptual diagram notation for power network topology, to allow the representation of an arbitrary complex power system. Second, we develop a formal mathematical model that describes the HRES optimization framework, consisting of the different network components, their respective costs, and associated constraints. Third, we implement the HRES optimization problem solution through a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model by leveraging IBM Optimization Programming Language (OPL) CPLEX Studio. Lastly, we demonstrate the model through an example of a simulated network, showing the ability to support sensitivity / what-if analysis, to determine the behavior of the network under different configurations.
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Paper Nr: 27
Title:

Possibilistic WorkFlow Nets for Dealing with Cancellation Regions in Business Processes
Authors:

Leiliane Pereira de Rezende, Stéphane Julia and Janette Cardoso
Abstract: In this paper, an approach based on WorkFlow nets and possibilistic Petri nets is proposed for dealing with the cancellation features in business processes. Routing patterns existing in business processes are modeled by WorkFlow nets. Possibilistic Petri nets with uncertainty in the marking and the transition firing are used to deal with all possible markings when cancellation behaviour is considered. Combining both formalisms, a kind of possibilistic WorkFlow net is obtained. An example of a simplified version of a credit card application process is presented.
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Paper Nr: 37
Title:

Bayesian Inference in Dynamic Domains using Logical OR Gates
Authors:

Rik Claessens, Alta de Waal, Pieter de Villiers, Ate Penders, Gregor Pavlin and Karl Tuyls
Abstract: The range of applications that require processing of temporally and spatially distributed sensory data is expanding. Common challenges in domains with these characteristics are sound reasoning about uncertain phenomena and coping with the dynamic nature of processes that influence these phenomena. To address these challenges we propose the use of causal Bayesian Networks for probabilistic reasoning and introduce the Logical OR gate in order to combine them with dynamic processes estimated by arbitrary Markov processes. To illustrate the genericness of the proposed approach, we apply it in a wildlife protection use case. Furthermore we show that the resulting model supports modularization of computations, which allows for efficient decentralized processing.
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Paper Nr: 53
Title:

Developing an ABM-driven Decision Support System in the Emergency Services
Authors:

Stephen Dobson, Mark Burkitt, Dermot Breslin and Daniela Romano
Abstract: The research presented here outlines an application of Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) used to support strategic decision-making in the emergency services. Here the resulting ABM-driven Decision Support System (DSS) (called ‘Premonition’) is designed to help practitioners engage with a complex and dynamic environment of co-evolving fire risk behaviours through time. Social change is presented here as a process by which behaviours co-evolve within connected networks of agents. ABM is identified as a beneficial approach to simulate changing household behaviours and the influence of social networks, environmental factors, and also fire service interventions within the Sheffield City region, UK. This project seeks to develop a DSS which supports the stages of ‘intelligence’, ‘design’, and ‘choice’ as the decision-maker moves from identifying problem areas, establishing possible strategies for intervention, and predicting possible outcomes of alternative courses of action.
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Paper Nr: 87
Title:

Modified, Stakeholders Perspective based DEA Approach in IT and R&D Project Ranking
Authors:

Dorota Kuchta, Dariusz Skorupka, Artur Duchaczek and Magdalena Kowacka
Abstract: The state of art of Data Envelopment Analysis applied to IT and R&D projects evaluation and ranking is presented. Then the role and importance of project stakeholders is discussed. It is shown that this role is not taken into account in the original DEA method applied to project evaluation and ranking. Thus a modification of the DEA method is proposed, in which the stakeholders perspective plays a crucial role. An example illustrates the modified method itself and its advantages.
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Paper Nr: 174
Title:

Continuous Improvement of Proactive Event-driven Decision Making through Sensor-Enabled Feedback (SEF)
Authors:

Alexandros Bousdekis, Nikos Papageorgiou, Babis Magoutas, Dimitris Apostolou and Gregoris Mentzas
Abstract: The incorporation of feedback in the proactive event-driven decision making can improve the recommendations generated and be used to inform users online about the impact of the recommended action following its implementation. We propose an approach for learning cost functions from Sensor-Enabled Feedback (SEF) for the continuous improvement of proactive event-driven decision making. We suggest using Kalman Filter, dynamic Curve Fitting and Extrapolation to update online (i.e. during action implementation) cost functions of actions, with the aim to improve the parameters taken into account for generating recommendations and thus, the recommendations themselves. We implemented our approach in a real proactive manufacturing scenario and we conducted extensive experiments in order to validate its effectiveness.
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Paper Nr: 183
Title:

Comparison of Fuzzy Extent Analysis Technique and its Extensions with Original Eigen Vector Approach
Authors:

Faran Ahmed and Kemal Kilic
Abstract: Fuzzy set theory has been extensively incorporated in the original Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) with an aim to better represent human judgments in comparison matrices. One of the most popular technique in the domain of Fuzzy AHP is Fuzzy Extent Analysis method which utilizes the concept of extent analysis combined with degree of possibility to calculate weights from fuzzy comparison matrices. In original AHP, where the comparison matrices are composed of crisp numbers, Satty proposed that Eigen Vector of these comparison matrices estimate the required weights. In this research we perform a comparison analysis of these two approaches based on a data set of matrices with varying level of inconsistency. Furthermore, for the case of FEA, in addition to degree of possibility, we use centroid defuzzification and defuzzification by using the mid number of triangular fuzzy number to rank the final weights calculated from fuzzy comparison matrices.
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Paper Nr: 229
Title:

MCM Analyzer: A Fuzzy Logic-based Offloading Decision Trade-off for Mobile Cloud Computing
Authors:

Gustavo Mascarenhas Kath and Daniel Antonio Callegari
Abstract: Mobile cloud computing is an emerging solution for remote data processing and offloading. However, simply sending all data to the cloud is sometimes inviable because of security, network and cost issues. Consequently, there should be a trade-off between local and remote processing of data. Hence, an important issue to mobile solutions relies on developing a way to determine which sets of information can be processed locally by the device and which sets of information could be sent to the cloud for remote processing. This paper presents a fuzzy logic-based decision module for mobile cloud computing that can be added to an Android application. Our proposal analyses execution data in real time and helps resolving the local-remote decision trade-off. Experimental results show our proposal offers a promising approach when dealing with such scenarios.
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Paper Nr: 235
Title:

Identifying Indirect Normative Conflicts using the WordNet Database
Authors:

Jéssica Soares dos Santos and Viviane Torres da Silva
Abstract: A challenging issue in Multi-agent systems governed by multiple norms is to deal with normative conflicts, which are situations where the fulfilment of a norm violates another one. There are several approaches in the literature to detect conflicting norms. Some kinds of conflicts, here called direct conflicts, can be detected through a simple comparison between the elements of the norms in order to check if they apply to the same elements. For instance, if an obligation and a prohibition are applied to the same entity and govern the same behavior in periods of time that intersects, these norms are in conflict. However, there are conflicts, here called indirect conflicts, that can only be detected if the relationships among the elements of the norms are taken into account. The majority of approaches that are able to detect indirect conflict considers the relationships of the application domain that have been previously defined by the designer. Different from those approaches, this paper focuses on the detection of indirect conflicts by taking into account domain-independent relationships that have not been declared by the designer of the multi-agent system. Our proposal searches for domain-independent relationships among the elements of the norms in the WordNet database.
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Paper Nr: 267
Title:

Color Image Segmentation upon a New Unsupervised Approach using Amended Competitive Hebbian Learning
Authors:

Meriem Timouyas, Souad Eddarouich and Ahmed Hammouch
Abstract: This paper proposes a new unsupervised color image segmentation procedure based on the competitive concept, divided into three processing stages. It begins by the estimation of the probability density function, followed by a training competitive neural network with Mahalanobis distance as an activation function. This stage allows detecting the local maxima of the pdf. After that, we use the Competitive Hebbian Learning to analyze the connectivity between the detected maxima of the pdf upon Mahalanobis distance. The so detected groups of Maxima are then used for the segmentation. Compared to the K-means clustering or to the clustering approaches based on the different competitive learning schemes, the proposed approach has proven, under a real and synthetic test images, that does not pass by any thresholding and does not require any prior information on the number of classes nor on the structure of their distributions in the dataset.
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Paper Nr: 26
Title:

Uncertain Marking for Dealing with Partial Parallelization in Business Processes
Authors:

Leiliane Pereira de Rezende, Stéphane Julia and Janette Cardoso
Abstract: In this paper, an approach based on WorkFlow nets and possibilistic Petri nets is proposed for dealing with flow deviations in business processes. Routing patterns existing in business processes are modeled by WorkFlow nets. Possibilistic Petri nets with uncertainty in the marking and the transition firing are considered to express in a more realistic way the ordering of human activities during real time execution of the process model. Combining both formalisms, a kind of possibilistic WorkFlow net is obtained. An example of flow deviations due to human behavior at a process monitoring level is presented.
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Paper Nr: 48
Title:

Knowledge Base System for Risk Analysis of the Multi-step Computer Attacks
Authors:

Gulnara Yakhyaeva and Aleksey Ershov
Abstract: This work describes the module of the "RiskPanel" software system, performing risk analysis of multi-step computer attacks. The module is based on statistical analysis of actual computer attack precedents. At the user's request the system calculates objective probability of information security risks, taking into account all possible multi-step attacks (i.e. possible combinations of known attacks). The estimation of probability is presented as an interval because we don't always have a full description of real attacks. The task of this work is described using the model-theoretic formalism. The first step is to build a knowledge base of computer attacks. The formal description of the knowledge base structure is made with the Description Logic. Formalization of estimated (fuzzy) judgments is made in the language of the Fuzzy Model Theory. The article contains algorithms for calculation of probabilistic risk intervals and describes program implementation of the developed methods.
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Paper Nr: 237
Title:

User Request Traffic Condition Providing System for using Location Information
Authors:

Sung-Phil Heo, Wansu Lim, Sung-Chul Hur and Dong-Seong Kim
Abstract: With respect to traditional method which relates to identifying a traffic state of a particular road from a remote point, there is a scheme for collecting data sensed by a traffic sensing apparatus of a freeway traffic management system(FTMS), such as a loop type vehicle detector, which is provided on a road to detect traffic states, a video type vehicle sensor, Which is configured to identify traffic states on a road through the use of video photographing, a closed circuit television (CCTV), and an emergency call.. The FTMS is a freeway intelligent traffic system (ITS) constructed by the Korea Highway Corporation to provide users of a freeway with exact road information and to manage traffic conditions. However, in order to implement a system for measuring a speed of a vehicle by using the loop type detection system, installation of a loop coil detector typically requires earthworks and/or other types of construction, thereby causing delay and/or inconvenience in transportation during the earthworks and/or construction. Further, in order to collect information, it is typically necessary to install a separate private cable or to lease a dedicated line. In this paper, we describe a system for detecting a peripherally located vehicle based on a location of a user or a particular point on a map which point is selected by a user, so as to be provided with traffic images captured by a smart device installed in the detected vehicle.
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Paper Nr: 242
Title:

Adoption of Human Resource Development Management Model for Group Planning
Authors:

Maksims Kazakovs
Abstract: The human resources development management model that has been developed in previous stage of the research allows to create information systems with functionality to automatize the human resources development planning process. The author researched the model’s use cases and identified grope factors that influence development planning. The present article describes two approaches to extend the model in order to provide development planning in groups. Post-planning optimization approach is based on linear optimisation methods and allows to preserve the full individualisation of development plans by combining employees in groups with the same solutions in development plans. In this way, the group interests are not realized in full scale in order to maintain full individualisation. Pre-planning optimisation is based on competence gap analyses and provides better grouping with less individualisation. Both methods should be implemented in a real system for better suitability.
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Area 3 - Information Systems Analysis and Specification

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 28
Title:

Mixins and Extenders for Modular Metamodel Customisation
Authors:

Srđan Živković and Dimitris Karagiannis
Abstract: Metamodelling is a practical yet rigorous formalism for modelling language definition with a metamodel being its pivotal engineering artifact. A multitude of domain-specific modelling languages (DSML) are engineered to cover various modelling domains. Metamodels of such languages evolve over time by introducing changes and extensions and are further customised to suite project-specific needs. While majority of DSML development techniques provide concepts for creating metamodels from scratch, composition concepts for metamodel customisation beyond class inheritance are sought towards more flexibility and reuse. In this paper, we introduce a modular approach for metamodel customisation based on the idea of mixins and extenders. While mixins allow for defining self-contained metamodel modules for reuse, extenders enable non-intrusive composition of such reusable modules on top of existing metamodels. We show how this approach can be applied in a metamodelling tool such as ADOxx and demonstrate its usefulness by customising the BPMN language. The benefit of the modular metamodel customisation is twofold. On the language engineering level, our approach significantly promotes reuse, flexibility and overall efficiency in language definition and customisation. On the modelling level, the approach leverages engineering flexibility to provide custom modelling languages that better suits enterprise modelling needs.
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Paper Nr: 30
Title:

Especifying the Enterprise and Information Viewpoints for a Corporate Spatial Data Infrastructure using ICA’s Formal Model
Authors:

Italo L. Oliveira, Jugurta Lisboa-Filho, Carlos A. Moura and Alexander G. Silva
Abstract: The International Cartographic Association (ICA) has proposed a formal model to describe Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) using three of the five viewpoints of the RM-ODP (Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing) framework, which was later adapted by other researchers. However, the adapted ICA model has not been validated for corporate-level SDI. The Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (Minas Gerais Power Company - Cemig) seeks to develop an SDI to aid in discovering and reutilizing spatial data within and outside the corporation. The present study aimed to assess the use of the model proposed by the ICA to specify corporate-level SDI using SDI-Cemig as a case study by describing the viewpoints Enterprise and Information. These viewpoints from the adapted ICA model have proved appropriate to describe SDI-Cemig, whose differences are due to the SDI’s peculiarities. Although a single study cannot validate the ICA model for a whole SDI level, this research shows that the adapted ICA model can be used to describe the viewpoints Enterprise and Information in corporate SDI.
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Paper Nr: 46
Title:

Modeling Variability in Software Process with EPF Composer and SMartySPEM: An Empirical Qualitative Study
Authors:

Jaime W. Dias and Edson OliveiraJr
Abstract: Nowadays, organizations are increasingly seeking to customize their software processes according to the market needs and projects experiences. Therefore, a systematic way to achieve such an objective is the Software Process Line (SPrL) technique, in which each member is a customized software process derived from a set of similarities and variabilities of process elements. Compositional and annotative approaches are most referenced for variability management. In this sense, the objective of this paper is to present a comparison between compositional and annotative approaches targeting variability representation capabilities from the point of view of practitioners and academic experts. The Eclipse Process Framework by means of the EPF Composer tool represents compositional approach, whereas SMartySPEM represents the annotative approach. The obtained results provided initial evidence that the annotative approach (SMartySPEM) takes advantage over the compositional approach (EPF).
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Paper Nr: 56
Title:

Becoming Agile in a Non-disruptive Way - Is It Possible?
Authors:

Ilia Bider and Oscar Söderberg
Abstract: Due to the increasing popularity of Agile Software Development (ASD), more software development teams are planning to transit to ASD. As ASD substantially differs from the traditional Software Development (TSD), there are a number of issues and challenges that needs to be overcome when transiting to ASD. One of the most difficult challenges here is acquiring an agile “mindset”. The question arises whether it is possible to acquire this mindset with the minimum disruption of an already established TSD process. The paper tries to answer this question by developing a non-disruptive method of transition to ASD, while using a knowledge transformation perspective to identify the main features of ASD mindset and how it differs from the one of TSD. To map the current mindset and plan the movement to the mindset that is more agile, the paper suggests using a process modelling technique that considers the development process as a socio-technical system with components that correspond to the phases of the development process. The method suggested in the paper has been designed in connection to a business case of a development team interested to transit to agility in a non-disruptive manner.
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Paper Nr: 92
Title:

Knowledge Mapping in a Research and Development Group - A Pilot Study
Authors:

Erivan Souza da Silva Filho, Davi Viana, Jacilane Rabelo and Tayana Conte
Abstract: In Enterprise Systems, representing the flow of knowledge may indicate how participants work using their knowledge. Such representation allows the understanding of how knowledge circulates between the development team and improvement opportunities. Knowledge Management supports the management of knowledge through techniques that identify how knowledge behaves in projects. One of these techniques is Knowledge Mapping, which supports representing how participants share their knowledge, which sources of knowledge are consulted and which people it helps during a project. However, to draw up a knowledge map, we need a process for capturing and analyzing data that can extract information that reflect these aspects. This work aims at presenting a process for Knowledge Mapping to develop a map indicating what knowledge the participants used, who or what they accessed and indications of its core competencies. Additionally, this paper discusses a pilot study regarding the application of the proposed process. As a result, we generated a knowledge map for a software engineering research and development group, in which contains a set of profiles and features what the main skills that a participant uses are.
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Paper Nr: 95
Title:

Agile-similar Approach in Traditional Project Management - A Generalisation of the Crashing Model
Authors:

Dorota Kuchta, Pierrick L'Ebraly and Ewa Ptaszyńska
Abstract: In numerous industries such as software development there has been increasing pressure on the supplier to provide early results. In this study we propose a method to adapt traditional project scheduling in order to meet early expectations of the client while limiting costs. First we present the philosophy of the agile methodologies in which meetings with stakeholders play an important role. Therefore it is valuable to take them into account in order to develop new models. Based on it we present a proposal of Linear Programing (LP) model which goal is to minimize the crashing cost and maximize customer satisfaction. In our model we distinguish activities that are rewarded (can increase customer satisfaction) if they are completed before certain meetings. What is more, we assume that project’s budget can be modified during meetings. At the end we present an example of using the proposed model.
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Paper Nr: 124
Title:

Structuring Guidelines for Web Application Designers - A Meta-model
Authors:

Anh Do Tuan, Isabelle Comyn-Wattiau and Samira Si-Saïd Cherfi
Abstract: Companies develop and maintain complex web sites. Literature provides them with many guidelines for these tasks. However this knowledge is disseminated in many information sources and difficult to apply. This paper is an attempt to address the following research question: How to structure the existing guidelines helping website designers in order to facilitate their application? The contribution is twofold: i) we propose a meta-model allowing a rich representation of these guidelines, ii) we feed this model with several hundreds of guidelines thanks to a deep extraction and structuration. Future research will consist in enriching the UWE (UML-based Web Engineering) method with this knowledge base leading to a quality based approach.
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Paper Nr: 196
Title:

Improving the Specification and Analysis of Privacy Policies - The RSLingo4Privacy Approach
Authors:

Alberto Rodrigues da Silva, João Caramujo, Shaghayegh Monfared, Pavel Calado and Travis Breaux
Abstract: The common operation of popular web and mobile information systems involves the collection and retention of personal information and sensitive information about their users. This information needs to remain private and each system should show a privacy policy that describes in-depth how the users' information is managed and disclosed. However, the lack of a clear understanding and of a precise mechanism to enforce the statements described in the policy can constraint the development and adoption of these requirements. RSLingo4Privacy is a multi-language approach that intends to improve the specification and analysis of such policies, and which includes several processes with respective tools, namely: (P1) automatic classification and extraction of statements and text snippets from original policies into equivalent and logically consistent specifications (based on a privacy-aware specific language); (P2) visualization and authoring these statements in a consistent and rigorous way based on that privacy-aware specific language; (P3) automatic analysis and validation of the quality of these specifications; and finally (P4) policies (re)publishing. This paper presents and discusses the first two processes (P1 and P2). Despite having been evaluated against the policies of the most popular systems, for the sake of briefness, we just consider the Facebook policy for supporting the presentation and discussion of current results of the proposed approach.
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Paper Nr: 210
Title:

A Naked Objects based Framework for Developing Android Business Applications
Authors:

Fabiano Freitas and Paulo Henrique M. Maia
Abstract: Naked Objects is an architectural pattern in which the business objects are handled directly in the user interface. In this pattern, developers are responsible only for the creation of business classes and do not need to concern with the implementation of the other layers. Although used in several frameworks for making the development of web and desktop systems faster, there is still a lack of tools that add the benefits of that pattern to the creation of Android applications. This paper introduces JustBusiness, a Naked Objects based framework that aims at supporting the creation of Android applications through automatic generation of user interfaces and persistence code from mapping the business classes. Two case studies that describe how the framework was used and its evaluation are also provided.
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Paper Nr: 212
Title:

A Flexible Mechanism for Data Confidentiality in Cloud Database Scenarios
Authors:

Eliseu C. Branco Jr., José Maria Monteiro, Roney Reis and Javam C. Machado
Abstract: Cloud computing is a recent trend of technology that aims to provide unlimited, on-demand, elastic computing and data storage resources. In this context, cloud services decrease the need for local data storage and the infrastructure costs. However, hosting confidential data at a cloud storage service requires the transfer of control of the data to a semi-trusted external provider. Therefore, data confidentiality is the top concern from the cloud issues list. Recently, three main approaches have been introduced to ensure data confidentiality in cloud services: data encryption; combination of encryption and fragmentation; and fragmentation. In this paper, we present i-OBJECT, a new approach to preserve data confidentiality in cloud services. The proposed mechanism uses information decomposition to split data into unrecognizable parts and store them in different cloud service providers. Besides, i-OBJECT is a flexible mechanism since it can be used alone or together with other previously approaches in order to increase the data confidentiality level. Thus, a user may trade performance or data utility for a potential increase in the degree of data confidentiality. Experimental results show the potential efficiency of the proposed approach.
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Paper Nr: 246
Title:

Investigating the Use of a Contextualized Vocabulary in the Identification of Technical Debt: A Controlled Experiment
Authors:

Mário André de Freitas Farias, José Amancio Santos, André Batista da Silva, Marcos Kalinowski, Manoel Mendonça and Rodrigo Oliveira Spínola
Abstract: In order to effectively manage technical debt (TD), a set of indicators has been used by automated approaches to identify TD items. However, some debt may not be directly identified using only metrics collected from the source code. CVM-TD is a model to support the identification of technical debt by considering the developer point of view when identifying TD through code comment analysis. In this paper, we analyze the use of CVM-TD with the purpose of characterizing factors that affect the accuracy of the identification of TD. We performed a controlled experiment investigating the accuracy of CVM-TD and the influence of English skills and developer experience factors. The results indicated that CVM-TD provided promising results considering the accuracy values. English reading skills have an impact on the TD detection process. We could not conclude that the experience level affects this process. Finally, we also observed that many comments suggested by CVM-TD were considered good indicators of TD. The results motivate us continuing to explore code comments in the context of TD identification process in order to improve CVM-TD.
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Paper Nr: 266
Title:

JCL: A High Performance Computing Java Middleware
Authors:

André Luís Barroso Almeida, Saul Emanuel Delabrida Silva, Antonio C. Nazaré Jr. and Joubert de Castro Lima
Abstract: Java Cá&Lá or just JCL is a distributed shared memory reflective lightweight middleware for Java developers whose main goals are: i) provide a simple deployment strategy, where automatic code registration occurs, ii) support a collaborative multi-developer cluster environment where applications can interact without explicit dependencies, iii) execute existing sequential Java code over both multi-core machines and cluster of multi-core machines without refactorings, enabling the separation of business logic from distribution issues in the development process, iv) provide a multi-core/multi-computer portable code. This paper describes JCL’s features and architecture; compares and contrasts JCL to other Java based middleware systems, and reports performance measurements of JCL applications.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 18
Title:

Evaluating the Teaching of Project Management Tools through a Series of Case Studies
Authors:

Rafael Queiroz Gonçalves and Christiane Gresse von Wangenheim
Abstract: Project management (PM) tools are mandatory to properly manage software projects. The usage of these tools is an important competence for professionals in the computer area, and its teaching is addressed in superior computer courses. In this context, general usage tools are usually adopted, such as MS-Project, but the lack of educational features of in these tools has motivated the development of several educational PM tools. However, previous studies have shown that these tools still do not cover the whole PM process, as defined by PMBOK. As a result, this study aims at presenting an instructional unit to assist in the teaching of functionalities that support an extensive part of this process, covering the initiating and planning processes groups for all knowledge areas. It adopts an open-source and educational PM tool – dotProject+, and other instructional materials. The instructional unit was applied in several case studies in undergraduate computer courses. Its results demonstrated students were able to learn how to use the PM tool to carry out that part of PM process, and teachers state students learning was facilitated by the instructional materials adoption.
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Paper Nr: 50
Title:

On the Development of Strategic Games based on a Semiotic Analysis: A Case Study of an Optimized Tic-Tac-Toe
Authors:

César Villacís, Walter Fuertes, Mónica Santillán, Hernán Aules, Ana Tacuri, Margarita Zambrano and Edgar Salguero
Abstract: A picture can express something instead of having a thousand words that cannot do it. This phrase, which symbolically connotes a whole scheme of a signs system, is known as Semiotics. This paper presents the process of an educational video game development based on semiotic analysis. We used Extreme Programing Agile Methodology combined with a proposal of the modified Elemental Tetrad Game Design Model to develop a video game known as “Tic-Tac-Toe”. The mathematical model was implemented with Artificial Intelligence algorithms and a graphical user interface including Semiotics; this was optimized for producing an enjoyable and interactive environment. With the purpose of stimulating cognitive development of children, this research combines theories about stimulating cognitive development of children; game design model, Semiotic Analysis harnesses the Model of Aleferenko, and uses algorithms based on heuristics and numerical methods in client-server architecture. The concept was tested with a representative sample of seven to eleven years old children. The results demonstrated that educational video games with Semiotics stimulate the cognitive development of children.
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Paper Nr: 57
Title:

Towards a Reference Architecture for Advanced Planning Systems
Authors:

Melina Vidoni and Aldo Vecchietti
Abstract: Advanced Planning Systems (APS) are important for production companies that seek the optimization of its operations. However there are gaps between the companies’ needs and its implementation in the Enterprise Systems, such as the lack of a commonly accepted definition, the short insight on its software architecture, and the absence of Software Engineering (SE) approaches to this type of system. Consequently, it is important to study APSs from a SE point of view. The motivation of this work is to present a Reference Architecture for APS, providing a standard-based characterization and a framework to simplify the design, development and implementation of APS. Therefore, two views are presented, which are based on the "4+1" View Model endorsed by the international standard ISO/IEC 42010:2011; those Views are represented using UML diagrams and they are described including variation points for a number of possible situations.
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Paper Nr: 69
Title:

Challenges and Opportunities in the Software Process Improvement in Small and Medium Enterprises: A Field Study
Authors:

Gledston Carneiro da Silva and Glauco de Figueiredo Carneiro
Abstract: The characteristics and profiles of organizations are important issues for the planning of their software process improvement. It supports the alignment with organizational culture as well as with the consolidation of best practices already implemented. This paper presents the results of a field study to identify the perception of the industry about challenges and opportunities of software process improvement faced by Small and Medium Enterprises. This field study aimed at identifying the profile and perception of a group of software development firms concerning software process improvement. The results indicated a list of challenges and activities faced and performed by the companies toward the software process improvement journey.
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Paper Nr: 74
Title:

Validating Sociotechnical Systems’ Requirements through Immersion
Authors:

Andreas Gregoriades and Maria Pampaka
Abstract: One of the most critical phases in complex socio-technical system development is the validation of non-functional requirements (NFR). During this phase, system designers need to verify that the proposed system’s NFRs will be satisfied. A special type of NFRs which is often ignored regards the Human Factors (HF) NFRs. These requirements are of vital importance to socio-technical systems since they affect the safety and reliability of human agents within such systems. This paper presents a scenario-based approach for validating HF NFRs using VR CAVE simulation. A case study is used to demonstrate the application of the method in the validation of the situation awareness NFR of an in-vehicle Smart driver assistive technology (SDAT). Such systems aim to alleviate accident risks by improving the driver’s situation awareness by drawing their attention on critical information cues that improve decision making. The assessment of the HF NFR is achieved through an experiment with users in a virtual environment. This work describes and demonstrates a method that utilizes a custom-made, modular 3D simulator that uses a number of hazardous scenarios, for the validation of the HF NFRs of prospective systems.
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Paper Nr: 85
Title:

Estimating Trust in Virtual Teams - A Framework based on Sentiment Analysis
Authors:

Guilherme A. Maldonado da Cruz, Elisa Hatsue Moriya Huzita and Valéria D. Feltrim
Abstract: The advance in technology has enabled the emergence of virtual teams. In these teams, people are in different places and possibly over different time zones, making use of computer mediated communication. At the same time distribution brings benefits, there are some challenges as the difficulty to develop trust, which is essential for efficiency in these teams. In this scenario, trust information could be used to allocate members in a new team and/or, to monitor them during the project execution. In this paper we present an automatic framework for detecting trust between members of global software development teams using sentiment analysis from comments and profile data available in versioning systems. Besides the framework description, we also present its implementation for the GitHub versioning system.
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Paper Nr: 118
Title:

Software Crowdsourcing Challenges in the Brazilian IT Industry
Authors:

Leticia Machado, Josiane Kroll, Rafael Prikladnicki, Cleidson R. B. de Souza and Erran Carmel
Abstract: Software crowdsourcing has been regarded as a new paradigm for the provision of crowd-labor in software development tasks. Companies around the world adopt this paradigm to identify collective solutions to solve problems, ways to accelerate time-to-market, increase the quality and reduce the software cost. Although this paradigm is a trend in the software engineering area, several challenges are behind software crowdsourcing. In this study, we explore how the software crowdsourcing has been developed in the Brazilian IT industry. We have conducted 20 interviews with Brazilians practitioners in order to identify the main challenges for software crowdsourcing in Brazil. Additionally, we identified and discussed enablers and blockers’ factors, practice implications and directions for future research in the area. Our paper aims to provide an overview of the software crowdsourcing in Brazil and motivation for researchers to better understand challenges faced by the Brazilian IT industry.
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Paper Nr: 163
Title:

Application of Metrics for Risk Management in Environment of Multiple Software Development Projects
Authors:

Júlio Menezes Jr., Miguel Wanderley, Cristine Gusmão and Hermano Moura
Abstract: Multiple Project Management currently is a reality in software development environments. In the case of software projects, some characteristics are highlighted, such as constant changes in levels of scope or product, software complexity and aspects related to human resources, such as technical knowledge and experience, among others. We may consider these characteristics as risk factors that should be managed. In this aspect, a tactical management requires the usage of better-structured information, which leads us to think about the usage of a metrics-based strategy as a support tool for multiple project managers with emphasis on risk factors. In this context, this work presents an an application of the metric “Risk Points” and its variations in an environment of multiple software development project. This experience report aims to evaluate the proposed metrics as a decision-support tool and monitoring of risk during project life-cycle.
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Paper Nr: 211
Title:

Requirements Engineering and Variability Management in DSPLs Domain Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review
Authors:

Léuson M. P. da Silva, Carla I. M. Bezerra, Rossana M. C. Andrade and José Maria S. Monteiro
Abstract: Recently, Software Product Lines (SPLs) have been used successfully for building products families. However, the currently and complex software products demand more adaptive features. Today, many application domains demand capabilities for flexible adaptation and post-deployment reconfiguration. In this context, Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs) represent a way to produce software products able to change their own behavior at runtime due to the changes in the product use environment. DSPLs present some interesting properties such dynamic variability and reconfiguration at runtime. The dynamic variability is represented by the definition of variants and context information. The reconfiguration at runtime is the process that enables the features activation and deactivation in a configuration product. Both properties are closely related to the requirements engineering and variability management, in the domain engineering life-cycle. In this research, we provide a systematic literature review that aims to identify the activities, assets, tools and approaches that are used in requirements engineering and variability management in DSPLs domain engineering. We performed a manual and automatic search, resulting in 581 papers of which 37 were selected. We also provide a discussion about the challenges and solutions of runtime variability mechanisms in the context of DSPLs.
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Paper Nr: 236
Title:

Modernizing the U.S. Army’s Live Training Product Line using a Cloud Migration Strategy: Early Experiences, Current Challenges and Future Roadmap
Authors:

Jeremy T. Lanman, Panagiotis K. Linos, LTC John Barry and Amber Alston
Abstract: The integration of different networks, databases, standards, and interfaces in support of U.S. Army soldier training is an ever-evolving challenge. This challenge results in U.S. Army organizations repeatedly spending time and money to design and implement irreproducible architectures to accomplish common tasks. In response to this challenge, the U.S. Army has made significant improvements on its Live Training Transformation (LT2) product line to support the needs of live training simulations. Despite the progress with LT2 the Army continues to struggle to support the dynamic needs of the training units. These improvements have been inadequate due to growing technical complexities of interoperating legacy systems with emergent systems arising from advances in technology that suit the users' ever-changing needs. To better address and support the needs of the end-user, a cloud-based modernization strategy was crafted and deployed on the existing Common Training Instrumentation Architecture (CTIA). CTIA is the foundation architecture that provides software infrastructure and services to LT2 product applications. This paper describes some of the U.S. Army’s initial experiences and challenges while crafting a cloud-based migration strategy to modernize its LT2 product line and underlining CTIA. It starts by providing some background and rationale and then it discusses the current state of this modernization effort followed by future directions including the U.S. Army’s 2025 vision of its LT2 product line. The overall vision entails an evolution plan from today’s standalone products to a modernized cloud-based TaaS (Training as a Service) approach. The Army’s ultimate goal is to reduce complexity as well as operational and maintenance costs, while providing enhanced training for the Warfighter at the point of need, anytime, anywhere. Finally, this paper discusses some of the current challenges including the exploration of appropriate testing methodologies and related security issues for the SOA-based LT2 architecture and its services.
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Paper Nr: 243
Title:

Aligning Software Design with Development Team Expertise
Authors:

Jānis Grabis, Egils Meiers, Inese Šūpulniece, Solvita Bērziša, Edgars Ozoliņš and Ansis Svaža
Abstract: Large enterprise applications are developed by teams of developers specializing in particular functional or technical areas. An overall application architecture is used to guide allocation of development tasks to the development teams. However, quality of the architecture degrades over the application life-cycle and manual refactoring is challenging due to the size and complexity of enterprise applications. This paper proposes to use automated clustering of large enterprise applications, where clusters are built around application business centers, as a means for refactoring the software design with an objective to improve allocation of software modules to development teams. The paper outlines a module allocation process in the framework of the overall enterprise application development process and reports an illustration of the allocation process. The illustration is based on the case of refactoring of a large third tier ERP system.
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Paper Nr: 245
Title:

Our Orthodox Methods and Tools Are 100 Years Old and Due for Replacement
Authors:

Ronald Stamper
Abstract: This paper is intentionally provocative. The analysis methods and specification tools we use today are derived from the century-old Taylorism via office work-study. If that was our scientific foundation, many obvious anomalies should have forced us to find a new paradigm. Rejecting information-flow in favour of a knowledge-field paradigm, we can build a rigorous science of organisational semiotics to underpin the engineering of information systems, taking account of the essentially human and social aspects of information: semantics/meaning, pragmatics/intention and social products/value, while reaching the level of rigorous formality needed for the technical aspects of the system. Practical case studies have demonstrated the advantages of this new approach, which reduces costs, especially over a long period while making the system easier for the users to understand.
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Paper Nr: 248
Title:

Decision Criteria for Software Component Sourcing - Steps towards a Framework
Authors:

Rob J. Kusters, Lieven Pouwelse, Harry Martin and Jos Trienekens
Abstract: Software developing organizations nowadays have a wide choice when it comes to sourcing software components. This choice ranges from developing or adapting in-house developed components via buying closed source components to utilizing open source components. This study seeks to determine criteria that software developers can use to make this choice. Answering this question will result in a list of criteria that can, after further validation, be used to develop structured decision support in this type of decision. A first step is a literature search resulting in an initial list. Since the literature used was not specifically targeted at the question at hand, it was decided to separately conduct interviews to obtain an independently derived list of criteria. In a second part of the interview the respondents were confronted with the list resulting from literature. Together this resulted in a preliminary proposal for decision criteria for software sourcing.
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Paper Nr: 259
Title:

Fuzzy Clustering based Approach for Ontology Alignment
Authors:

Rihab Idoudi, Karim Saheb Ettabaa, Kamel Hamrouni and Basel Solaiman
Abstract: Recently, several ontologies have been proposed for real life domains, where these propositions are large and voluminous due to the complexity of the domain. Consequently, Ontology Aligning has been attracting a great deal of interest in order to establish interoperability between heterogeneous applications. Although, this research has been addressed, most of existing approaches do not well capture suitable correspondences when the size and structure vary vastly across ontologies. Addressing this issue, we propose in this paper a fuzzy clustering based alignment approach which consists on improving the ontological structure organization. The basic idea is to perform the fuzzy clustering technique over the ontology’s concepts in order to create clusters of similar concepts with estimation of medoids and membership degrees. The uncertainty is due to the fact that a concept has multiple attributes so to be assigned to different classes simultaneously. Then, the ontologies are aligned based on the generated fuzzy clusters with the use of different similarity techniques to discover correspondences between conceptual entities.
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Paper Nr: 25
Title:

OvERVIeW: Ownership Visualization Word Cloud
Authors:

Ilenia Fronza and Stefano Trebeschi
Abstract: In many situations, awareness about code ownership is important; for example, this awareness might allow to contact the responsible person(s) of a piece of code to get clarifications. Source versioning systems can provide information about code ownership. However, the considerable amount of data collected might prolong the time to retrieve the information needed. OvERVIeW addresses this issue: it collects data from a versioning system and visualizes developers’ effort using a well-known and intuitive visualization, the word cloud. We applied pre-attentive processing principles in the designing phase, which use graphical properties (e.g., form and color) that are processed pre-attentively, i.e., they are understood faster. In our visualization, each word represents a class; the number of lines added and removed (during a given time period) is used as size metric, and the color represents the developer(s) working on the code. We show how OvERVIeW can be used to visualize three different cases of code ownership: collective, weak, and strong. We report a sample application of OvERVIeW in the context of a multi-developer OSS project.
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Paper Nr: 44
Title:

Software Evolution of Legacy Systems - A Case Study of Soft-migration
Authors:

Andreas Fürnweger, Martin Auer and Stefan Biffl
Abstract: Software ages. It does so in relation to surrounding software components: as those are updated and modernized, static software becomes evermore outdated relative to them. Such legacy systems are either tried to be kept alive, or they are updated themselves, e.g., by re-factoring or porting—they evolve. Both approaches carry risks as well as maintenance cost profiles. In this paper, we give an overview of software evolution types and drivers; we outline costs and benefits of various evolution approaches; and we present tools and frameworks to facilitate so-called “soft” migration approaches. Finally, we describe a case study of an actual platform migration, along with pitfalls and lessons learned. This paper thus aims to give software practitioners—both resource-allocating managers and choice-weighing engineers—a general framework with which to tackle software evolution and a specific evolution case study in a frequently-encountered Java-based setup.
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Paper Nr: 66
Title:

A Constraint-based Approach for Checking Vertical Inconsistencies between Class and Sequence UML Diagrams
Authors:

Driss Allaki, Mohamed Dahchour and Abdeslam En-Nouaary
Abstract: The modern software development processes enable evolving software systems and refining models across software life cycle. However, these evolution attitudes may lead to some consistency problems among models at different levels of abstraction. Hence, it is required to discover and detect the potential inconsistencies occurring in models when developing a system. This paper focuses on checking the vertical consistency of UML models using an approach based on defining constraints at the meta-level. These constraints are expressed using EVL (Epsilon Validation Language) to ensure the consistency of models. Representative examples of constraints for checking vertical inconsistencies between class and sequence diagrams are proposed to illustrate our contribution.
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Paper Nr: 107
Title:

A Language for Defining and Detecting Interrelated Complex Changes on RDF(S) Knowledge Bases
Authors:

Theodora Galani, George Papastefanatos and Yannis Stavrakas
Abstract: The dynamic nature of web data brings forward the need for maintaining data versions as well as identifying changes between them. In this paper, we deal with problems regarding understanding evolution, focusing on RDF(S) knowledge bases, as RDF is a de-facto standard for representing data on the web. We argue that revisiting past snapshots or the differences between them is not enough for understanding how and why data evolved. Instead, changes should be treated as first-class-citizens. In our view, this involves supporting semantically rich, user-defined changes that we call complex changes, as well as identifying the interrelations between them. In this paper, we present our perspective regarding complex changes, propose a declarative language for defining complex changes for RDF(S) knowledge bases, and show how this language is used to detect complex change instances among dataset versions.
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Paper Nr: 121
Title:

Investigating the Adoption of Agile Practices in Mobile Application Development
Authors:

Alan Santos, Josiane Kroll, Afonso Sales, Paulo Fernandes and Daniel Wildt
Abstract: The mobile application development market has been dramatically growing in the last few years as the complexity of its applications and speed of software development process. These changes in the mobile development market require a rethinking on the way the software development should be performed by teams. In order to better understand how agile practices support mobile application development, we applied a questionnaire to 20 undergraduate students. These students have been training in an iOS development course combined with agile practices. Our study aims to identify challenges and to report the students experience on the adoption of agile practices to develop mobile applications. Our findings reveal that agile practices help mobile software development mainly in terms of project management and control and development speed. However, aspects of user interface and user experience, different development platforms, and users expectations still point challenges in developing mobile applications.
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Paper Nr: 158
Title:

Knowledge Fusion for Cooperative Innovation from Strategic Alliances Perspective
Authors:

Jucheng Xiong and Li Li
Abstract: It has been argued that strategic alliances offer opportunities for using purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate cooperative innovation. In this introductory article, we seek to identify the means by which knowledge fusion helps create new knowledge and technological innovations. By analyzing the previous researches in terms of fusion and collaboration, we summarize the approaches of knowledge fusion based on IT application. Meanwhile, we also give effectiveness mechanisms and brief agenda for research in this important area. This study offers deep theoretical and managerial insights for firms and other institutions to manage knowledge fusion in strategic alliances.
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Paper Nr: 166
Title:

Linguistic Alerts in Information Filtering Systems - Towards Technical Implementations of Cognitive Semantics
Authors:

Radosław P. Katarzyniak, Wojciech A. Lorkiewicz and Ondrej Krejcar
Abstract: An original model of natural language alerts production is proposed. The alerts are produced by information filtering system and stated in a quasi-natural language, both potentially written and vocalized. The alerts are chosen with respect to a certain collection of uncertain decision rules, thus they inherit various levels of epistemic uncertainty. The quasi-natural language statements include linguistic operators of epistemic modality, as their necessary parts. The proposed model implements in a technical context an adequate cognitive semantics captured by an original theory of epistemic modality grounding defined elsewhere.
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Paper Nr: 179
Title:

A Big Data based Smart Evaluation System using Public Opinion Aggregation
Authors:

Robin G. Qiu, Helio Ha, Ramya Ravi, Lawrence Qiu and Youakim Badr
Abstract: Assessing service quality proves very subjective, varying with objectives, methods, tools, and areas of assessment in the service sector. Customers’ perception of services usually plays an essential role in assessing the quality of services. Mining customers’ opinions in real time becomes a promising approach to the process of capturing and deciphering customers’ perception of their service experiences. Using the US higher education services as an example, this paper discusses a big data-mediated approach and system that facilitates capturing, understanding, and evaluation of their customers’ perception of provided services in real time. We review such a big data based framework (Qiu et al., 2015) in support of data retrieving, aggregations, transformations, and visualizations by focusing on public ratings and comments from different data sources. An implementation with smart evaluation services is mainly presented.
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Paper Nr: 180
Title:

Dealing with the Complexity of Model Driven Development with Naked Objects and Domain-Driven Design
Authors:

Samuel Alves Soares, Mariela Inés Cortés and Marcius Gomes Brandão
Abstract: The Model-Driven Development aims to the implementation of systems from high-level modeling artifacts, while maintaining the focus of the development team in the application domain. However, the required models in this approach become very complex and, in many cases, the developer’s intervention can be required along the application infrastructure construction, then failing to keep the focus on application domain and could also be impaired synchronization between code and model. To solve this problem, we propose a tool where the developer just models the business objects through the use of Domain Patterns and Software Design Patterns, which is used to generate the application code. A naked object framework is responsible for the system infrastructure code. The use of the tool benefits the generation of functional applications, while maintaining the synchronization between code and model along the development.
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Paper Nr: 193
Title:

MAS Ontology: Ontology for Multiagent Systems
Authors:

Felipe Cordeiro, Vera Maria B. Werneck, Neide dos Santos and Luiz Marcio Cysneiros
Abstract: This work describes the Multiagent Systems (MAS) Ontology to assist in the development of multi-agent system using different methodologies. The MAS Ontology consists of fragmenting agent-oriented methodologies following an ontology approach based on the best aspects of four prominent AOSE methodologies and Guardian Angel exemplar that identify the strengths, weaknesses, commonalities and differences. In this paper, we present a brief explanation of Multiagent methodologies and the step-by-step process to describe the agent-based systems domain and how it can be represented. Given the numerous works in the literature about MAS methodologies, our aim is to help select the best and more appropriate properties to be used in Multiagent Systems development.
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Paper Nr: 247
Title:

Decision Criteria for the Payment of Technical Debt in Software Projects: A Systematic Mapping Study
Authors:

Leilane Ferreira Ribeiro, Mário André de F. Farias, Manoel Mendonça and Rodrigo Oliveira Spínola
Abstract: The term Technical Debt (TD) is used to describe the debt that a development team incurs when it takes shortcuts in the software development process, but that may increase the complexity and maintenance cost in the long-term. If a development team does not manage TD, this debt can cause significant long-term problems such as high maintenance costs. An important goal of the management of the debt is to evaluate the appropriate time to pay a TD item and to effectively apply decision-making criteria to balance the short-term benefits against long-term costs. However, although there are different studies that have proposed strategies for the management of TD, decision criteria are often discussed in the background and, sometimes, they are not even mentioned. Thus, the purpose of this work is to identify, by performing a systematic mapping study of the literature, decision-making criteria that have been proposed to support the management of TD. We identified 14 decision-making criteria that can be used by development teams to prioritize the payment of TD items and a list of types of debt related to the criteria. In addition, the results show possible gaps where further research may be performed.
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Paper Nr: 255
Title:

Knowledge Management and e-Learning Integration Model (KMELI)
Authors:

Janis Judrups
Abstract: The article offers a model for knowledge management and e-learning integration (KMELI). The purpose of this model is to support the development of human resources in business environment and use learning as a common field for both these disciplines, with a particular emphasis on the determination of learning needs on the level of the organisation and the employee. The instructional design approach-based methodological framework that describes in detail the activities conducted in each phase is offered for the practical implementation of the model. It is important that, before training development is started, an initial analysis takes place, in order to separate learning needs from those that cannot be met with the help of training.
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Area 4 - Software Agents and Internet Computing

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 21
Title:

Factors Affecting University Instructors’ Continuance Intention to Use Learning Management Systems: The Blackboard System Case
Authors:

Samar Mouakket and Anissa M. Bettayeb
Abstract: Although academic institutions have invested heavily in Learning Management Systems (LMS) to support e-learning platform, few studies have examined the factors affecting their usage, particularly by university instructors. To fill this research gap, this study proposes a framework based on the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) to examine the influence of several critical independent factors related to organizational, technological and individual characteristics on university instructors’ perceived usefulness of Blackboard system as one well-known LMS, which in turn will affect their continuance intention to use this technology. Data was gathered from 158 university instructors at a university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Structural equation modeling technique was used to validate the causal relationships between the different variables.
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Paper Nr: 71
Title:

Re-orchestration of Remote Teaching Environment in eLearning
Authors:

Uma Gopalakrishnan, Ramkumar N, P. Venkat Rangan and Balaji Hariharan
Abstract: eLearning has become indispensable in making lectures from experts accessible to a wide student audience. Current eLearning solutions offer many ways to re-create the teaching environment in a remote location. They focus on recreating the elements that make up the teaching side. In this paper we identify the components of a teaching environment and the factors that constitute a conducive learning environment for students. We identify the common methods of teaching side reconstruction and conduct a study to evaluate the effect of each on the learning outcome on these factors. We analyse the network and computational performance of these methods and arrive at a most optimal method to use in a eLearning session.
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Paper Nr: 119
Title:

Enabling a Unified View of Open Data Catalogs
Authors:

Marcelo Iury S. Oliveira, Lairson Emanuel R. de Alencar Oliveira, Glória de Fátima A. Barros Lima and Bernadette Farias Lóscio
Abstract: In this article we present a solution, called DataCollector, which allows the cataloging and the discovery of data distributed in multiple open data portals. Our solution collects metadata about datasets available in multiple open data portals and it offers a uniform interface to access them. The proposed solution was evaluated by its viability in cataloging 14 Brazilian open data portals, covering a total of 29,540 datasets. The preliminary results indicate the DataCollector offers a robust solution for cataloging and access to distributed datasets in multiple platforms for open data publication.
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Paper Nr: 172
Title:

Reasoning on Uncertainty in Smart Environments
Authors:

Alencar Machado, Vinícius Maran, Iara Augustin, João Carlos Lima, Leandro Krug Wives and José Palazzo Moreira de Oliveira
Abstract: Currently, There Is a Convergence of Systems for Smart Environments and Uncertainty Reasoning. Context Models Are Being Proposed to Support the Detection of Situations in These Environments. However, Reasoning to Detect Situations Taking into Account Uncertainty Presents a Great Challenge. This Paper Describes a Contextual Model based on Semantic Web Technologies That Can Deal with Uncertainty. This Framework May Be Used to Detect Unwanted Situations with a Certain Grade of Contextual Uncertainty. the Model Was Evaluated in a Scenario Reasoning over Uncertain Data to Predict Unwanted or Perhaps Dangerous Situations.
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Paper Nr: 194
Title:

Tourist Attraction Recommendation Service: An Approach, Architecture and Case Study
Authors:

Alexander Smirnov, Andrew Ponomarev and Alexey Kashevnik
Abstract: The paper proposes a complex multi-model approach to recommendation systems design in the domain of tourist information support. Specifically, it proposes to construct a recommendation system as a composition of loosely coupled modules, implementing both personalized and non-personalized methods of recommendations and a coordination module responsible for adaptation of the whole system to the specific tourist and situation context.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 76
Title:

ApPoggiomarino: A Context Aware App for e-Citizenship
Authors:

Giuseppe Annunziata, Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Saverio Lemma and Marco Lombardi
Abstract: The diffusion of pervasive systems and the affirmation of the Internet network as technological glue among the individuals have deeply modified the everyday life of our society. In fact, the spread of Smartphones and Tablets has allowed the users to use contents and services everywhere. Among the environments that have been mainly affected by this ‘technological’ wave, the ‘City’ stands out. Therefore, with these new paradigms, the same concept of ‘City’ results altered and enriched with new potentialities. The City is able to talk to its inhabitants offering, according to the contexts, services and contents able to adapt themselves to the needs of the moment. In this paper, we intend to introduce a Context Aware methodology capable of giving contexts and services to the citizens according to their interests and their position inside the city. This methodology has been implemented in a ‘hybrid app’ and tested in a real context.
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Paper Nr: 149
Title:

Efficient Combinatorial Auction Mechanisms in Electronic Commerce
Authors:

Tumpa Banerjee, Dinesh Kumar Pradhan and Prasenjit Choudhury
Abstract: Electronic commerce or e-commerce is the trading of products or services via internet. The product with little demand is generally sold in fixed price. However, when the demand of a product is huge, auction mechanism can be used to maximize the profit. Selling price of some inevitable products like medicine does not depend on the demand. Auction is the best method for selling products which provide maximum possible profit to the sellers and the buyers get the product in reasonable price. Today, a large part of e-commerce uses online auction for selling their products or to provide any service to the worldwide buyers. Winner determination and payment value calculation of combinatorial auction is a very complex task. The solution to this problem demands optimal result to the auctioneer within manageable time and the satisfaction of both the buyers and sellers in terms of profit. Most simple combinatorial auction already used by many websites for e-procurement is fixed price auction. Fixed price auction is not truthful and gives more profit to the seller. In this paper we study different auction mechanisms for item procurement in e-commerce and proposed a new truthful auction strategy that outperforms the existing approaches in the context of time and truthfulness.
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Paper Nr: 220
Title:

Towards Metadata Analysis on Opinionated Content in Tweets
Authors:

Anderson Almeida Firmino, Cláudio de Souza Baptista, André Luiz Firmino Alves, Davi Oliveira Serrano de Andrade, Hugo Feitosa de Figueirêdo, Geraldo Braz Filho and Anselmo Cardoso de Paiva
Abstract: Recently, much research has been done in the area of sentiment analysis of microtexts, specially using tweets. In most studies, the sentiment polarity detection methods are solely based on textual information. The detection of opinionated content in texts is not a simple task, and even less simple in the context of social media. Furthermore, processing microtexts using just natural language techniques may lead to unsatisfactory results. There is a lack of works which link other properties of the tweets (metadata), such as retweets and likes, and the their opinion (i.e., the presence of sentiments). Using tweets collected during the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, which occurred in Brazil, this work proposes an analysis of metadata properties on tweets, in order to verify which of these properties have more impact on their opinionatedness. The results indicate that the properties “presence of links” and “retweets” are the most significant with respect to the opinionatedness of a tweet.
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Paper Nr: 222
Title:

Ontology Matching based on Multi-Aspect Consensus Clustering of Communities
Authors:

André Ippolito and Jorge Rady de Almeida Júnior
Abstract: With the increase in the number of existing ontologies, ontology integration becomes a challenging task. A fundamental step in ontology integration is ontology matching, which is the process of finding correspondences between elements of different ontologies. For large-scale ontology matching, some authors developed a divide-and-conquer strategy, which partitions ontologies, clusters similar partitions and restricts the matching process to ontology elements of similar partitions. Works related to this strategy considered only a single ontology aspect for clustering. In this paper, we proposed a solution for ontology matching based on Bayesian Cluster Ensembles (BCE) of multiple aspects of ontology partitions. We partition ontologies applying Community Detection techniques. We believe that BCE of multiple aspects of ontology partitions can provide an ontology clustering that is more precise than the clustering of a single aspect. This can result in a more precise matching.
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Paper Nr: 250
Title:

LearneA - Design and Functionalities of a Hybrid Personalized Learning Electronic Assistant
Authors:

Nikolaos Mallios and Michael Vassilakopoulos
Abstract: Throughout the last decade a number of Personalized Learning Environments have been proposed encompassing various personalization techniques, in order to provide learning material adapted to the specified user’s requirements. In this study, we illustrate the design and enumerate the basic functionalities of LearneA, a Hybrid Personalized Learning Electronic Assistant. LearneA practically revisits the way other existing personalized environments implement the various proposed personalization mechanisms, but furthermore incorporates a number of innovative characteristics, which have not been implemented yet in any other learning environment. Our aim is a smart Hybrid Personalized Learning Assistant which will eventually offer a completely different learning experience. Additionally, a review of previously proposed Learning Environments is presented with respect to the personalization techniques which they embrace in order to provide personalized learning content for the user.
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Paper Nr: 41
Title:

A Qualitative Approach to Develop Niche Social Networks - A Reading Social Networks Case Study
Authors:

James William Pontes Miranda, Danilo Henrique Rodrigues Bueno, Rogéria Cristiane Gratão de Souza, Carlos Roberto Valêncio, Antônio Marcos Neves Esteca and Geraldo Francisco Donegá Zafalon
Abstract: The daily use of social networks is in growth around the world and this includes niche social networks, which have as a main feature an audience segmented by some kind of affinity that particularizes a group. This paper focuses on a specific type of niche social network, which are the reading social networks, aiming to perform a qualitative analysis of this type of website The goal is to understand how the qualitative factors can affect the users and also to serve as reference for the construction of new niche social networks, based on quality factors widely used for the creation of various types of software systems. Thus, this paper aims to fill a need for specific studies of niche social networks and also the influence of qualitative factors of software in websites, helping users and developers of reading social networks.
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Paper Nr: 96
Title:

Recognition of Human Activities using the User’s Context and the Activity Theory for Risk Prediction
Authors:

Alfredo Del Fabro Neto, Bruno Romero de Azevedo, Rafael Boufleuer, João Carlos D. Lima, Alencar Machado, Iara Augustin and Márcia Pasin
Abstract: Some of the activities performed daily by people may harm them physically. The performance of such activities in an inadequate manner or in an adverse environment can increase the risk of accidents. The development of context-aware systems capable of predicting these risks is important for human damage prevention. In this sense, we are developing an approach based on the Activity Theory and the Skill, Rule and Knowledge model for risk prediction of human activities in a context-aware middleware. To predict the risk in the activities, we identify the probability for the next actions and compare the current physiological context with its future state. In order to concept proving the proposed model, we developed a prototype and tested it with a public and a private dataset. The results show that the proposed model can assign an appropriate risk factor to the tested activities.
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Paper Nr: 178
Title:

A Metadata-based Architecture for Identification and Discovery of Services in SOA
Authors:

Aluizio Haendchen Filho, Hercules Antonio do Prado and Edilson Ferneda
Abstract: An approach for resource identification, management, and service discovery in SOA is presented. The approach emphasizes an architectural model that allows representation, description, and identification of services, and is explored as a metadata repository. It is focused not only on Web Services, but also in all services existing in big companies’ applications, including currently developed services and legacy system services, highlighting the importance of reusing fine granularity services. The model includes discovery procedures to find and retrieve candidates for services composition and reuse. These procedures adopt a Case-Based Reasoning approach, in which the services are considered as cases kept and indexed in a repository. Case matching is carried out by means of text mining techniques that allow finding the most appropriate service candidate with the desired requirements for a particular task.
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Paper Nr: 209
Title:

Behavioral Analysis for Child Protection in Social Network through Data Mining and Multiagent Systems
Authors:

Mário Sérgio Rodrigues Falcão Jr., Enyo José Tavares Gonçalves, Tciciana Linhares Coelho da Silva and Marcos de Oliveira
Abstract: The Internet connects millions of people worldwide, enabling diverse ways of interaction and social organization. Online Social Networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, have created a new form of socialization that can provide good experiences for users. However, such systems, as well as connecting people, expose their users lives to others, making them subject of exploitation in many ways. This work explores specifically children and teenagers degree of exposition on Facebook. Due to the risk offered in distinct layers of the Internet, the aim of this work is to develop a smart tool that helps to avoid the action of individuals that are possibly a risky for children and teenagers, users of the social network Facebook, applying Data Mining techniques in a Multiagent System.
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Paper Nr: 239
Title:

Network Overlap and Network Blurring in Online Social Networks
Authors:

Nan (Andy) Zhang and Chong (Alex) Wang
Abstract: Online communities and the online social networks embedded become a prominent medium for social interactions. The success of social media depends on users’ willingness to continue investing their time and efforts in the absence of economic rewards, making psychological attachment critical to online communities. While prior studies identify that members do develop psychological commitment to online communities, why and how the commitment arises remain underexplored. This study focuses on the relationship between network overlap, a common feature of online social networks, and affective commitment to an online community. Drawing on the commitment theory and social network boundary theory, we argue that the effect of online/offline network overlap is partially mediated by network boundary blurring. Meanwhile, contrary to industrial wisdom, the direct impact of network overlap on commitment is negative. Our empirical study supports our proposal. It indicates that it is critical to help users integrate online and offline social networks. Without success social network boundary blurring, high level of network overlap may backfire.
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Paper Nr: 240
Title:

Identification and Correction of Misspelled Drugs’ Names in Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
Authors:

Faiza Hussain and Usman Qamar
Abstract: Medications are an important element of medical records but they usually contain significant data errors. This situation may result from haphazardness or possibly careless storage of valuable information. In either case, this misspelled data can cause serious health problems for the patients and can put their life at a major risk. Thus, the correctness of medication data is an important aspect so that potential harms can be identified and steps can be taken to prevent or mitigate them. In this paper, a novel and practical method is proposed for automated detection and correction of spelling errors in electronic medical record (EMR). To realize this technique, major relevant aspects is taken into consideration with the help of Parts-of-Speech tagging and Regular Expressions. The paper concludes with recommendations and future work for giving a new direction to the emendation of drug nomenclature.
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Paper Nr: 253
Title:

Sales Forecasting as a Service - A Cloud based Pluggable E-Commerce Data Analytics Service
Authors:

Fabian Aulkemeier, Roman Daukuls, Maria-Eugenia Iacob, Jaap Boter, Jos van Hillegersberg and Sander de Leeuw
Abstract: Data analysts are increasingly important for companies to extract critical information from their vast amount of data in order to be competitive. Data analytics specialists or data scientists develop statistical models and make use of dedicated software components for example to categorize products and forecast future sales. Their unique skill set is among the most sought after in the current job market. Cloud computing on the other hand helps companies to acquire services in the cloud and share the required expertise for delivery among service users. In this paper we take a cross disciplinary approach to develop a data analytics technique and a platform based IT architecture that allows to outsource sales forecasting analytics into the cloud.
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Area 5 - Human-Computer Interaction

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 4
Title:

Application of Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior for M-commerce Adoption in India
Authors:

Neeraj Gangwal and Veena Bansal
Abstract: Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is the latest version of electronic commerce or e-commerce. M-commerce is in early stages and its associated customer behavior is not well understood. In this paper, we examine the decomposed theory of planned behavior in the context of M-commerce. We examined the roles of trust, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment in determining the attitude towards adoption of m-commerce. We also tested the relationship between normative influence and subjective norms as well as the relationship between self-efficacy and perceived behavioral control. Based on the theory of planned behavior, we hypothesize that attitude, subjective norms, personal innovation and perceived behavioral control have positive impact on a person’s intentions to adopt m-commerce. We conducted a survey and received 212 responses. We used structural equation modeling for data analysis. Our model was able to explain 60% of the observed variance. Out of 11 hypotheses, 8 were significant at p < 0.01 and the remaining 3 are significant at p < 0.05. Our results show that trust (m-commerce vendor), perceived usefulness (user), self efficacy (technology) and the normative influence (society) are the most important factors for m-commerce adoption in India.
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Paper Nr: 40
Title:

Evaluating Interactive Visualizations for Supporting Navigation and Exploration in Enterprise Systems
Authors:

Tamara Babaian, Wendy Lucas, Alina Chircu and Noreen Power
Abstract: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems pose usability challenges to all but the most sophisticated of users. One such challenge arises from complex menu structures that hinder, rather than aid, system navigation. Another issue is the lack of support for discovering and exploring relationships between the data elements that underlie all transactions and processes performed with the system. Two dynamic, interactive visualizations, the Dynamic Task Map and the Association Map, were designed to assist users in ERP system navigation and data exploration activities. In this paper, we describe a laboratory study comparing the use of these visual components to standard SAP interfaces. Results from an initial empirical evaluation revealed that all users were able to complete tasks more quickly and with the same or a lower number of errors when using the visual components than when using SAP. Answers to questions comparing the standard SAP interface with visualizations also revealed an overall preference for the visual interfaces. Suggestions for improvements to the visualizations from study participants provided valuable feedback for future development.
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Paper Nr: 65
Title:

SMART Mail - A SMART Platform for Mail Management
Authors:

Ricardo Raminhos, Eduardo Coutinho, Nuno Miranda, Maria Barbas, Paulo Branco, Teresa Gonçalves and Gil Palma
Abstract: Email is a key communication format in a digital world, both for professional and/or personal usage. Exchanged messages (both human and automatically generated) have reached such a volume that processing them can be a great challenge for human users that try to do it on a daily basis and in an efficient manner. In fact, a significant amount of their time is spent searching and getting context information (normally historic information) in order to prepare a reply message or to take a decision/action, when compared to the actual time required for writing a reply. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for this process to use both automatic and semi-automatic mechanisms that allow to put email messages into context. Since context information is given, not only by historical email messages but also inferred from the relationship between contacts and/or organizations present in the messages, the existence of navigation mechanisms (and even exploration ones) between contacts and entities associated to email messages, is of fundamental importance. This is the main purpose of the SMART Mail prototype, which architecture, data visualization and exploration components and AI algorithms, are presented throughout this paper.
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Paper Nr: 109
Title:

Expressive Icons for the Communication of Intentions
Authors:

Julio Cesar dos Reis, Cristiane Jensen, Rodrigo Bonacin, Heiko Hornung and M. Cecilia C. Baranauskas
Abstract: The mutual understanding of intentions is essential to human communication. A web-mediated communication lacks elements that are natural in face-to-face conversation. This fact requires treating intentions more explicitly in computer systems. Literature hardly explores design methods and interactive mechanisms to support users in this task. In this article, we argue that icons representing emotions play a central role as means for aiding users to express intentions. This research proposes a method to determine and refine icons aiming to represent and communicate the users’ intentions via computer systems. The work explores a theoretical framework based on Speech Act Theory and Semiotics to analyze different classes of intention. The method is experimented in a case study with 40 users and the obtained results suggest its feasibility in the process of filtering, selecting and enhancing icons to communicate intentions.
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Paper Nr: 126
Title:

Towards Advanced Enterprise Information Systems Engineering - Solving Resilience, Security and Usability Issues within the Paradigms of Socio-Technical Systems
Authors:

Wilson Goudalo and Christophe Kolski
Abstract: Resilience and Security are very important attributes for most enterprise Information Systems (IS). These systems have human users with various capabilities, experiences and behaviors. Therefore, they have to be resilient, secure and usable. Resilience requires the capacity to prepare and adapt, facing perpetuating evolutionary conditions, and to restore full capability after an incident or an attack. We track and solve Resilience, Security and Usability issues jointly in Enterprise IS. This challenge requires considering the ergonomics of interactions, effectiveness and efficiency of the task realization, user satisfaction, and trust as well as human feelings when using the secure services. In this paper, we propose an approach based on paradigms of socio-technical systems to model the interplay between resilience, security and usability. We detail a case study illustrating the proposed approach and detailing the elaboration of user-experience-based design patterns.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 77
Title:

To Kick or Not to Kick: An Affective Computing Question
Authors:

Luca Casaburi, Francesco Colace, Carmine Di Gruttola and Donato Di Stasi
Abstract: With the Web 2.0 and its services, the users are able to express their own emotions through the production and sharing of multimedia contents. In this context, we can interpret the flood of selfies that everyday invades the web as the will to overcome the limits of the textual communication. Therefore, it becomes particularly interesting the possibility to extract in an automatic way information about the emotional state of the people present in the multimedia content. The knowledge of a person’s emotional state gives useful information for the personalization of many online services. Some examples of the areas where such an approach can be adopted are the services for the content recommendation, for the entertainment and for the distance training. In this paper, the techniques of sentiment extraction from multimedia contents will be applied to the sports world. In particular, the aim is to verify the possibility to predict the result of a penalty kick analyzing the player’s face. The objective is to investigate the possibility to evaluate in real time the psychic conditions of an athlete during a competition. The system has been tested on an opportunely built dataset and the results are more than satisfying.
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Paper Nr: 78
Title:

An Approach for Sentiment Classification of Music
Authors:

Francesco Colace and Luca Casaburi
Abstract: In recent years, the music recommendation systems and dynamic generation of playlists have become extremely promising research areas. Thanks to the widespread use of the Internet, users can store a consistent set of music data and use them in the everyday context thanks to portable music players. The problem of modern music recommendation systems is how to process this large amount of data and extract meaningful content descriptors. The aim of this paper is to compare different approaches to decode the content within the mood of a song and to propose a new set of features to be considered for classification.
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Paper Nr: 80
Title:

Ordering Matters: An Experimental Study of Ranking Influence on Results Selection Behavior during Exploratory Search
Authors:

Emanuel Felipe Duarte, Lucas Pupulin Nanni, Ricardo Theis Geraldi, Edson OliveiraJr, Valéria Delisandra Feltrim and Roberto Pereira
Abstract: The design of Exploratory Search tools acquires more importance as the amount of information on the Web grows. Accordingly, informed design decisions concerning the users’ behavior during search activities can be used in novel approaches for Exploratory Search tools. With regard to users’ behavior on search result selection, literature indicates higher ranked results tend to attract more attention and, therefore, more hits. However, the cause of such behavior is not clear. We experimentally investigate the hypothesis of this behavior being due to ranking. A group of 72 participants was asked to select a search result from a randomly ordered results list. The experiment was carried out on paper to remove specific search engine and digital medium biases. We obtained evidence indicating there is a trend towards choosing higher ranked results even in a different medium and in the context of an Exploratory Search, corroborating to the hypothesis that ranking has influence on users’ selection behavior.
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Paper Nr: 93
Title:

Restrictive Deterrence: Impact of Warning Banner Messages on Repeated Low-trust Software Use
Authors:

Mario Silic, Dario Silic and Goran Oblakovic
Abstract: This research paper focuses on the warning messages that are one of the last lines of defense against cybercriminals. The effectiveness of warnings in influencing users’ behavior when using low-trust (potentially malicious) software has not been adequately addressed by the prior research. Using the restrictive deterrence theory, supported by the Communication-Human Information Processing (C-HIP) Model, we conducted an experimental study investigating the influence of warning messages on the repeated use of low-trust software. The results suggest that the use of low-trust software could be reduced in frequency, or completely abandoned, in the presence of warning messages, whereby security incidents could be better mitigated and reduced. We suggest several implications for practitioners and offer some interesting theoretical insights.
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Paper Nr: 129
Title:

Automated Assistance in Evaluating the Design of On-screen Presentations
Authors:

Karin Harbusch, Denise Dünnebier and Denis Krusko
Abstract: Oral presentations can profit decisively from high-quality layout of the accompanying on-screen presentation. Many oral talks fail to reach their audience due to overloaded slides, drawings with insufficient contrast, and other layout issues. In the area of web design, assistant systems are available nowadays which automatically check layout and style of web pages. In this paper, we introduce a tool whose application can help non-experts as well as presentation professionals to automatically evaluate important aspects of the layout and design of on-screen presentations. The system informs the user about layout-rule violation in a self-explanatory manner, if needed with supplementary visualizations. The paper describes a prototype that checks important general guidelines and standards for effective presentations. We believe that the system exemplifies a high-potential new application area for human-computer interaction and expert-assistance systems.
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Paper Nr: 147
Title:

Model-driven Engineering for Optimizing the Usability of User Interfaces
Authors:

Marwa Hentati, Lassaad Ben Ammar, Abdelwaheb Trabelsi and Adel Mahfoudhi
Abstract: Usability is considered to be one of the most important quality factors that determine the success or failure of an interactive system. This can be explained by the ever-increasing number of studies addressing the integration of the usability evaluation at the development process. However, most of these proposals aim to guide the user interface transformation process according to a set of usability criteria allowing the generation of user interfaces which meet the usability requirement. In fact, the selection of the adequate alternative transformation depends on the usability attributes that will be met. This paper proposed an approach that considers the user interface generation process as a usability optimization problem according to given usability optimization objectives. The aims to generate all possible concrete user interfaces from a given abstract user interface. Then, the usability optimization process selects the optimal concrete user interface for a specific context of use.
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Paper Nr: 268
Title:

IT Education Strategies for the Deaf - Assuring Employability
Authors:

Francisco C. de M. B. Oliveira, Adriano T. de Freitas, Thiago A. C. de Araujo, Lidiane C. Silva, Bruno da S. Queiroz and Éder F. Soares
Abstract: IT related jobs present a good opportunity for better paying positions for people with disabilities (PWD). Online training seems to be an interesting approach, due to its reach. Building and delivering online content for this population is challenging, especially for those who are deaf or hearing impaired (DHI). We face many problems in the process of teaching the DHI student. Initially we have language related issues, the vocabulary of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) is poor when it comes to specific content such as IT. Then, we confront the problem of having very few tutors versed in Libras. Content format, how can we present the information to the DHI considering visual aspects? Accessible learning objects, accessible programming environment, online collaboration between DHI and Non-DHI. Real word task analysis are all discussed in the current text. We present a series of studies our lab conducted and is conducting as we create and deliver IT online content for the PWD.
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Paper Nr: 98
Title:

Developing a RESTful API for a Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Authors:

Cristian Timbi-Sisalima, José R. Hilera, Salvador Otón and Paola Ingavelez
Abstract: Nowadays, the evaluation of the accessibility of Enterprise Web Information Systems is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2008 and adopted in 2012 by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) as ISO/IEC 40500 standard. Web accessibility evaluation tools are software programs or online services that help developers determine if web content meets the accessibility guidelines. This paper shows the extension of an existing online tool, with the aim of exposing its functionality also as an Application Program Interface (API). The original tool is used through a Web user interface, and this extension exposes functionality through web services based on REST technology, so that developers can invoke them from their own applications for accessibility testing.
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Paper Nr: 203
Title:

The Use of a Fuzzy Cognitive Maps and Eye Tracking in Exploitation of Online Advertising Resources
Authors:

Jaroslaw Jankowski, Jarosław Wątróbski, Katarzyna Witkowska and Waldemar Wolski
Abstract: Current trends in the area of digital marketing and online promotion indicate the increasing role of highly targeted online advertising. The method of designing advertisements evolved in the direction of one-to-one communication, which forces to create personalized advertising messages. In the case of interactive media modelling changes can occur in a dynamic way based on audience and content characteristics. The purpose of this article is to develop a model supporting the selection of parameters and localization of advertising content with the use of fuzzy cognitive maps and possibility to perform simulations based on content selection towards increased efficiency.
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Area 6 - Enterprise Architecture

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 51
Title:

Information Systems and Innovation Capacity - A Crossindustry Intepretive Study
Authors:

Abdelkader Achi, Camille Salinesi and Gianluigi Viscusi
Abstract: Innovation is one of the many challenges raised by the digitalization of business and economy. In the current competitive environment, businesses are characterized by radical transformations through digitalization of services and products and their ability to innovate is increasingly linked to the exploration and exploitation of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper investigates the role of information systems (IS) as a key factor to innovation capacity. Starting from these issues, the paper explores through an interpretative study of the IS innovation practices as well as perceptions by managers within a sample of 7 French based companies from various industries. The interviews have been conducted on with a guide built based on a framework on IS innovation capacity maturity. Consistently with the framework, the interview guide addresses process areas and practices related to three core categories: management, innovation engineering, and support. The study reveals 7 fundamental contradictions that can explain the main tendencies observed across the companies, out of which the most striking is a generalized lack of maturity when it comes to exploiting their Information Systems to foster innovation.
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Paper Nr: 148
Title:

Weaving Business Model Patterns - Understanding Business Models
Authors:

María Camila Romero, Mario Sánchez and Jorge Villalobos
Abstract: A business model describes the way in which an organization acquires raw materials, transforms them into a product or service that is delivered to a client, and gains money in exchange. In consequence, it is possible to decompose the model into four core processes: supply, transformation, delivery, and monetization, which have both structural and behavioral dependencies among them. Unfortunately, most business model representations focus only on the structural part and leave aside the interactions between said processes. The objective of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it presents a conceptualization and representation for business models that is capable of handling their components and interactions. Secondly, it uses the proposed representation to introduce a catalog of business patterns applicable in the design and analysis of business models. Each pattern includes the basic participants, resources, activities and interactions that must be accounted for in order to perform the core process.
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Paper Nr: 164
Title:

Mitigating Enterprise Architecture Adoption Challenges - Improved EA Adoption Method
Authors:

Nestori Syynimaa
Abstract: During the last decades the interest towards Enterprise Architecture (EA) has increased among both practitioners and scholars. One of the reason behind this interest is the anticipated benefits resulting from its adoption. EA has been argued to reduce costs, standardise technology, improve processes, and provide strategic differentiation. Despite these benefits the EA adoption rate and maturity are low and, consequently, the benefits are not realised. The support of top-management has been found to be a critical success factor for EA adoption. However, EA is often not properly understood by top-management. This is problematic as the value of EA depends on how it is understood. This paper aims for minimising the effect of this deficiency by proposing Enterprise Architecture Adoption Method (EAAM). EAAM improves the traditional EA adoption method by introducing processes helping to secure the support of top-management and to increase EA understanding. EAAM is built using Design Science approach and evaluated using Delphi.
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Paper Nr: 165
Title:

A Procedural Approach for Evaluating the Performance of Business Processes
Authors:

Thiago Mendes and Simone Santos
Abstract: BPM is a systematic approach that enables an organization to achieve results that are consistent and aligned with its strategic objectives. In this context, organizations need to measure the performance of their processes, thereby enabling them to support planning, inducing control and making it possible to diagnose the current situation. The research that led to this article was prompted by the paucity of empirical investigations into performance measures offered in the literature and recognition of the difficulties that organizations face when attempting to verify the results of their business processes. From a systematic review of the literature, it became evident that, among the approaches discussed, there are several variations in the methodology, in the specifications of the measures and even as to how business processes are evaluated. By undertaking a comparative evaluation of the approaches, a set of criteria was defined which addresses not only theory, based on the references, but also some usability aspects of a process performance model. Thus, we proposed the definition of a new approach that brings together elements and recommendations selected from the approaches analyzed, plus enhancements. To evaluate the proposed approach, a case study is discussed, and important results presented which demonstrate its applicability.
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Paper Nr: 260
Title:

Evaluating the Reliability of Ambient-Assisted Living Business Processes
Authors:

Ricardo Martinho, Dulce Domingos and Ana Respício
Abstract: Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) systems provide a wide range of applications in order to improve the quality of life of patients. These systems commonly gather several components such as sensors, gateways, Information Systems or even actuators. Reliability of these components is of most importance, mainly due to the impact that a failure can have on a monitored patient. In spite of the existing reliability evaluations and countermeasures that can be associated with an AAL system component, we need to take into account the overall reliability for the several activities and interactions that exist between all the AAL system components, for each time a certain value is registered or a certain alert is triggered. In this paper, we propose a new approach to calculate the overall reliability of an AAL system. We take a Business Process Management (BPM) approach to model the activities and interactions between AAL components, using the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard. By extending the BPMN standard to include reliability information, we can derive the overall reliability value of a certain AAL BPMN process, and help healthcare managers to better allocate the appropriate resources (including hardware or health care professionals) to improve responsiveness of care to patients.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 104
Title:

Modeling a Fuzzy Resource Allocation Mechanism based on Workflow Nets
Authors:

Joslaine Cristina Jeske de Freitas, Stéphane Julia and Leiliane Pereira de Rezende
Abstract: Colored Petri Nets (CPN) arose from the need to model very large and complex systems, which are found in real industrial applications. The idea behind CPN is to unite the ability to represent synchronization and competition for resources of Petri nets with the expressive power of programming languages, data types and diverse abstraction levels. This work proposes the use of Hierarchical Colored Petri Nets and CPN Tools to model a Workflow net with fuzzy sets delimited by possibility distributions associated with the Petri net models that represent human type resource allocation mechanisms. Additionally, the duration of activities that appear on the routes (control structure) of the Workflow process, will be represented by fuzzy time intervals. Besides, firing rules based on a joint possibility distribution will be used in order to express in a more realistic way the resource allocation mechanisms when human behavior is considered in Workflow activities.
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Paper Nr: 110
Title:

Reorganizing an Enterprise Thanks to its Information System
Authors:

Jolita Ralyté, Wanda Opprecht and Michel Léonard
Abstract: Enterprise Information System (IS) is often reduced to a position to solve problems, most often administrative ones, by means of informatics. This paper considers another point of view of IS utility where it creates new opportunities and greatly expands the means to deal with complex change situations. The case studied in this paper is the enterprise reorganization. This exploratory research reveals the role of IS in such a critical situation. It unearths key IS modeling and architecture principles and discovers knowledge and methods of reasoning required to support IS evolution as an underlying way to the enterprise reorganization. It concludes with the emergence of a new research area: the Computer Aided Information Steering.
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Paper Nr: 112
Title:

PBCP: A Process-based Bussiness Collaboration Platform
Authors:

Shiping Chen, Tsz Lam Chim, Zhijie Li, Bo Yan, Hendra Wijaya and Surya Nepal
Abstract: Business expertise becomes more specialized and focused, which leads to a large number of small and medium enterprises (SME) to deliver a specific service in context of a business collaboration. This paper presents such a process-based business collaboration platform to facility this kind of multi-party business collaboration. The platform features with a process-oriented user interface, event-driven business process backend, which makes it elegant and generic to be used for different multi-party collaboration applications.
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Paper Nr: 125
Title:

Open Digital Repositories - The Movement of Open Access in Opposition to the Oligopoly of Scientific Publishers
Authors:

Ligia E. Setenareski, Walter Shima, Marcos Sunye and Leticia Peres
Abstract: This paper shows how the market structure of scientific publications works and how the free-software movement and the open source code have expanded and generated new developments in a period of approximately twenty years, in opposition to an oligopolistic structure. The free-software movement did not happen by chance, and neither did its subsequent developments. Researchers, tired of contributing towards the production of scientific articles for private publishers, and also working as reviewers or taking part in editorial boards, launched many alternatives within the editorial market in clear opposition to the publishing industry, which has been making handsome profits on packaged periodicals sold to academic libraries. Some of these alternatives are: the Copyleft and the Creative Commons in opposition to the Copyright; the Open Access and the Open Digital Repositories of educational and research institutions, freely available on the internet, opposing to the closed repositories of commercial publishers that offer their database at high prices; and the creation of h-index, g-index, Google Scholar Citations (GSC) and other impact measurements that come up against the impact factor controlled by private publishers. In the editorial process, while educational and research institutions, through their researchers, provide all workforce necessary for the production, arbitration and editorial board, publishers are in charge of organizing services, providing reliable browsing on their closed database, and keeping high levels of impact for their publications. Nowadays, search providers like Google also offer reliable search engines to browse open digital repositories. Therefore, Google and the Open Digital Repositories, in a symbiotic relationship, can be in charge of the whole process of scientific publication, as an alternative to oppose the oligopoly of scientific publishers.
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Paper Nr: 128
Title:

Supporting Organizational Qualities Through Architectural Patterns
Authors:

Fritz Solms
Abstract: The structure of an organization is known to affect an organization’s qualities. Commonly variations of the hierarchical patterns are used to constrain the structure of organizations. Examples include functional and divisional hierarchies, and organizations based on a matrix structure. In either case the depth of the hierarchies can be varied. For software architectures a much wider set of architectural patterns is considered and patterns are combined in such a way as to support desired system qualities. This paper suggests that many of these patterns are applicable also for organizational architectures and proposes a conceptual framework for the selection and application of architectural patterns in order to improve the quality attributes of an organization.
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Paper Nr: 213
Title:

A Methodological Approach for the Dynamic Adaptation of Web Services to the Context
Authors:

Omnia Saidani Neffati, Rim Samia Kaabi and Naoufel Kraiem
Abstract: The dynamic nature of environnments in which Web services are executed require that these ones must be reactive and adaptive in order to meet changing requirements.These changing requirements have to be taken into account in the Web service composition process. BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), the de-facto standard language used to define processes through the composition of Web services, doesn’t support dynamic changes. Therfore, BPEL dosen’t support the dynamic adaptation of Web service composition according to the context. In this paper, we propose solution in order to support the dynamic adaptation of service composition through BPEL.
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Paper Nr: 265
Title:

From Enterprise Architecture to Cloud Computing: A Decision-Support Model for Functional Block Outsourcing
Authors:

M'barek El Haloui and Abdelaziz Kriouile
Abstract: The Information Systems opening to the cloud computing has become a strategic choice for enterprises. In fact, the rapid evolution of competitiveness and innovation and the diversity of technologic offers incite IT decision makers to look for decision support tools helping them for the adoption of new solutions and services such as Cloud Computing. This article introduces a maturity assessment model of an information system architecture functional block that can be outsourced to the Cloud. Based on the best practices of enterprise architecture and information systems governance, the basic criteria of activities outsourcing, and the cloud computing adoption requirements, this model is built around four modules: the block scope identification, the outsourcing opportunity, the cloud computing architectural requirements, and governance and control. Thus, this model will provides new benefits for opened Enterprise Architectures to new technologies.
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Paper Nr: 16
Title:

Advancing Research in Enterprise Architecture - An Information Systems Paradigms Approach
Authors:

Ovidiu Noran
Abstract: Enterprise Architecture (EA) is an Information Systems (IS)-related domain aspiring to become a mature discipline underpinned by its own schools of thought. As with other emerging research areas, currently there is no widespread consensus on EA formal theoretical foundations and associated paradigms; thus, the EA researcher needs to find and tailor paradigms and research methods from related disciplines. As a possible solution contributing towards the maturing of the EA field, this paper advocates the application of social science-inspired qualitative research methods and paradigms typically engaged in the IS area to EA research. The paper starts by performing a critical review of the mainstream IS research assumptions, methods and paradigms in view of their suitability and expressiveness for the EA research endeavour according to ontological and epistemological assumptions specific to EA. Subsequently, the paper demonstrates the application of the reviewed IS research artefacts through a sample EA research strategy framework based on an IS-inspired reflective and iterative action research paradigm.
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Paper Nr: 94
Title:

Business-IT Alignment Research Field - A Systematic Literature Review
Authors:

Marcos André Fernandes Spósito, Arilo C. Dias Neto and Raimundo da Silva Barreto
Abstract: The business-IT alignment has become an important research field that has been widely investigated by different areas and with different viewpoints. Since the interest in the business-IT research field has grown it has become important to monitor how it has been developed and what are the directions of ongoing research within the field. This paper reports the performing of an extensive systematic literature review whose main contribution is to provide an overview of the current status of development and possible further directions for the business-IT alignment research field from the viewpoint covered by six issues: research topics, alignment dimensions, business and IT domains, research goals, types of research results and research methods. The main results indicate that BPM, IT Governance are the two most used research topic, the cultural and social alignment dimensions and the IT strategy domain have been little adopted, there is unnecessary worry about the development of the new approaches rather than taking advantage of the existing ones, the research results are overly theoretical, most of the research is not performing the empirical validity of its results. This paper indicates possible further directions and concluding that the current state of the development of the business-IT research field can still need to gain more maturity.
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Paper Nr: 143
Title:

A Reference Architecture for Mobile Crowdsensing Platforms
Authors:

Herbertt B. M. Diniz, Emanoel C. G. F. Silva, Thomas C. C. Nogueira and Kiev Gama
Abstract: Many software solutions today rely on systems that integrate and analyze city data gathered from different sources (sensors and information systems) in real-time. Thanks to smartphones, citizens can act as smart sensors collecting city data in what is being called mobile crowdsensing (MCS). The literature that explores systems in that area, typically present high-level software architectures without much detail about their implementation or feasibility. With the intention of offer a straightforward and easy-to-follow reference architecture, this paper presents an approach that employs off-the-shelves components for the construction of an MCS platform for participatory sensing solutions in Smart Cities. We demonstrate an implementation of that architecture in a specific domain.
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Paper Nr: 153
Title:

Natural Language Processing for Risk Identification in Business Process Repositories
Authors:

Avi Wasser and Maya Lincoln
Abstract: In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in developing methods and tools for automating the design of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) models. This work suggests a method for machine-assisted identification and design of new risks, based on business logic that is extracted from real-life process repositories using a linguistic analysis of the operational similarity between process conducts. The suggested method can assist process analysts, audit executives and risk managers in identifying new organizational risks while making use of knowledge that is encoded in existing process repositories. The suggested framework was tested on the ProcessGene process repository, showing our approach to be effective in enabling the identification and design of new risks within real-life business process models.
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Paper Nr: 238
Title:

Framework to Efficiently Measure Firm Smart Business Performance in a Global Management Environment
Authors:

Chui Young Yoon
Abstract: Many firms have implemented their smart business capabilities to efficiently perform management activities and improve the performance of business tasks in a smart management environment. Firms have applied their smart business capabilities to management activities in order to raise the performance of business execution in a global management environment. That is, the measurement and management for the performance of a firm’s smart business execution need to efficiently build and improve the smart business capability appropriate for its management strategy and business departments. Hence, a measurement framework is necessary for efficiently measuring a firm’s smart business performance in order to manage and improve its smart management capability. The validity and reliability of the developed framework are verified by factor analysis and reliability analysis based on previous studies. We find a 10-item framework that can reasonably measure a firm smart business performance in a total performance perspective.
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