bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sustainable Approach towards Thai SMEs
Authors: Thongpoon Siriluck , Ahmad Noor Hazlina , Mahmud Imran
Published: November 2017

This study examines issues surrounding the sustainability of SMEs in the context of Thailand. Sufficiency economy philosophy and government support are seen as important covariates that could foster sustainable performance of SMEs. A sample of 119 SME entrepreneurs in the South of Thailand participated in this study. Exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical multiple regression were conducted and the results demonstrated that some dimensions of sufficiency economy philosophy and government support are critical predictors of economic and social performance. Moreover, knowledge and morality are found to promote the principle of sufficiency economy philosophy, as such SME entrepreneurs should be cognizant of the potential effects of this philosophy. The appropriate practices can be equipped and nurtured through the values of sufficiency economy philosophy, which shed light on means to achieve firm sustainability.
Self-Service Business Intelligence Adoption in Business Enterprises
Authors: Daradkeh Mohammad , Al-Dwairi Radwan Moh'd
Published: November 2017

Despite the growing popularity of self-service business intelligence (SSBI) tools, empirical research that investigates their acceptance by business professionals is still scarce. This paper presents and tests an integrated model of the antecedents of users' acceptance of SSBI tools in business enterprises. The proposed model is developed based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and incorporating information and system quality from DeLone and McLean IS success model. It also includes an important factor from the business intelligence literature called analysis quality. To test the model, data were collected through a questionnaire survey from 331 business users working in a variety of industries in Jordan. Data were analysed using structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. The results demonstrated that the three quality factors– information quality, system quality and analysis quality – are key antecedents of perceived usefulness and ease of use, which in turn were found to be strong predictors of users' intention to use SSBI tools. The findings of this study provide several implications for research and practice, and thus should help in the design and deployment of more user-accepted SSBI tools.
The Development and Analysis of Environmentally Responsible Supply Chain Models
Authors: Bazan Ehab , Jaber Mohamad Y.
Published: November 2017

Inventory management and supply chain management are integral issues and prime areas of concern in production and operations management, and industrial engineering. There is a drive for businesses and organizations to be accountable for their environmental impacts. Guaranteeing environmentally conscious supply chain operations is strongly linked to an organization's sustainability and overall success. The responsible management of forward and return product flows in production and inventory environments is a rapidly increasing requirement. This can be attributed to economic, environmental and/ or regulatory motivations. Mathematical modeling of such systems assists decision-making processes and provided a better understanding of the behavior of such production and inventory environments.
How Do Pre-Alliance Motives and Strategies Affect Post-Alliance Performance in the Airline Industry?
Authors: Akamavi Raphaël K. , Xu Yue , Mitreva Hrisa
Published: November 2017

The global airline industry has currently experienced major changes toward cooperation, where competitive advantages can be built via alliance memberships. The pressure of forming an appropriate alliance strategy is increasing because the airline industry has currently experienced uppermost shifts: intensive rivalry, rapid growth of technological explosion, environmental and terrorist events, etc. Despite positive pre-alliance motivations as recognized in most cases, after certain alliances strategies are formed and implemented, the post-alliance performance is not always satisfactory. Thus, the question of: how do pre-alliance motives and strategies affect post-alliance performance in the airline industry seems under explored. This study therefore looks into the triple relationships among: motives, strategy and performance. This study employs a systematic literature review method for this research topic. The review explores the main factors consisting of each triple dimension and then the linkages between them. Subsequently, it identifies theoretical gaps which indicate areas of further investigations.
A Stakeholder Perspective of Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Authors: Aboelmaged Mohamed Gamal
Published: November 2017

Industrialization leaves no doubt that our planet is suffering from global warming, depletion of natural resources, pollution, waste, and other environmental concerns. Consequently, businesses, communities, and governments have been environmentally conscious and shown growing concern for sustainable development, particularly following the establishment of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). This chapter provides further insights into sustainability and supply chain research through adopting a stakeholder perspective to understand drivers and consequences of supply chain sustainability in the United Arab Emirates. The results indicate that pressures enforced by champions and customers are positively related to supply chain sustainability. However, the relationship between government pressures and supply chain sustainability is insignificant. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that the impact of supply chain sustainability on the organizational sustainable performance is significantly positive. Supply managers can learn from these results in developing sustainable initiatives earlier along their supply chain through selecting and evaluating suppliers based on sustainability-related standards. In addition, environmental collaboration with customers and suppliers based on knowledge sharing and application may identify and reduce the total environmental impact.
A Brief Overview of Software Process Models
Authors: Misra Sanjay , Omorodion Martha , Fernández-Sanz Luis , Pages Carmen
Published: November 2017

Software process development in software engineering does not seem to offer a solid view of what they have in reality. Although many models have already been developed, recommended, or even used in the industry, these proposals have still not been able to come to terms with what is available. This chapter evaluates the benefits and limitations of some of the software development models while offering a comparative analysis and data on their real usage. In particular, an attempt has been made to evaluate the problems and strengths of a good variety of software process models and methodologies. Some conclusions and lines of future research are presented.
Introduction to Network Security
Authors: Anchugam C. V. , Thangadurai K.
Published: November 2017

Writing a chapter on network security is something like writing a brief introduction to flying a commercial airliner. Dissimilar, data communications of the past, today's networks incorporate varied devices that handle the data because it passes from the sender to the receiver. The first question to address is what we mean “network security”. Network security consists of the provisions and policies adopted by a network administrator to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. A generic definition of security is “freedom from risk or danger and safety”. However it is not only human errors that can cause problem to network security, problems can also be caused by natural forces like fire breakouts, earthquakes, floods lightning etc. The ways network administrators think about securing networks has been changed by an increasingly dynamic and technically challenging risk environment. Security is an assessment of risk. Secure environments are designed and developed through an intentional effort.
The Role of Compliance and Conformance in Software Engineering
Authors: Delgado José C.
Published: November 2017

One of the most fundamental aspects of software engineering is the ability of software artifacts, namely programs, to interact and to produce applications that are more complex. This is known as interoperability, but, in most cases, it is dealt with at the syntactic level only. This chapter analyzes the interoperability problem from the point of view of abstract software artifacts and proposes a multidimensional framework that not only structures the description of these artifacts but also provides insight into the details of the interaction between them. The framework has four dimensions (lifecycle, concreteness level, concerns, and version). To support and characterize the interaction between artifacts, this chapter uses the concepts of compliance and conformance, which can establish partial interoperability between the artifacts. This reduces coupling while still allowing the required interoperability, which increases adaptability and changeability according to metrics that are proposed and contributes to a sustainable interoperability.
A Semantic-Enabled Framework for E-Government Systems Development
Authors: Fonou-Dombeu Jean Vincent , Huisman Magda
Published: November 2017

The ultimate goal of e-Governance is to reach the stage of seamless service delivery in one-stop e-Government. This raises the engineering issues of integration, reusability, maintenance, and interoperability of autonomous e-Government systems of government departments and agencies. Therefore, appropriate methodologies that consistently address the aforementioned engineering issues throughout clearly defined e-Government development phases are needed. This chapter provides the design and specification, of a framework that amalgamates features from maturity models, software engineering and Semantic Web domains for semantic-enabled development of e-Government systems. Firstly, the methods and techniques used for the planning, design, and implementation of e-Government systems worldwide are investigated; a critical analysis is carried out to identify their advantages and disadvantages, as well as their contribution towards addressing the aforementioned engineering issues. Secondly, the proposed framework is drawn and specified. Finally, support tools including a business process model, an alignment matrix of stages and phases of development, and a weighting matrix of the intensity of semantic activities at various phases of development is drawn and described.
A Proposed Pragmatic Software Development Process Model
Authors: Misra Sanjay , Omorodion M. , Mishra Amit , Fernandez Luis
Published: November 2017

The rapid growth in technology and the dynamism in our society today poses a lot of problems for Software Engineering practitioners. The result is a series of software development process methods that can be used to combat or meet up with the problems. What we can do is evolve, grow, and adapt to the changes that come along with development. This is the dynamism inherent in man—to adapt to change and improve ourselves and our existing systems—since the world is a far cry from what it was a few decades ago. On this basis lay the need to develop the model proposed in this chapter to meet the variations that exist as a result of technological development.
Quality-Driven Database System Development Within MDA Approach
Authors: Dubielewicz Iwona , Hnatkowska Bogumila , Huzar Zbigniew , Tuzinkiewicz Lech
Published: November 2017

The chapter presents an extended version of a quality-driven, MDA-based approach for database system development. The extension considers the relationship between successive models in the MDA approach. In particular, it gives rise to the introduction of domain ontology as a model preceding the CIM model as well as allows assessment of the extent to which the successive model is conformant with the preceding model. The chapter consists of four parts. The first part gives a short presentation of quality models and basic MDA concepts. The second one discusses the specific relationships between software development and quality assessment processes. The third part presents the Q-MDA framework and the proposal of a new quality characteristic (model conformance) with some measures for assessing the quality of a specific model in the context of other models. The last part contains an example of the framework application limited to the proposed quality model extension.
Attaining Semantic Enterprise Interoperability Through Ontology Architectural Patterns
Authors: Saripalle Rishi Kanth , Demurjian Steven A.
Published: November 2017

Enterprise Interoperability Science Base (EISB) represents the wide range of interoperability techniques that allow the creation of a new enterprise application by utilizing technologies with varied data formats and different paradigms. Even if one is able to bridge across these formats and paradigms to interoperate a new application, one crucial consideration is the semantic interoperability to insure that similar data is reconciled that might be stored differently from a semantic perspective. In support of this requirement, usage of ontologies is gaining increasing attention as they capture shareable domain knowledge semantics. The design and deployment of an ontology for any system is very specific, created in isolation to suit the specific needs with limited reuse in the same domain. The broad proliferation of ontologies for different systems, which, while similar in content, are often semantically different, can significantly inhibit the information exchange across enterprise systems. This situation is attributed, in part, to a lack of a software-engineering-based approach for ontologies; an ontology is often designed and built using domain data, while software design involves abstract modeling concepts that promote abstraction, reusability, interoperability, etc. The intent in this chapter is to define ontologies by leveraging software design pattern concepts to more effectively design ontologies. To support this, the chapter proposes Ontology Architectural Patterns (OAPs), which are higher-level abstract reusable templates with well-defined structures and semantics to conceptualize modular ontology models at the domain model level. OAP borrows from software design patterns inheriting their key characteristics for supporting enterprise semantic ontology interoperability.
Teaching Software Engineering Through a Collaborative Game
Authors: Monsalve Elizabeth Suescún , Pereira Allan Ximenes , Werneck Vera Maria B.
Published: November 2017

This chapter addresses the application of computer games and simulations in order to explore reality in many educational areas. The Games-Based Learning (GBL) can improve the teaching and learning experience by training future professionals in real life scenarios and activities that enable them to apply problem-solving strategies by putting into use the correct technique stemming from their own skills. For that reason, GBL has been used in software engineering teaching. At Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the authors have developed SimulES-W (Simulation in Software Engineering), a tool for teaching software engineering. SimulES-W is a collaborative software board game that simulates a software engineering process in which the player performs different roles such as software engineer, technical coordinator, project manager, and quality controller. The players can deal with budget, software engineer employment and dismissal, and construction of different software artifacts. The objective of this chapter is to describe the approach to teaching software engineering using SimulES-W and demonstrate how pedagogical methodology is applied in this teaching approach to improve software engineering education. The teaching experience and future improvements are also discussed.
A Semantic Approach for Multi-Agent System Design
Authors: Girardi Rosario , Leite Adriana
Published: November 2017

Automating software engineering tasks is crucial to achieve better productivity of software development and quality of software products. Knowledge engineering approaches this challenge by supporting the representation and reuse of knowledge of how and when to perform a development task. Therefore, knowledge tools for software engineering can turn more effective the software development process by automating and controlling consistency of modeling tasks and code generation. This chapter introduces the description of the domain and application design phases of MADAE-Pro, an ontology-driven process for agent-oriented development, along with how reuse is performed between these sub-processes. Two case studies have been conducted to evaluate MADAE-Pro from which some examples of the domain and application design phases have been extracted and presented in this chapter. The first case study assesses the Multi-Agent Domain Design sub-process of MADAE-Pro through the design of a multi-agent system family of recommender systems supporting alternative (collaborative, content-based, and hybrid) filtering techniques. The second one evaluates the Multi-Agent Application Design sub-process of MADAE-Pro through the design of InfoTrib, a Tax Law recommender system that provides recommendations based on new tax law information items using a content-based filtering technique.
Consistency Checking of Specification in UML
Authors: Sapna P. G. , Mohanty Hrushikesha , Balakrishnan Arunkumar
Published: November 2017

The increasing use of software is giving rise to the development of highly complex software systems. Further, software systems are required to be of high quality as a defect can have catastrophic effect on business as well as human life. Testing is defined as the process of executing a program with the intention of finding errors. Software testing is an expensive process of the software development life cycle consuming nearly 50% of development cost. Software testing aims not only to guarantee consistency in software specification but also to validate its implementation meeting user requirements. On the whole, it is observed that in general, errors in software systems set in at the early stages of the software development cycle (i.e. while gathering user requirements and deciding on specification of intended software). Even though formal specification in B and Z assures a provable system, its use has become less popular due to mathematical rigor. The Unified Modeling Language (UML), a semi-formal language with graphical notations consisting of various diagrams has caught software developers' imaginations and, it has become popular in industry. UML, with its several diagrams, helps to develop a model of intended software, and the model behaviour is simulated and tested to the satisfaction of both developer as well as users. As a UML model includes specifications of different aspects of a software system through several diagrams, it is essential to maintain consistency among diagrams so that quality of the model is maintained, and through inconsistency checking and removal, the model moves toward completeness. The works reported in literature on this topic are reviewed here.
Software Development Tools to Automate CAD/CAM Systems
Authors: Fountas N. A. , Krimpenis A. A. , Vaxevanidis N. M.
Published: November 2017

In today's modern manufacturing, software automation is crucial element for leveraging novel methodologies and integrate various engineering software environments such Computer aided design (CAD), Computer aided process planning (CAPP), or Computer aided manufacturing (CAM) with programming modules with a common and a comprehensive interface; thus creating solutions to cope with repetitive tasks or allow argument passing for data exchange. This chapter discusses several approaches concerning engineering software automation and customization by employing programming methods. The main focus is given to design, process planning and manufacturing since these phases are of paramount importance when it comes to product lifecycle management. For this reason, case studies concerning software automation and problem definition for the aforementioned platforms are presented mentioning the benefits of programming when guided by successful computational thinking and problem mapping.
Towards an Understanding of Collaborations in Agile Course Projects
Authors: Kamthan Pankaj
Published: November 2017

The agile methodologies are part of a shift from predictive to adaptive approach towards software development. This change has had a notable impact on Software Engineering Education (SEE). In this chapter, a glimpse into the state-of-the-art of incorporating agile methodologies in software engineering courses is presented. In doing so, the reasons for including a project component in software engineering courses, and for committing to agile methodologies in software engineering courses, are given. To lend an understanding to the notion of collaboration in agile methodologies, a conceptual model for collaboration is proposed and elaborated. The pivotal role of collaboration in agile course projects is emphasized. The use of certain means for facilitating collaboration, including the Social Web, is discussed.
Experiences in Software Engineering Education
Authors: Scott Ezequiel , Rodríguez Guillermo , Soria Álvaro , Campo Marcelo
Published: November 2017

Software Engineering courses aim to train students to succeed in meeting the challenges within competitive and ever-changing professional contexts. Thus, undergraduate courses require continual revision and updating so as to cater for the demands of the software industry and guarantee academic quality. In this context, Scrum results in both a suitable and a flexible framework to train students in the implementation of professional software engineering practices. However, current approaches fail to provide guidance and assistance in applying Scrum, or a platform to address limitations in time, scope, and facilities within university premises. In this chapter, the authors present a software engineering training model based on the integration of the Agile Coach role and a virtual-reality platform called Virtual Scrum. The findings highlight the benefits of integrating this innovative model in a capstone course. Not only does this approach strengthen the acquisition of current software engineering practices but also opens new possibilities in the design of training courses.
From Textual Analysis to Requirements Elicitation
Authors: Ndjodo Marcel Fouda , Ngah Virginie Blanche
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the teaching of Requirements Engineering (RE) through a segmented approach. The idea is to teach this field, step by step, beginning with the requirements elicitation phase, which is the main focus of the chapter. The recommended linguistics-based method advocates the training of students in textual analysis techniques in order to develop their metacognitive and interpersonal skills, specifically, abstraction and comprehension. These skills are key soft skills for the practice of requirements elicitation.
Agile Development Processes and Knowledge Documentation
Authors: Rubin Eran , Rubin Hillel
Published: November 2017

Agile processes emphasize operational system code rather than its documentation. Ironically, however, some traditional documentation artefacts come to support system-stakeholders interaction, which is another core aspect of agile development processes. In this chapter, the authors examine the relationship between system development and knowledge documentation. They develop an approach that enables incorporating domain documentation to agile development while keeping the processes adaptive. The authors also provide a system design that actively uses domain knowledge documentation.
Reverse Engineering of Object-Oriented Code
Authors: Favre Liliana , Martinez Liliana , Pereira Claudia
Published: November 2017

Software modernization is a new research area in the software industry that is intended to provide support for transforming an existing software system to a new one that satisfies new demands. Software modernization requires technical frameworks for information integration and tool interoperability that allow managing new platform technologies, design techniques, and processes. To meet these demands, Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) has emerged as the new OMG (Object Management Group) initiative for modernization. Reverse engineering techniques play a crucial role in system modernization. This chapter describes the state of the art in the model-driven modernization area, reverse engineering in particular. A framework to reverse engineering models from object-oriented code that distinguishes three different abstraction levels linked to models, metamodels, and formal specification is described. The chapter includes an analysis of technologies that support ADM standards and provides a summary of the principles that can be used to govern current modernization efforts.
An Empirical Study of the Effect of Design Patterns on Class Structural Quality
Authors: Yu Liguo , Ramaswamy Srini
Published: November 2017

Design patterns are standardized solutions to commonly encountered problems using the object-oriented programming paradigm. Applying design patterns can speed up software development processes through the reuse of tested, proven templates, or development paradigms. Accordingly, design patterns have been widely used in software industry to build modern software programs. However, as different design patterns are introduced to solve different design problems, they are not necessarily superior to alternative solutions, with respect to all aspects of software design. One major concern is that the inappropriate use of design patterns may unnecessarily increase program complexity, such as class structural quality. Theoretical analysis of the effect of design patterns on software complexity has been widely performed. However, little work is reported to empirically study how design patterns might affect class structural quality. This chapter studies six components from five open-source Java projects and empirically investigates if design patterns can affect class structural quality. The chapter finds that pattern-involved classes are more complex than pattern-free classes and recommends the cautious use of design patterns to avoid unnecessary increases in class complexity and decrease in class structural quality.
Modeling Trust Relationships for Developing Trustworthy Information Systems
Authors: Pavlidis Michalis , Islam Shareeful , Mouratidis Haralambos , Kearney Paul
Published: November 2017

Developing a trustworthy information system is a challenging task. The overall trustworthiness of an information system depends on trust relationships that are generally assumed without adequate justification. However, lack of appropriate analysis of such relationships and of appropriate justification of relevant trust assumptions might lead to systems that fail to fully achieve their functionalities. Existing literature does not provide adequate guidelines for a systematic process or an appropriate modeling language to support such trust-focused analysis. This paper fills this gap by introducing a process that allows developers to capture possible trust relationships and to reason about them. The process is supported by a modeling language based on a set of concepts relating to trust and control and a CASE tool. An illustrative example from the UK health care domain is used to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the approach.
The Influence of Personality Traits on Software Engineering and Its Applications
Authors: Casado-Rivas Adrián , Archidona Manuel Muñoz
Published: November 2017

In Software Engineering, personality traits have helped to better understand the human factor. In this chapter, the authors give an overview of important personality traits theories that have influenced Software Engineering and have been widely adopted. The theories considered are Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Big Five Personality Traits, and Belbin Roles. The influence of personality traits has provided remarkable benefits to Software Engineering, especially in the making of teams. For software project managers, it is useful to know what set of soft skills correlates to a specific team role so as to analyze how personality traits have contributed to high performance and cohesive software engineering teams. The study of software engineers' personality traits also helps to motivate team members. Creating teams that involve compatible individuals, each working on tasks that suit them, and having a motivated team improves team performance, productivity, and reduces project costs.
Project-Based Learning
Authors: Alves Luís M. , Ribeiro Pedro , Machado Ricardo J.
Published: November 2017

The lack of preparation of Software Engineering (SE) graduates for a professional career is a common complaint raised by industry practitioners. One approach to solving, or at least mitigating, this problem is the adoption of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) training methodology. Additionally, the involvement of students in real industrial projects, incorporated as a part of the formal curriculum, is a well-accepted means for preparing students for their professional careers. The authors involve students from BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees in Computing in developing a software project required by a real client. This chapter explains the educational approach to training students for industry by involving them with real clients within the development of software projects. The educational approach is mainly based on PBL principles. With the approach, the teaching staff is responsible for creating an environment that enhances communications, teamwork, management, and engineering skills in the students involved.
Critical Issues in Requirements Engineering Education
Authors: Memon Rafia Naz , Ahmad Rodina , Salim Siti Salwah
Published: November 2017

Requirements Engineering (RE) is the most crucial process within software development projects. In order to prepare skilled requirements engineers, Requirements Engineering Education (REE) needs to be provided to students at the university level before they become software engineers and part of the workforce. However, RE is considered the most difficult subject within the software engineering curriculum for students to learn and for lecturers to teach due to its uncertain nature. This chapter examines the current and potential areas for research within REE. It first presents the current status of REE provided in universities and the REE problems reported in the literature that lead us to the potential research problems in REE. The REE teaching approaches proposed by researchers are then elaborated. The proposed approaches are mapped back to address the REE problems. The chapter closes with recommended directions for future REE research.
Is Modeling a Treatment for the Weakness of Software Engineering?
Authors: Osis Janis , Asnina Erika
Published: November 2017

Experts' opinions exist that the way software is built is primitive. The role of modeling as a treatment for Software Engineering (SE) became more important after the appearance of Model-Driven Architecture (MDA). The main advantage of MDA is architectural separation of concerns that showed the necessity of modeling and opened the way for Software Development (SD) to become engineering. However, this principle does not demonstrate its whole potential power in practice, because of a lack of mathematical accuracy in the initial steps of SD. The question about the sufficiency of modeling in SD is still open. The authors believe that SD, in general, and modeling, in particular, based on mathematical formalism in all its stages together with the implemented principle of architectural separation of concerns can become an important part of SE in its real sense. They introduce such mathematical formalism by means of topological modeling of system functioning.
T-Way Testing Strategies
Authors: Zamli Kamal Z. , Alsewari AbdulRahman A. , Younis Mohammed I
Published: November 2017

In line with the advancement of hardware technology and increasing consumer demands for new functionalities and innovations, software applications grew tremendously in term of size over the last decade. This sudden increase in size has a profound impact as far as testing is concerned. Here, more and more unwanted interactions among software systems components, hardware, and operating system are to be expected, rendering increased possibility of faults. To address this issue, many useful interaction-based testing techniques (termed t-way strategies) have been developed in the literature. As an effort to promote awareness and encourage its usage, this chapter surveys the current state-of-the-art and reviews the state-of-practices in the field. In particular, unlike earlier work, this chapter also highlights the different possible adoptions of t-way strategies including uniform interaction, variable strength interaction, and input-output-based relation, that is, to help test engineers make informed decision on the actual use of t-way strategies.
Threat Analysis in Goal-Oriented Security Requirements Modelling
Authors: Meland Per Håkon , Paja Elda , Gjære Erlend Andreas , Paul Stéphane , Dalpiaz Fabiano , Giorgini Paolo
Published: November 2017

Goal and threat modelling are important activities of security requirements engineering: goals express why a system is needed, while threats motivate the need for security. Unfortunately, existing approaches mostly consider goals and threats separately, and thus neglect the mutual influence between them. In this paper, the authors address this deficiency by proposing an approach that extends goal modelling with threat modelling and analysis. The authors show that this effort is not trivial and a trade-off between visual expressiveness, usability and usefulness has to be considered. Specifically, the authors integrate threat modelling with the socio-technical security modelling language (STS-ml), introduce automated analysis techniques that propagate threats in the combined models, and present tool support that enables reuse of threats facilitated by a threat repository. The authors illustrate their approach on a case study from the Air Traffic Management (ATM) domain, from which they extract some practical challenges. The authors conclude that threats provide a useful foundation and justification for the security requirements that the authors derive from goal modelling, but this should not be considered as a replacement to risk assessment. The usage of goals and threats early in the development process allows raising awareness of high-level security issues that occur regardless of the chosen technology and organizational processes.
Technologies for Participatory Wellbeing
Authors: Barello Serena , Menichetti Julia , Graffigna Guendalina
Published: November 2017

The participatory health revolution is shaping consumers' health behaviors that are increasingly influence by people's desire to play an active role in promoting a positive life functioning. Technologies are addressing the emerging needs of the participatory health, as they favor a proactive users' attitude. This chapter describes the results of a software-assisted quali-quantitative study aimed at exploring the scientific debate about technological interventions for wellbeing in the era of participatory health. Based on the study's results, technologies for wellbeing in the participatory health era may be clustered depending on the “context of delivery,” on their degree of personalization,” and on their inner “conceptualization of positive interventions”. According to a consumer health engagement perspective, those technologies are not mutually exclusive but can coexist based on the specific wellness needs and health engagement expectations of their users.
Application of SMAC Technology
Authors: Venugopal Manu
Published: November 2017

The current digital age is primarily driven by four technology forces namely, Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud computing. These technologies continue to evolve and shape the digital world, giving people and businesses newer experiences and opportunities that they were not exposed to in the past. Digital technology has the potential to change the world significantly which in turn has a disruptive impact in the world of business. Hence, ‘digitizing' its business must be one of top priorities in the medium and long term of every business to ensure a successful future. This chapter begins with by defining each of the four technologies, its benefits and what it means to the key stakeholders in the healthcare business. It also covers many use cases of SMAC with a specific focus on clinical development and pharmacovigilance. The later part of the chapter lays the foundation for setting up a SMAC organization including key strategies, conceptual framework, technology and regulatory compliance considerations.
Managing Knowledge Towards Enabling Healthcare Service Delivery
Authors: Iyamu Tiko , Mkhomazi Sharol Sibongile
Published: November 2017

In every living being, health is essentially important, and as such, requires attention. Health related matters are at one point or the other embedded into humans' strategic, tactical and operational activities. However, due to human complexity, manifesting from factors such as food consumption and weather effect, healthcare services have increasingly become essential to individuals, groups and organisations in their daily life activities. As healthcare services increase in significance, the knowledge acquired and used in carrying out its services also becomes vital. The management of knowledge has increased in its relevance over the years. This could be attributed to the complexity in human activities. Thus, the management of knowledge has many challenges, which are never straight forward, and does not always produce positive result. Based on the challenges, it is critical to understand the enabling and constraint scenery of knowledge management. This article applied Structuration Theory to examine the different types of knowledge within the healthcare environment, using one of South African healthcare service providers as a case. This was done in order to gain better understanding on how certain knowledge are managed to give the result that they do. A better understanding of how knowledge is acquired and used within the healthcare environment would assist practitioners and managers, including Government and academic researchers in their roles and responsibilities.
Patient and Family Engagement in THE Conversation
Authors: Freytag Jennifer , Street Jr. Richard L.
Published: November 2017

This chapter uses a patient-centered communication framework to examine observational studies of patient and family engagement in communication about end-of-life care. It analyzes how the literature has connected communication with health outcomes in end-of-life care. Within this analysis, it brings together three main ideas. First, family plays an important and overlooked role in communication about end-of-life care. Second, the literature describes communication that serves multiple functions, and it describes the special challenges presented by end-of-life care communication. Finally, it links these communicative functions with health outcomes and outlines directions for future research.
Success Dimensions of ICTs in Healthcare
Authors: Kaur Pankaj Deep , Sharma Pallavi
Published: November 2017

During the last decades, the call for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in healthcare has been augmented to endow with healthcare services at a global scale and to trim down medical errors that cost human lives. Enriched with explosive computing and high communicating power, ICTs like Internet, mobile telephony, and other enabled gadgets plays a prominent role in our day-to-day activities. With the potential to provide access to service for patients in difficult-to reach areas and facilitating medical record keeping and information sharing are the main considerations of leveraging ICTs in realm of clinical care. The insurgence of these innovating technologies into healthcare sectors is not only blurring the boundaries for the emergence of other new technologies but also causing a paradigm shift in providing acute and preventative care in public health. The main goal of this chapter is to offer readers an insight into how the emergence of ICTs have transformed healthcare sector by delivering cost-efficient and quality of care to patients.
Evaluating User-Centered Design of E-Health for Older Adults
Authors: Mitzner Tracy L. , Dijkstra Katinka
Published: November 2017

Health care related technology, or E-health, has the potential to lessen the impact of the growing aging population on the health care system and support older adults' preference for aging in place. However, for technologies to be adopted by older users, research is needed to understand older adults' unique health care needs, their preferences for support, and their perceptions of technologies designed for health care. Specifically directed toward older users, this article highlights the need for user-centered design and the implications for technology acceptance, and describes studies that employed systematic subjective methods such as focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires to provide a rich, detailed depiction of older users' interactions with E-health. User-centered design evaluations involving older adults can help designers create products and services that are more likely to be adopted by older adult end users.
Emergency Department Logistic Optimization Using Design of Experiments
Authors: Vazquez-Ibarra Jose Antonio , Medina-Ramirez Rodolfo Rafael , Jimenez-Saucedo Irma
Published: November 2017

Public healthcare services face a growing demand and Emergency department is the main entrance to these services. Waiting times at Emergency departments are increasing at risky levels, causing that people die in wait rooms due to a lack of staff to serve timely every patient. Present chapter describes one research project conducted in a mexican public hospital which was in the process of adopting a triage systems in order to reach the goal of a maximum wait time in department. Design of experiments is the tool proposed to analyze waiting time factors and define the best levels to reduce the response variable value.
Leveraging Key Aspects of Collaborative Techniques to Assist Clinical Decisions
Authors: Moghimi Hoda , Schaffer Jonathan L. , Wickramasinghe Nilmini
Published: November 2017

Employing collaborative systems in healthcare contexts is an important approach towards designing and developing intelligent computer solutions. The objective of this study is to develop a real-time collaborative system using the Intelligent Risk Detection Model (IRD) to improve decision efficiency for the care of patients undergoing hip and knee arthroplasty (THA, TKA). Expected benefits include increasing awareness, supporting communication, improving decision making processes and also improving information sharing between surgeons, patients, families and consultants as key collaborative parties. The research question under investigation is: How can key information technologies be designed, developed and adopted to support clinical decision making in the context of THA and TKA? This research in progress has identified the value and benefit of developing a systematic and technology supported tool to facilitate the identification of various risks associated with THA and TKA.
Multi-Perspective Modeling of Healthcare Systems
Authors: Djitog Ignace , Aliyu Hamzat Olanrewaju , Traoré Mamadou Kaba
Published: November 2017

This paper presents a multi-perspective approach to Modeling and Simulation (M&S) of Healthcare Systems (HS) such that different perspectives are defined and integrated together. The interactions between the isolated perspectives are done through dynamic update of models output-to-parameter integration during concurrent simulations. Most often, simulation-based studies of HS in the literature focus on specific problem like allocation of resources, disease propagation, and population dynamics that are studied with constant parameters from their respective experimental frames throughout the simulation. The proposed idea provides a closer representation of the real situation and helps to capture the interactions between seemingly independent concerns - and the effects of such interactions - in simulation results. The article provides a DEVS (Discrete Event System Specification)-based formalization of the loose integration of the different perspectives, an Object-Oriented framework for its realization and a case study as illustration and proof of concept.
Mobile Phones and Expanding Human Capabilities in Plural Health Systems
Authors: Sam Steven
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores the integration of mobiles into the local health culture in Sierra Leone to advance healthcare delivery to marginalised communities. It draws on Amartya Sen's capability approach to conceptualise the mobile phone as a potential technology to expand healthcare capabilities in an environment of scarce healthcare resources. It builds on ethnographic data collected through mixed-methods from rural and urban communities to analyse the different actors, dynamics and practices of healthcare behaviours in a plural healthcare system. The analysis shows increasing trends towards mobile phone usage to ease healthcare communication and information poverty. Mobile phones enable marginalised publics to collapse distance and reduce time and health infrastructural constraints to seek healthcare within their abilities. It, however, concludes that to fully harness and maintain sustainable mobile phone-enabled healthcare in Sierra Leone requires the need for an appropriate institutional configuration to foster an integrated healthcare information system management and service delivery.
Intelligent Medication Adherence Monitoring System
Authors: Anastasiou Athanasios , Giokas Kostas , Koutsouri Georgia , Iliopoulou Dimitra
Published: November 2017

This chapter presents the architecture and implementation of an automatic medication dispenser specifically for users who take medications without close professional supervision. By relieving the users from the error-prone tasks of interpreting medication directions and administrating medications accordingly, the device can improve the required level in compliance and prevent serious medication errors. By taking advantage of the scheduling flexibility provided by medication directions, the device makes the user's medication schedule easy to adhere and tolerant to tardiness whenever possible. This work is done collaboratively by the medication scheduler and dispenser controller in an action-oriented manner. An advantage of the action-oriented interface between the components is extensibility, as new functions can be added and existing ones removed with little or no need to modify the dispenser control structure. This chapter first describes the action-oriented design, major components and hardware structures of the smart device. It then provides an overview of the heuristic algorithms used by the medication scheduler and their relative merits. The different available user options will be presented depicting the user-specific operating modes of the device/service. The scope of this chapter is to describe the development of a smart electronic drug dispenser unit for the pharmaceutical adherence of patients.