Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly
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Overcoming System Complexity using Models and Knowledge Structures. Editorial Introduction to Issue 36 of CSIMQ
Get PDFModels allow us to simplify reality and give advantages to both decomposition and abstraction. Models can have various forms from textual, tabular, mathematical, and graphical to a combination of these formats. Formal models can be processed, or even executed, by machines. An engineering model must satisfy such characteristics as abstraction, understandability, accuracy, predictiveness, and inexpensiveness. Models explicitly represent knowledge of the modeled domain in a form suitable for reasoning about them and learning. Knowledge may be descriptive, structural, procedural, meta-, or heuristic. Focus on one type of knowledge during the analysis may ignore the other one. Moreover, analysis and reasoning also rely on data representation forms which may lose accuracy due to simplification and different assumptions. Therefore, completeness, correctness, and adequacy of knowledge as well as particularities of the representing structure may affect the results of knowledge processing and decision making. Therefore, the capability of models (and other structures) to represent knowledge completely, adequately, and accurately is still a matter of various research activities. This issue of CSIMQ is devoted to this matter
Behavior-Centered Digital-Twin Design for Dynamic Cyber-Physical System Development
Get PDFDigital Twins are digital models of Cyber-Physical Systems to enable not only continuous monitoring but also active functional improvement of networked services, physical products, machines and devices. This capacity is of utmost importance when recognizing and exploring business opportunities in terms of organizational and technology innovations, as well as enriching the scope of system-relevant applications. Before being operated in their target ecosystems, such as smart cities, Cyber-Physical Systems can be validated and be run as Digital Twin through executable behavior models. The development of these models captures both, the horizontal, and the vertical integration of CPS components, thus allowing to consider specific system qualities, such as pollution effects of traffic. This article investigates methodological and technological aspects of developing and operating Digital Twins along system transformation processes. We consider integration depth and breadth, connectivity, organizational intelligence, validation, and implementation variability in the context of human-centered modeling and development. The approach enriches the understanding of digital twins towards digital representation of Cyber-Physical Systems allowing for dynamic allocation of physical and digital parts according to operational conditions. An exemplary case study in traffic management demonstrates the feasibility and practicability of the communication-centered approach
Data-Driven Healthcare: Critically Examining the Role of Self-care and Data-Driven Decision-Making in Diabetes Management
Get PDFThe use of digital technology for self-care, such as self-management of chronic diseases, has emerged through mobile applications and wearables, often designed, developed, and used in everyday life outside the healthcare context. The new self-care practices may be beneficial in many ways but can also potentially pose risks, and there is a corresponding need to understand underlying algorithms and biases that may affect users. In this article, we describe the design and development of a mobile app for food nutrition information as part of diabetes self-management and critically discuss its implications for patients and designers. In conclusion, this study highlights the need to carefully consider how self-management tools are designed, developed, and used for self-care. We propose co-design to approach data-driven healthcare in general and data-driven decision-making tools in particular. Our findings show that patients need to balance overreliance and mistrust in augmented data-driven decision-making, which calls for ethical considerations and a critical approach for all future designers
Enterprise Architecture Management Education in Academia: An International Comparative Analysis
Get PDFEnterprise architecture (EA), although matured in more than 30 years of ongoing research, receives more importance with the increasing dependency of business in IT and the growing complexity of IT systems. The integrated management of a companies’ goals, structures, and processes with respect to the business and IT elements, as well as the representation of impacts triggered by planned changes is educated in different ways at many universities all over the world. There are several techniques, methods, tools, and approaches to transfer the knowledge from the educators to the students, giving them the qualification to support their future employers in handling the EA challenges modern companies are facing. This work gives a detailed comparative analysis of more than twenty international educational offers regarding Enterprise Architecture Management, carves out the commonalities and finds two prototypical courses as a best-practice combining the strongest matches for Business Informatics and Computer Science studies alike
Selected Topics in Digital Business Systems Research: Editorial Introduction to Issue 30 of CSIMQ
Get PDFThe 30th issue of CSIMQ includes four articles that cover research problems in the field of digital business systems. Two of the selected articles are systematic literature reviews, while the other two provide methodological additions to the theory. Systematic literature reviews focus on conceptual modeling for the digital business ecosystems development life cycle and on deep learning methods for retail sales forecasting. The other two articles discuss the methodological and technological aspects of the developing digital models of cyber-physical systems and of the solving heat loss calculation problem
Handling Complexity in Modern Software Engineering: Editorial Introduction to Issue 32 of CSIMQ
Get PDFThe potential of the Internet and related digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cognition and artificial intelligence, data analytics, services computing, cloud computing, mobile systems, collaboration networks, and cyber-physical systems, are both strategic drivers and enablers of modern digital platforms with fast-evolving ecosystems of intelligent services for digital products. This issue of CSIMQ presents three recent articles on modern software engineering. First, we focus on continuous software development and place it in the context of software architectures and digital transformation. The first contribution is followed by the description of the basis of specific security requirements and adequate digital monitoring mechanisms. Finally, we present a practical example of the digital management of livestock farming
Modeling Digital Business Ecosystems: A Systematic Literature Review
Get PDFThe changing business landscapes urge organizations to collaborate and combine their expertise to stay competitive. Organizations establish partnerships and collaborate via the Internet, which often happens dynamically and at fast pace resulting in formation of Digital Business Ecosystems (DBEs). DBEs are complex and their management requires having explicit and up-to-date information about them. Modeling enables thorough visual analysis and facilitates the understanding and formation of DBEs. It also allows viewing DBEs through multiple perspectives, as well as exploring alternatives in the course of DBE formation or management. This systematic review aims to synthesize existing studies pertaining to Conceptual Modeling for analysis, design, and management of DBEs. A total of 94 studies were included in the review. The findings suggest that there is a scarcity of existing Conceptual Modeling methods and tools supporting DBEs. Additionally, the extensive emphasis on DBEs’ actors in modeling leads to an urgent need for the methods to be extended to support the establishment of holistic views for integrating multiple perspectives of DBEs. Future research should focus on these areas to facilitate the transformation of how organization’s collaborations are viewed – from a single-organization to a multitude of viewpoints on organizational networks of collaboration, coexistence, and competition. Such models also need to support the key features of DBEs, such as resilience and automation
When is a DAO Decentralized?
Get PDFWhile previously a nascent theoretical construct, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) have grown rapidly in recent years. DAOs typically emerge around the management of decentralized financial applications (DeFi) and thus benefit from the rapid growth of innovation in this sector. In response, global regulators increasingly voice the intent to regulate these activities. This may impose an excessive compliance burden on DAOs, unless they are deemed sufficiently decentralized to be regulated. Yet, decentralization is an abstract concept with scarce legal precedence. We investigate dimensions of decentralization through thematic analysis, combining extant literature with a series of expert interviews. We propose a definition of “sufficient decentralization” and present a general framework for the assessment of decentralization. We derive five dimensions for the assessment of decentralization in DAOs: Token-weighted voting, Infrastructure, Governance, Escalation and Reputation (TIGER). We present a discretionary sample application of the framework and five propositions on the future regulation and supervision of DAOs. We contribute new practical insights on the topic of compliance and decentralized organizations to the growing discourse on the application of blockchain technology in information systems (IS) and management disciplines
Decision Making Control Algorithm for Cogeneration Plants in Operating with the Heat Accumulator Deep Analysis Model
Get PDFAccurate production planning in both the short and long term is very important in cogeneration plants. Especially if the cogeneration unit operates under free electricity market conditions, which complicates the decision-making process as an additional planning condition with variable heat, fuel, and CO2 costs. On the other hand, when a cogeneration plant uses a heat accumulation system, it is impossible to make a production decision without using a computer system; the human factor in decision-making can lead to erroneous decisions without traceability. The role of modern computer systems is growing and greatly influences the optimal production planning process in cogeneration plants, regardless of the installed capacity and in the operation with heat accumulation. One of the problems solved by the research is the integration of real operating modes and conditions (applied thermal insulation solution) into the production decision algorithms. The developed methodology allows not only to plan the operating modes of the cogeneration plant, but also to evaluate the efficiency of the battery solution. This study shows the developed methodology for calculating heat loss for a heat accumulator depending on the operating mode and the need to introduce a correction coefficient. When determining the total influencing expenses of the cost model of the heat accumulator operation mode, their mutual influence is shown and integrated into the decision-making algorithm for the next day's free-market conditions. The aim of the algorithm is maximally increasing the total gross revenue threshold for the planning of cogeneration operations and to exclude operating modes that may cause losses
One Design Rule to Rule Them All: Towards a Universal Golden Rule for Designers of Human-Technology Interaction
Get PDFThis article aims at raising awareness and dialogue about ethical dimensions of human-technology design of socio-technical systems in general, the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) designer responsibility towards users, stakeholders and society in particular, as well as the raise of the dark side of design and the responses of the HCI community to it. This article identifies four dimensions in human-technology interaction design ethics and proposes a universal golden rule for human-technology interaction design. To sum up these different aspects of ethical design and the responsibilities of a designer, this position article concludes with a proposed universal golden rule for designing human-technology interactions: Design as easy to use, honest, sustainable, and safe human-technology interactions as you would want others to design for you