Institutional Repository of Academic Research University of Macedonia
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Empirical Distribution of the U.S. Housing Market during the Great Recession: Nonlinear Scaling Behavior after a Major Crash
No full textThis study focuses on the real estate bubble burst in the US housing market during 2007–2008. We analyze the dynamics of the housing market crash and the after-crash sequence during the Great Recession. When a complex system deviates away from its typical path by the occurrence of an extreme event, its behavior is strongly characterized as nonstationary with higher volatility. With the utilization of a robust method, we present the characteristics of the aftershock period and provide useful information about the spatial distribution and the decay process of the aftershock sequence in terms of time. The returns of the housing price indices are well approximated by the empirics of a power law. Although we deal with low-frequency data, a time power-law relaxation pattern is identified. Our findings align with those in geophysics, indicating that the value of the relaxation parameter typically hovers around one and varies across different thresholds.17313013
Quantitative study of the causal relationships among the EFQM model 2020 criteria in the Greek public sector context
No full textThis study aims to apply the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model 2020 in the Greek Public Sector context and investigate the causal relationships between the model’s criteria. The research uses a structured questionnaire based on the self-assessment tool and the guidelines on the concept and structure of the EFQM Model 2020, translated from English into Greek using forward-backward translation. Two focus groups and a pilot study were conducted to ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Subsequently, a large-scale quantitative research was conducted using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the research hypotheses on a national sample of 177 managers from public administrative services. The study results indicate that the EFQM Model 2020 is indeed a reliable and valid framework for the study of the public sector and reveal significant relationships between the model’s criteria. The study is one of the first comprehensive investigations of the relationships between the EFQM Model 2020 criteria in Europe and, therefore, provides insights into the understanding of the model. As this research was geographically limited, the findings should be treated and generalised with caution, and further research should be conducted in different contexts.25473175
A Framework for Cognitive, Decentralized Container Orchestration
No full textThis perspective paper introduces a novel framework for container orchestration called CODECO. The CODECO orchestration framework relies on a data-network-computing approach to define the best infrastructure that can support the operation of next-generation Internet applications across a mobile, heterogeneous Edge-Cloud continuum. The selection of such an infrastructure is aligned with target performance profiles defined by the user, such as resilience or greenness. CODECO proposes to rely on decentralized Artificial Intelligence approaches to provide the most suitable infrastructure to an application deployment, considering infrastructural challenges, such as intermittent connectivity and node failure. This paper explains the current CODECO framework and gives insight into operational use-cases where CODECO is being deployed, as relevant examples of application for such a framework. Recent developments in the creation of the open-source CODECO framework are described and explained, allowing the use of the framework by the research community. The paper then provides a thorough analysis of CODECO's features in comparison with existing orchestration frameworks, explaining the benefits introduced with this dynamic orchestration approach.12799788000
Blockchain Technology Adoption for Disrupting FinTech Functionalities: A Systematic Literature Review for Corporate Management, Supply Chain, Banking Industry, and Stock Markets
No full textBlockchain technology (BCT) is regarded as one of the most important and disruptive technologies in Industry 4.0. However, no comprehensive study addresses the contributions of BCT adoption (BCA) on some special business functionalities projected as financial variables like BCA integrity, transparency, etc. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to close this theoretical gap and determine how BCA has contributed to the four business sectors that were selected since FinTech had the greatest potential in these domains. The PRISMA approach, a systematic literature review model, was used in this work to make sure that the greatest number of studies on the topic were accessed. The PRISMA model’s output helped identify relevant publications, and an analysis of these studies served as the foundation for this paper’s findings. The findings reveal that BCA for companies with a disrupting financial technology (FinTech) attitude can help in securing corporate transaction transparency; offer knowledge, same-data, and information sharing; enhance fidelity, integrity, and trust; improve organizational procedures; and prevent fraud with cyber-hacking protection and fraudulence suspension. Moreover, blockchain’s smart contract utilization feature offers ESG and sustainability functionality. This paper’s novelty is the projection to four business sectors of the three-layer research sequence: (i) financial variables operated as BCA functionalities, (ii) issues, risks, limitations, and opportunities associated with the financial variables, and (iii) implications, theoretical contributions, questions, potentiality, and outlook of BCA/FinTech issues. And the ability of managers or practitioners to reference this sequence and make decisions on BCA matters is considered a key contribution. The proposed methodology provides business practitioners with valuable insights to reevaluate their economic challenges and explore the potential of blockchain technology to address them. This study combined a systematic literature review (SLR) with qualitative analysis as part of a hybrid research approach. Quantitative analysis was carried out on all 835 selected papers in the first step, and qualitative analysis was carried out on the top-cited papers that were screened. The current work highlights the key challenges and opportunities in established blockchain implementations and discusses the outlook potentiality of blockchain technology adoption. This study will be useful to managers, practitioners, researchers, and scholars.4376280
The Impact of Foreign Partner’s Senior Management Prior Experience and Commitment on Trust and Knowledge Transfer in International Strategic Alliances
No full textThe positive effects of trust and knowledge transfer on the performance of International Strategic Alliances (ISAs) have been identified in the International Business (IB) literature. Based on elements from the Social Exchange Theory (SET) and the Resource Based View (RBV), this paper examines the impact of the foreign partner’s senior management a) prior experience in the establishment and management of ISAs, and b) commitment to the alliance on the level of trust the foreign partner has towards the local partner, and the subsequent effect of partner trust on the level of the foreign partner’s knowledge acquisition from its participation in the alliance. The research sample consists of 171 ISAs of Greek SMEs, formed and operating in the under-researched region of South East Europe. The empirical results are discussed in detail and managerial implications and issues for future research are presented as well. The findings of this study contribute to the relevant IB literature by verifying prior research findings regarding the role of specific antecedents of trust and its effect on international knowledge transfer and by investigating these impacts in the under-researched region of South East Europe since, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no similar research has been conducted before in this region.212486250
A Dilemma-Based Learning-to-Rank Approach for Generative Design in Urban Architectural Regeneration
No full textContinuous urbanization and climate change degrade urban living conditions. Nature-based solutions in architectural and urban design offer promising remedies but are often hindered by time, cost, and early design phase challenges. To address this, we present a Generative Design System framework utilizing AI-generated images and learning-to-rank algorithms. This system generates numerous image solutions to inspire architects and urban planners, significantly accelerating early design stages. To manage the overwhelming volume of images, we introduce a dilemma-based learning approach that employs learning-to-rank and smart bubble sorting algorithms to prioritize images based on user preference. A case study demonstrates the framework’s potential, providing valuable insights into its application, benefits, and limitations in urban design.171253
Not yet another BPM lifecycle: A synthesis of existing approaches using BPMN
No full textContext: Business Process Management (BPM) is considered an important management approach that encompasses a set of methods for managing the business processes of an organization. To maximize the benefits of BPM, scholars have conceptualized its steps in schematic diagrams with interrelated phases called BPM lifecycles. As this approach has been established, the phenomenon of perpetual proposition of BPM lifecycles has been observed in relevant literature. This practice obscures what should be relatively straightforward: a consensus among researchers and practitioners regarding the steps that a business process should flow through during its lifecycle. Objective: The aim of this work is to investigate the existing BPM lifecycle models proposed in literature, identify convergences and variations in these models, analyze their core components and locate common patterns that will enable the synthesis of a BPM lifecycle that is conceptualized with Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), the community de-facto business process modeling notation. Method: To formalize the research problem and develop the design of a solution, the Design Science Research Process (DSRP) model was adopted. To investigate the perpetual proposition of BPM lifecycles in literature, the authors conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). On whether recurring patterns can emerge from the BPM lifecycles, a normalization process was introduced to homogenize the data and four metrics were used to evaluate the results. The emerging patterns were assembled into a graph that formed the basis for proposing a synthetic BPM lifecycle. Results: The outcome of the paper is three-fold: First, the identification of four major inefficiencies of existing BPM lifecycles, namely varying granularity, inconsistent nomenclature, subjective polysemy, and lack of formal conceptualization approaches. Also, a standardized definition of the inclusive steps that exist in the lifecycles by clustering the existing ones in a conceptually systematic manner. Finally, a synthetic BPM lifecycle is conceptualized that systematizes the existing concepts and their interrelations based on a formalized BPMN model in two levels of granularity: a basic version that illustrates the functional and control-flow aspects of the BPM lifecycle and an enhanced version incorporating additionally the resource and data perspectives. Conclusion: This paper proposes a BPMN-based conceptualization of the BPM lifecycle that can facilitate the management of business processes by providing enhanced clarity, improved resource management, and predefined error handling in a BPM initiative. By systematizing the control-flow, data, and resource perspective of the BPM lifecycle, stakeholders can gain a clear understanding of the sequence of steps, the interrelated data flows, and the distribution of work.17110747
SDK4ED: a platform for building energy efficient, dependable, and maintainable embedded software
No full textDeveloping embedded software applications is a challenging task, chiefly due to the limitations that are imposed by the hardware devices or platforms on which they operate, as well as due to the heterogeneous non-functional requirements that they need to exhibit. Modern embedded systems need to be energy efficient and dependable, whereas their maintenance costs should be minimized, in order to ensure the success and longevity of their application. Being able to build embedded software that satisfies the imposed hardware limitations, while maintaining high quality with respect to critical non-functional requirements is a difficult task that requires proper assistance. To this end, in the present paper, we present the SDK4ED Platform, which facilitates the development of embedded software that exhibits high quality with respect to important quality attributes, with a main focus on energy consumption, dependability, and maintainability. This is achieved through the provision of state-of-the-art and novel quality attribute-specific monitoring and optimization mechanisms, as well as through a novel fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making mechanism for facilitating the selection of code refactorings, which is based on trade-off analysis among the three main attributes of choice. Novel forecasting techniques are also proposed to further support decision making during the development of embedded software. The usefulness, practicality, and industrial relevance of the SDK4ED platform were evaluated in a real-world setting, through three use cases on actual commercial embedded software applications stemming from the airborne, automotive, and healthcare domains, as well as through an industrial study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first quality analysis platform that focuses on multiple quality criteria, which also takes into account their trade-offs to facilitate code refactoring selection.3125
Eclipse Open SmartCLIDE: An end-to-end framework for facilitating service reuse in cloud development
No full textService-Oriented Architectures (SOA) have become a standard for developing software applications, including but not limited to cloud-based ones and enterprise systems. When using SOA, software engineers organize the desired functionality into self-contained and independent services that are invoked through end-points (with API calls). The use of this emerging technology has changed drastically the way that software reuse is performed, in the sense that a “service” is a “code chunk” that is reusable (preferably in a black-box manner), but in many (especially “in-house”) cases, white-box reuse is also meaningful. To confront the reuse challenges opened-up by the rise of SOA, in the SmartCLIDE project1 we have developed a framework (a methodology and a platform) to aid software engineers in systematic and more efficient (in terms of time, quality, defects, and process) reuse of services, when developing SOA-based cloud applications. In this work, we: (a) present the SmartCLIDE methodology and the Eclipse Open SmartCLIDE platform; and (b) evaluate the usefulness of the framework, in terms of relevance, usability, and obtained benefits. The results of the study have confirmed the relevance and rigor of the framework, unveiled some limitations, and pointed to interesting future work directions, but also provided some actionable implications for researchers and practitioners.20711187
Promoting BMI through organizational culture: the mediating role of strategic flexibility
No full textPurpose: The main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of organizational culture in creating a supportive environment for business model innovation (BMI) by focusing on the mediating role of strategic flexibility and the moderating effect of technological capability. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this objective an empirical survey was conducted among 379 participant firms in Greece. CFA and finally hierarchical regression analysis were performed to validate the data and examine the hypothesized relationships. Findings: The results show that strategic flexibility mediates the relationship between organizational culture and BMI. The effect of organizational culture on strategic flexibility is stronger for firms with increased technological capability. Research limitations/implications: Data were collected at only one point in time from one country, Greece. This might pose limitations on the generalizability of our results. Furthermore, we did not explore many internal or external mediating or moderating factors in the relationship between organizational culture and BMI. Practical implications: Managers should consider incorporating a suitable organizational culture into their strategies to enable them improve their strategic flexibility, which further promotes BMI. Originality/value: The current state of knowledge of both theory and practice for critical organizational factors such as organizational culture, strategic flexibility, BMI and technological capability will be extended.17463465