Pervasive Business Intelligence

In the last few years, a new generation of Business Intelligence (BI) tools called BI 2.0 has emerged to meet the new and ambitious requirements of business users. BI 2.0 not only introduces brand new topics, but in some cases it re-examines past challenges according to new perspectives depending on the market changes and needs. In this context, the term pervasive BI has gained increasing interest as an innovative and forward-looking perspective. This thesis investigates three different aspects of pervasive BI: personalization, timeliness, and integration. Personalization refers to the capacity of BI tools to customize the query result according to the user who takes advantage of it, facilitating the fruition of BI information by different type of users (e.g., front-line employees, suppliers, customers, or business partners). In this direction, the thesis proposes a model for On-Line Analytical Process (OLAP) query personalization to reduce the query result to the most relevant information for the specific user. Timeliness refers to the timely provision of business information for decision-making. In this direction, this thesis defines a new Data Warehuose (DW) methodology, Four-Wheel-Drive (4WD), that combines traditional development approaches with agile methods; the aim is to accelerate the project development and reduce the software costs, so as to decrease the number of DW project failures and favour the BI tool penetration even in small and medium companies. Integration refers to the ability of BI tools to allow users to access information anywhere it can be found, by using the device they prefer. To this end, this thesis proposes Business Intelligence Network (BIN), a peer-to-peer data warehousing architecture, where a user can formulate an OLAP query on its own system and retrieve relevant information from both its local system and the DWs of the net, preserving its autonomy and independency.

Distributed Smart City Services for Urban Ecosystems

A Smart City is a high-performance urban context, where citizens live independently and are more aware of the surrounding opportunities, thanks to forward-looking development of economy politics, governance, mobility and environment. ICT infrastructures play a key-role in this new research field being also a mean for society to allow new ideas to prosper and new, more efficient approaches to be developed. The aim of this work is to research and develop novel solutions, here called smart services, in order to solve several upcoming problems and known issues in urban areas and more in general in the modern society context. A specific focus is posed on smart governance and on privacy issues which have been arisen in the cellular age.

Online Distance Education: Towards a Research Agenda

Online Distance Education: Towards a Research Agenda offers a systematic overview of the major issues, trends, and areas of priority in online distance education research. In each chapter, an international expert or team of experts provides an overview of one timely issue in online distance education, summarizing major research on the topic, discussing theoretical insights that guide the research, posing questions and directions for future research, and discussing the implications for distance education practice as a whole. Intended as a primary reference and guide for distance educators, researchers, and policymakers, Online Distance Education addresses aspects of distance education practice that have often been marginalized, including issues of cost and economics, concerns surrounding social justice, cultural bias, the need for faculty professional development, and the management and growth of learner communities. At once soundly empirical and thoughtfully reflective, yet also forward-looking and open to new approaches to online and distance teaching, this text is a solid resource for researchers in a rapidly expanding discipline.

Enquiry into the Notion of Cultural Protectionism in the Media and its Dimensions in Cyberspace

Cultural protectionism has been an element of national and foreign policies, as an extension of state sovereignty expressed both in a defensive and offensive manner. While the generic protectionist formula in the sense of restraining trade between states through measures such as import tariffs or quotas and through privileging domestic production has somewhat disintegrated over time under the rationale for free trade and the strong practical evidence of its benefits, the particular case of cultural protectionism has persevered. As we reveal in this paper, however, it has been modified, or at least its rhetoric has changed. The enquiry into the notion of cultural protectionism or cultural diversity, as the current political jargon would have it, is but one of the paper’s objectives. Its second and certainly more ambitious goal is the search for the normative dimensions of cultural diversity policies in the global digital space, asking what adjustments are needed and how feasible the entire project of diversity regulation in this environment may be. Taking into account the specificities of cyberspace and in a forward-looking manner, we propose some adjustments to current media policy practices that could better serve the goal of a sustainably diverse cultural environment.

Cultural Protectionism 2.0 : Updating Cultural Policy Tools for the Digital Age

This chapter explores cultural protectionism 2.0, i.e. the normative dimensions of cultural diversity policies in the global digital space, asking what adjustments are needed and in fact, how feasible the entire project of diversity regulation in this environment may be. The complexities of the shift from offline to online and from analogue to digital, and the inherent policy challenges are illustrated with some (positive and negative) instances of existing media initiatives. Taking into account the specificities of cyberspace and in a forward-looking manner, the chapter suggests some adjustments to current media policy practices in order to better serve the goal of sustainably diverse cultural environment.

Trade Governance in the Digital Age (Preface)

The development of new digital technologies has resulted in significant transformations in daily life, from the arrival of online shopping to more fundamental changes in the ways we work and communicate. Many of these changes raise questions that transcend market access and liberalisation and demand cooperation and coherent regulatory design. International trade regulation has hitherto not reacted in a forward-looking manner to the digital revolution; particularly at the multilateral level, legal engineering has yielded few tangible results. This book examines whether WTO laws possess the necessary flexibility and resilience to accommodate the changes brought about by burgeoning digital trade. By revealing both the potential and the limitations of the WTO framework, it provides a broad picture of the interaction between digital technologies and trade regulation, links the often disconnected discourses of international trade law, intellectual property and cyberlaw, and explores discrete problems in different domains of global trade regulation.

Implementing the UNESCO Convention in EU's Internal Policies

This briefing note was prepared by invitation from the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education. It provides an analysis of how the existent EU internal policies reflect the spirit and the letter of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity. The note suggests further ideas on how the EU may calibrate current practices and explores in a forward-looking manner the possibilities for the Convention’s implementation in future internal policies, understood both as hard and soft EU legal instruments. Particular attention in this query is paid to digital media and their regulatory implications.

European Immigrant Integration after Multiculturalism

This paper takes the recent abdication of multiculturalism by the leaders of Europe’s most powerful nations (Germany, France, and Britain) as hub for a reflection on common themes in Europe’s crisis of multiculturalism. The most obvious common theme in this crisis is Islam and problems of Muslim integration. Accordingly, this paper addresses the role of religion and Islam in Europe’s multiculturalism crisis, and elaborates on the “muscular liberalism” or “civic integration” policies that have appeared in lieu of a discarded multiculturalism. In a final step, I tackle, in a forward-looking mode, some “critical issues” that will shape European immigrant integration after multiculturalism: the need to fight discrimination despite multiculturalism’s ebb, a greater concern for majority culture, the importance of robust debate and democracy as medium of integration, the often-neglected factor of immigrant selection, and a recognition that institutions matter more than policy in the process of integration.

Risk management at board level: a practical guide for board members

isk Management today has moved from being the topic of top level conferences and media discussions to being a permanent issue in the board and top management agenda. Several new directives and regulations in Switzerland, Germany and EU make it obligatory for the firms to have a risk management strategy and transparently disclose the risk management process to their stakeholders. Shareholders, insurance providers, banks, media, analysts, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders expect the board members to be pro-active in knowing the critical risks facing their organization and provide them with a reasonable assurance vis-à-vis the management of those risks. In this environment however, the lack of standards and training opportunities makes this task difficult for board members. This book with the help of real life examples, analysis of drivers, interpretation of the Swiss legal requirements, and information based on international benchmarks tries to reach out to the forward looking leaders of today's businesses. The authors have collectively brought their years of scientific and practical experience in risk management, Swiss law and board memberships together to provide the board members practical solutions in risk management. The desire is that this book will clear the fear regarding risk management from the minds of the company leadership and help them in making risk savvy decisions in quest to achieve their strategic objectives.

Inflation Targeting and Output Growth: Evidence from Aggregate European Data

This paper evaluates inflation targeting and assesses its merits by comparing alternative targets in a macroeconomic model. We use European aggregate data to evaluate the performance of alternative policy rules under alternative inflation targets in terms of output losses. We employ two major alternative policy rules, forward-looking and spontaneous adjustment, and three alternative inflation targets, zero percent, two percent, and four percent inflation rates. The simulation findings suggest that forward-looking rules contributed to macroeconomic stability and increase monetary policy credibility. The superiority of a positive inflation target, in terms of output losses, emerges for the aggregate data. The same methodology, when applied to individual countries, however, suggests that country-specific flexible inflation targeting can improve employment prospects in Europe.

Predicting the Fed

Predicting the federal funds rate and beating the federal funds futures market: mission impossible? Not so. We employ a Markov transition process and show that this model outperforms the federal funds futures market in predicting the target federal funds rate. Thus, by using purely historical data we are able to better explain future monetary policy than a forward looking measure like the federal funds futures rate. The fact that the federal funds futures market can be beaten by a statistical model, suggests that the federal funds futures market lacks eciency. The mar- ket allocates too much weight to current Federal Reserve communication and other real-time macro events, and allocates too little weight to past monetary policy behavior.

Is It Worthwhile for Indonesia to Rush into a Free Trade Deal with Japan?

This report represents a preliminary attempt to refine some basic ideas on the potential impact Indonesia might experience from a free trade arrangement with Japan, using a forward-looking, multi-regional, multi-sectoral applied general equilibrium model of global trade to capture growth effects through capital accumulation paying attention to the changes in the patterns of interregional capital flows that might happen even before the policy change occurs. The simulation results revealed that the welfare gains of rushing into trade liberalization with Japan are not so large. This makes out that taking time over negotiations might be the best choice for Indonesia if the government places priority on convincing the Indonesian people that a free trade deal with Japan will definitely bring positive effects, while proceeding rapidly might be the answer if the country is serious about recovering the welfare levels that might be lowered by free trade arrangements among Malaysia, the Philippines, and Japan.

Worldwide standardization activity for quantum key distribution

We discuss the on-going worldwide activity to develop forward looking standards for quantum key distribution (QKD) in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) QKD industry specification group (ISG). The long term goal is to develop a certification methodology that bridges the gap between theoretical proofs and practical implementations with imperfect devices. Current efforts are focused on the handling of side channels and characterization of the most relevant components.

Hybrid and Creative Taipei

This paper examines the hybrid condition of Taipei's built environment within its socio-cultural context and daily activity of the city. It also points out certain forward-looking policies adopted by the City Government that over the last decades gave way to interesting and radical ambiances within the city. To illustrate this fact three case studies are described from the point of view of a pedestrian and on the basis of a journey. By identifying the key qualities that define these new ambiances, some relevant conclusions for urban intervention based on the creation of significant urban ambiances are finally extracted.

Análise fenomenológica de fenómenos corporais anómalos na esquizofrenia

Trabalho Final do Curso de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 2014