This work has investigated the possibility of classifying Java source code into cases for a case-based reasoning system. A Case-Based Reasoning system is a problem solving method in Artificial Intelligence that uses knowledge of previously solved problems to solve new problems. A case in case-based reasoning consists of two parts: the problem part and solution part. The problem part describes a problem that needs to be solved and the solution part describes how this problem was solved. In this work, the problem is described as a Java source file using words that describes the content in the source file and the solution is a classification of the source file along with the source code. To classify Java source code, a classification system was developed. It consists of four analyzers: type filter, documentation analyzer, syntactic analyzer and semantic analyzer. The type filter determines if a Java source file contains a class or interface. The documentation analyzer determines the level of documentation in asource file to see the usefulness of a file. The syntactic analyzer extracts statistics from the source code to be used for similarity, and the semantic analyzer extracts semantics from the source code. The finished classification system is formed as a kd-tree, where the leaf nodes contains the classified source files i.e. the cases. Furthermore, a vocabulary was developed to contain the domain knowledge about the Java language. The resulting kd-tree was found to be imbalanced when tested, as the majority of source files analyzed were placed inthe left-most leaf nodes. The conclusion from this was that using documentation as a part of the classification made the tree imbalanced and thus another way has to be found. This is due to the fact that source code is not documented to such an extent that it would be useful for this purpose.

What are the representational differences between situations that do and do not map well onto previous experiences? This research offers some answers to this question by having participants compare two narratives that were either reality or fantasy-based. Fantasy-based narratives, with their deviations from reality, were considered similar to situations that do not map well onto previous experience. The concept of systematicity, where high-order relations constrain low-order relations was used to describe such situations (Bowdle & Gentner, 1997). Compared to a reality-based narrative, extra processing is required to maintain a systematic representation of a fantasy-based narrative. One can reduce the amount of processing needed by grounding that fantasy-based narrative in a reality-based or another fantasy-based narrative. Comparative judgments were used to measure processing differences. In three studies, participants read two narratives and then performed a series of comparative judgments derived from retrospective duration judgment (Block, 1992), event-structure perception (Zacks & Tversky, 2001), and structure-mapping theory (Gentner, 1983) research. For example, one of the comparative judgments adopted from structure-mapping theory was the rating of directional similarity, or the similarity rating of the second-read narrative relative to the first-read narrative. Directional similarity was proposed to increase as the amount of processing associated with maintaining a systematic representation of the first and second-read narrative decreased. For Studies 1A-E, the directional similarity was higher for the RealityFirst condition (reality read first) than the FantasyFirst condition (fantasy read first). These results are interpreted as indicated that the increase in directional similarity for the RealityFirst conditions was due to structure lending from the first-read reality-based narrative and that the decrease in directional similarity for the FantasyFirst conditions was due to representational disruption from the first-read fantasy-based narrative. Results also indicated that comparing two reality-based narratives (Studies 2A-B) was similar to comparing two fantasy-based narratives (Studies 3A-B) for the directional similarity and directional duration judgments, but differed for the listing of commonalities and differences and the segmentation of the narrative event structure. According to the systematicity principle (Gentner, 1989), people prefer mappings between two representations that form coherent and highly interconnected structures. The results from Studies 1A-E demonstrate a clear directional preference for the RealityFirst conditions. The results, therefore, indicate that it was more difficult to utilize the inherent structure of the narratives for the FantasyFirst conditions then the RealityFirst conditions. Comparing the results across the final set of studies, the increase in segmentation and increase in word count for the commonalities and differences were clear indications that participants still had difficulties in utilizing the structure of the narratives when both narratives being compared were fantasy-based (Studies 3A-B). In operationalizing systematicity with fantasy and reality-based narratives, I have been able to extend our understanding of how structure-lending can occur between these two narrative types. The results, therefore, extend our understanding of the structural alignment approach to narrative comparisons. But, since this research also involves the theoretical integration of the structure alignment approach (directional similarity and listing of commonalities and differences) with theories of time estimation (directional duration), event structure representation (segmentation), the basic findings herein should be applicable to comparisons ranging from auditory narrative structures to simple lexical units (e.g., unicorns vs. horses) to visual depicted objects (e.g., aliens vs. humans), even if the current set of studies described in this article involved only the comparison of written narrative structure. / text

Κατά την αναζήτηση στον Παγκόσμιο Ιστό, είναι πιθανό να επιστρέφονται πολλά αποτελέσματα για ερωτήματα που είναι ασαφή και αμφιλεγόμενα. Τα snippets που εξάγονται από τις σελίδες που ανακτήθηκαν, είναι ένας δείκτης της χρησιμότητας της σελίδας ως προς την θεματική πρόθεση του ερωτήματος και μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν για να εστιάσουμε στο αντικείμενο της αναζήτησης. Στην παρούσα εργασία προτείνουμε μια καινοτόμο μέθοδο αυτόματης εξαγωγής snippets ιστοσελίδων που είναι πολύ σχετικά με την πρόθεση του ερωτήματος αλλά και αντιπροσωπευτικά του συνολικού περιεχομένου των σελίδων. Θα δείξουμε ότι η χρήση σημασιολογίας ως βάση της θεματικά προσανατολισμένης ανάκτησης πληροφορίας μας βοηθάει να προτείνουμε στον χρήστη snippets υψηλής ποιότητας. Τα snippets που παράγονται με την μέθοδο που προτείνουμε είναι σημαντικά καλύτερα όσον αφορά την απόδοση της ανάκτησης σε σχέση με αυτά που προκύπτουν από στατιστική επεξεργασία της σελίδας. Επιπλέον, μπορούμε να χρησιμοποιήσουμε τη σημασιολογική εξαγωγή snippets για να αυξήσουμε την απόδοση των παραδοσιακών αλγορίθμων, οι οποίοι βασίζονται στην επικάλυψη λέξεων ή σε στατιστικά βάρη, αφού αυτοί συνήθως παράγουν διαφορετικά αποτελέσματα. Η επιλογή από την πλευρά του χρήστη των πιο σχετικών με το ερώτημά του snippets, μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί στο να βελτιώσουμε τα επιστρεφόμενα αποτελέσματα και να προωθήσουμε τις πιο χρήσιμες προς αυτόν σελίδες. / When searching the web, it is often possible that there are too many results available for ambiguous queries. Text snippets, extracted from the retrieved pages, are an indicator of the pages’ usefulness to the query intention and can be used to focus the scope of search results. In this paper, we propose a novel method for automatically extracting web page snippets that are highly relevant to the query intention and expressive of the pages’ entire content. We show that the usage of semantics, as a basis for focused retrieval, produces high quality text snippet suggestions. The snippets delivered by our method are significantly better in terms of retrieval performance compared to those derived using the pages’ statistical content. Furthermore, our study suggests that semantically-driven snippet generation can also be used to augment traditional passage retrieval algorithms based on word overlap or statistical weights, since they typically differ in coverage and produce different results. User clicks on the query relevant snippets can be used to refine the query results and promote the most comprehensive among the relevant documents.

Στον ελληνικό χώρο, για έναν μεγάλο αριθμό λεκανών δεν υπάρχουν διαθέσιμες μετρήσεις απορροής, γεγονός που καθιστά δύσκολη την υδρολογική τους προσομοίωση για τον προσδιορισμό των συνιστωσών του υδρολογικού ισοζυγίου. Μια τέτοια περίπτωση αποτελούν οι λεκάνες απορροής των ποταμών του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου. Στους ποταμούς αυτούς κατασκευάζεται ένα σύστημα έργων που αποτελείται από ένα φράγμα εκτροπής στη θέση Βαλμαδούρα στον ποταμό Πείρο, έναν ταμιευτήρα στη θέση Αστέρι στον Παραπείρο και έναν συνδετικό αγωγό. Στόχος της κατασκευής των έργων αυτών αποτελεί η κάλυψη των υδρευτικών αναγκών της πόλης των Πατρών, της Βιομηχανικής Περιοχής και των κοινοτήτων της Β.Δ. Αχαϊας. Στη μελέτη των έργων αυτών (Υ.ΠΕ.ΧΩ.Δ.Ε., 1997) ο υπολογισμός του υδρολογικού ισοζυγίου στις λεκάνες που αντιστοιχούν στις θέσεις των έργων βασίστηκε σε απλοποιητικές παραδοχές. Συγκεκριμένα θεωρήθηκε ότι το νερό αποθηκεύεται μόνο στην εδαφική ζώνη και δεν γίνεται διάκριση ανάμεσα σε επιφανειακή και υπόγεια απορροή. Στην παρούσα εργασία για τον ακριβή και αναλυτικό προσδιορισμό των συνιστωσών του υδρολογικού ισοζυγίου χρησιμοποιήθηκε το υδρολογικό μοντέλο βροχής–απορροής ENNS (Nachtnebel, 1993), η χρήση του οποίου απαιτεί την εύρεση τιμών των παραμέτρων που υπεισέρχονται στις εξισώσεις των διαδικασιών που περιγράφουν το μοντέλο. Λόγω ελλείψεως μετρήσεων απορροής για τις λεκάνες του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου, για την εύρεση των τιμών των παραμέτρων του μοντέλου εφαρμόστηκε μια μεθοδολογία διερεύνησης της υδρολογικής ομοιότητας των δύο λεκανών με άλλες λεκάνες, για τις οποίες υπάρχουν διαθέσιμες μετρήσεις απορροής. Πιο συγκεκριμένα χρησιμοποιήθηκαν οι λεκάνες απορροής του Γλαύκου στον Νομό Αχαϊας, του Αχελώου που αντιστοιχεί στην θέση του φράγματος της Μεσοχώρας, του ποταμού Ερύμανθου, παραποτάμου του Αλφειού και του ποταμού Myakka στην Florida των Η.Π.Α.. Η διαδικασία που ακολουθήθηκε είναι η εξής: Αρχικά πραγματοποιείται η ρύθμιση του μοντέλου για τις τέσσερις λεκάνες για τις οποίες υπάρχουν μετρήσεις απορροής με στόχο (α) να βρεθούν οι τιμές των παραμέτρων που επηρεάζουν το αποτέλεσμα της προσομοίωσης και (β) να διαπιστωθεί το εύρος διακύμανσης των τιμών αυτών των παραμέτρων. Λόγω του σημαντικού εύρους διακύμανσης αυτών των παραμέτρων, πραγματοποιείται η κατάταξη των λεκανών του Πείρου, του Παραπείρου και των τεσσάρων λεκανών, για τις οποίες υπάρχουν διαθέσιμες μετρήσεις απορροής, σύμφωνα με κάποιους φυσιογραφικούς και κλιματικούς παράγοντες που επιλέχθησαν, ως προς την αναμενόμενη επιφανειακή απορροή. Στη συνέχεια, για τις λεκάνες για τις οποίες υπάρχουν διαθέσιμες μετρήσεις απορροής γίνεται έλεγχος εάν οι τιμές των παραμέτρων του μοντέλου είναι συμβατές με την κατάταξη των λεκανών σύμφωνα με τους φυσιογραφικούς και κλιματικούς παράγοντες. Επειδή προκύπτει ότι αυτό δεν συμβαίνει, πραγματοποιείται επαναρρύθμιση του μοντέλου αναζητώντας συνδυασμούς παραμέτρων, οι οποίοι να επαληθεύουν την κατάταξη των λεκανών. Τέλος με βάση τα αποτελέσματα της διερεύνησης της υδρολογικής ομοιότητας των λεκανών επιλέγονται οι τιμές των παραμέτρων του μοντέλου για την υδρολογική προσομοίωση των λεκανών του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου. Τα αποτελέσματα που προέκυψαν από την υδρολογική προσομοίωση του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου με την χρήση του μοντέλου συγκρίθηκαν με τα αποτελέσματα της μελέτης του Υ.ΠΕ.ΧΩ.Δ.Ε. (Μάρτιος 1997). Τα συμπεράσματα που προκύπτουν από την παρούσα εργασία είναι τα εξής: (α) Από την διερεύνηση της υδρολογικής ομοιότητας των λεκανών του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου με τις λεκάνες του Γλαύκου, του Ερύμανθου, της Μεσοχώρας και του ποταμού Myakka, Η.Π.Α. διαπιστώθηκε ότι η επαναρρύθμιση του μοντέλου που πραγματοποιήθηκε για τις τέσσερις λεκάνες, για τις οποίες υπαρχουν μετρήσεις απορροής, οδήγησε σε βελτίωση των αποτελεσμάτων της ρύθμισης (μείωση των αποκλίσεων της μετρημένης και προσομοιωμένης απορροής). Επίσης, επειδή ο λόγος της επιφανειακής απορροής προς την βροχή για τις τέσσερις λεκάνες επαληθεύει την κατάταξη σύμφωνα με τους φυσιογραφικούς και κλιματικούς παράγοντες, προκύπτει ότι η διαδικασία που ακολουθήθηκε αποτελεί μια δυνατότητα αντιστοίχισης των παραμέτρων του μοντέλου σε κριτήρια που προκύπτουν από αυτούς τους παράγοντες. (β) Από την σύγκριση των αποτελεσμάτων της μελέτης του Υ.ΠΕ.ΧΩ.Δ.Ε. με τα αποτελέσματα του μοντέλου αποδεικνύεται ότι το μοντέλο δίνει πιο ρεαλιστικές τιμές για τις συνιστώσες του υδρολογικού ισοζυγίου των λεκανών του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου από την μελέτη. Οι λόγοι είναι ότι (α) σύμφωνα με την κατάταξη των λεκανών βάσει των φυσιογραφικών και κλιματικών παραγόντων οι λεκάνες του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου παρουσιάζουν υδρολογική ομοιότητα με την λεκάνη του Γλαύκου, για την οποία το μοντέλο δίνει μια ρεαλιστική προσέγγιση της συνολικής απορροής (άμεσης και βασικής) και (β) η βασική απορροή που υπολογίστηκε με το μοντέλο παρουσιάζει πολύ μικρότερη μεταβλητότητα στον χρόνο έναντι της άμεσης απορροής λόγω της αποθηκευτικής ικανότητας του εδάφους. (γ) Από τα αποτελέσματα της υδρολογικής προσομοίωσης των λεκανών του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου με την χρήση του μοντέλου προκύπτει ότι τα ποσοστά της άμεσης απορροής προς την βροχόπτωση των λεκανών του Πείρου και του Παραπείρου σύμφωνα με το μοντέλο δεν ήταν τα αναμενόμενα, παρόλο που τα αποτελέσματα του μοντέλου κρίθηκαν ικανοποιητικά. Οι πιθανοί λόγοι είναι κάποια μειονεκτήματα που παρουσιάζει η μεθοδολογία διερεύνησης της υδρολογικής ομοιότητας των λεκανών και τα οποία κρίνεται ότι εάν ληφθούν υπόψη μπορούν να οδηγήσουν σε βελτίωση της μεθόδου. / In Greece, there is a significant number of ungauged basins, for which the hydrologic simulation is not possible and as a result calculating the components of the water balance is infeasible. The basins of the rivers Peiros and Parapeiros were selected as a case-study. These rivers are involved in a current project; the construction of a diversion dam in the position Valmadoura of Peiros River, a reservoir in the position Asteri of Parapeiros River and a conjection pipe. The aim of this project is to support the water supply of the city of Patras, the Industrial Region and the communities of the North-west Achaias. The study of this project conducted by the Hellenic Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works in 1997 deals with the calculation of the water balance in these basins, based on simplified principles, assuming that the water is stored in the soil layer and there is no separation of the total runoff in surface flow and base flow. In the present study, the use of the rainfall-runoff model ENNS (Nachtnebel, 1993) allowed the exact and analytical quantification of the water balance. The use of this model requires the estimation of a number of parameters involved in the governing equations of the model. The lack of runoff measurements in Peiros and Parapeiros basins preclude the determination of the required parameters. A study of the hydrologic similarity of these two basins with a number of gauged basins gave solution to the problem. The chosen basins are: (a) Glaukos River basin in the prefecture of Achaias, (b) Mesoxora basin, a sub-basin of Acheloos River, (c) Erymanthos basin, a sub-basin of Alfeios River and (d) Myakka River basin, Florida of U.S.A. The procedure adopted is divided in the following steps: Firstly, the model ENNS was established for the basins mentioned previously in order to determine (a) the value of the parameters affecting the simulation result and (b) the range of their values. The significant variation led to the classification of the six basins, according to physiographic and climatic characteristics. The criterion used in the classification is the expected surface runoff to the amount of rainfall. Secondly, a compatibility check between the values of the parameters of the model and the basins classification was performed. The unsatisfying result compelled the reestablishement of the model for the four gauged basins with an aim to obtain the appropriate parameters in accordance with the basins classification. Finally, the values of the ENNS parameters, regarding Peiros and Parapeiros basins, were derived from the study of the hydrologic similarity of the basins. The results of the hydrologic simulation of Peiros and Parapeiros were compared to the results of the study conducted by the Hellenic Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works in 1997. The conclusions of the present study are: (a)The setup of the ENNS model taking into account the hydrologic similarity study of the six basins improved the results of the model (decrease of the deviations between the measured and simulated discharge values). Moreover the ratio of the surface runoff to the rainfall for the four gauged basins verifies the basins classification. Hence, a satisfying degree of correlation between the model parameters and the physiographic and climatic basin characteristics, is obtained. (b)Comparing the obtained results to those of the Hellenic Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works study in 1997, the present model gives a more realistic view of the water balance. The reasons are: (a) according to the basins classification, Peiros and Parapeiros basins are similar to Glaukos basin, for which the model gives a realistic approach of the total runoff (surface and base flow) and (b) the base flow calculated by the model shows a smaller variability, contrary to the surface flow due to the storage capacity of the soil. (c)The results of the hydrologic simulation of Peiros and Parapeiros basins showed that the percentage of the surface runoff to the amount of rainfall for the two basins is not compatible to the classification (smaller than 36.5% of Glaukos basin). However, the results of the model are satisfactory (accordance of the annual simulated values of actual evapotranspiration to the values calculated using the Turc method). The possible reasons are some disadvantages in the basins hydrologic similarity study that must be taken into consideration in order to improve the method.

Acquisitions represent a common modus operandi of firm growth. Notwithstanding their lasting popularity, the majority of deals are reported to be unsuccessful. Given their prevalence and practical relevance, acquisitions have attracted scholarly interest from diverse academic disciplines and traditions. Despite the extensive volume of the acquisition literature, some intriguing questions remain unanswered and some essential assumptions remain untested. This dissertation seeks to explore several of these unanswered questions: What determines “us versus them” type of thinking in acquisitions? What influences social preferences, willingness to learn and the type and degree of trust in acquisitions? What roles do culture, organizational identity and status play in this regard? Shall we expect differences to be problematic all the time? Could it be the case that cultural differences sometimes lead to positive perceptions and reactions among individuals involved in acquisitions?  Motivated by these questions and many others, this dissertation primarily looks at the human side of acquisitions, and, in so doing, it problematizes the sociocultural dynamics during the initial phases of the post-acquisition process. Building on theories of social-psychology and utilizing experimental designs, the dissertation consists of three theoretical and three empirical papers, which address the aforementioned questions. The theoretical arguments and the empirical findings reported in this dissertation suggest that status differences between acquiring and acquired firms have discernable effects on key sociocultural integration outcomes like trust, social preferences, organizational commitment and knowledge transfer. Taken together, the arguments raised and results reported in this dissertation point out the important, yet hitherto relatively neglected, role of status in acquisitions, and in other similar inter-organizational modes. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2012</p>

What makes entrepreneurs select one international opportunity while rejecting or ignoring others? Furthermore, what makes entrepreneurs decide to exploit an international opportunity earlier or later? Two theories of internationalization provide answers to these questions: the Uppsala Model and International Entrepreneurship theory. However, these two theories provide competing answers to these questions, and empirical research offers inconsistent evidence about what influences entrepreneurs to select an international opportunity – and when to exploit the opportunity. To address these issues, I develop a cognitive model that explains when and why the predictions of these theories do (and do not) explain entrepreneurs’ behavior regarding new venture internationalization. More specifically, I propose that entrepreneurs’ internationalization decision making rests, in part, on cognitive processes of similarity comparison and structural alignment. I use a multi-method / multi-study approach to answer the above questions. In the first study, I use verbal protocol techniques to analyze the cognitive processes of entrepreneurs as they ‘think out loud’ while making decisions on international opportunity selection and age at entry. In the second study, I use a survey plus secondary data to test if the actual decisions made by entrepreneurs on international opportunity selection and age at entry correspond to the dissertation’s predictions. Results show that cognitive processes of similarity comparison and structural alignment underpin entrepreneurs’ internationalization decisions. Entrepreneurs rely heavily on commonalities and look for high levels of similarity between the home and host country when deciding when to internationalize their firms. Regarding entrepreneurs’ decisions on international opportunity selection, their decisions reflect the influence of both comparable and noncomparable opportunity features. Interestingly, I observe that prior international knowledge directly impacts entrepreneurs’ internationalization decisions, but also moderates the relationship between similarity considerations and entrepreneurs’ decisions on international opportunity selection. Ultimately, I reconcile and integrate two competing internationalization theories by resolving tensions between them. I demonstrate that the different predictions of the two internationalization theories can be explained by the differential focus that entrepreneurs place on comparable and noncomparable attributes of their opportunity set. I also show the importance of taking an individual-level and cognitive view to understanding these decisions.

Simultaneous measurement of the expression levels of thousands to ten thousand genes in multiple tissue types is a result of advancement in microarray technology. These expression levels provide clues about the gene functions and that have enabled better diagnosis and treatment of serious disease like cancer. To solve the mystery of unknown gene functions, biological to statistical mapping is needed in terms of classifying the genes. Here we introduce a novel approach of combining both statistical consistency and biological relevance of the clusters produced by a clustering method. Here we employ two performance measures in combination for measuring statistical stability and functional similarity of the cluster members using a set of gene expressions with known biological functions. Through this analysis we construct a platform to predict about unknown gene functions using the outperforming clustering algorithm.

Event-related potentials were recorded as subjects were presented with pairs of words, one word at a time, to examine the electrocortical manifestations of association formation and the effect of intra-list semantic similarity. Two types of lists were presented: Same – all pairs belonged to the same semantic category; Different – all pairs belonged to a different semantic category. Subjects were told to memorize the pairs for a following paired associate recall test. Recall was better for the Different than Same lists. Subsequent recall was predicted by the amplitudes of a potential lasting throughout the epoch and the P555 to each word of a pair (likely reflecting state- and item-related encoding activity, respectively), as well as a late positive wave that occurred after the offset of the second word, which is thought to reflect association formation. A larger N425 was elicited by pairs in the Different than Same lists, likely reflecting semantic integration.

Business processes are fundamental to the operations of a company. Each product manufactured and every service provided is the result of a series of actions that constitute a business process. Business process management is an organizational principle that makes the processes of a company explicit and offers capabilities to implement procedures, control their execution, analyze their performance, and improve them. Therefore, business processes are documented as process models that capture these actions and their execution ordering, and make them accessible to stakeholders. As these models are an essential knowledge asset, they need to be managed effectively. In particular, the discovery and reuse of existing knowledge becomes challenging in the light of companies maintaining hundreds and thousands of process models. In practice, searching process models has been solved only superficially by means of free-text search of process names and their descriptions. Scientific contributions are limited in their scope, as they either present measures for process similarity or elaborate on query languages to search for particular aspects. However, they fall short in addressing efficient search, the presentation of search results, and the support to reuse discovered models. This thesis presents a novel search method, where a query is expressed by an exemplary business process model that describes the behavior of a possible answer. This method builds upon a formal framework that captures and compares the behavior of process models by the execution ordering of actions. The framework contributes a conceptual notion of behavioral distance that quantifies commonalities and differences of a pair of process models, and enables process model search. Based on behavioral distances, a set of measures is proposed that evaluate the quality of a particular search result to guide the user in assessing the returned matches. A projection of behavioral aspects to a process model enables highlighting relevant fragments that led to a match and facilitates its reuse. The thesis further elaborates on two search techniques that provide concrete behavioral distance functions as an instantiation of the formal framework. Querying enables search with a notion of behavioral inclusion with regard to the query. In contrast, similarity search obtains process models that are similar to a query, even if the query is not precisely matched. For both techniques, indexes are presented that enable efficient search. Methods to evaluate the quality and performance of process model search are introduced and applied to the techniques of this thesis. They show good results with regard to human assessment and scalability in a practical setting. / Geschäftsprozesse bilden die Grundlage eines jeden Unternehmens, da jedes Produkt und jede Dienstleistung das Ergebnis einer Reihe von Arbeitsschritten sind, deren Ablauf einen Geschäftsprozess darstellen. Das Geschäftsprozessmanagement rückt diese Prozesse ins Zentrum der Betrachtung und stellt Methoden bereit, um Prozesse umzusetzen, abzuwickeln und, basierend auf einer Auswertung ihrer Ausführung, zu verbessern. Zu diesem Zweck werden Geschäftsprozesse in Form von Prozessmodellen dokumentiert, welche die auszuführenden Arbeitsschritte und ihre Ausführungsbeziehungen erfassen und damit eine wesentliche Grundlage des Geschäftsprozessmanagements bilden. Um dieses Wissen verwerten zu können, muss es gut organisiert und leicht auffindbar sein – eine schwierige Aufgabe angesichts hunderter bzw. tausender Prozessmodelle, welche moderne Unternehmen unterhalten. In der Praxis haben sich bisher lediglich einfache Suchmethoden etabliert, zum Beispiel Freitextsuche in Prozessbeschreibungen. Wissenschaftliche Ansätze hingegen betrachten Ähnlichkeitsmaße und Anfragesprachen für Prozessmodelle, vernachlässigen dabei aber Maßnahmen zur effizienten Suche, sowie die verständliche Wiedergabe eines Suchergebnisses und Hilfestellungen für dessen Verwendung. Diese Dissertation stellt einen neuen Ansatz für die Prozessmodellsuche vor, wobei statt einer Anfragesprache Prozessmodelle zur Formulierung einer Anfrage verwendet werden, welche exemplarisch das Verhalten der gesuchten Prozesse beschreiben. Dieser Ansatz fußt auf einem formalen Framework, welches ein konzeptionelles Distanzmaß zur Bewertung gemeinsamen Verhaltens zweier Geschäftsprozesse definiert und die Grundlage zur Suche bildet. Darauf aufbauend werden Qualitätsmaße vorgestellt, die einem Benutzer bei der Bewertung von Suchergebnissen behilflich sind. Verhaltensausschnitte, die zur Aufnahme in das Suchergebnis geführt haben, können im Prozessmodell hervorgehoben werden. Die Arbeit führt zwei Suchtechniken ein, die konkrete Distanzmaße einsetzen, um Prozesse zu suchen, die das Verhalten einer Anfrage exakt enthalten (Querying), oder diesem in Bezug auf das Verhalten ähnlich sind (Similarity Search). Für beide Techniken werden Indexstrukturen vorgestellt, die effizientes Suchen ermöglichen. Abschließend werden allgemeine Methoden zur Evaluierung von Prozessmodellsuchansätzen vorgestellt, mit welchen die genannten Suchtechniken überprüft werden. Im Ergebnis zeigen diese eine hohe Qualität der Suchergebnisse hinsichtlich einer Vergleichsstudie mit Prozessexperten, sowie gute Skalierbarkeit für große Prozessmodellsammlungen.

Electronic Structure Theory has led to a variety of developments and applications. In the Nooijen group the focus is on the development and use of Coupled Cluster based approaches. Coupled Cluster is a very strong and accurate approach to the quantum mechanical problem. The research results presented in the thesis testify to the Similarity Transformed Equation of Motion Coupled Cluster (STEOM-CC) for being a very accurate and yet computationally inexpensive approach for excited states. This study reveals new features about STEOM and provides promise regarding future improvement in the methodology. STEOM can be used as the first step in the construction of the Vibronic model, which is a strong tool to move to paradigms beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Spin-Orbit Coupling (SOC) is a very important ingredient required to study relativistic phenomena and its quantum mechanical implementation for many body systems is not straightforward. The most widely used SOC operator in Chemical Physics is the Breit-Pauli operator, which requires employing non-trivial approximations to the Dirac equation to adapt the theory to many body systems. The integration of electronic structure approaches, Vibronic Coupling, and SOC is essential to study the phenomenon of intersystem crossing (transition between spin states) in fine detail. In this thesis a computational benchmark of STEOM is discussed, while the frameworks of Vibronic Coupling and Spin-Orbit Coupling (SOC) are considered on a theoretical level.