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The ever increasing rate of digital information available from on-line sources drives the need for building information monitoring applications to assist users in tracking relevant changes in these sources and accessing information that is of interest to them in a timely manner. Continuous queries (CQs) are standing queries that are continuously evaluated over dynamic sources to track information changes that meet user specified thresholds and notify users of new results in real-time. CQ systems can be considered as powerful middleware for supporting information monitoring applications. A significant challenge in building CQ systems is scalability, caused by the large number of users and queries, and by the large and growing number of information sources with high update rates. In this thesis we use CQs to shepherd through and address the challenges involved in supporting information monitoring applications in future computing platforms. The focus is on P2P web monitoring in Internet systems, location monitoring in mobile systems, and environmental monitoring in sensor systems. Although different computing platforms require different software architectures for building scalable CQ services, there is a common design philosophy that this thesis advocates for making CQ services scalable and efficient. This can be summarized as "move computation close to the places where the data is produced." A common challenge in scaling CQ systems is the resource-intensive nature of query evaluation, which involves continuously checking updates in a large number of data sources and evaluating trigger conditions of a large number of queries over these updates, consuming both cpu and network bandwidth resources. If some part of the query evaluation can be pushed close to the sources where the data is produced, the resulting early filtering of updates will save both bandwidth and cpu resources. In summary, in this thesis we show that distributed CQ architectures that are designed to take advantage of the opportunities provided by ubiquitous computing platforms and pervasive networks, while at the same time recognizing and resolving the challenges posed by these platforms, lead to building scalable and effective CQ systems to better support the demanding information monitoring applications of the future.

Avec les mutations de l’internet induites par le développement des outils collaboratifs (blogs, flux RSS, réseaux sociaux, partage d’informations...) l'information change de nature. Sa production devient de plus en plus simple. L'utilisateur, qui depuis les débuts de l’internet grand-public, se contentait d’un rôle de consommateur tout-court d'informations s'est, petit-à-petit, transformé en « consommateur-producteur ». Il est au cœur du nouveau système de production et de diffusion de l’information. Ce changement qui s'opère dans toutes les couches sociales avec comme caractéristiques principales la floraison des blogs, la veille personnalisée, la customisation des outils, le partage, la collaboration dans les réseaux sociaux ..., s’identifie à travers les appellations « web 2.0 », « web social », « web collaboratif ». Plus que des mots, il s’agit de pratiques informationnelles qui mettraient en cause les acquis des entreprises en matière de veille et d'Intelligence Économique. Ainsi, l'intérêt de mesurer les tenants et les aboutissants de ce renouvellement des usages informationnels nous pousse à travers cette thèse à s’interroger sur leur impact réel ou supposé dans la veille et l'Intelligence Économique. Ce travail propose de mesurer le degré de récupération des compétences des utilisateurs du web 2.0 dans les démarches de veille et d’IE en PME et TPE. À l’issue d’une enquête de terrain portant sur un échantillon de 70 entreprises de différentes régions du monde (France, États-Unis, Grande-Bretagne, Maroc, Sénégal…) il a été intéressant de constater que le web 2.0 est assez bien connu dans les entreprises quelle que soit leur taille. Toutefois, la récupération de ses applications dans une démarche de veille et d’Intelligence Économique reste assez dispersée du fait, notamment, de la méconnaissance des potentialités de certains outils, qui a comme conséquence leur non prise en compte dans les politiques informationnelles. Ce résultat nous a convaincu de proposer aux TPE et aux PME une démarche de mise en place d’un dispositif de veille collaborative qui a l’originalité d’intégrer les outils du web 2.0. S’inscrivant dans la logique d’un dispositif de veille de seconde génération (Lietzelman et al.), la démarche proposée constitue une amélioration de celles déjà existantes (AFNOR, Paul Degoul). Elle prend en compte dans chacune des phases (conception, planification et mise en œuvre) la dimension sociale de l’internet et de ses pratiques. Un exposé de techniques d’exploitation de certains de ces outils pour un problème de veille a été produit afin de sensibiliser sur leurs potentialités dans l’éventualité de leur intégration dans un système de veille et d’intelligence économique / With the web as a platform and the development of collaborative tools (blogs, RSS feeds, social networking, information sharing ...) information is changing and its production becomes increasingly simple. The average user, who since the advent of the Internet has merely a short role as consumer of information, is transformed into a "consumer-producer" of information. He is at the heart of the new system of production and dissemination of information. This change whose characteristics cannot be ignored: blogs, personal monitoring, social bookmarking, personalization tools for research, collaboration in social networks etc. and known under the names "Web 2.0", "social web", "collaborative web" would undermine the achievements of companies in terms of information monitoring and Competitive Intelligence (CI); hence the importance of measuring the ins and outs of this renewal informational practices. In addition to questions about the real or supposed changes in information monitoring and Competitive Intelligence in the Age of social web, our research also wanted to measure the degree of recovery skills of web 2.0’s users in SMEs CI‘s systems. With a field survey covering a sample of 70 companies from different regions of the world (France, USA, Great Britain, Morocco, Senegal ...) we noticed that the Web 2.0 is fairly well known by companies regardless of their size, but the recovery of its applications in a process to monitor information is dispersed (using disparate, breach of certain tools potential, lack of information policy incorporating tools 2.0...). This result has convinced us to propose to the SME an approach of establishing a collaborative information monitoring system which has the originality to include the tools of Web 2.0 since the phases of design, planning and implementation. In order to respect the logic of a second generation Information Monitoring System (Lietzelman et al.), the proposed approach is an improvement of existing ones like the AFNOR system or that of Paul Degoul. It is accompanied, for sensitizing SME by a statement of operational techniques of some social media tools for their possible inclusion in a Competitive Intelligence System

O roadmapping foi introduzido pela Motorola há mais de 26 anos como uma abordagem para apoiar o planejamento integrado de mercado, produtos e tecnologia. O principal objetivo do roadmapping é a criação de roadmaps, representações visuais em forma de diagramas e tabelas, que capturam e sintetizam informações de mercado, produtos, tecnologias e recursos em um plano com metas para novos desenvolvimentos. A introdução do processo de roadmapping compreende uma série de desafios. Um dos principais, segundo estudos recentes, é a dificuldade de sustentar o processo de roadmapping, ou seja, manter os roadmaps atualizados após a construção do primeiro mapa. Esta dificuldade pode ser atribuída ao fato de que a maioria das aplicações se baseia na utilização de especialistas externos à organização para coleta e análise de informações, o que é proibitivo para algumas organizações em função dos custos envolvidos e a uma lacuna na literatura, que não apresenta um modelo que oriente os praticantes em como manter os roadmaps atualizados. Este estudo apresenta um modelo de atualização de roadmaps que explora duas teorias conjuntamente: a utilização de conceitos do ciclo de inteligência competitiva e princípios de agilidade. Descreve-se o desenvolvimento de um modelo para atualização de roadmaps desenvolvido a partir de uma pesquisa-ação em uma organização do segmento de bens de consumo para a construção civil. Como resultados, apresentam-se o modelo desenvolvido e sua avaliação pelos profissionais da organização. Os dados coletados indicam que o modelo proposto contribuiu para esta organização em específico por meio de um impacto positivo no grau de monitoramento constante de informações, a credibilidade no roadmap e sua utilização durante a elaboração da estratégia de inovação da organização. Um dos diferenciais do modelo é a proposição de um arcabouço que pode ser realizado pela própria organização através da formação de times ágeis, sem a necessidade de criação de novas posições e áreas funcionais. / Roadmapping was introduced by Motorola more than 26 years ago as an approach to support market, product and technology integrated planning. The main objective of the roadmapping is to create roadmaps, visual models of diagrams and tables that capture and synthetize market, product, technology and resources information in a plan compounded by goals for new developments. The roadmapping implementation enhances several challenges. One of the main, according to recent studies, its the difficulty in sustain the roadmapping process, in other words, maintain the roadmaps updated. This difficult can be attributed to the fact that the most of the applications are based on the use of external experts to collect e analyze information, which is prohibitive to some organizations due to the costs involved and to a gap in the literature, that doesnt present a model for guiding the practitioners in how to maintain the roadmaps updated. This paper presents a model for updating roadmaps that combines competitive intelligence and agile management theories. The model was developed through an action research in a civil construction segment organization. The collect data shows that the developed model contributed to this specific organization, by means of a positive impact on the degree of continuous information monitoring, the credibility on the roadmap and its use during the organizations innovation strategy formulation. One of the differentials of the model is the proposition of a framework that can be managed by the organization itself through the use of agile teams, without the need of new holes or functional areas to accomplish it.

O roadmapping foi introduzido pela Motorola há mais de 26 anos como uma abordagem para apoiar o planejamento integrado de mercado, produtos e tecnologia. O principal objetivo do roadmapping é a criação de roadmaps, representações visuais em forma de diagramas e tabelas, que capturam e sintetizam informações de mercado, produtos, tecnologias e recursos em um plano com metas para novos desenvolvimentos. A introdução do processo de roadmapping compreende uma série de desafios. Um dos principais, segundo estudos recentes, é a dificuldade de sustentar o processo de roadmapping, ou seja, manter os roadmaps atualizados após a construção do primeiro mapa. Esta dificuldade pode ser atribuída ao fato de que a maioria das aplicações se baseia na utilização de especialistas externos à organização para coleta e análise de informações, o que é proibitivo para algumas organizações em função dos custos envolvidos e a uma lacuna na literatura, que não apresenta um modelo que oriente os praticantes em como manter os roadmaps atualizados. Este estudo apresenta um modelo de atualização de roadmaps que explora duas teorias conjuntamente: a utilização de conceitos do ciclo de inteligência competitiva e princípios de agilidade. Descreve-se o desenvolvimento de um modelo para atualização de roadmaps desenvolvido a partir de uma pesquisa-ação em uma organização do segmento de bens de consumo para a construção civil. Como resultados, apresentam-se o modelo desenvolvido e sua avaliação pelos profissionais da organização. Os dados coletados indicam que o modelo proposto contribuiu para esta organização em específico por meio de um impacto positivo no grau de monitoramento constante de informações, a credibilidade no roadmap e sua utilização durante a elaboração da estratégia de inovação da organização. Um dos diferenciais do modelo é a proposição de um arcabouço que pode ser realizado pela própria organização através da formação de times ágeis, sem a necessidade de criação de novas posições e áreas funcionais. / Roadmapping was introduced by Motorola more than 26 years ago as an approach to support market, product and technology integrated planning. The main objective of the roadmapping is to create roadmaps, visual models of diagrams and tables that capture and synthetize market, product, technology and resources information in a plan compounded by goals for new developments. The roadmapping implementation enhances several challenges. One of the main, according to recent studies, its the difficulty in sustain the roadmapping process, in other words, maintain the roadmaps updated. This difficult can be attributed to the fact that the most of the applications are based on the use of external experts to collect e analyze information, which is prohibitive to some organizations due to the costs involved and to a gap in the literature, that doesnt present a model for guiding the practitioners in how to maintain the roadmaps updated. This paper presents a model for updating roadmaps that combines competitive intelligence and agile management theories. The model was developed through an action research in a civil construction segment organization. The collect data shows that the developed model contributed to this specific organization, by means of a positive impact on the degree of continuous information monitoring, the credibility on the roadmap and its use during the organizations innovation strategy formulation. One of the differentials of the model is the proposition of a framework that can be managed by the organization itself through the use of agile teams, without the need of new holes or functional areas to accomplish it.

Information monitoring systems are publish-subscribe systems that continuously track information changes and notify users (or programs acting on behalf of humans) of relevant updates according to specified thresholds. Internet-scale information monitoring presents a number of new challenges. First, automated change detection is harder when sources are autonomous and updates are performed asynchronously. Second, information source heterogeneity makes the problem of modelling and representing changes harder than ever. Third, efficient and scalable mechanisms are needed to handle a large and growing number of users and thousands or even millions of monitoring triggers fired at multiple sources. In this dissertation, we model users' monitoring requests using continual queries (CQs) and present a suite of efficient and scalable solutions to large scale information monitoring over structured or semi-structured data sources. A CQ is a standing query that monitors information sources for interesting events (triggers) and notifies users when new information changes meet specified thresholds. In this dissertation, we first present the system level facilities for building an Internet-scale continual query system, including the design and development of two operational CQ monitoring systems OpenCQ and WebCQ, the engineering issues involved, and our solutions. We then describe a number of research challenges that are specific to large-scale information monitoring and the techniques developed in the context of OpenCQ and WebCQ to address these challenges. Example issues include how to efficiently process large number of continual queries, what mechanisms are effective for building a scalable distributed trigger system that is capable of handling tens of thousands of triggers firing at hundreds of data sources, how to effectively disseminate fresh information to the right users at the right time. We have developed a suite of techniques to optimize the processing of continual queries, including an effective CQ grouping scheme, an auxiliary data structure to support group-based indexing of CQs, and a differential CQ evaluation algorithm (DRA). The third contribution is the design of an experimental evaluation model and testbed to validate the solutions. We have engaged our evaluation using both measurements on real systems (OpenCQ/WebCQ) and simulation-based approach. To our knowledge, the research documented in this dissertation is to date the first one to present a focused study of research and engineering issues in building large-scale information monitoring systems using continual queries.

The desire to send humans to Mars will require a change in the way that extravehicular activity (EVA) is performed; in-space crews (including those within a vehicle or habitat monitoring others conducting EVA) will need to be more autonomous and that will require them to monitor large amounts of information in order to ensure crew safety and mission success. The amount of information to perceive and process will overwhelm unassisted intra-vehicular (IV) crewmembers, meaning that automation will need to be developed to support these crews on Mars while EVA is performed (Mishkin, Lee, Korth, & LeBlanc, 2007). This dissertation seeks to identify the information requirements for the performance of scientific EVA and determine which information streams will need to be allocated to in-space crew and which are the most effective streams to automate. The first study uses Mars rover operations as a homology—as defined by von Bertalanffy (1968)—to human scientific exploration. Mars rover operations personnel were interviewed using a novel method to identify the information requirements to perform successful science on Mars, how that information is used, and the timescales on which those information streams operate. The identified information streams were then related to potential information streams relevant to human exploration in order to identify potential function allocation or automated system development areas. The second study focused on one identified mission-critical information stream for human space exploration: monitoring astronaut status physiologically. Heart rate, respiration rate, and heart rate variability measurements were recorded from participants as they performed field science tasks (potentially tasks that are similar to those that will be performed by astronauts on Mars). A statistical method was developed to analyze this data in order to determine whether or not physiological responses to different tasks were statistically different, and whether any of those differences followed consistent patterns. A potential method to automate the monitoring of physiological data was also described. The results of this work provide a more detailed outline of the information requirements for EVA on Mars and can be used as a starting point for others in the exploration community to further develop automation or function allocation to support astronauts as they explore Mars.

This thesis deals with the design of Competitive Intelligence for specific training company. The main objective of this work is to characterize and help choosing the person responsible for carrying out activities related to the CI in the company, to identify the most appropriate information sources to obtain information about the company and software tools for their monitoring. The theoretical part is drawn on the literature and is dedicated to the description of competitive intelligence and characteristics of different phases of the CI cycle. Other sections are devoted to typologies of information resources and software tools for their monitoring. Following parts are dealing with the characteristics of the category of small and medium-sized enterprises; the investigated company and education organizations fit in this category. The practical part of this thesis deals with the possible proposal of Competitive Intelligence for specific training company. As the first step we realized the analysis of the business environment and its major limitations. In the following part we deal with the CI system design, consisting of a selection of variant realization, along with the characteristics of the responsible person, the definition of information resources and recommending software tools for regular monitoring. The practical benefit of this work is to introduce CI system design, based on monitoring of information sources, obtaining information and their subsequent evaluation in relation to the competitive environment of the company. Another important asset of the work is a sample of implementation of such a system in the company of categories of small and medium-sized enterprises, which respects their limitations.

Nel primo capitolo si propone una rassegna della letteratura di ambito economico e manageriale in tema di Responsabilità Sociale d’Impresa (RSI). Successivamente, si identificano le peculiarità degli attori operanti nel settore bancario etico. Infine, si comparano i risultati degli studi sul comportamento delle banche etiche con quelli disponibili sulle banche tradizionali. Il secondo capitolo confronta le condizioni di rifinanziamento delle banche sociali con quelle delle banche standard, quando le prime dispongono di informazioni private sulla qualità dei clienti. Ciò comporta il noto problema dell’hold-up, che tuttavia può essere attenuato dai costi delle peculiari attività di selezione e monitoraggio delle banche etiche. Ne risulta che, indipendentemente dalla qualità del cliente, le banche standard potrebbero offrire condizioni di prestito più vantaggiose di quelle delle banche etiche. Il terzo capitolo usa un modello spaziale per descrivere come le banche sociali e standard definiscono i loro tassi di interesse quando competono nel mercato dei depositi e dei prestiti. Come suggerisce l’evidenza empirica, i risparmiatori delle banche sociali sono disposti ad accettare tassi più bassi di quelli del mercato. Pertanto, si determinano le condizioni per cui ciò si verifica e si studia quando questo è compatibile con tassi più bassi anche sui prestiti. / In the first chapter, we begin with a survey on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in economics, management and business literatures. Then we identify the peculiarities of the agents operating in the social banking sector. Thereafter, we compare and contrast the contributions focused on the behavior of social banks with those available on traditional lenders. The second chapter compares the refinancing behavior of social banks with that of standard lenders when the former have inside information on the quality of the borrowers. This entails the renowned hold-up problem which, however, can be mitigated by the costs of the ethical screening and monitoring activities of social banks. As a result, standard banks may offer better loan contracts and attract high quality borrowers. The third chapter proposes a spatial competition model to investigate how standard and social banks set their interest rates when they compete in the deposit and loan markets. As the empirical evidence suggests, social depositors are willing to accept returns lower than the market level. Therefore we determine under which conditions social banks pay deposit rates lower than those of standard banks and when this is compatible with lower rates also on loans.

Cette thèse propose une série de méthodes de veille textométrique multilingue appliquées à des corpus thématiques. Pour constituer ce travail, deux types de corpus sont mobilisés : un corpus comparable et un corpus parallèle, composés de données textuelles extraites des discours de presse, ainsi que ceux des ONG. Les informations récupérées proviennent de trois mondes en trois langues différentes : français, anglais et chinois. La construction de ces deux corpus s’effectue autour de deux thèmes d’actualité ayant pour objet, l’environnement et l’énergie, avec une attention particulière sur trois notions : les énergies, le nucléaire et l’EPR. Après un bref rappel de l’état de l’art en intelligence économique, veille et textométrie, nous avons exposé les deux sujets retenus, les technicités morphosyntaxiques des trois langues dans les contextes nationaux et internationaux. Successivement, les caractéristiques globales, les convergences et les particularités de ces corpus ont été mises en évidence. Les dépouillements et les analyses qualitatives et quantitatives des résultats obtenus sont réalisés à l’aide des outils de la textométrie, notamment grâce aux analyses factorielles des correspondances, réseaux cooccurrentiels et poly-cooccurrentiels, spécificités du modèle hypergéométrique, segments répétés ou encore à la carte des sections. Ensuite, la veille bi-textuelle bilingue a été appliquée sur les trois mêmes concepts dans l’objectif de mettre en évidence les modes selon lesquels les corpus multilingues à caractère comparé et parallèle se complètent dans un processus de veille plurilingue, de restitution, de prévision et d’anticipation. Nous concluons notre recherche en proposant une méthode analytique par Objets-Traits-Entrées (OTE). / This thesis proposes a series of textometric multilingual information monitoring methods applied to thematic corpora (textometry is also called textual statistics or text data analysis). Two types of corpora are mobilized to create this work: a comparable corpus and a parallel corpus in which the textual data are extracted from the press and discourse of NGOs. The information source was retrieved from three countries in three different languages: English, French and Chinese. The two corpora were constructed on two topical issues concerning the environment and energy, with a focus on three concepts: energy, nuclear power and the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor or Evolutionary Power Reactor). After a brief review of the state of the art on business intelligence, information monitoring and textometry, we first set out the two chosen subjects – the environment and energy – and then the morphosyntactic features of the three languages in national and international contexts. The overall characteristics, similarities and peculiarities of these corpora are highlighted successively. The recounts and qualitative and quantitative analyses of the results were carried out using textometric tools, including factor analysis of correspondences, co-occurrences and polyco-occurrential networks, specificities of the hypergeometric model and repeated segments or map sections. Thereafter, bilingual bitextual information monitoring was applied to the same three concepts with the aim of elucidating how the comparable corpus and the parallel corpus can mutually help each other in a process of multilingual information monitoring, by restitution, forecasting and anticipation. We conclude our research by offering an analytical method called Objects-Features-Opening (OFO).