Companies increasingly use business process modeling for documenting and redesigning their operations. However, due to the size of such modeling initiatives, they often struggle with the quality assurance of their model collections. While many model properties can already be checked automatically, there is a notable gap of techniques for checking linguistic aspects such as naming conventions of process model elements. In this paper, we address this problem by introducing an automatic technique for detecting violations of naming conventions. This technique is based on text corpora and independent of linguistic resources such as WordNet. Therefore, it can be easily adapted to the broad set of languages for which corpora exist. We demonstrate the applicability of the technique by analyzing nine process model collections from practice, including over 27,000 labels and covering three different languages. The results of the evaluation show that our technique yields stable results and can reliably deal with ambiguous cases. In this way, this paper provides an important contribution to the field of automated quality assurance of conceptual models.

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / The project examines the information seeking behaviour of a small group of so-called Generation Y students at the Stellenbosch University as they undertake an academic assignment. There is consensus across the world that universities need to adapt to the needs of Generation Y students, brought up with high-level information technology, the internet and social networking. However, research shows that this does not mean that they are information literate. They have high-tech skills but often do not know how to analyse an information need or discriminate between information sources. Information scientist Carol Kuhlthau develop the ISP model upon which the study was based. Her model sees information seeking as a complex cognitive and affective process. Successful seekers have learned how to manage the process. University libraries need to adapt their information retrieval systems and services to meet the needs of their new kinds of students. The study, a small-scale intensive qualitative case study, hopes to provide insight into how they might do this. The researcher collected data while the participants were writing the assignment. Data gathering methods included interviews, journal writings and questionnaires. / South Africa

This diploma thesis focuses on processes in project management based on international standard IPMA Comptence Baseline (ICB). Its main goal is to create process models of chosen technical competences of the ICB. The models were built in a program called Bizagi Modeler in accordance with an international standard Business Process Model and Notation. Results of this thesis are represented by the process models for each of the chosen technical competences and by an overall model that put all the created competences together. It helps to show connections between the competences as well as to understand the application of competences within the project cycle. Crucial steps of chosen competences are also applied to a model project for better understanding of a real application. Created process models may serve as a user guide for project managers who manage projects according to the ICB.

Food waste has been a worldwide concern for several decades but this problem is relatively new in the Malaysian context due to the increasing amount of food waste in recent years. Thus, the goal of the study is to provide the basic information of knowledge and involvement level, and their interaction in food waste prevention among households in Malaysia. This study seek to further mass communication research in the area of food waste. The Hallahan’s Issues Processes Model was used within this study in order to determine the relationship between knowledge, involvement, and food waste prevention behavior. The convenience sampling method was adopted and the surveys were conducted using the online survey tool, Qualtric. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22.00 software. The results supported the hypotheses that the level of knowledge has a positive impact on food waste behavior only if the household’s involvement is high and vice versa. According to this model, Malaysian households fall under the category of an active audience, because they recognize the negative consequences and their acceptance that food waste prevention is personally relevant in their daily life. The findings of this study contribute further recommendations for government campaign that could focus on enhancing household planning skills and routines when it comes to the food preparation. Furthermore, the need for educational campaign against food waste should focus on selected information such as demographic background and presented in mass media to stimulate model behavior in the households.

How do voters navigate the intersection between democracy and capitalism? Citizens have the opportunity to directly decide upon policies that shape their state's economy through market regulatory ballot measures; however, the role of voters in this key intersection and policy making-mechanism has been largely overlooked. Models of reasoning and decision-making in the voting literature have primarily developed from rational choice theory. These models identify conditions under which self-interest and partisanship influence voter choice and policy attitude formation. To extend this literature to voter reasoning on market regulatory measures, I examined how variation in voter choice and reasoning corresponded with variation in social indicators of self-interest and partisanship, both of which are foundational individual-level processes for capitalism and democracy, respectively. In order to carry out this analysis I conducted semi-structured interviews with 120 respondents about how they voted on four market regulatory ballot measures that appeared on the Arizona state ballot from 2008-2012 related to narcotic decriminalization and medicalization, education funding, immigration and labor markets, and consumer protection. Drawing from contemporary models of voter reasoning, I selected self-interest and partisanship as independent variables for this analysis and then examined how variation in these variables corresponded with variation in voter choice. I subsequently used my qualitative data to investigate how voters used narratives of self-interest and partisan values to reason about these four market regulatory ballot measures. I supplemented my qualitative analysis by investigating voter use of beliefs from non-partisan economic philosophies in their reasoning on these measures. To my knowledge, voter reasoning related to market regulatory ballot measures has yet to be studied and therefore my analysis required holding key factors (such as gender, race, and ethnicity) constant in order to limit sources of variation in voter choice and reasoning.

ABC is a methodology for calculating of the costs of activities in the organizations. This methodology has a very precise explicitness on the actual used costs. ABC is a methodology that is used mainly in foreign corporations in the private ownership. Its use in the state and their subordinate organizations established in foreign companies is very small and almost not used in domestic organizations. Accurate knowledge of the costs of the various company activities could be crucial in the long term view and directs the organization to success or to failure. In the private sector are costing mechanisms set in different level, but in the public sector are largely neglected. This situation is mainly due to the fact that organizations are managed by hired managers and they are not owned by a private person (or persons) too. They are owned by the state, which functions as the manager is very poor. The current economic situation and changes are forcing organizations to think about the possibilities of using advanced management methods. These trends are captured not only in surveys, identified already as efforts superiors organizations to manage subordinate organizations, but also partially finalized projects in the state sphere. These projects reveal the interested of organizations to further detailed insights into the stream of costs and their final utilization. This dissertation summarizes the findings of ABC for the public sector in universities and research institutions. Summarizes the current status and position for the creation of the ABC model in practice. This thesis includes not only the methodology but also a practical example of the practices described step by step. The results of the calculation according to ABC provide detailed view of costs during the agenda execution and organization also on a detailed calculation of the output of the organization. Thanks to a detailed insight into structured calculation is allowed to lead their active management and positive influence on the future.

Researchers use interviews as one of the means of collecting the information that is surrounding people. Interviewing is an important instrument of collecting data during a research. Although the collection of particular data is not guaranteed, interviews render an opportunity for collection of that data. Reasons for successful collection and/ or failure to collect the targeted data are various. Cultural formation of the interview situation might be one of those various reasons. This study focused on selected cultural dimensions, namely race, gender and language as possible causative dimensions influencing the generation of data in terms of volume, expression, range, content and content formulation. Data collected during culturally formulated interviews were presented. The influence that the three dimensions might have had on the generation of data was emphasized. A Response Process Model was utilized in this study to interpret the responding process that an individual might go through before yielding a response to the posed question. Coupled with the demands of meeting the question’s objective, an individual might be bombarded by extraneous and internal cues that might be exacerbated by the cross-cultural formation of the interview situation and therefore imposing extra demands on the individual and ultimately affecting the response given. The response processes were indicated in this study that at times were altered to possibly suit the cross-cultural interview situation. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

abstract: Over 25% of children in the United States suffer from a chronic illness, and close to 70% of all childhood deaths are due to chronic illness. Prevalence of childhood chronic illness continues to increase, and as a result, the pervasiveness of parents faced with stress associated with caregiving for their child with a chronic illness is also rising. The Stress Process Model (SPM) conceptualizes the caregiving experience as a multidimensional process influenced by the caregiving context, primary and secondary stressors, resources, and caregiver outcomes. Utilizing the SPM, the goals of this study were to examine the relations between caregiving stress (role overload and role strain) and resources (instrumental support, social support, and positive attitudes) and psychological outcomes (depression and anxiety) to determine whether resources moderated the associations between caregiving stress and psychological outcomes. Participants included 200 parent caregivers of a child with a chronic illness. Participants responded to an online survey that measured demographics, role overload (Role Overload scale), role strain (The Revised Caregiver Burden Measure), instrumental support and social support (Medical Outcomes Survey), positive attitudes about caregiving (Brief Assessment Scale for Caregivers), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), and anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale-7). Pearson correlations and six hierarchical regression models were tested to examine caregiving stress, resources, and psychological outcomes. Consistent with the study hypotheses, positive correlations between caregiving stress (role overload and role strain) and depression and anxiety were found. Negative correlations were found between resources (instrumental support, social support, positive attitudes) and depression and anxiety. Both instrumental support and social support had negative moderating effects on the relations between role overload and psychological outcomes (depression and anxiety). Positive attitudes also negatively moderated the relations between role strain and psychological outcomes. Thus, when participants reported high instrumental and social support, they also reported low depression and anxiety, even when role overload was high. Participants also reported low anxiety and depression when they reported high positive attitudes, even when role strain was high. Implications of these findings are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Counseling Psychology 2020

This thesis is focused on optimizing processes at Air Bank, a.s. The aim will be to analyze the banking process called. "Completing the new framework agreement" with the subsequent design optimization for faster problem solving. The first part will be presented theoretical insights that are intended to familiarize the reader with the basic concepts relating to the processes and their optimization. The next part will be focused on analysis of existing activities. Contribution of thesis will be in the analysis of selected processes and propose solutions that will have a real benefit for the operation of the entire department.

Process model matchers automate the detection of activities that represent similar functionality in different models. Thus, they provide support for various tasks related to the management of business processes including model collection management and process design. Yet, prior research primarily demonstrated the matchers’ effectiveness, i.e., the accuracy and the completeness of the results. In this context (i) the size of the empirical data is often small, (ii) all data is used for the matcher development, and (iii) the validity of the design decisions is not studied. As a result, existing matchers yield a varying and typically low effectiveness when applied to different datasets, as among others demonstrated by the process model matching contests in 2013 and 2015. With this in mind, the thesis studies the effectiveness of matchers by separating development from evaluation data and by empirically analyzing the validity and the limitations of design decisions. In particular, the thesis develops matchers that rely on different sources of information. First, the activity labels are considered as natural-language descriptions and the Bag-of-Words Technique is introduced which achieves a high effectiveness in comparison to the state of the art. Second, the Order Preserving Bag-of-Words Technique analyzes temporal dependencies between activities in order to automatically configure the Bag-of-Words Technique and to improve its effectiveness. Third, expert feedback is used to adapt the matchers to the domain characteristics of process model collections. Here, the Adaptive Bag-of-Words Technique is introduced which outperforms the state-of-the-art matchers and the other matchers from this thesis.