Client peripheral knowledge is the knowledge residing in the client organization regarding the specific technologies and methodologies needed to successfully complete an IT (information technology) project that has been outsourced by the client. Data is collected from 205 USA managers, who have overseen outsourced IT projects, to see if peripheral knowledge in their own client organization affected outsourced project processes and outcomes. The project processes examined are the degree of stability of requirements during the project, and the level of vendor activities to interface with the client. The project outcome is operationalized as client satisfaction, as well as project cost performance and time performance. We find client peripheral knowledge positively affects requirement stability and vendor activities to interface with the client; requirement stability in turn positively affects client satisfaction and time performance; and vendor activities positively affect client satisfaction, but levy a penalty on the cost performance and time performance.

This article presents a comparative analysis of three distinct prompting techniques—simple zero-shot, few-shot, and role-based—for the task of summarizing articles from diverse domains, using two large language models (LLMs): GPT 3.5 and Llama 2. The study investigates the efficacy of each prompt type in aiding summarization algorithms. The authors utilize two separate scoring metrics to ascertain the accuracy and cohesiveness of the generated summaries. Remarkably, findings indicate a predominant success of simple zero-shot prompts over their few-shot and role-based counterparts, for both LLMs. The superiority of simple zero-shot prompts underscores their versatility and potential for effective use across various topical spheres. The implications of this are significant, offering a streamlined approach to article summarization tasks and potential improvements in machine learning model training.

Transaction processing systems are primarily based on the relational model of data and offer the advantages of decades of research and experience in enforcing data quality through integrity constraints, allowing concurrent access and supporting recoverability. From a performance standpoint, they offer joins-based query optimization and data structures to promote fast reads and writes, but are usually vertically scalable from a hardware standpoint. NoSQL (Not Only SQL) systems follow different data representation formats than relations, such as key-value pairs, graphs, documents or column-families. They offer a flexible data representation format as well as horizontal hardware scalability so that Big Data can be processed in real time. In this review article, we review recent research on each type of system, and then discuss how teaching of NoSQL may be incorporated into traditional undergraduate database courses in information systems curricula.

Recently, there has been increased interest in information sharing among government agencies, with a view toward improving security, reducing costs and offering better quality service to users of government services. In this work, the authors complement earlier work by proposing a comprehensive methodology called IAIS (Inter Agency Information Sharing) that uses XML to facilitate the definition of information that needs to be shared, the storage of such information, the access to this information and finally the maintenance of shared information. The authors compare IAIS with two alternate methodologies to share information among agencies, and analyze the pros and cons of each. They also show how IAIS leverages the recently proposed XML (extensible markup language) standard to allow for inclusion of various groups’ viewpoints when determining what information should be shared and how it should be structured.

Current conceptual workflow models use either informally defined conceptual models or several formally defined conceptual models that capture different aspects of the workflow, e.g., the data, process, and organizational aspects of the workflow. To the best of our knowledge, there are no algorithms that can amalgamate these models to yield a single view of reality. A fragmented conceptual view is useful for systems analysis and documentation. However, it fails to realize the potential of conceptual models to provide a convenient interface to automate the design and management of workflows. First, as a step toward accomplishing this objective, we propose SEAM (State-Entity-Activity-Model), a conceptual workflow model defined in terms of set theory. Second, no attempt has been made, to the best of our knowledge, to incorporate time into a conceptual workflow model. SEAM incorporates the temporal aspect of workflows. Third, we apply SEAM to a real-life organizational unit's workflows. In this work, we show a subset of the workflows modeled for this organization using SEAM. We also demonstrate, via a prototype application, how the SEAM schema can be implemented on a relational database management system. We present the lessons we learned about the advantages obtained for the organization and, for developers who choose to use SEAM, we also present potential pitfalls in using the SEAM methodology to build workflow systems on relational platforms. The information contained in this work is sufficient enough to allow application developers to utilize SEAM as a methodology to analyze, design, and construct workflow applications on current relational database management systems. The definition of SEAM as a context-free grammar, definition of its semantics, and its mapping to relational platforms should be sufficient also, to allow the construction of an automated workflow design and construction tool with SEAM as the user interface.

With the ubiquitous availability of browsers and internet access, the last few years have seen a tremendous growth in the number of applications being developed on the world wide web (WWW). Models for analyzing and designing these applications are only just beginning to emerge. In this work, we propose a 3-dimensional classification space for WWW applications, consisting of a degree of structure of pages dimension, a degree of support for interrelated events dimension and a location of processing dimension. Next, we propose usability design metrics for WWW applications along the structure of pages dimension. To measure these ,we propose CMU-WEB: a conceptual model that can be used to design WWW applications, such that its schemas provide values for the design metrics. This work represents the first effort, to the best of our knowledge, to provide a conceptual model that measures quantifiable metrics that can be used for the design of more usable web applications, and that can also be used to compare the usability of existing web applications, without empirical testing.Request access from your librarian to read this article's full text.