A Critical Systems Approach to Elicit User-Centric Business Intelligence Business Requirements

This paper describes an action research study where the researcher developed and tested an alternative business requirements elicitation approach that enables reflection on business intelligence business requirements from a social/organisational perspective and, accordingly, surfaces user-centric requirements that support development of systems that are technically good and effectuate organisational improvement. It is based on critical systems heuristics, a framework that facilitates participative discourse to surface contributing and consequential factors of a planned social system, i.e. relevant sources of motivation; expertise; inflicting and controlling boundaries; and sources of moral and political justification acting as guardians for all that will be impacted upon by the adjusted social reality caused by the new system. Such an approach is valuable to developers of business intelligence systems; it complements traditional requirements gathering approaches. Present-day organisations require efficacious decision-making capabilities to succeed—business intelligence systems enable efficacious decisions. However, business intelligence systems often fail, at great expenses to organisations. They fail due to social/organisational infeasibility, rather than technical insufficiency; they fail when developers lack adequate understanding of users’ business requirements. Appropriate business requirement specifications entail more than definitions of functional, non-functional and technical attributes of new systems. Business requirements must also capture the social/organisational context of a system, i.e. the impact that it will inevitably have on users and the organisational environment, so as to ensure that it ultimately bring about improvement. The approach developed in this study enables elicitation of user-centric business requirements.

     

Fc receptor but not complement binding is important in antibody protection against HIV

Most successful vaccines elicit neutralizing antibodies and this property is a high priority when developing an HIV vaccine. Indeed, passively administered neutralizing antibodies have been shown to protect against HIV challenge in some of the best available animal models. For example, antibodies given intravenously can protect macaques against intravenous or mucosal SHIV (an HIV/SIV chimaera) challenge and topically applied antibodies can protect macaques against vaginal SHIV challenge. However, the mechanism(s) by which neutralizing antibodies afford protection against HIV is not understood and, in particular, the role of antibody Fc-mediated effector functions is unclear. Here we report that there is a dramatic decrease in the ability of a broadly neutralizing antibody to protect macaques against SHIV challenge when Fc receptor and complement-binding activities are engineered out of the antibody. No loss of antibody protective activity is associated with the elimination of complement binding alone. Our in vivo results are consistent with in vitro assays indicating that interaction of Fc-receptor-bearing effector cells with antibody-complexed infected cells is important in reducing virus yield from infected cells. Overall, the data suggest the potential importance of activity against both infected cells and free virus for effective protection against HIV.     

The Use of Critical Systems Heuristics to Surface and Reconcile Users' Conflicting Visions for a Business Intelligence System

This paper describes an action research study where the business requirements analysis approach of a business intelligence development project was enriched. Critical systems heuristics, a critical systems methodology that is positioned in the critical systems thinking paradigm, was applied to surface the inherently conflicting views and visions (however unknown to them) that the various stakeholders had regarding a new business intelligence system and its underlying business process. It therefore enabled surfacing of human/cultural and organisational issues that would have negatively affected the adoption of the new system; these were successfully resolved. Accordingly, the various stakeholders reflected on their real requirements that constituted improvement, rather than mere automation, of a business process; it ultimately resulted in a successful new business intelligence system that realised business benefits.     

Learning dynamics in the formation of European inflation expectations

We investigate learning dynamics in the formation of household inflation expectations in the six largest euro area countries. Our findings reveal heterogeneity in the learning rules that European households use to forecast inflation. We also find pronounced heterogeneity in the way consumers process new data. These differences vary not only across countries but also over time, suggesting that the learning behavior of households is state dependent.