On an exciting innovation journey, our Head of the Research and Data Science Team, Dadhichi Shukla, attended the 42nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling ER 2023 in Lisbon 🇵🇹. This prestigious event serves as a hub for thought leaders and enables discussions on the latest advances and future challenges in conceptual modeling.
Conceptual Modeling & Visionary Keynotes
Conceptual modeling is the pivotal element in companies and industries where complex information, data, and processes must be carefully structured, managed, and optimized in order to achieve operational efficiency and business objectives. From IT and software development to the complexities of financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain, retail, the public sector, telecommunications, consulting, and media. The importance of conceptual modeling has far-reaching implications and is a critical component for a wide range of industries.
The International Conference on Conceptual Modeling ER 2023 in Lisbon is not only a platform for computer science experts, but also a stage for exchanging relevant trends and developments in this field. Let’s take a look at the compelling keynotes shaping the discourse in software design, conceptual modeling, language understanding, and biomedical artificial intelligence.
STRG research paper explained
Our recently published research paper presents a solution for specific online customer experiences. With the meteoric rise of e-commerce into a multi-billion-dollar industry, demand for fast and simple creation of online portals has soared! Modern web tools give entrepreneurs access to ready-made templates to quickly create an online portal for their customers. Online presence is essential, and the shopping experience is a high priority! However, relying on ready-made templates for user journeys prevents a thorough analysis of the user experience before launching any kind of web portal.
With modern web tools and services, business owners can create internet portals in a short period of time. In most cases, entrepreneurs design their online shops based on existing user journey templates offered by webpage service providers. As a result, the portal’s user journey can only be analyzed to a limited extent before launch (“going live”). It is extremely difficult to understand what the experiences of visitors following the user journey template might look like.
Our research team, led by Dadhichi Shukla, recognized this challenge and began exploring a groundbreaking approach to bridge the gap between conceptual modeling and machine learning and to find a way to optimize web portals before launch. Under the title „Bridging the Gap: Conceptual Modeling and Machine Learning for Web Portals“ (Bridging the gap: conceptual modeling and machine learning for web portals) examines the intersection of conceptual modeling and machine learning in order to analyze the user journey of online shopping portals. In an era of e-commerce’s significant economic impact, the challenge is to understand user experiences before web portals launch, especially when they are based on existing web templates. The authors propose a system based on conceptual modeling and reinforcement learning that uses the Q-learning and SARSA methods. By training so-called web agents, which navigate in simulated environments representing web portals, the study bridges conceptual modeling and machine learning through empirical analysis. The work improves the understanding of user behavior and thus contributes to optimizing online shopping experiences. So far so good, but what does that mean? How can companies benefit from such a “simulation”?
The benefits of simulated web environments
This paper presents a novel system that connects conceptual modeling and reinforcement learning. By using Q-learning and SARSA, our approach simulates web portals and provides comprehensive insights into the user journey and user experience. It is designed to change the online shopping experience.
Simulated web environments with agents are definitely a strategic advantage. They provide a safe space for testing, questioning, and experimenting with different elements of your online shop, design blocks, and user journey paths. This allows you to gain empirical insights based on reinforcement learning, ensuring continuous process improvement and adaptability to the dynamic landscape of retail and e-commerce. It is simply the new generation of retail technologies.
The research team
The research paper was published in Advances in Conceptual Modeling in the book series Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS).
This book is the peer-reviewed conference proceedings of 7 workshops held at the 42nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2023, from November 6 to 9, 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal. The 28 full papers and 2 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. The topics cover the full spectrum of conceptual modeling, including research and practice in areas such as theories of concepts and ontologies, techniques for transforming conceptual models into effective implementations, and methods and tools for developing and communicating conceptual models.
The conference not only presented new paradigms in software design and AI, but also highlighted the overlaps of conceptual modeling across various industries, from manufacturing and logistics to finance, healthcare, and beyond. STRG’s research paper presents strategic solutions for retail and e-commerce. By combining reinforcement learning with conceptual modeling, we introduce a radical shift in pre-launch analysis for web portals and address the biggest challenges facing the booming multi-billion-dollar online sector.
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