A theory and model for the evolution of software services

Software services are subject to constant change and variation. To control service development, a service developer needs to know why a change was made, what are its implications and whether the change is complete. Typically, service clients do not perceive the upgraded service immediately. As a consequence, service-based applications may fail on the service client side due to changes carried out during a provider service upgrade. In order to manage changes in a meaningful and effective manner service clients must therefore be considered when service changes are introduced at the service provider's side. Otherwise such changes will most certainly result in severe application disruption. Eliminating spurious results and inconsistencies that may occur due to uncontrolled changes is therefore a necessary condition for the ability of services to evolve gracefully, ensure service stability, and handle variability in their behavior. Towards this goal, this work presents a model and a theoretical framework for the compatible evolution of services based on well-founded theories and techniques from a number of disparate fields.

A theory and model for the evolution of software services.

Software services are subject to constant change and variation. To control service development, a service developer needs to know why a change was made, what are its implications and whether the change is complete. Typically, service clients do not perceive the upgraded service immediately. As a consequence, service-based applications may fail on the service client side due to changes carried out during a provider service upgrade. In order to manage changes in a meaningful and effective manner service clients must therefore be considered when service changes are introduced at the service provider's side. Otherwise such changes will most certainly result in severe application disruption. Eliminating spurious results and inconsistencies that may occur due to uncontrolled changes is therefore a necessary condition for the ability of services to evolve gracefully, ensure service stability, and handle variability in their behavior. Towards this goal, this work presents a model and a theoretical framework for the compatible evolution of services based on well-founded theories and techniques from a number of disparate fields.

Artificial intelligence (AI): multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research and practice

As far back as the industrial revolution, great leaps in technical innovation succeeded in transforming numerous manual tasks and processes that had been in existence for decades where humans had reached the limits of physical capacity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers this same transformative potential for the augmentation and potential replacement of human tasks and activities within a wide range of industrial, intellectual and social applications. The pace of change for this new AI technological age is staggering, with new breakthroughs in algorithmic machine learning and autonomous decision making engendering new opportunities for continued innovation. The impact of AI is significant, with industries ranging from: finance, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics all set to be disrupted by the onset of AI technologies. The study brings together the collective insight from a number of leading expert contributors to highlight the significant opportunities, challenges and potential research agenda posed by the rapid emergence of AI within a number of domains: technological, business and management, science and technology, government and public sector. The research offers significant and timely insight to AI technology and its impact on the future of industry and society in general

ICT-oriented Strategic Extension for Responsible Fisheries Management

The Course Manual is developed as a part of the ICAR funded Short Course on “ICT -oriented Strategic Extension for Responsible Fisheries Management” held at Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin during 05-25 November, 2013

Metodología de implantación de modelos de gestión de la información dentro de los sistemas de planificación de recursos empresariales. Aplicación en la pequeña y mediana empresa

La Siguiente Generación de Sistemas de Fabricación (SGSF) trata de dar respuesta a los requerimientos de los nuevos modelos de empresas, en contextos de inteligencia, agilidad y adaptabilidad en un entono global y virtual. La Planificación de Recursos Empresariales (ERP) con soportes de gestión del producto (PDM) y el ciclo de vida del producto (PLM) proporciona soluciones de gestión empresarial sobre la base de un uso coherente de tecnologías de la información para la implantación en sistemas CIM (Computer-Integrated Manufacturing), con un alto grado de adaptabilidad a la estnictura organizativa deseada. En general, esta implementación se lleva desarrollando hace tiempo en grandes empresas, siendo menor (casi nula) su extensión a PYMEs. La presente Tesis Doctoral, define y desarrolla una nueva metodología de implementación pan la generación automática de la información en los procesos de negocio que se verifican en empresas con requerimientos adaptados a las necesidades de la SGSF, dentro de los sistemas de gestión de los recursos empresariales (ERP), atendiendo a la influencia del factor humano. La validez del modelo teórico de la metodología mencionada se ha comprobado al implementarlo en una empresa del tipo PYME, del sector de Ingeniería. Para el establecimiento del Estado del Arte de este tema se ha diseñado y aplicado una metodología específica basada en el ciclo de mejora continua de Shewhart/Deming, aplicando las herramientas de búsqueda y análisis bibliográfico disponibles en la red con acceso a las correspondientes bases de datos

Economic Sustainability of Culture and Cultural Tourism

The book "Economic Sustainability of Culture and Cultural Tourism" focuses on the economic sustainability of cultural and cultural tourism projects, but it also takes into account other aspects. It consists of eleven articles, which address cultural heritage, culture, cultural/creative industries and (cultural) tourism. Analysis in the cultural heritage-related articles deals with specific topics such as crowdfunding, cost–benefit analysis in the evaluation of cultural heritage project funding, industrial heritage/brownfields, and social assessment methods for the economic analysis of cultural heritage. Cultural work is further analyzed, offering a comparative economic sustainability analysis in the UK as well as support mechanisms for cultural/creative industries in Canada. Creative industries in the peripheral areas of Italy and Greece are also zeroed in on in the context of their sustainability. Articles focusing on (cultural) tourism address the topics of dark tourism, tourists’ willingness to pay for cultural experiences, and the relationship between COVID-19 vaccinations and the volatility of travel and leisure companies. Additionally, the role of culture and heritage in tourism resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic is explored with interesting results

Artificially Intelligent Copyright: Rethinking Copyright Boundaries

My dissertation explores the legal boundaries of copyright law in the wake of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In building the theoretical foundations for my dissertation, I go through several key phases. First, I highlight important historical events and milestones in AI. I further develop the philosophical debate on AI legal personhood and deliberate whether we are approaching a singularity the next stage of AI evolution. I also explore the concept of AI as it matured through the years. In the second part, I theorize how AI can be regarded as an author under IP normative standards. Part of accepting the argument that AI deserve copyright is a willingness to change the perception that only human creations are worthy of copyright protection. I also seek an answer to two sub-questions the who and the what. The who considers the normative standards of authorship in the ongoing struggle between an authors right and the public domain. The what raise the originality debate and discusses the standard of creation. In the third part, I outline the many candidates for AI authorship the programmer, the user, the AI and an alternative legal framework for AIs ownership like the public domain or author-in-law. Finally, I discuss the outcomes of each model and provide my conclusions

'A watershed in watershed governance' : democracy and (de) politicization of development projects in India

This thesis studies the governance aspects (institutions and discourses) of donor-aided development programs in two integrated watershed development projects: 1) the Indo-German Watershed Development Program in Maharashtra (west India), and 2) the Integrated Watershed Development Project, Shiwalik Hills-II in Uttarakhand (north India). A watershed development project entails physical interventions for soil and water conservation measures (like building check dams, water absorption trenches, forestation, among others) and institutional interventions (like formation of village watershed committees, micro-credit societies, and forest protection committees, among others) in a specified location demarcated by the catchment area of a river or stream. It presents economic and socio-political data from the above-mentioned case studies to illustrate that the present governance strategies of the watershed development projects can be usefully analyzed from a ‘depoliticization’ perspective. Depoliticization can be described as a process in which previously political issues, people and institutions are becoming less political or nonpolitical. Habermas describes this process as the ‘decline of the public realm as a political institution’ that reduces the role of ‘citoyens’ to consumers, the public realm gets confined to spectacles and acclamations (Outhwaite, 1996). This implies that such issues, people and institutions are relocated from the arenas of democratic contestation and decision into the arenas which are governed by apolitical expert bodies, rules and regulations prescribed by non-negotiable scientific ‘facts’. In development studies, the concept has been used among others by Harriss (2002) and Ferguson (1990) to suggest that the developmental enterprise in the third world is based on a discourse propounded by international development agencies like World Bank, that relocates political issues of poverty and water scarcity in the list of technical problems to bypass the issues of contestation in democratic politics. Political decision-making in the sense of citizens critically discussing watershed policies, has been replaced by dominant groups persuading the public towards certain interventions and conclusions as observed in the cases. In this study, depoliticization has been further disaggregated under two categories: (i) preference-shaping depoliticization, and (ii) depoliticization of institutions and social organizations. These aspects are explored in detail with the help of empirical data from each case to locate the governance tactics of watershed development projects. Issues and institutions in this sense became the focal locations where the processes of governance were observed to be following certain techniques that could be problematized under the umbrella concept of depoliticization. In this study, depoliticization has been further disaggregated under two categories: (i) preference-shaping depoliticization, and (ii) depoliticization of institutions and social organizations. These aspects are explored in detail with the help of empirical data from each case to locate the governance tactics of watershed development projects. Issues and institutions in this sense became the focal locations where the processes of governance were observed to be following certain techniques that could be problematized under the umbrella concept of depoliticization. This thesis concludes that watershed governance in India is at the crossroads where it is undergoing a paradigm shift in the light of parallel transformations in the world democracy. This ‘shift’ has been characterized in the title of this thesis as ‘a watershed’ in Indian watershed governance

The Learning Experience of Alumni Mock Interviewers: Implications for Program Design

Career centers in higher education must create environments that serve the needs of students and alumni. Alumni not only are a served population, but also are beneficial to student career development, and serve dual purposes as clients and volunteers. One program frequently offered by career centers that engages alumni volunteers is an alumni mock interview program. While the alumni volunteers act as interviewers to share their insights and professional experience, they too are clients, so their learning must be considered. Existing mock interview program research primarily examines the student learning experience. This study addressed the research problem of the unknown learning experience of alumni mock interviewers. The purpose was to explore with a group of alumni volunteers their perceptions of their learning experience as interviewers within a mock interview program. To achieve this purpose, the researcher employed a qualitative, single-case study approach drawing upon the experiences of alumni mock interviewers within a particular setting. Data was collected from 43 participants providing questionnaire ratings and 25 subset participants completing critical incident written responses and interviews. Four major study findings emerged: (1) All described what they learned, with a majority learning the importance of creating a comfortable environment, delivering feedback, offering the program for students’ preparation, and understanding current students’ experiences; (2) All found aspects that contributed to their learning, with a majority describing having sample interview questions and staying in touch with students as helpful; (3) All found aspects that inhibited their learning, with a majority describing the lack of connection with fellow alumni mock interviewers and lack of industry knowledge of specific fields as hindering; (4) All described program design recommendations to foster alumni learning, with a majority recommending matching students with alumni based on industry and background, providing an opportunity to hear about alumni experiences, and offering advanced training to students. The principal recommendations of the study have implications for higher education career service professionals on how to design mock interview programs to engage alumni in lifelong learning by considering the sources of knowledge within the program and utilizing adult learning theory and learning from experience frameworks as guides