Forensic Fisheries Science: Literature Review and Research Suggestions

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in litigation against the National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. Litigation may affect personnel throughout the agency, including scientists, whose work is often directly or indirectly influenced by complex legal requirements, but who may not be in a position to comment or engage in public dialogue. It may be helpful for scientists and other agency personnel to join the ongoing discussion in the legal community regarding the interface of science and law. This paper provides a starting point with a selected introduction to relevant legal literature in this area. It uses the phrase “forensic fisheries science” to describe the application of science to legal requirements in the fishery management context. It concludes with suggestions for future research that could assist NMFS scientists as they grapple with the challenge of using science to help the agency meet its complex legal requirements. Forensic: belonging to, used in, or suitable to courts of judicature or to public discussion and debate; argumentative, rhetorical; relating to or dealing with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Towards a Systematic Repository of Knowledge About Managing Collaborative Design Conflicts

Increasingly, complex artifacts such as cars, planes and even software are designed using large-scale and often highly distributed collaborative processes. A key factor in the effectiveness of these processes concerns how well conflicts are managed. Better approaches need to be developed and adopted, but the lack of systematization and dissemination of the knowledge in this field has been a big barrier to the cumulativeness of research in this area as well as to incorporating these ideas into design practice. This paper describes a growing repository of conflict management expertise, built as an augmentation of the MIT Process Handbook, that is designed to address these challenges.

The Evolution of Sociology of Software Architecture

The dialectical interplay of technology and sociological development goes back to the early days of human development, starting with stone tools and fire, and coming through the scientific and industrial revolutions; but it has never been as intense or as rapid as in the modern information age of software development and accelerating knowledge society (Mansell and Wehn, 1988; and Nico, 1994, p. 1602-1604). Software development causes social change, and social challenges demand software solutions. In turn, software solutions demand software application architecture. Software architecture (“SA”) (Fielding and Taylor, 2000) is a process for “defining a structural solution that meets all the technical and operations requirements...” (Microsoft, 2009, Chapter I). In the SA process, there is neither much emphasis on the sociological requirements of all social stakeholders nor on the society in w hich these stakeholders use, operate, group, manage, transact, dispute, and resolve social conflicts. For problems of society demanding sociological as well as software solutions, this study redefines software application architecture as “the process of defining a structured solution that meets all of the sociological , technical, and operational requirements…” This investigation aims to l ay the groundwork for, evolve, and develop an innovative and novel sub-branch of scientific study we name the “Sociology of Software Architecture” (hereinafter referred to as “SSA”). SSA is an interdisciplinary and comparative study integrating, synthesizing, and combining elements of the disciplines of sociology, sociology of technology, history of technology, sociology of knowledge society, epistemology, science methodology (philosophy of science), and software architecture. Sociology and technology have a strong, dynamic, and dialectical relationship and interplay, especially in software development. This thesis investigates and answers important and relevant questions, evolves and develops new scientific knowledge, proposes solutions, demonstrates and validates its benefits, shares its case studies and experiences, and advocates, promotes, and helps the future and further development of this novel method of science

A strategic perspective for managing socio-technical systems: the missing link

Most man-made systems around us are mainly socio-technical systems. As such it is imperative that to manage such systems effectively we need to understand their properties at both the micro and macro level and the holistic functioning of such systems. Such an approach is important in understanding the emergent properties that are exhibited by such system. We already have been delving into the micro level and the intricacies of the different subsystems without actually having the broader view of the whole system. This current approach came from the fact that reductionism is the ‘mantra’ of our scientific nature and endeavours, and dictates how a problem is solved. In this paper a strategic approach is put forward, making use of the force field theory as a necessary missing component for designing and managing socio-technical systems. With this proposed strategic approach the true understanding of solving these emergent properties will be reinforced with what we already know and also help in solving some disorder exhibited in these systems, without creating more uncertainties. This paper sets out the framework and its usefulness to understanding the socio-technical systems around us

Competing Claims on Natural Resources: What Role for Science?

Competing claims on natural resources become increasingly acute, with the poor being most vulnerable to adverse outcomes of such competition. A major challenge for science and policy is to progress from facilitating univocal use to guiding stakeholders in dealing with potentially conflicting uses of natural resources. The development of novel, more equitable, management options that reduce rural poverty is key to achieving sustainable use of natural resources and the resolution of conflicts over them. Here, we describe an interdisciplinary and interactive approach for: (i) the understanding of competing claims and stakeholder objectives; (ii) the identification of alternative resource use options, and (iii) the scientific support to negotiation processes between stakeholders. Central to the outlined approach is a shifted perspective on the role of scientific knowledge in society. Understanding scientific knowledge as entering societal arenas and as fundamentally negotiated, the role of the scientist becomes a more modest one, a contributor to ongoing negotiation processes among stakeholders. Scientists can, therefore, not merely describe and explain resource-use dynamics and competing claims, but in doing so, they should actively contribute to negotiation processes between stakeholders operating at different scales (local, national, regional, and global). Together with stakeholders, they explore alternatives that can contribute to more sustainable and equitable use of natural resources and, where possible, design new technical options and institutional arrangements

IT Project Management from a Systems Thinking Perspective: A Position Paper

We proposes a Systems Thinking approach to the study of IT project management and show how this approach helps project managers in controlling their projects. To illustrate our proposal, we present an example model of the dynamics of IT out-sourcing projects. The example model explains these dynamics in terms of feedback loops consisting of causal relations re-ported in the literature. The model provides insight in how coordination, trust, information exchange and possibilities for op-portunistic behaviour influence each other and together influence delivery quality, which in turn influences trust. The integra-tion of these insights provided by applying the Systems Thinking perspective helps project managers to reason about how their choices influence project outcome. The Systems Thinking perspective can serve as an additional tool in the academic study of IT project management. Applying the Systems Thinking perspective also calls for additional research in which this perspective is itself the object of study

The SLIM (Social learning for the integrated management and sustainable use of water at catchment scale) Final Report

Background: SLIM stands for 'Socuak Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale'. It is a multi-country research project funded by the European Commission (DG RESEARCH - 5th Framework Programme for research and technological development, 1998-2002). Its main theme is the investigation of the socio-economic aspects of the sustainable use of water. Within this theme, its main focus of interest lies in understanding the application of social learning as a conceptual framework, an operational principle, a policy instrument and a process of systemic change