Collective Choice Theory in Collaborative Computing

This paper presents some fundamental collective choice theory for information system designers, particularly those working in the field of computer-supported cooperative work. This paper is focused on a presentation of Arrow's Possibility and Impossibility theorems which form the fundamental boundary on the efficacy of collective choice: voting and selection procedures. It restates the conditions that Arrow placed on collective choice functions in more rigorous second-order logic, which could be used as a set of test conditions for implementations, and a useful probabilistic result for analyzing votes on issue pairs. It also describes some simple collective choice functions. There is also some discussion of how enterprises should approach putting their resources under collective control: giving an outline of a superstructure of performative agents to carry out this function and what distributing processing technology would be needed.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figure

Trust Brokerage Systems for the Internet

This thesis addresses the problem of providing trusted individuals with confidential information about other individuals, in particular, granting access to databases of personal records using the World-Wide Web. It proposes an access rights management system for distributed databases which aims to create and implement organisation structures based on the wishes of the owners and of demands of the users of the databases. The dissertation describes how current software components could be used to implement this system; it re-examines the theory of collective choice to develop mechanisms for generating hierarchies of authorities; it analyses organisational processes for stability and develops a means of measuring the similarity of their hierarchies.Comment: Doctoral Thesis. 279 pages, 7 appendices, 18 tables, 44 figure

Collective Choice Theory in Collaborative Computing

This paper presents some fundamental collective choice theory for information system designers, particularly those working in the field of computer–supported cooperative work. This paper is focused on a presentation of Arrow’s Possibility and Impossibility theorems which form the fundamental boundary on the efficacy of collective choice: voting and selection procedures. It restates the conditions that Arrow placed on collective choice functions in more rigorous second–order logic, which could be used as a set of test conditions for implementations, and a useful probabilistic result for analyzing votes on issue pairs. It also describes some simple collective choice functions. There is also some discussion of how enterprises should approach putting their resources under collective control: giving an outline of a superstructure of performative agents to carry out this function and what distributing processing technology would be needed