Towards a cyberinfrastructure for enhanced scientific

Scientific and technological collaboration is more and more coming to be seen as critically dependent upon effective access to, and sharing of digital research data, and of the information tools that facilitate data being structured for efficient storage, search, retrieval, display and higher level analysis. A February 2003 report to the U.S. NSF Directorate of Computer and Information System Engineering urged that funding be provided for a major enhancement of computer and network technologies, thereby creating a cyberinfrastructure whose facilities would support and transform the conduct of scientific and engineering research. The argument of this paper is that engineering breakthroughs alone will not be enough to achieve such an outcome; success in realizing the cyberinfrastructure’s potential, if it is achieved, will more likely to be the resultant of a nexus of interrelated social, legal and technical transformations. The socio-institutional elements of a new infrastructure supporting collaboration that is to say, its supposedly “softer” parts -- are every bit as complicated as the hardware and computer software, and, indeed, may prove much harder to devise and implement. The roots of this latter class of challenges facing “e- Science” will be seen to lie in the micro- and meso-level incentive structures created by the existing legal and administrative regimes. Although a number of these same conditions and circumstances appear to be equally significant obstacles to commercial provision of Grid services in interorganizational contexts, the domain of publicly supported scientific collaboration is held to be the more hospitable environment in which to experiment with a variety of new approaches to solving these problems. The paper concludes by proposing several “solution modalities,” including some that also could be made applicable for fields of information-intensive collaboration in business and finance that must regularly transcends organizational boundaries.

Towards a cyberinfrastructure for enhanced scientific

A new generation of information and communication infrastructures, including advanced Internet computing and Grid technologies, promises to enable more direct and shared access to more widely distributed computing resources than was previously possible. Scientific and technological collaboration, consequently, is more and more coming to be seen as critically dependent upon effective access to, and sharing of digital research data, and of the information tools that facilitate data being structured for efficient storage, search, retrieval, display and higher level analysis. A recent (February 2003) report to the U.S. NSF Directorate of Computer and Information System Engineering urged that funding be provided for a major enhancement of computer and network technologies, thereby creating a cyberinfrastructure whose facilities would support and transform the conduct of scientific and engineering research. The articulation of this programmatic vision reflects a widely shared expectation that solving the technical engineering problems associated with the advanced hardware and software systems of the cyberinfrastructure will yield revolutionary payoffs by empowering individual researchers and increasing the scale, scope and flexibility of collective research enterprises. The argument of this paper, however, is that engineering breakthroughs alone will not be enough to achieve such an outcome; success in realizing the cyberinfrastructure’s potential, if it is achieved, will more likely to be the resultant of a nexus of interrelated social, legal and technical transformations. The socio-institutional elements of a new infrastructure supporting collaboration – that is to say, its supposedly “softer” parts -- are every bit as complicated as the hardware and computer software, and, indeed, may prove much harder to devise and implement. The roots of this latter class of challenges facing “e-Science” will be seen to lie in the micro- and meso-level incentive structures created by the existing legal and administrative regimes. Although a number of these same conditions and circumstances appear to be equally significant obstacles to commercial provision of Grid services in interorganizational contexts, the domain of publicly supported scientific collaboration is held to be the more hospitable environment in which to experiment with a variety of new approaches to solving these problems. The paper concludes by proposing several “solution modalities,” including some that also could be made applicable for fields of information-intensive collaboration in business and finance that must regularly transcends organizational boundaries.

Making Lab Sessions Mandatory -- On Student Work Distribution in a Gamified Project Course on Market-Driven Software Engineering

Unfair work distribution in student teams is a common issue in project-based learning. One contributing factor is that students are differently skilled developers. In a course with group work intertwining engineering and business aspects, we designed an intervention to help novice programmers, i.e., we introduced mandatory programming lab sessions. However, the intervention did not affect the work distribution, showing that more is needed to balance the workload. Contrary to our goal, the intervention was very well received among experienced students, but unpopular with students weak at programming.Comment: To appear in the Proc. of the 32nd International Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T

System and Decision Sciences at IIASA 1973-1980

This report contains a brief history of the past achievements of the System and Decision Sciences Area at IIASA, and a summary of its current and future research directions. There is a comprehensive list of the scientific staff of the Area since 1973, together with a list of their publications; abstracts of the most recent reports and biographies of the scholars working in the Area in 1980 are also included

Apportioning liability in construction delay claims : an evaluation of contemporary practices in the U.A.E. and a proposal for improvements

Various theories, concepts and methodologies exist for apportioning liabilities inconstruction delay claims. Yet, there is no much consensus among the practitionerstowards them. Often, the implementation of these theories, concepts and methodologies ina project is based on Decision Makers' (DMs) individual judgments. Individualjudgments are generally intuitive and subjective. That brings scepticism on the outcomeyielded by either party's approaches or methods. This would most possibly result infurther escalation of dispute. This research was inspired by the findings of initial surveysand peer discussions which indicated this situation as a major problem area in delayclaims resolution, requiring improvements to the contemporary practices. Thus, theprincipal aim of this research is set out 'to investigate the problems involved in thecontemporary practices of apportioning liability in construction delay claims and proposea Framework for Improvements'. This 'Framework of Improvements' is expected toenable consensus and uniformity among the DMs for appropriate application of essentialtheory, concepts and delay analysis methodology in order to minimise/ reduce thenegative impacts of such problematic issues and enhance efficiency and fairness in delayclaims resolution process. The research objectives were set out in order to fulfil this aim.Accordingly, the research undertook to investigate the perceptions, approaches andmethods adopted by the practitioners in carrying out apportioning liabilities, and theproblem issues that may stem from such practices. This inquiry was carried outimplementing mixed methods approach which was consistent with the philosophical standof the research. Thus, both semi-structured interviews (qualitative strand) and in-depthsurveys (quantitative strand) were extensively used for the necessary data collection. Theanalysed findings and the merged results of this inquiry and the findings of acomprehensive literature review enabled developing the intended 'Framework ofImprovements'. As the main outcome of the study, this Framework consists of (1)improvements to be adopted through changes to contract documentation and proceduresand (2) improvements (through a Model) to the process of selection of a most appropriatemethod of delay analysis under objective circumstances of a construction project. Thesecomponents of the Framework have been subject to necessary validation. Thus, ifconsciously implemented, it has the potential to bring forth substantial corporate benefitsto both employers and contractors, by eliminating waste of time and money in unnecessary disputes in delay claims resolution process. The research has also contributedto the domain knowledge by providing a comprehensive data base as to the currentpractices and established a knowledge base of essential theory, legal position and practicein delay claims resolution; this can be used as a repository by practitioners and potentialresearchers. At the conclusion, while accomplishing the research objectives and the aim,the study has identified the potential limitations of the research and recommended areasfor further research