2 research outputs found
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