Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives

This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design

Learning in Strategic Alliances

{Excerpt} Strategic alliances that bring organizations together promise unique opportunities for partners. The reality is often otherwise. Successful strategic alliances manage the partnership, not just the agreement,for collaborative advantage. Above all, they also pay attentionto learning priorities in alliance evolution. The resource-based view of the firm that gained currency in the mid-1980s considered that the competitive advantage of an organization rests on the application of the strategic resources at its disposal. These days, orthodoxy recognizes the merits of the dynamic, knowledge-based capabilities underpinning the positions organizations occupy in a sector or market. Strategic alliances—meaning cooperative agreements between two or more organizations—are a means to enhance strategic resources: self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly difficult in a complex, uncertain, and discontinuous external environment that calls for focus and flexibility in equal measure. Everywhere, organizations are discovering that they cannot “go” it alone and must now often turn to others to survive

Using Eco-schemes in the new CAP: a guide for managing authorities

This guide has been developed primarily for policy makers and Member State officials involved in the national and regional programming processes of the CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs). This process might involve different administrative levels (national, regional, local), different political fields (agriculture, environmental, food and health ministries), different public bodies (paying agencies, environmental agencies, rural development offices) depending on the administrative setting of each MS. In addition, the guide provides support to other stakeholders and practitioners from the public and private sectors and civil society (including agricultural, environmental, food, health and consumer NGOs), with a direct or indirect involvement in the programming and evaluation process of the CSPs. Since these new plans will have a strong impact on MS environments, agricultural sectors, rural areas, etc., the engagement of all stakeholders will be an important asset for supporting an effective implementation of the CSP objectives. There are many others with potential interests in the contents of this guide. EU citizens have demonstrated their increasing interest in the contents of the CAP objectives and policy framework, as demonstrated both by civil society initiatives and consumption decisions. The contents of this guide may therefore also be of interest to other societal actors with interests in agricultural and environmental policies, such as researchers, journalists, trade unions, and civil society organizations. However, the guide is intentionally more focused on the technical needs of those involved in CSP development and implementation

Software systems engineering: a journey to contemporary agile and beyond, do people matter?

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Composition and Self-Adaptation of Service-Based Systems with Feature Models

The adoption of mechanisms for reusing software in pervasive systems has not yet become standard practice. This is because the use of pre-existing software requires the selection, composition and adaptation of prefabricated software parts, as well as the management of some complex problems such as guaranteeing high levels of efficiency and safety in critical domains. In addition to the wide variety of services, pervasive systems are composed of many networked heterogeneous devices with embedded software. In this work, we promote the safe reuse of services in service-based systems using two complementary technologies, Service-Oriented Architecture and Software Product Lines. In order to do this, we extend both the service discovery and composition processes defined in the DAMASCo framework, which currently does not deal with the service variability that constitutes pervasive systems. We use feature models to represent the variability and to self-adapt the services during the composition in a safe way taking context changes into consideration. We illustrate our proposal with a case study related to the driving domain of an Intelligent Transportation System, handling the context information of the environment.Work partially supported by the projects TIN2008-05932, TIN2008-01942, TIN2012-35669, TIN2012-34840 and CSD2007-0004 funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER; P09-TIC-05231 and P11-TIC-7659 funded by Andalusian Government; and FP7-317731 funded by EU. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Software systems engineering: a journey to contemporary agile and beyond, do people matter?

It is fascinating to view the evolution of software systems engineering over the decades. At the first glance, it could be perceived that the various approaches and processes are different. Are they indeed different? This paper will briefly discuss such a journey relating to findings from an empirical study in some organisations in the UK. Some of the issues described in the literature and by practitioners are common across different software system engineering approaches over the time. It can be argued that human-element of software development plays an integral part in the success of software systems development endeavour. After all, software engineering is a human-centric craft. In order to understand such issues, we crossed the discipline to other disciplines in order to adapt theories and principles that will help to better understand and tackle such matter. Other disciplines have well established human related theories and principles that can be useful. From Japanese management philosophies, we have adapted Lean and knowledge management theories. From psychology, we have adapted Emotional Intelligence (EI). With such an interdisciplinary view, some of the issues can be addressed adequately. Which bring the question: is it really the process or the people? The second author will reflect on his experience attending the first SQM conference 25 years ago. The reflection will discuss the evolution of software systems engineering, and what was changed since then, if at all changed

Invest to Save: Report and Recommendations of the NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and Preservation

Digital archiving and preservation are important areas for research and development, but there is no agreed upon set of priorities or coherent plan for research in this area. Research projects in this area tend to be small and driven by particular institutional problems or concerns. As a consequence, proposed solutions from experimental projects and prototypes tend not to scale to millions of digital objects, nor do the results from disparate projects readily build on each other. It is also unclear whether it is worthwhile to seek general solutions or whether different strategies are needed for different types of digital objects and collections. The lack of coordination in both research and development means that there are some areas where researchers are reinventing the wheel while other areas are neglected. Digital archiving and preservation is an area that will benefit from an exercise in analysis, priority setting, and planning for future research. The WG aims to survey current research activities, identify gaps, and develop a white paper proposing future research directions in the area of digital preservation. Some of the potential areas for research include repository architectures and inter-operability among digital archives; automated tools for capture, ingest, and normalization of digital objects; and harmonization of preservation formats and metadata. There can also be opportunities for development of commercial products in the areas of mass storage systems, repositories and repository management systems, and data management software and tools.

Killing them softly:managing pathogen polymorphism and virulence in spatially variable environments

Understanding why pathogen populations are genetically variable is vital because genetic variation fuels evolution, which often hampers disease control efforts. Here I argue that classical models of evolution in spatially variable environments – specifically, models of hard and soft selection – provide a useful framework to understand the maintenance of pathogen polymorphism and the evolution of virulence. First, the similarities between models of hard and soft selection and pathogen life cycles are described, highlighting how the type and timing of pathogen control measures impose density regulation that may affect both the level of pathogen polymorphism and virulence. The article concludes with an outline of potential lines of future theoretical and experimental work