Proceedings of Monterey Workshop 2001 Engineering Automation for Sofware Intensive System Integration

The 2001 Monterey Workshop on Engineering Automation for Software Intensive System Integration was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. It is our pleasure to thank the workshop advisory and sponsors for their vision of a principled engineering solution for software and for their many-year tireless effort in supporting a series of workshops to bring everyone together.This workshop is the 8 in a series of International workshops. The workshop was held in Monterey Beach Hotel, Monterey, California during June 18-22, 2001. The general theme of the workshop has been to present and discuss research works that aims at increasing the practical impact of formal methods for software and systems engineering. The particular focus of this workshop was "Engineering Automation for Software Intensive System Integration". Previous workshops have been focused on issues including, "Real-time & Concurrent Systems", "Software Merging and Slicing", "Software Evolution", "Software Architecture", "Requirements Targeting Software" and "Modeling Software System Structures in a fastly moving scenario".Office of Naval ResearchAir Force Office of Scientific Research Army Research OfficeDefense Advanced Research Projects AgencyApproved for public release, distribution unlimite

Foundations of B2B electronic contracting

Nowadays, flexible electronic cooperation paradigms are required for core business processes to meet the speed and flexibility requirements dictated by fast-changing markets. These paradigms should include the functionality to establish the formal business relationship required by the importance of these core processes. The business relationship should be established in an automated, electronic way in order to match the speed and flexibility requirements mentioned above. As such, it should considerably improve on the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of traditional contracting in this context. The result of the establishment should be a detailed electronic contract that contains a complete specification of the intended cooperation between organizations. Electronic contracts should contain a precise and unambiguous specification of the collaboration at both the conceptual and technological level. Existing commercial software solutions for business-to-business contracting provide low level of automation and concentrate solely on the automated management of the contract enactment. However, in the modern, dynamic, business settings, an econtracting system has to support high automation of the e-contract establishment, enactment, and management. In the thesis, the business, legal, and technological requirements for the development of a highly automated e-contracting system are investigated. Models that satisfy these requirements and that can be used as a foundation for the implementation of an electronic contracting system are defined. First, the thesis presents the business benefits introduced to companies by highly automated electronic contracting. Next, a data and process analysis of electronic contracting is presented. The specification of electronic contracts and the required process support for electronic contract establishment and enactment are investigated. The business benefits and data and process models defined in the thesis are validated on the basis of two business cases from on-line advertising, namely the cases of online advertising in "De Telegraaf" and "Google". Finally, the thesis presents a specification of the functionalities that must be provided by an e-contracting system. A conceptual reference architecture that can be used as a starting point in the design and implementation of an electronic contracting system is defined. The work in the thesis is conducted on the intersection of the scientific areas of conceptual information and process modeling and specification on the one hand and distributed information system architecture modeling on the other hand

Exploring the Self Definition and Individuality of Black Professional Women

What is it like when we know who we are and can make sense of ourselves? This research explores black professional women's attempts to define themselves through their personal and working lives. What makes each of them an individual? The present study aims to investigate the foundation of each of the participants' sense of self and to understand how this has shaped their present view of themselves. The study reports on accounts from semi-structured interviews with ten female participants, which was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). This research examines how the meaning-making processes of these women impact on their self definition. Four master themes are presented: self definition - defining me, the self and others, influences on the self, and "my individuality". The master themes highlight the participants' struggles to self define and maintain their individuality. The analysis suggests, both a competing sense of self, and the influence of past relations on present self definitions. It further indicates an imbalance between how internal and external discourses impact on individuality and self definition. The research concludes by examining the analytic observations in light of phenomenological thinking

Parent Perceptions and Experiences in Child Custody Decision-Making

Using the works of Lukes (2005) and Gutierrez (1994), this dissertation provides a critical view of the study findings through a discussion of power and empowerment to illustrate that, within child custody decision-making, one‟s capacity for power is affected not just by scope and significance, as suggested by Lukes (2005), but also by the level of conflict and experience of violence. Viewing the findings from this lens provides another understanding of the parent experience of child custody decision-making, putting into perspective their acts of resistance to structural barriers. These acts of resistance, I show, are avenues for change. Specifically for the findings in this study, these acts of resistance demonstrate a pathway for those with seemingly little power to challenge legislation