Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

The Need of Changes in Traditional Accounting Systems Necessitated by Modern Intellectual Capital Conception

While economists, business people and policy analysts continue to debate the question of what is "new" about the so-called "New Economy", globalization, urgency of innovation and intensive use of Information technology, one important feature of modern Corporation in the early twenty-first century seems clear: intangible factors are playing an increasingly dominant role in business wealth creation. The drivers of tomorrow's wealth are brands, networks, knowledge, innovation, relationships, competencies, corporate culture and leadership, and these are the new critical assets - the weightless keys to business future wealth. But despite the growing awareness of the importance of intangible assets, they remain almost universally ignored in traditional accounting and reporting procedures. The authors in this article analyze the main problems concerning difficulties to reflect intangibles in traditional accounting statements and project the tendencies of reporting intangible-related information in future accountability.Podczas gdy ekonomiści, przedsiębiorcy i politolodzy dyskutują nad tym, co jest "nowego" w tzw. Nowej Ekonomii oraz nad zagadnieniami związanymi z globalizacją i potrzebą innowacji oraz szerokiego korzystania z technologii informatycznej, jedna kwestia nie ulega wątpliwości, jeśli chodzi o zmiany w przedsiębiorstwie XXI w.: czynniki niematerialne odgrywają coraz większą rolę w tworzeniu wartości. Czynniki kluczowe w kreowaniu przyszłego bogactwa to znaki firmowe, systemy połączeń i kooperacji, wiedza, innowacje, relacje, wartości, kultura organizacyjna i przywództwo. Ale chociaż świadomość znaczenia aktywów niematerialnych i prawnych jest coraz większa, tradycyjna rachunkowość i sprawozdawczość niemal całkowicie je ignoruje. Autorzy tego artykułu analizują najważniejsze problemy, wynikające z trudności odzwierciedlenia aktywów niematerialnych w tradycyjnych sprawozdaniach finansowych oraz ukazują kierunki przyszłego rozwoju rachunkowości w tym zakresie.Nepaisant augančio nematerialaus turto svarbos suvokimo, daugelyje šalių jis iślieka ignoruojamas tradicineje atskaitomybeje ir ataskaitų procedūrose. Praktiškai visos nematerialios investicijos finansinese ataskaitose yra fiksuojamos kaip iślaidos, bet ne kapitahzuojamos (traktuojamos kaip turtas), ir nuamortizuojamos prognozuojamame naudos laikotarpyje. Materialaus-nematerialaus turto asimetnja stingant informacijos apie investicijas į nematerialų turtą daro socialinę ir ekonominę żalą. Sio straipsnio autoriai analizuoja pagrindines nematerialaus turto atspindejimo tradicinese finansinese ataskaitose sunkumų problemas, pasiūlydami jų sprendimo būdus ir prognozuodami informacijos apie nematerialų turtą fiksavimo ateitį atskaitomybėse.Zadanie pt. Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę

Combining quantifications for flexible query result ranking

Databases contain data and database systems governing such databases are often intended to allow a user to query these data. On one hand, these data may be subject to imperfections, on the other hand, users may employ imperfect query preference specifications to query such databases. All of these imperfections lead to each query answer being accompanied by a collection of quantifications indicating how well (part of) a group of data complies with (part of) the user's query. A fundamental question is how to present the user with the query answers complying best to his or her query preferences. The work presented in this paper first determines the difficulties to overcome in reaching such presentation. Mainly, a useful presentation needs the ranking of the query answers based on the aforementioned quantifications, but it seems advisable to not combine quantifications with different interpretations. Thus, the work presented in this paper continues to introduce and examine a novel technique to determine a query answer ranking. Finally, a few aspects of this technique, among which its computational efficiency, are discussed

Reasoning about the Reliability of Diverse Two-Channel Systems in which One Channel is "Possibly Perfect"

This paper considers the problem of reasoning about the reliability of fault-tolerant systems with two "channels" (i.e., components) of which one, A, supports only a claim of reliability, while the other, B, by virtue of extreme simplicity and extensive analysis, supports a plausible claim of "perfection." We begin with the case where either channel can bring the system to a safe state. We show that, conditional upon knowing pA (the probability that A fails on a randomly selected demand) and pB (the probability that channel B is imperfect), a conservative bound on the probability that the system fails on a randomly selected demand is simply pA.pB. That is, there is conditional independence between the events "A fails" and "B is imperfect." The second step of the reasoning involves epistemic uncertainty about (pA, pB) and we show that under quite plausible assumptions, a conservative bound on system pfd can be constructed from point estimates for just three parameters. We discuss the feasibility of establishing credible estimates for these parameters. We extend our analysis from faults of omission to those of commission, and then combine these to yield an analysis for monitored architectures of a kind proposed for aircraft

Human Error and Organizational Management

The concern for performance is a topic that raises interest in the business environment but also in other areas that – even if they seem distant from this world – are aware of, interested in or conditioned by the economy development. As individual performance is very much influenced by the human resource, we chose to analyze in this paper the mechanisms that generate – consciously or not –human error nowadays.Moreover, the extremely tense Romanian context, where failure is rather a rule than an exception, made us investigate the phenomenon of generating a human error and the ways to diminish its effects.human error, performance, management, information processing, organizational culture

Integration and implementation sciences: building a new specialization

Developing a new specialization—Integration and Implementation Sciences—may be an effective way to draw together and significantly strengthen the theory and methods necessary to tackle complex societal issues and problems. This paper presents an argument for such a specialization, beginning with a brief review of calls for new research approaches that combine disciplines and interact more closely with policy and practice. It posits that the core elements of Integration and Implementation Sciences already exist, but that the field is currently characterized by fragmentation and marginalization. The paper then outlines three sets of characteristics that will delineate Integration and Implementation Sciences. First is that the specialization will aim to find better ways to deal with the defining elements of many current societal issues and problems: namely complexity, uncertainty, change, and imperfection. Second is that there will be three theoretical and methodological pillars for doing this: 1) systems thinking and complexity science, 2) participatory methods, and 3) knowledge management, exchange, and implementation. Third, operationally, Integration and Implementation Sciences will be grounded in practical application, and generally involve large-scale collaboration. The paper concludes by examining where Integration and Implementation Sciences would sit in universities, and outlines a program for further development of the field. An appendix provides examples of Integration and Implementation Sciences in action

MIMO Interference Alignment Over Correlated Channels with Imperfect CSI

Interference alignment (IA), given uncorrelated channel components and perfect channel state information, obtains the maximum degrees of freedom in an interference channel. Little is known, however, about how the sum rate of IA behaves at finite transmit power, with imperfect channel state information, or antenna correlation. This paper provides an approximate closed-form signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) expression for IA over multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channels with imperfect channel state information and transmit antenna correlation. Assuming linear processing at the transmitters and zero-forcing receivers, random matrix theory tools are utilized to derive an approximation for the post-processing SINR distribution of each stream for each user. Perfect channel knowledge and i.i.d. channel coefficients constitute special cases. This SINR distribution not only allows easy calculation of useful performance metrics like sum rate and symbol error rate, but also permits a realistic comparison of IA with other transmission techniques. More specifically, IA is compared with spatial multiplexing and beamforming and it is shown that IA may not be optimal for some performance criteria.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Rough Set Theory for Real Estate Appraisal: An Application to Directional District of Naples

This paper proposes an application of Rough Set Theory (RST) to the real estate field, in order to highlight its operational potentialities for mass appraisal purposes. RST allows one to solve the appraisal of real estate units regardless of the deterministic relationship between characteristics that contribute to the formation of the property market price and the same real estate prices. RST was applied to a real estate sample (office units located in Directional District of Naples) and was also integrated with a functional extension so-called Valued Tolerance Relation (VTR) in order to improve its flexibility. A multiple regression analysis (MRA) was developed on the same real estate sample with the aim to compare RST and MRA results. The case study is followed by a brief discussion on basic theoretical connotations of this methodology

A unified framework for building ontological theories with application and testing in the field of clinical trials

The objective of this research programme is to contribute to the establishment of the emerging science of Formal Ontology in Information Systems via a collaborative project involving researchers from a range of disciplines including philosophy, logic, computer science, linguistics, and the medical sciences. The re­searchers will work together on the construction of a unified formal ontology, which means: a general framework for the construction of ontological theories in specific domains. The framework will be constructed using the axiomatic-deductive method of modern formal ontology. It will be tested via a series of applications relating to on-going work in Leipzig on medical taxonomies and data dictionaries in the context of clinical trials. This will lead to the production of a domain-specific ontology which is designed to serve as a basis for applications in the medical field