Overcoming Challenges to Effective Application of IT Research Results: A Framework for Encapsulating the Context and Findings of Research Studies

Research studies frequently yield conflicting results. Resolving these conflicts is a grand challenge to effective application of research results. This paper presents a new framework for encapsulating the context and findings of research studies into a dimensional knowledge base which makes it easy to identify the conflicting results, and to explore the differences in context that might explain the conflicting findings. The framework is illustrated using the knowledge sharing domain. The Information Systems literature identifies over 100 variables associated with knowledge sharing, and the findings across different studies have frequently been contradictory. This paper shows how to capture the relevant contextual information, store the information in a dimensional document mart, and use the information to detect and reconcile seemingly inconsistent findings

The 3D model control of image processing

Telerobotics studies remote control of distant robots by a human operator using supervisory or direct control. Even if the robot manipulators has vision or other senses, problems arise involving control, communications, and delay. The communication delays that may be expected with telerobots working in space stations while being controlled from an Earth lab have led to a number of experiments attempting to circumvent the problem. This delay in communication is a main motivating factor in moving from well understood instantaneous hands-on manual control to less well understood supervisory control; the ultimate step would be the realization of a fully autonomous robot. The 3-D model control plays a crucial role in resolving many conflicting image processing problems that are inherent in resolving in the bottom-up approach of most current machine vision processes. The 3-D model control approach is also capable of providing the necessary visual feedback information for both the control algorithms and for the human operator

Towards a Framework for Managing Inconsistencies in Systems of Systems

The growth in the complexity of software systems has led to a proliferation of systems that have been created independently to provide specific functions, such as activity tracking, household energy management or personal nutrition assistance. The runtime composition of these individual systems into Systems of Systems (SoSs) enables support for more sophisticated functionality that cannot be provided by individual constituent systems on their own. However, in order to realize the benefits of these functionalities it is necessary to address a number of challenges associated with SoSs, including, but not limited to, operational and managerial independence, geographic distribution of participating systems, evolutionary development, and emergent conflicting behavior that can occur due interactions between the requirements of the participating systems. In this paper, we present a framework for conflict management in SoSs. The management of conflicting requirements involves four steps, namely (a) overlap detection, (b) conflict identification, (c) conflict diagnosis, and (d) conflict resolution based on the use of a utility function. The framework uses a Monitor-Analyze-Plan- Execute- Knowledge (MAPE-K) architectural pattern. In order to illustrate the work, we use an example SoS ecosystem designed to support food security at different levels of granularity

Neural correlates of distraction and conflict resolution for nonverbal auditory events

In everyday situations auditory selective attention requires listeners to suppress task-irrelevant stimuli and to resolve conflicting information in order to make appropriate goal-directed decisions. Traditionally, these two processes (i.e. distractor suppression and conflict resolution) have been studied separately. In the present study we measured neuroelectric activity while participants performed a new paradigm in which both processes are quantified. In separate block of trials, participants indicate whether two sequential tones share the same pitch or location depending on the block's instruction. For the distraction measure, a positive component peaking at ~250 ms was found - a distraction positivity. Brain electrical source analysis of this component suggests different generators when listeners attended to frequency and location, with the distraction by location more posterior than the distraction by frequency, providing support for the dual-pathway theory. For the conflict resolution measure, a negative frontocentral component (270-450 ms) was found, which showed similarities with that of prior studies on auditory and visual conflict resolution tasks. The timing and distribution are consistent with two distinct neural processes with suppression of task-irrelevant information occurring before conflict resolution. This new paradigm may prove useful in clinical populations to assess impairments in filtering out task-irrelevant information and/or resolving conflicting information

Goal Directed Conflict Resolution and Policy Refinement

Peer reviewedPostprin

DISPUTES RESOLUTION AMONGST RESIDENTS OF TENEMENT PROPERTIES IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

Low income earners in Lagos metropolis have peculiar taste for a type of residential property, popularly referred to as face-me-I-face-you. The type of property usually consists of many units rooms flanking a central passage. Tenants with different orientation and background cohabit, and conflicts frequently occur amongst them. This paper examines the causes of conflicts that are common amongst tenants of tenement type of residential accommodation in Lagos metropolis. In so doing, questionnaires coupled with direct observation and interviews were administered on total of five hundred respondents randomly selected from five zones in the study area. The study found a number of factors causing the conflicts and recommends creative problemsolving strategies, amongst others, for managing such conflicts amongst occupiers of tenement houses in the study area