A Systematic Literature Review of Requirements Negotiation Methods from 2010 till 2015

This paper carries out a systematic literature review of requirements negotiation methods (RNM) from 2010 till 2015. We provide advice to researchers and practitioners. To researchers we provide advice in which fields of study further research is needed. For practitioners we scored the methods for different requirement conflict (RC) types. In total, we found 12 new RNM. For these methods, we identified the type of RC that the methods resolve. In the last five years, more methods are created than before. Requirements contradiction conflicts and quality attribute conflicts are better covered in methods now than before 2010

Resolving Stakeholder Challenges in the Higher Education System

The purpose of this paper is to study how to resolve conflicts among major the stakeholders using the Kano et al. (1984) model so as to improve the quality of higher education (HE)

Using SPI Manifesto to Recover from CRM Deployment Project Failures and to Proactively Eliminate Similar Failures in Future: An Action Research Study in a Russian organization

The deployment of software products such as Customer Relationship Management systems may seem straightforward when reading the success stories of software providers. Yet, deployment projects are risky and often fail. Ineffective deployment processes of software providers and systems integrators are a major cause of failures. SPI Manifesto is a recent attempt to help the providers improve their processes, so most failures in software development may be eliminated proactively. Yet, the effectiveness and validity of SPI Manifesto relative to deployment projects are unclear. This paper presents an action research study in a customer organization to assess the extent to which SPI Manifesto could be used to help the providers to recover from situations in which CRM deployment projects are about to fail and to eliminate similar problems proactively in future. Based on the assessment, this paper contributes to improving the generic CRM deployment project process and SPI Manifesto

Conflicts and cures: fisheries conflicts and international fisheries policy instruments

In the context of an apparently ever-globalized world, fishing resources are prey to quickly evolving interests from an increasing number of stakeholders. Fisheries conflicts must be assessed if we want to address the sustainability of a sector that employs over 40.3 million fishers, extracts 90.9 million tons of marine seafood a year (FAO 2018). Using 66 questionnaires and case studies from 42 countries gathered at the “Tenure and UserRights in Fisheries 2018: Achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030” (UserRights 2018) global conference, this study aims to: (1) showcase the different types of fisheries conflicts and resolution mechanisms found in the 66 cases; and (2) assess whether three existing fisheries policy instruments - the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF, FAO 1995), the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs, FAO 2012), and the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines, FAO 2014) - address these conflicts and provide solutions to them. Based on Charles (1992) typology of fisheries conflicts, 92.4% of the cases reported conflicts, mostly associated with management mechanisms and internal allocation arguments. Regarding conflict resolution, 69% of the cases rely on legal and/or judicial systems. Among the three fisheries international policy instruments, the VGGTs provide basis for fisheries dispute resolution. However, there is room for more international instruments sensitive to fisheries conflicts, that are able to provide both issue and context-specific guidance to support fisheries stakeholders at all levels, embedded in a sustainable fishery governance objective

Considerations in Assuring Safety of Increasingly Autonomous Systems

Recent technological advances have accelerated the development and application of increasingly autonomous (IA) systems in civil and military aviation. IA systems can provide automation of complex mission tasks-ranging across reduced crew operations, air-traffic management, and unmanned, autonomous aircraft-with most applications calling for collaboration and teaming among humans and IA agents. IA systems are expected to provide benefits in terms of safety, reliability, efficiency, affordability, and previously unattainable mission capability. There is also a potential for improving safety by removal of human errors. There are, however, several challenges in the safety assurance of these systems due to the highly adaptive and non-deterministic behavior of these systems, and vulnerabilities due to potential divergence of airplane state awareness between the IA system and humans. These systems must deal with external sensors and actuators, and they must respond in time commensurate with the activities of the system in its environment. One of the main challenges is that safety assurance, currently relying upon authority transfer from an autonomous function to a human to mitigate safety concerns, will need to address their mitigation by automation in a collaborative dynamic context. These challenges have a fundamental, multidimensional impact on the safety assurance methods, system architecture, and V&V capabilities to be employed. The goal of this report is to identify relevant issues to be addressed in these areas, the potential gaps in the current safety assurance techniques, and critical questions that would need to be answered to assure safety of IA systems. We focus on a scenario of reduced crew operation when an IA system is employed which reduces, changes or eliminates a human's role in transition from two-pilot operations

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) as a Tool to Improve Governance? Experience in Ghana

"The quality of governance in Africa is particularly in discussion since the end of the Cold War. In 2002, African states created the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) with the declared goal to improve governance on the continent. Around half of Africa's states have agreed on conducting a self-assessment and discuss this with other heads of state and government. Ghana was the front runner in this process. As the first county to undergo an APRM, Ghana applied and also shaped the rules of the APRM. The aim of this study, which is the final report of a working group conducted in Ghana, is to look into the experience with the APRM in Ghana. Research was based on numerous interviews with stakeholders in the Ghanaian APRM, namely government officials, the national APRM secretariat, non-state actors and representatives of civil society. The study assesses the potential impact of the APRM on governance by considering the rigour or flexibility of its legal framework, the openness to participation in the self-assessment of Ghana, and the quality of the Ghanaian APRM report. It also takes a first look into whether recommendations of the report were implemented. From this analysis, the study assesses the APRM's potential for improving governance in Ghana and provides recommendations for APRM stakeholders and donors." (author's abstract

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Proceedings, MSVSCC 2015

The Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) of Old Dominion University hosted the 2015 Modeling, Simulation, & Visualization Student capstone Conference on April 16th. The Capstone Conference features students in Modeling and Simulation, undergraduates and graduate degree programs, and fields from many colleges and/or universities. Students present their research to an audience of fellow students, faculty, judges, and other distinguished guests. For the students, these presentations afford them the opportunity to impart their innovative research to members of the M&S community from academic, industry, and government backgrounds. Also participating in the conference are faculty and judges who have volunteered their time to impart direct support to their students’ research, facilitate the various conference tracks, serve as judges for each of the tracks, and provide overall assistance to this conference. 2015 marks the ninth year of the VMASC Capstone Conference for Modeling, Simulation and Visualization. This year our conference attracted a number of fine student written papers and presentations, resulting in a total of 51 research works that were presented. This year’s conference had record attendance thanks to the support from the various different departments at Old Dominion University, other local Universities, and the United States Military Academy, at West Point. We greatly appreciated all of the work and energy that has gone into this year’s conference, it truly was a highly collaborative effort that has resulted in a very successful symposium for the M&S community and all of those involved. Below you will find a brief summary of the best papers and best presentations with some simple statistics of the overall conference contribution. Followed by that is a table of contents that breaks down by conference track category with a copy of each included body of work. Thank you again for your time and your contribution as this conference is designed to continuously evolve and adapt to better suit the authors and M&S supporters. Dr.Yuzhong Shen Graduate Program Director, MSVE Capstone Conference Chair John ShullGraduate Student, MSVE Capstone Conference Student Chai