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

Engineering framework for service-oriented automation systems

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

A multi-agent architecture for internet distributed computing system

This thesis presents the developed taxonomy of the agent-based distributed computing systems. Based on this taxonomy, a design, implementation, analysis and distribution protocol of a multi-agent architecture for internet-based distributed computing system was developed. A prototype of the designed architecture was implemented on Spider III using the IBM Aglets software development kit (ASDK 2.0) and the language Java

Finansiell inkludering : trender, determinanter og bidrag

Finansiell inkludering er avgjørende for et lands økonomi. Forskere, politikere og andre interessenter har en økende interesse for finansiell inkludering, og flere land har innlemmet det i sine nasjonale strategier. Denne oppgaven bidrar til litteraturen ved å analysere ulike aspekter ved finansiell inkludering. Hovedmålet er å undersøke trender og ulike faktorers bidrag til finansiell inkludering. Denne oppgaven består av fire uavhengige, men relaterte, forskningsartikler som alle setter søkelys på å identifisere de underliggende problemene relatert til finansiell inkludering. I artiklene presenteres også forslag til politikk. I den første artikkelen studeres trendene i finansiell inkludering i Etiopia. Både utviklingen over tid og utviklingen mellom regioner analyseres. I artikkel to studeres faktorene som påvirker finansiell inkludering. Både faktorer som påvirker positivt og negativt diskuteres. Forskjeller på så vell makro som mikronivå mellom Kenya og Etiopias grad av finansiell inkludering identifiseres og diskuteres. Den tredje artikkelen analyserer hvordan og hvorvidt finansiell inkludering bidrar til at småskala bønder står bedre rustet til å møte klimaendringer. Artikkel fire analyseres hvordan finansiell inkludering kan bidra til å forbedre skatteadministrasjonen og ikke minst bidra til at skattene faktisk blir betalt. Et viktig resultat i oppgaven er viktigheten av finansiell inkludering på flere områder. En anbefaling er derfor at finansiell inkludering blir sentralt i politikkutforming. Tilgjengeligheten av finansielle tjenester bør økes for befolkningen generelt. En kostnadseffektiv måte å gjøre det på er gjennom utvidelse av mobil- og agentbanktjenester. Ved å redusere transaksjonskostnaden kan nivået av finansiell inkludering forbedres både på tilbuds- og etterspørselssiden. Kunnskap om bank og finans bør styrkes for å øke bevisstheten i samfunnet om tilgjengelighet og bruk av finansielle tjenester. Dette fordi mangel på kunnskap er en av hovedårsakene til økonomisk ekskludering. I tillegg bør et mer liberalt finanssystem tilpasses. Ved å øke nivået av finansiell inkludering kan småbønder stå bedre rustet til å møte klimaendringer og skatteforvaltningen vil kunne bli mye bedre. Det å øke nivået av finansiell inkludering er et viktig bidrag for å forbedre et lands økonomi.Financial inclusion has a crucial contribution to the economy. Researchers, politicians, and other stakeholders are increasingly interested in financial inclusion, and countries have integrated it into their national strategies. This thesis contributes to the literature by analyzing different aspects of financial inclusion. The objective is to examine financial inclusion trends, determinants, and contributions. This thesis includes four independent but related research papers, focusing on identifying the underlying problems and making policy suggestions. The first paper assesses Ethiopia's dynamic and spatial trend of financial inclusion. The level of financial inclusion is examined across time and regions to show the trend of financial inclusion and the discrepancy among the regions. Paper two investigates the determinants of and barriers to financial inclusion. It also identifies the macro and micro-level differences between Kenya and Ethiopia in their level of financial inclusion. The third paper analyzes the contribution of financial inclusion to climate resilience. Using the Sidama region of southern Ethiopia as a case study, this paper examines how financial inclusion contributes to building the climate resilience of farm households and what factors limit its contribution. Finally, paper four analyzes the role of financial inclusion in improving the Ethiopian tax administration and taxpayers' compliance and the limitations of financial services. This thesis recommends improving the financial inclusion level as a major policy input. First, the availability of financial services should be increased at a lower cost through mobile and agent banking expansion. By reducing the transaction cost, the level of financial inclusion can be improved on both supply and demand sides. Second, financial literacy should be enhanced to increase society's awareness about the availability and use of financial services because lack of knowledge is one of the main reasons for financial exclusion. Finally, a more liberal financial system should be adopted. Increasing financial inclusion can magnify its contribution to tax administration and climate resilience. Therefore, enhancing the level of financial inclusion should be taken as a policy input to improve a country's economy.NORHED ; Hawassa Universit

Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications

Proceedings of a conference held in Huntsville, Alabama, on November 15-16, 1988. The Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications brings together diverse technical and scientific work in order to help those who employ AI methods in space applications to identify common goals and to address issues of general interest in the AI community. Topics include the following: space applications of expert systems in fault diagnostics, in telemetry monitoring and data collection, in design and systems integration; and in planning and scheduling; knowledge representation, capture, verification, and management; robotics and vision; adaptive learning; and automatic programming

Supply Chain

Traditionally supply chain management has meant factories, assembly lines, warehouses, transportation vehicles, and time sheets. Modern supply chain management is a highly complex, multidimensional problem set with virtually endless number of variables for optimization. An Internet enabled supply chain may have just-in-time delivery, precise inventory visibility, and up-to-the-minute distribution-tracking capabilities. Technology advances have enabled supply chains to become strategic weapons that can help avoid disasters, lower costs, and make money. From internal enterprise processes to external business transactions with suppliers, transporters, channels and end-users marks the wide range of challenges researchers have to handle. The aim of this book is at revealing and illustrating this diversity in terms of scientific and theoretical fundamentals, prevailing concepts as well as current practical applications

Abstracts : policy research working paper series - numbers 2197 - 2261

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series Numbers 2197-2261.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Complex adaptive systems based data integration : theory and applications

Data Definition Languages (DDLs) have been created and used to represent data in programming languages and in database dictionaries. This representation includes descriptions in the form of data fields and relations in the form of a hierarchy, with the common exception of relational databases where relations are flat. Network computing created an environment that enables relatively easy and inexpensive exchange of data. What followed was the creation of new DDLs claiming better support for automatic data integration. It is uncertain from the literature if any real progress has been made toward achieving an ideal state or limit condition of automatic data integration. This research asserts that difficulties in accomplishing integration are indicative of socio-cultural systems in general and are caused by some measurable attributes common in DDLs. This research’s main contributions are: (1) a theory of data integration requirements to fully support automatic data integration from autonomous heterogeneous data sources; (2) the identification of measurable related abstract attributes (Variety, Tension, and Entropy); (3) the development of tools to measure them. The research uses a multi-theoretic lens to define and articulate these attributes and their measurements. The proposed theory is founded on the Law of Requisite Variety, Information Theory, Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory, Sowa’s Meaning Preservation framework and Zipf distributions of words and meanings. Using the theory, the attributes, and their measures, this research proposes a framework for objectively evaluating the suitability of any data definition language with respect to degrees of automatic data integration. This research uses thirteen data structures constructed with various DDLs from the 1960\u27s to date. No DDL examined (and therefore no DDL similar to those examined) is designed to satisfy the law of requisite variety. No DDL examined is designed to support CAS evolutionary processes that could result in fully automated integration of heterogeneous data sources. There is no significant difference in measures of Variety, Tension, and Entropy among DDLs investigated in this research. A direction to overcome the common limitations discovered in this research is suggested and tested by proposing GlossoMote, a theoretical mathematically sound description language that satisfies the data integration theory requirements. The DDL, named GlossoMote, is not merely a new syntax, it is a drastic departure from existing DDL constructs. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated with a small scale experiment and evaluated using the proposed assessment framework and other means. The promising results require additional research to evaluate GlossoMote’s approach commercial use potential