Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives

This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design

Progress in AI Planning Research and Applications

Planning has made significant progress since its inception in the 1970s, in terms both of the efficiency and sophistication of its algorithms and representations and its potential for application to real problems. In this paper we sketch the foundations of planning as a sub-field of Artificial Intelligence and the history of its development over the past three decades. Then some of the recent achievements within the field are discussed and provided some experimental data demonstrating the progress that has been made in the application of general planners to realistic and complex problems. The paper concludes by identifying some of the open issues that remain as important challenges for future research in planning

Making tools and making sense: complex, intentional behaviour in human evolution

Stone tool-making is an ancient and prototypically human skill characterized by multiple levels of intentional organization. In a formal sense, it displays surprising similarities to the multi-level organization of human language. Recent functional brain imaging studies of stone tool-making similarly demonstrate overlap with neural circuits involved in language processing. These observations consistent with the hypothesis that language and tool-making share key requirements for the construction of hierarchically structured action sequences and evolved together in a mutually reinforcing way

Can Component/Service-Based Systems Be Proved Correct?

Component-oriented and service-oriented approaches have gained a strong enthusiasm in industries and academia with a particular interest for service-oriented approaches. A component is a software entity with given functionalities, made available by a provider, and used to build other application within which it is integrated. The service concept and its use in web-based application development have a huge impact on reuse practices. Accordingly a considerable part of software architectures is influenced; these architectures are moving towards service-oriented architectures. Therefore applications (re)use services that are available elsewhere and many applications interact, without knowing each other, using services available via service servers and their published interfaces and functionalities. Industries propose, through various consortium, languages, technologies and standards. More academic works are also undertaken concerning semantics and formalisation of components and service-based systems. We consider here both streams of works in order to raise research concerns that will help in building quality software. Are there new challenging problems with respect to service-based software construction? Besides, what are the links and the advances compared to distributed systems?Comment: 16 page

How do parking practices structure urban territorial communities?

In this article we analyse the socio-spatial contexts and consequences of the practice of car parking in housing estates. Fredrik Barth’s idea of socially constructed boundaries and the theory of social practice form the theoretical basis of our analysis. The empirical material comes from research conducted in 2016 and 2017 in three Polish cities. We analyse the practice of parking in terms of the specific aspect of mobility that is ‘mooring’. The research shows that parking practices influence the structuring of territorial communities in housing estates on two levels: everyday activities, norms and rules, as well as social differences and boundaries in the space occupied by the housing estate

Sri Lanka’s water policy: themes and issues

Fresh water resources in Sri Lanka remain a free public good with the State acting as the trustee and custodian of the resource. Although the country is blessed with a seemingly plentiful supply of water, it encounters severe problems of temporal and spatial scarcity. Nearly five decades of efforts at formulating a national water policy with a view to introducing a bulk water allocation system have failed mainly due to a lack of understanding of the basic issues confronting certain elements that constitute the basic policy. This paper presents selected key themes and issues which help stimulate the formulation and adoption of an improved water resource policy statement. The author argues that what is important in the case of water is not the question of ‘ownership’ of water but regulating the user rights of this common property resource, particularly since such use is always in a state of flux. In the course of its movement in the hydrological cycle, it can only be owned when it is captured in a receptacle or in an impounding tank or as treated water in a reservoir and water conveyed in an irrigation channel. But, it is this very right to abstraction of bulk water from its natural state that is not defined and left to the will of individuals and agencies – virtually resulting in the creation of a ‘free for all’ situation. While the domain of water is characterized by over 50 legislative enactments and a plethora of agencies numbering over 40, there isn’t a single neutral agency to determine the appropriate balance between the demands for off stream consumption and the volume of water flows needed by the river system. The objectives of this paper are: to clarify the meaning of the terms ‘ownership’, ‘user rights’, ‘common property rights’, and ‘right to water’; to analyze and suggest refinements to several water policy themes and issues such as ‘bulk water entitlements’, ‘groundwater management’ and ‘user conflicts’; to outline the roles of institutions for clarity in implementation; to suggest elements that should constitute a future water policy. A better understanding of the issues relating to this finite and vulnerable resource will help clarify the policy concerns that are constantly overlooked – intentionally or unintentionally - in the domain of water. Does Sri Lanka have the right water resource policies for the twenty-first century? Such concerns prompted policyholders to attempt several policy reforms in Sri Lanka’s water domain during the last five decades. Several United State Agency for International Development (USAID) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) efforts culminated in producing a ‘national water resources policy and institutional arrangement’ document with a water policy approved by the Cabinet of the Government of Sri Lanka in March 2000. Yet, public concerns expressed on certain sensitive issues, and the lack of consensus due to the changing hands of the subject of policy development among various successor ministries, resulted in the demise of this water policy formulation effort.Length: pp.113-126Water policyOwnershipGroundwater managementInstitutionsWater use

Modelling and analyzing adaptive self-assembling strategies with Maude

Building adaptive systems with predictable emergent behavior is a challenging task and it is becoming a critical need. The research community has accepted the challenge by introducing approaches of various nature: from software architectures, to programming paradigms, to analysis techniques. We recently proposed a conceptual framework for adaptation centered around the role of control data. In this paper we show that it can be naturally realized in a reflective logical language like Maude by using the Reflective Russian Dolls model. Moreover, we exploit this model to specify and analyse a prominent example of adaptive system: robot swarms equipped with obstacle-avoidance self-assembly strategies. The analysis exploits the statistical model checker PVesta