A market based approach for resolving resource constrained task allocation problems in a software development process

We consider software development as an economic activity, where goods and services can be modeled as a resource constrained task allocation problem. This paper introduces a market based mechanism to overcome task allocation issues in a software development process. It proposes a mechanism with a prescribed set of rules, where valuation is based on the behaviors of stakeholders such as biding for a task. A bid process ensures that a stakeholder, who values the resource most, will have it allocated for a limited number of times. To observe the bidders behaviors, we initiate an approach incorporated with a process simulation model. Our preliminary results support the idea that our model is useful for optimizing the value based task allocations, creating a market value for the project assets, and for achieving proper allocation of project resources specifically on large scale software projects

Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

EMERGING THE EMERGENCE SOCIOLOGY: The Philosophical Framework of Agent-Based Social Studies

The structuration theory originally provided by Anthony Giddens and the advance improvement of the theory has been trying to solve the dilemma came up in the epistemological aspects of the social sciences and humanity. Social scientists apparently have to choose whether they are too sociological or too psychological. Nonetheless, in the works of the classical sociologist, Emile Durkheim, this thing has been stated long time ago. The usage of some models to construct the bottom-up theories has followed the vast of computational technology. This model is well known as the agent based modeling. This paper is giving a philosophical perspective of the agent-based social sciences, as the sociology to cope the emergent factors coming up in the sociological analysis. The framework is made by using the artificial neural network model to show how the emergent phenomena came from the complex system. Understanding the society has self-organizing (autopoietic) properties, the Kohonen’s self-organizing map is used in the paper. By the simulation examples, it can be seen obviously that the emergent phenomena in social system are seen by the sociologist apart from the qualitative framework on the atomistic sociology. In the end of the paper, it is clear that the emergence sociology is needed for sharpening the sociological analysis in the emergence sociology

Agent-Based Models of Industrial Clusters and Districts

Agent-based models, an instance of the wider class of connectionist models, allow bottom-up simulations of organizations constituted byu a large number of interacting parts. Thus, geogrfaphical clusters of competing or collaborating firms constitute an obvious field of application. This contribution explains what agent-based models are, reviews applications in the field of industrial clusters and focuses on a simulator of infra- and inter-firm communications.Agent-based models, industrial clusters, industrial districts

Learning requirements engineering within an engineering ethos

An interest in educating software developers within an engineering ethos may not align well with the characteristics of the discipline, nor address the underlying concerns of software practitioners. Education for software development needs to focus on creativity, adaptability and the ability to transfer knowledge. A change in the way learning is undertaken in a core Software Engineering unit within a university's engineering program demonstrates one attempt to provide students with a solid foundation in subject matter while at the same time exposing them to these real-world characteristics. It provides students with a process to deal with problems within a metacognitive-rich framework that makes complexity apparent and lets students deal with it adaptively. The results indicate that, while the approach is appropriate, student-learning characteristics need to be investigated further, so that the two aspects of learning may be aligned more closely