Severity-Sensitive Robustness Analysis in Normative Systems

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COIN@AAMAS2015

COIN@AAMAS2015 is the nineteenth edition of the series and the fourteen papers included in these proceedings demonstrate the vitality of the community and will provide the grounds for a solid workshop program and what we expect will be a most enjoyable and enriching debate.Peer reviewe

How Much Method-in-Use Matters? A Case Study of Agile and Waterfall Software Projects and their Design Routine Variation

Development methods are rarely followed to the letter, and, consequently, their effects are often in doubt. At the same time, information systems scholars know little about the extent to which a given method truly influences software design and its outcomes. In this paper, we approach this gap by adopting a routine lens and using a novel methodological approach. Theoretically, we treat methods as (organizational) ostensive routine specifications and deploy routine construct as a feasible unit of analysis to analyze the effects of a method on actual, “performed” design routines. We formulated a research framework that identifies method, situation fitness, agency, and random noise as main sources of software design routine variation. Empirically, we applied the framework to examine the extent to which waterfall and agile methods induce variation in software design routines. We trace-enacted design activities in three software projects in a large IT organization that followed an object-oriented waterfall method and three software projects that followed an agile method and then analyzed these traces using a mixed-methods approach involving gene sequencing methods, Markov models, and qualitative content analysis. Our analysis shows that, in both cases, method-induced variation using agile and waterfall methods accounts for about 40% of all activities, while the remaining 60% can be explained by a designer’s personal habits, the project’s fitness conditions, and environmental noise. Generally, the effect of method on software design activities is smaller than assumed and the impact of designer and project conditions on software processes and outcomes should thus not be understated

Using Norms To Control Open Multi-Agent Systems

Internet es, tal vez, el avance científico más relevante de nuestros días. Entre otras cosas, Internet ha permitido la evolución de los paradigmas de computación tradicionales hacia el paradigma de computaciónn distribuida, que se caracteriza por utilizar una red abierta de ordenadores. Los sistemas multiagente (SMA) son una tecnolog a adecuada para abordar los retos motivados por estos sistemas abiertos distribuidos. Los SMA son aplicaciones formadas por agentes heterog eneos y aut onomos que pueden haber sido dise~nados de forma independiente de acuerdo con objetivos y motivaciones diferentes. Por lo tanto, no es posible realizar ninguna hip otesis a priori sobre el comportamiento de los agentes. Por este motivo, los SMA necesitan de mecanismos de coordinaci on y cooperaci on, como las normas, para garantizar el orden social y evitar la aparici on de conictos. El t ermino norma cubre dos dimensiones diferentes: i) las normas como un instrumento que gu a a los ciudadanos a la hora de realizar acciones y actividades, por lo que las normas de nen los procedimientos y/o los protocolos que se deben seguir en una situaci on concreta, y ii) las normas como ordenes o prohibiciones respaldadas por un sistema de sanciones, por lo que las normas son medios para prevenir o castigar ciertas acciones. En el area de los SMA, las normas se vienen utilizando como una especi caci on formal de lo que est a permitido, obligado y prohibido dentro de una sociedad. De este modo, las normas permiten regular la vida de los agentes software y las interacciones entre ellos. La motivaci on principal de esta tesis es permitir a los dise~nadores de los SMA utilizar normas como un mecanismo para controlar y coordinar SMA abiertos. Nuestro objetivo es elaborar mecanismos normativos a dos niveles: a nivel de agente y a nivel de infraestructura. Por lo tanto, en esta tesis se aborda primero el problema de la de nici on de agentes normativos aut onomos que sean capaces de deliberar acercaCriado Pacheco, N. (2012). Using Norms To Control Open Multi-Agent Systems [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/17800Palanci

Modes of bio-bordering: the hidden (dis)integration of Europe

This open access book explores how biometric data is increasingly flowing across borders in order to limit, control and contain the mobility of selected people, namely criminalized populations. It introduces the concept of bio-bordering, using it to capture reverse patterns of bordering and ordering practices linked to transnational biometric data exchange regimes. The concept is useful to reconstruct how the territorial foundations of national state autonomy are partially reclaimed and, at the same time, partially purposefully suspended. The book focuses on the Prüm system, which facilitates the mandatory exchange of forensic DNA data amongst EU Member States. The Prüm system is an underexplored phenomenon, representing diverse instances of bio-bordering and providing a complex picture of the hidden (dis)integration of Europe. Particular legal, scientific, technical and political dimensions related to the governance and uses of biometric technologies in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom are specifically explored to demonstrate both similar and distinct patterns.UIDB/00736/202

Information behaviour in construction project management teams: Contradictions, motivations and influencing factors

This research seeks to understand how teams involved in large complex construction projects share and use information. The context of the research is project team information behaviour within early stage UK local government projects. Project tasks are commonly undertaken in a collaborative manner, modified by situational factors which give rise to informational activities which are recognised as information behaviour. However, there is limited research on collaborative information behaviour, especially focussed on activity in the complex and politically driven environment found within local government. Furthermore, information behaviour at the concept stage may be strategic as it will help to determine major decisions that may have considerable implications (e.g. financial or political), it has long term consequences and it affects the information behaviour of others through the leveraging of power and influence. Cultural historical activity theory, underpinned by critical realism and supported by repertory grid technique and constant comparative method, is used to interpret data from two local authority case studies to address the following questions: ‘What is the information behaviour of project teams involved in local government construction projects at concept stage?’ and ‘What contradictions and congruencies influence the intervening variables that shape information behaviour within the project teams of local government construction projects?’ Contradictions within the project activity system, in particular between the socio-political and the technical domains, cause dysfunctionality. Established project information structures cannot readily cope with this dysfunctionality and, as a result, information behaviour, hidden and overt, creates new structures and shapes micro-political activity not anticipated by project method. As such, the research uncovered significant tensions within the teams’ work activity which caused ambiguity, leading to the creation of ‘information spheres’, where information can be exchanged and nurtured - sheltered from political interventions and to project teams which are invisible to the project board. Where these tensions are not present, information exchange is enabled by value alignment and trust leading to big rooms and extended project teams, where authority is distributed to enable improvements to information exchange. The research also posits a model of project team information behaviour and seeks to make modest contributions to both the information behaviour and project management canon

MANAGING COMMUNITY: A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF PRAXIS

If communities are to become a viable means of implementing social policy then community practitioners must individually examine their personal praxis. Therefore, in discovering a community's aims and objectives, a management model is needed that offers every practitioner a reflexive means of understanding peoples' beliefs, values, and attitudes. This proposition is critically examined through a philosophical framework that explores individuals' diverse perspectives on community, derived from their adherence to contending ontological and epistemological propositions about the social world, and its related ethical and motivational dimensions. Following a philosophical analysis, the taxonomy of social reality perspectives, developed by Dixon (2003) and Dixon and Dogan (2002; 2003a, b, c, d; 2004). is systematically used to explore the contending views on social reality. Thus, methodological configurations are associated with logical categories, (1) naturalist agency, underpinning the self-interested (free-riding) homo economicus\ (2) naturalist structuralism, underpinning the obligation driven homo hierarchus; (3) hermeneutic structuralism, underpinning the conversation-saturated homo sociologicus (Archer, 2000: 4); and (4) hermeneutic agency, underpinning homo existentialis. The disciplines of social psychology, ethics, and political science are employed to explore selected facets of human nature, moral principles, and political ideology chosen, by associates of each set of methodological configurations, in particular relational situations. Informed by this investigation a sample of community practitioners were questioned about their praxis. This reveals that a substantial majority understand and accept an objective and knowable social worid where people are self-interested. Therefore, these practitioners perceive community as a setting where they can influence the decisions of others through discourse and judge its ethical merits by the degree of loyalty and obligation extended to their projects. Thus, it is apparent that community practitioners should evaluate their praxis, through critical self-reflection, if they are to develop suitably robust and durable symbiotic relationships with adherents to each of the four social reality perceptions. This research leads to a new logic, based on the innovative interpretation of ontotogical and epistemotogical configurations offered in the seminal work of Bhaskar (1978 and 1979) and Archer (1989, 1995, 2000 and 2003). Here, an emerging social ontology informs the construction of more specific theories conceming the dynamics of community in identifiable localities. Therefore, it now becomes possible to construct a management model, incorporating contending social realities, the techniques of mediation and the results of changing cognition and cognitive dissonance, that facilitates community practitioner's critical self-reflection and construction of managerial strategies based on community member's contending perceptions of social reality

Project governance through monitoring and evaluation in the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.In recent years, the role of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the public sector has been accelerated to become an important performance management tool for departments. Implementing projects are the main service delivery ‘vehicle’ that departments use to achieve the goals and objectives. If the M&E of projects is undertaken adequately, the transparency, accountability and performance of the public sector will be enhanced. Project governance provides a platform for informed project decisions to be reached. Under the project governance framework, M&E may be applied throughout the cycle. This qualitative study examines the relationship between M&E and project governance as a value-added tool in the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs. Data was collected by means of semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The findings highlighted the following issues: there was no alignment of the M&E and project management methodologies; little collaboration between project managers and M&E; lack of communication; silo mentality; no M&E mentorship; lack of reporting and an under-staffed M&E unit. The key recommendations for the study highlighted in the research include the M&E framework must be communicated to all levels of staff; M&E has to be included in the strategic and planning stages of the project management lifecycle; on-going M&E mentoring and coaching, and the M&E unit needs to be capacitated to meet the demands of the department