Cooperative Design

This document is the final report of a project supported by the European Community via an individual fellowship through the Human Capital and Mobility Programme. Title of this project is "A Methodology and Computational Support Environment for Cooperative Design of Knowledge Systems". This report is essentially a collection of papers published by the author in the context of this research project. A brief summary of the research problem and final results introduces this work. This report (i) discusses a method to concurrent design in which multi-functional groups actively participate; (ii) proposes a multi-agent distributed software architecture for the development of computer-based tools to support our design method; and (iii) illustrates the development of a design environment on the World Wide Web, implementing aspects of the conceptual software architecture

Protection des droits fondamentaux et lutte antiterroriste : balance entre les impératifs de sécurité et l’Etat de droit

Ce mémoire entend présenter principalement la manière dont la lutte contre le terrorisme en Europe s’accommode avec la protection des droits fondamentaux. Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous examinons dans une première partie la législation prise tant au niveau international qu’européen. La deuxième partie est consacrée à la protection des droits fondamentaux dans le contexte de la lutte antiterroriste. Ainsi, le droit à la vie privée, le droit à un procès équitable, le droit à la liberté d’expression et de réunion, l’interdiction de la torture et le droit à la vie y sont analysés. Pour chaque droit, nous effectuons d’abord un rapide rappel des notions essentielles, et ensuite, nous explorons plus longuement les effets des différentes mesures ou pratiques mises en œuvre par les Etats afin de lutter contre le terrorisme sur ces droits.Master [120] en droit, Université catholique de Louvain, 2016La diffusion de ce mémoire n'est pas autorisée par l'institutio

Augmenting Conceptual Software Designs With Their Rationales

Efforts are being put in making available generic, and thus reusable, conceptual software designs for the benefit of knowledge system development. These generic conceptual designs define the boundaries of (alternative) solutions to a class of design problems (e.g. design of diagnostic or schedule applications). They allow the design problem to be approached as a configuration task. To increase their benefit, we propose a novel information structure to augment generic conceptual designs currently offered. Design decisions are made explicit by this information structure and their underlying rationalizations are captured. This rationalization expresses the way in which each design decision satisfies the postulated system requirements. Increased benefits of the augmented generic conceptual designs concern guidance in modifying the predefined design, in understanding implications of the modifications, and in justifying the conceptual design to interest groups. Keywords: conceptual software ..

Workplace-Adapted Behaviors: Lessons Learned for Knowledge Reuse

Any problem solving behavior integrated in organized work practice is necessarily adapted to forces originating from characteristics of the workplace, organizational embedding, and social environment. An analysis and comparison of troubleshooting behaviors of same devices with access to the same technical information but performed in different workplaces teaches us that after integration, behaviors may be inadequate for other workplaces. Knowledge level models of the workplace-adapted behaviors showed significant differences. We investigate implications of this observation for the development and use of reusable problem solving components 1 INTRODUCTION We focus on the development of knowledge based problem solvers for operation in a specific target workplace. We particularly scrutinize dimensions along which ontologies for reusable problem solving components should be defined to adequately support in the construction and maintenance of conceptual knowledge system designs. Starting a..

Structure and mesomorphism of silver alkanoates

Silver salts of the higher straight-chain alkanoic acids (silver soaps) and especially silver(I) behenate and silver(l) stearate are being used as the silver source in thermographic and photothermographic materials. The silver(l) alkanoates exhibit a complicated thermal behavior, and different phase transitions can be detected between the solid, crystalline state and the onset point of thermal decomposition. The phase transitions are due to a gradual breakdown of the layerlike structure of these compounds, and some of the phases are viscous mesophases. The silver alkanoates of the homologous series between silver propionate (C3H5O2Ag) and silver tetracosanoate (C24H47O2Ag) have been prepared, as well as silver hexacosanoate (C26H51O2Ag) and silver octacosanoate (C28H55O2Ag). The light stability of the compounds increases with increasing chain length. The room-temperature X-ray diffractograms indicate that the silver alkanoates consist of a bilayer structure. The thermal properties of these silver-containing metallomesogens were investigated by high-temperature X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and polarizing optical microscopy. The number and the nature of the phase transitions depends on the alkyl chain length. The thermal decomposition of the silver alkanoates with long alkyl chains proceeds in a liquid-crystalline state (mesophase), and leads to the formation of silver. The thermal behavior of silver behenate is discussed in detail

Structure and mesomorphism of silver alkanoates

Silver salts of the higher straight-chain alkanoic acids (silver soaps) and especially silver(I) behenate and silver(l) stearate are being used as the silver source in thermographic and photothermographic materials. The silver(l) alkanoates exhibit a complicated thermal behavior, and different phase transitions can be detected between the solid, crystalline state and the onset point of thermal decomposition. The phase transitions are due to a gradual breakdown of the layerlike structure of these compounds, and some of the phases are viscous mesophases. The silver alkanoates of the homologous series between silver propionate (C3H5O2Ag) and silver tetracosanoate (C24H47O2Ag) have been prepared, as well as silver hexacosanoate (C26H51O2Ag) and silver octacosanoate (C28H55O2Ag). The light stability of the compounds increases with increasing chain length. The room-temperature X-ray diffractograms indicate that the silver alkanoates consist of a bilayer structure. The thermal properties of these silver-containing metallomesogens were investigated by high-temperature X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and polarizing optical microscopy. The number and the nature of the phase transitions depends on the alkyl chain length. The thermal decomposition of the silver alkanoates with long alkyl chains proceeds in a liquid-crystalline state (mesophase), and leads to the formation of silver. The thermal behavior of silver behenate is discussed in detail.status: publishe