Case studies for contract-based systems

Of the ways in which agent behaviour can be regulated in a multiagent system, electronic contracting – based on explicit representation of different parties' responsibilities, and the agreement of all parties to them – has significant potential for modern industrial applications. Based on this assumption, the CONTRACT project aims to develop and apply electronic contracting and contract-based monitoring and verification techniques in real world applications. This paper presents results from the initial phase of the project, which focused on requirements solicitation and analysis. Specifically, we survey four use cases from diverse industrial applications, examine how they can benefit from an agent-based electronic contracting infrastructure and outline the technical requirements that would be placed on such an infrastructure. We present the designed CONTRACT architecture and describe how it may fulfil these requirements. In addition to motivating our work on the contract-based infrastructure, the paper aims to provide a much needed community resource in terms of use case themselves and to provide a clear commercial context for the development of work on contract-based system.

Morphological patterns and community organization in leaf-litter ant assemblages

We present a new approach to determine the number and composition of guilds, using the hyperdiverse leaf-litter ant fauna as a model, based on appropriate morphological variables and species co-occurrence null models to describe the complex assemblages of interacting Species Community structure at the 1-m(2) scale. We obtained 18 linear morphometric measures from 949 workers of 171 leaf-litter ant species (18762 measurements) surveyed in four Atlantic Forest localities to test whether the assemblages are morphologically structured; the morphological characters were selected to indicate diet and foraging habits. Principal components analysis was used to characterize the morphospace and to describe the guild structure (number of species and composition). The guild proportionality assembly rule (significant tendency toward constant proportion of species in guilds) was assessed at the 1-m(2) scale. Our analysis indicates that the division of leaf-litter ants into guilds is based mainly on microhabitat distribution in the leaf-litter, body size and shape, eye size, and phylogeny. The same guild scheme applied to four more sites shows that different Atlantic Forest areas have the same leaf-fitter ant guilds. The guild proportionality assembly rule was confirmed for most guilds, Suggesting that there are guild-specific limitations on species coexistence within assemblages; on the other hand, in a few cases the variance in guild proportion was greater than expected under the null assumptions. Other studies on ant functional group classification are partially supported by our quantitative morphological analysis. Our results, however, imply that there are more compartments than indicated in previous models, particularly among cryptic species (confined to soil and litter) and tropical climate specialists. We argue that a general null model for the analysis of species association based oil morphology can reveal objectively defined groups and may thus contribute to a robust theory to explain community structure in general and have important consequences on studies of litter ant community ecology in particular.

Institutional arrangements in the emerging biodiesel industry: Case studies from Minas Gerais-Brazil

Connecting (small) family farmers to the emerging biodiesel industry requires careful design of the institutional arrangements between the producers of oil crops and the processing companies. According to institutional economics theory, the design of effective and efficient arrangements depends on production and transaction characteristics, the institutional environment, and the organizational environment supporting the transaction between producers and the industry. This paper presents a comparative study on two cases in the feedstock-for-biodiesel industry in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The two case studies represent the production and transaction system of soybeans (Glycine max L Merrill) and castor beans (Ricinus communis L). Important elements of effective and efficient institutional arrangements are farmer collective action, availability of technical and financial support, and farmer experience with particular crops. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

EU immigration trends and policies: Spain and France as case studies. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 13 No. 10, August 2013

From the Introduction. The Treaty on European Union, also known as the Treaty of Maastricht or the Maastricht Treaty, created the European Union (EU) from the existing European Economic Community (EEC.) It was signed by the member states on February 7, 1992, and entered into force on November 1, 1993.1 Among its many innovations was the creation of European citizenship, which would be granted to any person who was a citizen of an EU member state. Citizenship, however, is intertwined with immigration, which the Treaty also attempted to address. Policy on visas, immigration and asylum was originally placed under Pillar 3 of the EU, which dealt with Justice and Home Affairs. In 1997, however, the Amsterdam Treaty moved these policies from Pillar 3 to Pillar 1, signaling “a shift toward more supranational decision-making in this area,” as opposed to the intergovernmental method of Pillars 2 and 3.2

Self-employment training programs : case studies /

On cover: "March, 1987."

Tax increment financing : Illinois case studies /

Mode of access: Internet.

Health planning methods : case studies from the 1978 International Workshop.

Pt. 2 sold only by National Technical Information Service.

Participatory approach for the identification of dairy industry needs in the design of research, development and extension actions: Australian and Brazilian case studies

In both Australia and Brazil there are rapid changes occurring in the macroenvironment of the dairy industry. These changes are sometimes not noticed in the microenvironment of the farm, due to the labour-intensive nature of family farms, and the traditionally weak links between production and marketing. Trends in the external environment need to be discussed in a cooperative framework, to plan integrated actions for the dairy community as a whole and to demand actions from research, development and extension (R, D & E). This paper reviews the evolution of R, D & E in terms of paradigms and approaches, the present strategies used to identify dairy industry needs in Australia and Brazil, and presents a participatory strategy to design R, D & E actions for both countries. The strategy incorporates an integration of the opinions of key industry actors ( defined as members of the dairy and associated communities), especially farm suppliers ( input market), farmers, R, D & E people, milk processors and credit providers. The strategy also uses case studies with farm stays, purposive sampling, snowball interviewing techniques, semi-structured interviews, content analysis, focus group meetings, and feedback analysis, to refine the priorities for R, D & E actions in the region.

Collaborative decision-making processes for maintaining biodiversity: Two Australian case studies

There have been many models developed by scientists to assist decision-makers in making socio-economic and environmental decisions. It is now recognised that there is a shift in the dominant paradigm to making decisions with stakeholders, rather than making decisions for stakeholders. Our paper investigates two case studies where group model building has been undertaken for maintaining biodiversity in Australia. The first case study focuses on preservation and management of green spaces and biodiversity in metropolitan Melbourne under the umbrella of the Melbourne 2030 planning strategy. A geographical information system is used to collate a number of spatial datasets encompassing a range of cultural and natural assets data layers including: existing open spaces, waterways, threatened fauna and flora, ecological vegetation covers, registered cultural heritage sites, and existing land parcel zoning. Group model building is incorporated into the study through eliciting weightings and ratings of importance for each datasets from urban planners to formulate different urban green system scenarios. The second case study focuses on modelling ecoregions from spatial datasets for the state of Queensland. The modelling combines collaborative expert knowledge and a vast amount of environmental data to build biogeographical classifications of regions. An information elicitation process is used to capture expert knowledge of ecoregions as geographical descriptions, and to transform this into prior probability distributions that characterise regions in terms of environmental variables. This prior information is combined with measured data on the environmental variables within a Bayesian modelling technique to produce the final classified regions. We describe how linked views between descriptive information, mapping and statistical plots are used to decide upon representative regions that satisfy a number of criteria for biodiversity and conservation. This paper discusses the advantages and problems encountered when undertaking group model building. Future research will extend the group model building approach to include interested individuals and community groups.

A configuration framework of manufacturing strategy paradigm in state owned enterprises within China's petrochemical industry:building context-embedded configurations for the paradigm of strategic manufacturing management from exploratory case studies

The role of the production system as a key determinant of competitive performance of business operations- has long been the subject of industrial organization research, even predating the .explicit conceptua1isation of manufacturing, strategy in the literature. Particular emergent production issues such as the globalisation of production, global supply chain management, management of integrated manufacturing and a growing e~busjness environment are expected to critically influence the overall competitive performance and therefore the strategic success of the organization. More than ever, there is a critical need to configure and improve production system and operations competence in a strategic way so as to contribute to the long-term competitiveness of the organization. In order to operate competitively and profitably, manufacturing companies, no matter how well managed, all need a long-term 'strategic direction' for the development of operations competence in order to consistently produce more market value with less cost towards a leadership position. As to the long-term competitiveness, it is more important to establish a dynamic 'strategic perspective' for continuous operational improvements in pursuit of this direction, as well as ongoing reviews of the direction in relation to the overall operating context. However, it also clear that the 'existing paradigm of manufacturing strategy development' is incapable of adequately responding to the increasing complexities and variations of contemporary business operations. This has been factually reflected as many manufacturing companies are finding that methodologies advocated in the existing paradigm for developing manufacturing strategy have very limited scale and scope for contextual contingency in empirical application. More importantly, there has also emerged a deficiency in the multidimensional and integrative profile from a theoretical perspective when operationalising the underlying concept of strategic manufacturing management established in the literature. The point of departure for this study was a recognition of such contextual and unitary limitations in the existing paradigm of manufacturing strategy development when applied to contemporary industrial organizations in general, and Chinese State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in particular. As China gradually becomes integrated into the world economy, the relevance of Western management theory and its paradigm becomes a practical matter as much as a theoretical issue. Since China markedly differs from Western countries in terms of culture, society, and political and economic systems, it presents promising grounds to test and refine existing management theories and paradigms with greater contextual contingency and wider theoretical perspective. Under China's ongoing programmes of SOE reform, there has been an increased recognition that strategy development is the very essence of the management task for managers of manufacturing companies in the same way as it is for their counterparts in Western economies. However, the Western paradigm often displays a rather naive and unitary perspective of the nature of strategic management decision-making, one which largely overlooks context-embedded factors and social/political influences on the development of manufacturing strategy. This thesis studies the successful experiences of developing manufacturing strategy from five high-performing large-scale SOEs within China’s petrochemical industry. China’s petrochemical industry constitutes a basic heavy industrial sector, which has always been a strategic focus for reform and development by the Chinese government. Using a confirmation approach, the study has focused on exploring and conceptualising the empirical paradigm of manufacturing strategy development practiced by management. That is examining the ‘empirical specifics’ and surfacing the ‘managerial perceptions’ of content configuration, context of consideration, and process organization for developing a manufacturing strategy during the practice. The research investigation adopts a qualitative exploratory case study methodology with a semi-structural front-end research design. Data collection follows a longitudinal and multiple-case design and triangulates case evidence from sources including qualitative interviews, direct observation, and a search of documentations and archival records. Data analysis follows an investigative progression from a within-case preliminary interpretation of facts to a cross-case search for patterns through theoretical comparison and analytical generalization. The underlying conceptions in both the literature of manufacturing strategy and related studies in business strategy were used to develop theoretical framework and analytical templates applied during data collection and analysis. The thesis makes both empirical and theoretical contributions to our understanding of 'contemporary management paradigm of manufacturing strategy development'. First, it provides a valuable contextual contingency of the 'subject' using the business setting of China's SOEs in petrochemical industry. This has been unpacked into empirical configurations developed for its context of consideration, its content and process respectively. Of special note, a lean paradigm of business operations and production management discovered at case companies has significant implications as an emerging alternative for high-volume capital intensive state manufacturing in China. Second, it provides a multidimensional and integrative theoretical profile of the 'subject' based upon managerial perspectives conceptualised at case companies when operationalising manufacturing strategy. This has been unpacked into conceptual frameworks developed for its context of consideration, its content constructs, and its process patterns respectively. Notably, a synergies perspective towards the operating context, competitive priorities and competence development of business operations and production management has significant implications for implementing a lean manufacturing paradigm. As a whole, in so doing, the thesis established a theoretical platform for future refinement and development of context-specific methodologies for developing manufacturing strategy.

An exploration of female leadership language:case studies of senior women in Bahrain

This is a multiple case study of the leadership language of three senior women working in a large corporation in Bahrain. The study’s main aim is to explore the linguistic practices the women leaders use with their colleagues and subordinates in corporate meetings. Adopting a Foucauldian (1972) notion of ‘discourses’ as social practices and a view of gender as socially constructed and discursively performed (Butler 1990), this research aims to unveil the competing discourses which may shape the leadership language of senior women in their communities of practice. The research is situated within the broader field of Sociolinguistics and the specific field of Language and Gender. To address the research aim, a case study approach incorporating multiple methods of qualitative data collection (observation, interviews, and shadowing) was utilised to gather information about the three women leaders and produce a rich description of their use of language in and out of meeting contexts. For analysis, principles of Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) were used to organise and sort the large amount of data. Also, Feminist Post- Structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) was adopted to produce a multi-faceted analysis of the subjects, their language leadership, power relations, and competing discourses in the context. It was found that the three senior women enact leadership differently making variable use of a repertoire of conventionally masculine and feminine linguistic practices. However, they all appear to have limited language resources and even more limiting subject positions; and they all have to exercise considerable linguistic expertise to police and modify their language in order to avoid the ‘double bind’. Yet, the extent of this limitation and constraints depends on the community of practice with its prevailing discourses, which appear to have their roots in Islamic and cultural practices as well as some Western influences acquired throughout the company’s history. It is concluded that it may be particularly challenging for Middle Eastern women to achieve any degree of equality with men in the workplace because discourses of Gender difference lie at the core of Islamic teaching and ideology.

Creating Educational Immersive Environments Using a Computer Game Engine: Case Studies and Design Theory

This paper aims to crystallize recent research performed at the University of Worcester to investigate the feasibility of using the commercial game engine ‘Unreal Tournament 2004’ (UT2004) to produce ‘Educational Immersive Environments’ (EIEs) suitable for education and training. Our research has been supported by the UK Higher Education Academy. We discuss both practical and theoretical aspects of EIEs. The practical aspects include the production of EIEs to support high school physics education, the education of architects, and the learning of literacy by primary school children. This research is based on the development of our novel instructional medium, ‘UnrealPowerPoint’. Our fundamental guiding principles are that, first, pedagogy must inform technology, and second, that both teachers and pupils should be empowered to produce educational materials. Our work is informed by current educational theories such as constructivism, experiential learning and socio-cultural approaches as well as elements of instructional design and game principles.

External school evaluation : teachers’ perspectives : two case studies from Northern Portugal

The external evaluation of non-higher education schools in Portugal has been developed by the General Inspectorate of Education since 2006. A first cycle of evaluation was completed, covering all educational units in continental Portugal up to 2011. The model of evaluation has since been subject to alterations, and a second cycle of evaluation is now coming to an end. The current model of evaluation is based on documental analysis, analysis of students’ results, and panel interviews with a variety of representatives of the school community, and addresses three domains: results, provision of educational service and management. This paper is part of an ongoing research project, developed by 6 universities and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/CPE-CED/116674/2010) which intends to analyse the impacts and effects this process of external evaluation has had on Portuguese schools. This project includes a variety of perspectives and methodologies. In particular, we will focus on two case studies undertaken in two schools from the northern region of Portugal, and more specifically on the perspectives expressed by the teachers of those schools. These particular schools were chosen because they have been evaluated twice and represent different educational levels (basic and secondary), contexts and results. These case studies included the analysis of documental data, interviews to key informants and a questionnaire directed to teachers (n = 141) – the latter will be the main focus of this paper. Teachers are essential elements of the school community when considering the impacts of external evaluation, as any changes directed at teaching practices, student evaluation, among others are only possible through their direct action and implication. Therefore, their perceptions on the process and its impacts are crucial to the understanding of what does and does not change in schools as a consequence of external evaluation. Although teachers’ opinions are not homogenous and each school reveals a number of differences when it comes to teachers’ perceptions of School Evaluation, it was possible to stress some areas as the most and as the least consensual. Teachers in both schools agree External School Evaluation (ESE) is useful for the identification of the schools’ strengths and weaknesses, values students’ external evaluation results, imposes a model for schools internal evaluation (and in fact contributes to the very existence of internal evaluation practices), and contributes to schools improvement. However teachers in both schools do not believe ESE contributes to teachers’ autonomy produces changes in how curriculum is managed, or leads to innovative teaching practices. These results point to a greater emphasis on change at the levels of school management, self-evaluation and particularly internal evaluation, but little impact on the teaching practices. We believe the classroom is at the core of school practices and teaching processes are essential to any measure of school quality and to their impacts on student learning.

Two case studies on generating administrative process applications with AdminDSL

Some organizations end up reimplementing the same class of business process over and over: an "administrative process", which consists of managing a form through several states and involving various roles in the organization. This results in wasted time that could be dedicated to better understanding the process or dealing with the fine details that are specific to the process. Existing virtual office solutions require specific training and infrastructure andmay result in vendor lock-in. In this paper, we propose using a high-level domain-specific language (AdminDSL) to describe the administrative process and a separate code generator targeting a standard web framework. We have implemented the approach using Xtext, EGL and the Django web framework, and we illustrate it through two case studies: a synthetic examination process which illustrates the architecture of the generated code, and a real-world workplace survey process that identified several future avenues for improvement.

Factors influencig software migration decision: case studies of acerlormittal Tubarão and the city government of Serra, Espirito Santo

The objective of this research is to identify the factors that influence the migration of free software to proprietary software, or vice-versa. The theoretical framework was developed in light of the Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DIT) proposed by Rogers (1976, 1995), and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) proposed by Venkatesh, Morris, Davis and Davis (2003). The research was structured in two phases: the first phase was exploratory, characterized by adjustments of the revised theory to fit Brazilian reality and the identification of companies that could be the subject of investigation; and the second phase was qualitative, in which case studies were conducted at ArcelorMittal Tubarão (AMT), a private company that migrated from proprietary software (Unix) to free software (Linux), and the city government of Serra, in Espírito Santo state, a public organization that migrated from free software (OpenOffice) to proprietary (MS Office). The results show that software migration decision takes into account factors that go beyond issues involving technical or cost aspects, such as cultural barriers, user rejection and resistance to change. These results underscore the importance of social aspects, which can play a decisive role in the decision regarding software migration and its successful implementation.