Showing papers on "Viewpoints published in 1996"
TL;DR: This paper demonstrates how inconsistency management is used as a tool for requirements elicitation and how ViewPoints provide a vehicle for achieving this.
Abstract: Large-scale software development is an evolutionary process In an evolving specification, multiple development participants often hold multiple inconsistent views on the system being developed, and considerable effort is spent handling recurrent inconsistencies Detecting and resolving inconsistencies is only part of the problem; a resolved inconsistency might not stay resolved as a specification evolves Frameworks in which inconsistency is tolerated help by allowing resolution to be delayed However, the evolution of a specification may affect both resolved and unresolved inconsistencies A framework is presented and elaborated in which software development knowledge is partitioned into multiple views called ViewPoints Inconsistencies between ViewPoints are managed by explicitly representing relationships between them, and recording both resolved and unresolved inconsistencies It is assumed that ViewPoints will often be inconsistent, and so a complete work record is kept, detailing any inconsistencies that have been detected and what actions, if any, have been taken to resolve them The work record is then used to reason about the effects of subsequent changes to ViewPoints, without constraining the development process The paper demonstrates how inconsistency management is used as a tool for requirements elicitation and how ViewPoints provide a vehicle for achieving this Inconsistency is used as a stimulus for eliciting missing information and capturing user-defined relationships that arise between elements of an evolving specification
208 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: Eight viewpoints that can help people to unlearn what they think they already know are described.
Abstract: Often, before they can learn something new, people have to unlearn what they think theyalready know. That is, they may have to discover that they should no longer rely on their current beliefsand methods. This paper describes eight viewpoints that can help people to do this.
166 citations
Journal Article•
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TL;DR: The structure of this brief paper follows an emerging convention the FAQ Frequently Asked Questions list, and the FAQ serves as the introduction to the theme of the special issue papers which follow.
Abstract: The structure of this brief paper follows an emerging convention the FAQ Frequently Asked Questions list FAQs have grown out of Internet newgroups where participants, tired of seeing the same questions repeated by newcomers, provide a list of canned answers to the most frequently asked questions An FAQ also provides a covert role in defusing tiresome or unduly acrimonious debates by summarising the arguments and pre-empting outbreaks of “flame wars” This is our attempt, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to do the same for viewpoints The FAQ serves as our introduction to the theme of the special issue papers which follow
122 citations
TL;DR: This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding and investigating viewpoint development approaches and results of the use of the framework for a comparison of viewpoints development approaches are discussed.
Abstract: Requirements definition is a critical activity within information systems development. It involves many stakeholder groups: managers, various end-users and different systems development professionals. Each group is likely to have its own `viewpoint' representing a particular perspective or set of perceptions of the problem domain. To ensure as far as possible that the system to be implemented meets the needs and expectations of all involved stakeholders, it is necessary to understand their various viewpoints and manage any inconsistencies and conflicts. Viewpoint development during requirements definition is the process of identifying, understanding and representing different viewpoints. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding and investigating viewpoint development approaches. Results of the use of the framework for a comparison of viewpoint development approaches are discussed and some important issues and directions for future research are identified.
97 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Patients' views on low back pain are heterogeneous and the dissatisfaction expressed with medical explanations for the pain may be related to superficial clinical management and the constraints of general practice.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Low back pain is a common and persistent problem. Research studies seeking to improve the quality of management of this condition have tended to ignore the opinions of patients. There is a growing acceptance of the importance of taking patients' views into account in developing management and educational programmes for a variety of conditions. AIM: This study set out to elicit the views of patients concerning low back pain and its management in general practice. METHOD: Fifty-two in-depth interviews were conducted with patients selected from a broad range of 12 general practices. RESULTS: Analysis of the interviews identified seven themes relating to: quality of life, prognosis, secondary prevention, help-seeking behaviour, explanation of underlying pathology, satisfaction with general practitioner management, and complementary therapy. Different patient viewpoints or perspectives were expressed within each of these themes. Patients adapted to the progress of their low back pain and were not seeking a 'magical cure' from either conventional or complementary therapies. CONCLUSION: Patients' views on low back pain are heterogeneous. The dissatisfaction expressed with medical explanations for the pain may be related to superficial clinical management and the constraints of general practice. Good management of low back pain needs to take patients' complex views of the condition into account.
75 citations
TL;DR: Ideas on how to determine if publication of focus group-based research should be pursued are provided.
67 citations
54 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that foresight is primarily grounded in human capacities and needs and that a more critical and egalitarian type of foresight needs to be pursued for cultural innovation beyond the industrial worldview.
50 citations
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TL;DR: This paper argued that race and ethnicity are not arbitrary; instead, they reflect powerful social and historical forces and that such categories may fail to promote the goal of diversity of many schools' affirmative action programs.
Abstract: MANY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES PRACTICE some form of affirmative action based on race or ethnicity in their admissions process. They often justify affirmative action on the grounds that it promotes educational "diversity," somewhat loosely defined as a multiplicity of ideas, experiences, and viewpoints in the classroom and on the campus as a whole. A diverse student body and faculty is often said to be desirable for two main reasons. Schools hope that having a student body and faculty that hold many different viewpoints and approach issues from different perspectives will promote learning and lead to the production of greater knowledge for all. Seeing their mission as one of socializing their students and helping them to grow into good citizens, many schools also believe that if people from different backgrounds, who hold different values, can learn to communicate and respect differing points of view, both in and out of the classroom, they will be better prepared to deal with the challenges of living in a pluralistic and multicultural democracy. A racially and ethnically diverse student body is generally thought to be necessary for the accomplishment of these goals. No one can deny the power and importance of racial and ethnic categories. These categories are not arbitrary; instead, they reflect powerful social and historical forces. Like it or not, the racial and, to a lesser extent, ethnic categories with which a person identifies, or which others ascribe to a person, make an enormous difference in the way a person lives her life. People from different races and ethnicities are therefore reasonably presumed to have different experiences and thus to have developed different perspectives and viewpoints.' Affirmative action is one way to ensure that people from different cultural backgrounds, especially people whom the school identifies as belonging to certain racial or ethnic groups, are represented on campus.2 My purpose in this article is not to question the importance of these categories. Rather, my purpose is to probe their salience to the educational mission of diversity. Although race and ethnicity are concepts with considerable power, one can argue that they fail to capture adequately the actual social diversity of various groups. Such categories thus may fail to promote the goal of diversity of many schools' affirmative action programs. Although there are otherjustifications for affirmative action, such as the need to make reparation for past discrimination or the desire to prevent historically disadvantaged groups from remaining disadvantaged, schools most often publicly embrace the goal of creating a diverse student body and faculty because
48 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the extent and ways in which school managers seek to identify parental viewpoints, so that these can influence school decision-making, and found that schools vary in openness towards the receipt of parental viewpoints.
Abstract: The issue of whether schools immersed in a market culture will be more consumer responsive has been much debated in the UK and elsewhere. In this article, members of the Parental and School Choice Interaction Study examine the extent and ways in which school managers seek to identify parental viewpoints, so that these can influence school decision-making. It suggests that schools vary in openness towards the receipt of parental viewpoints, managers placing a great deal of reliance upon informal and ad hoc means of feedback as opposed to—though not necessarily more valid than—systematic and planned approaches.
41 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the extent and ways in which school managers seek to identify parental viewpoints, so that these can influence school decision-making is examined, and it suggests schools vary in openness towards the receipt of parental viewpoints and managers placing a great deal of reliance upon informal and ad hoc means of feedback as opposed to-though not necessarily more valid-systematic and planned approaches.
Abstract: The issue of whether schools immersed in a market culture will be more consumer responsive has been much debated in the UK and elsewhere. This paper examines the extent and ways in which school managers seek to identify parental viewpoints, so that these can influence school decision-making. It suggests schools vary in openness towards the receipt of parental viewpoints, managers placing a great deal of reliance upon informal and ad hoc means of feedback as opposed to-though not necessarily more valid-systematic and planned approaches.
TL;DR: The Magazine of Higher Learning: Vol. 28, No. 2 (No. 2, pp. 29-31) as discussed by the authors has published a response to four viewpoints of change in higher education.
Abstract: (1996). In Response: Four Viewpoints. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning: Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 29-31.
Journal Article•
18 Apr 1996
TL;DR: This checklist will help you solve problems with icons on Web pages and GUIs designed by amateurs with more attention to detail, more input from various viewpoints, and more testing.
Abstract: Problems with icons are common---especially on Web pages and GUIs designed by amateurs. Most of these problems can be solved with more attention to detail, more input from various viewpoints, and more testing. This checklist will help you with those tasks.
22 Mar 1996
TL;DR: This work elaborates on the original proposal of a general interview assistant and shows how the use of viewpoint analysis improves the inference capability of the assistant.
Abstract: Requirements elicitation in the context of organizational information systems is well know to be a very hard task, much dependent on the experience and cleverness of the team performing the elicitation. In such a context the use of interviews is frequent and pointed out as the major technique for getting the requirements from the actors in the organization. We have been working with the idea of a general interview assistant and our first results are promising. In this article we elaborate on our original proposal in order to augment its assistant capability, without loosing its simplicity. We show how the use of viewpoint analysis improves the inference capability of our assistant.
14 Oct 1996
TL;DR: I classify viewpoint research in three areas: opinions, specifications and services, each of which is described in detail, and conclude listing topics in need for further research.
Abstract: Viewpoints on Viewpoints Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite* Departamento de InformAttica, PUC-Rio R. MarquGs de S. Vicente 225 Rio de Janeiro 22453-900 Brasil julio@inf.puc-rio.br This paper expresses the viewpoints, or opinions of the author on the use of viewpoints in the software development process. 1 will concentrate most of my attention on requirements engineering, but I also treat the topic in the broader environment of software development. I will state without much justification, besides the presentation itself, key concepts that 1 believe are the basics for the use of viewpoints. I classify viewpoint research in three areas: opinions, specifications and services, each of which is described in detail. I conclude listing topics in need for further research.
TL;DR: A formal study of the amalgamation of individual viewpoints leads to a proposed approach for combining viewpoints that identifies conditions under which the resulting specification reflects all the properties of the constituent viewpoints.
Abstract: How can we be sure that a set of viewpoints is valid, in the sense that it is possible to build a system consistent with each and every one of them? Our approach is based on the idea of amalgamating the individual viewpoints into a single coherent whole. A formal study of this process leads to a proposed approach for combining viewpoints that identifies conditions under which the resulting specification reflects all the properties of the constituent viewpoints. These ideas are applied to the development of Z specifications, and it is shown how they might be used in other contexts.
TL;DR: A system to visualize different viewpoints for supporting researchers' creativity has a text database composed of journal and conference papers and elicits the viewpoints of the papers automatically and visualizes the semantic relations between them.
Abstract: In this paper we describe a system to visualize different viewpoints for supporting researchers' creativity. The system has a text database composed of journal and conference papers. It elicits the viewpoints of the papers automatically and visualizes the semantic relations between them. By using it the users can find new viewpoints on their own research and form creative ideas. To evaluate the system, we carried out the user studies not only for creativity aid but also for communication aid and information retrieval, and confirmed its effectiveness.
22 Apr 1996
TL;DR: New methods for computing viewpoints which meet the feature detectability constraints of focus, field-of-view, visibility, and resolution are discussed.
Abstract: Automatically planning a camera viewpoint for tasks such as inspection in an active robot work-cell is a difficult problem. This paper discusses new methods for computing viewpoints which meet the feature detectability constraints of focus, field-of-view, visibility, and resolution. A theoretical outline of the method is presented, followed by experimental results and a discussion of future work.
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: A system concept of interactive and asynchronous collaboration and communications in information spaces structured through personal viewpoints of all participants is proposed to develop a system that facilitates novel human communications, which has yet to be seen in the real world, with the support of the Internet.
Abstract: There has been an increase in creative activities being done using networked computers, due to the increase in the number of people accessing the Internet. The Internet can be characterized by its global scale, ability of bi-directional communications, and high publicity. Our target is to develop a system that facilitates novel human communications, which has yet to be seen in the real world, with the support of the Internet. We propose a system concept of interactive and asynchronous collaboration and communications in information spaces structured through personal viewpoints of all participants. The method presented in this paper makes possible for a user accessing the WWW (World-Wide Web) to encounter other people who have similar interests. This encounter is definitely different from our dally encounters in the real world, which axe mostly limited with personal relationships, and spatial and temporal coincidence. In order to provide a virtual space for the encounters, we employ a method that visualizes personal viewpoints by mapping icons of text-objects and keywords given by users into metric spaces. We are developing a system that visualizes personal viewpoints of contents and opinions appeared in personal pages of the WWW.
14 Oct 1996
TL;DR: This paper discusses the issues of specification style and refinement that arise in connection with viewpoint modelling, and considers the support needed in order to deal with viewpoints at different levels of abstraction.
Abstract: This paper discusses the issues of specification style and refinement that arise in connection with viewpoint modelling. In particular, we consider the support needed in order to deal with viewpoints at different levels of abstraction. The motivation for this work arises from the use of viewpoints in distributed systems design, in particular the Open Distributed Processing standard. Full proceedings of the workshop it was presented at can be found on WWW: A. Finkelstein and G. Spanoudakis (eds.): http://web.soi.city.ac.uk/homes/gespan/VP F SE.html, ACM SIGSOFT Foundations of Software Engineering 4, 1996.
TL;DR: Forum articles are open to diverse views, in the hope that such diversity will enhance professional dialogue as discussed by the authors, and encourage constructive dialogue centered on issues, such as philosophical, ethical, and practical dilemmas of our profession.
14 Oct 1996
TL;DR: It is shown how an object-oriented view mechanism can be exploited to allow different applications to see the same database according to different viewpoints.
Abstract: In this paper we show how an object-oriented view mechanism can be exploited to allow different applications to see the same database according to different viewpoints. Each schema view is obtained by restructuring the original schema, by hiding, adding or r&defining features. The basic characteristics of the proposed view mechanism are sketched and some open issues are discussed.
TL;DR: A climate in which doctors are under constant threat of malpractice actions is likely to be harmful to the practice of medicine itself and both escalating costs and multiplying risks are argued.
Abstract: There is a widespread feeling among doctors that the relationship between medicine and the law has reached crisis point. Many medical practitioners feel that the risk of litigation arising from clinical activities has greatly increased in recent years, largely as a result of the actions of unscrupulous lawyers. They argue that increased litigation is an unhealthy development because court action is an ineffective means of resolving problems of communication and an expensive, unpredictable and unfair way of redressing injuries. In addition — so it is argued — a climate in which doctors are under constant threat of malpractice actions is likely to be harmful to the practice of medicine itself. The trust between doctors and patients, on which such a large part of the clinical process rests, will be brought into question; orders regarding specific medical decisions by judges — who do not have medical expertise, let alone knowledge of specific clinical circumstances — intrude into the doctor–patient relationship and undermine the principle that clinical decisions should be made by doctors and patients in consultation. It is further argued that doctors under threat of litigation will order excessive tests and prescribe unnecessary treatments, thus both escalating costs and multiplying risks. Such overservicing is evidently already occurring: a 1993 report found that fear of litigation has caused a significant number of Australian doctors to change their medical practices, with increased levels of servicing and refusal to undertake high‐risk procedures.1
14 Oct 1996
TL;DR: In this article, the benefits of using viewpoints as a means of managing the analytical complexity of safety critical systems and describes the role of Goal Structuring as a supporting technique are discussed, which is a useful technique for managing any kind of complexity in large scale systems development.
Abstract: York YOl 5DD. United Kingdom. To add to the above difficulties, there are a large number ,of participants involved in the development and assessment of SCS, spanning multiple disciplines, e.g. computing, mechanical, hydro-mechanical, electronics, human factors. There are also different types of stakeholder: regulators, customers, developers, assessors, operators, those responsible for peer systems, standards bodies, government bodies (e.g. Health and Safety Executive), and so on. Managing any kind of complexity in a large scale systems development is a hard task. Viewpoints are a useful means of managing complexity and have been widely advocated in the field of Requirements Engineering. This position statement outlines the benefits of using viewpoints as a means of managing the analytical complexity of safety critical systems and describes the role of Goal Structuring as a supporting technique.
14 Oct 1996
TL;DR: The objectives of the workshop are to establish a joint understanding of the critical issues in the study of viewpoints and to share techniques, methods and tools.
Abstract: Outline & Objectives These Proceedings constitute the starting point for Viewpoints 96, subtitled the International Workshop on Multiple Perspectives in Software Development. The papers (31, excluding this preface) outline the positions and contributions of the key research teams in this area. The construction of a complex description or model involves many agents (aka participants or actors). These agents have different perspectives or views of the artefact or system they are trying to describe or model (the domain of discourse). Examples might be performance, architecture, security, and so on. These perspectives or views are partial or incomplete descriptions which arise because of different responsibilities or roles assigned to the agents. These responsibilities or roles may be organisationally defined, follow some defined structuring of the underlying artefact or system, or may reflect different modelling or descriptive capabilities. The combination of the agent and the view that the agent holds is termed a viewpoint. The study of viewpoints embraces the relations between views, between views and agents, and between agents. Rather than providing an introduction to viewpoints in this preface and risk repetition the interested reader is referred to [1]. The objectives of the workshop are to establish a joint understanding of the critical issues in the study of viewpoints and to share techniques, methods and tools. The workshop aims to bring together strands of work within software engineering which are more commonly separated. It also seeks to draw on those in related disciplines outside software engineering, such as the computer supported cooperative work, information and database systems interoperability and distributed artificial intelligence which share our interest in viewpoints. We would argue that many of the most interesting research areas run across the boundaries of conventional specialisations and arise from taking a problem focus. In the workshop call we identified an “open list of themes and issues”. These were: