The first panel was primarily concerned with identifying the architectural and organizational attributes that distinguish blackboard systems. As more and more systems appear claiming to use the blackboard paradigm, it is increasingly necessary to determine a set of criteria that define the essential elements of blackboard systems. This panel was also concerned with the question of how far syste...

International environmental agreements address global problems such as the decline in biodiversity. The Convention on Trade Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) regulates international trade wildlife to prevent its decline. Discussions about CITES’ effectiveness abound, but evidence is lacking. We combine largest available panel database populations with history countries’ members...

INTRODUCTION According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), the majority of the organizational knowledge comes from interactions between people. People tend to reuse solutions from other persons in order to gain productivity. When people communicate to exchange information or acquire knowledge, the process is named Collaboration. Collaboration is one of the most important tasks for innovation and com...

The writers are congratulated for developing analytical approximations to Einstein integrals herein INT1 and INT2 . It was stated by the writers in their technical note that these algorithms can be incorporated into professional hydraulic software, and the discussers agree on this. However, it is pointed out here that the calculation of INT1 and INT2 can be easily incorporated more directly by ...

The writer presents a parametric study devoted to investigate the behavior of nonprismatic members having T-sections by using three-dimensional ~3D! finite-element models ~FEMs!. Fixed-end moments and stiffness coefficients were computed from the 3DFEMs considering thrust effects. As a result of the parametric study, the writer proposed a practical modeling technique based on two-noded beam ele...

Edoardo Cosenza; Fiorenzo De Cicco, Ph.D.; and Andrea Prota Full Professor, Dept. of Structural Engineering, Univ. of Naples “Federico II”, Via Claudio 21, 80125 Naples, Italy. E-mail: cosenza@ unina.it Dept. of Structural Engineering, Univ. of Naples “Federico II”, Via Claudio 21, 80125 Naples, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] Assistant Professor, Dept. of Structural Engineering, Univ....

Virtual technology is now routinely used for meetings of large, multi-location organizations (Vandenburg and Reese, 2011), and shows great promise for bringing together geographically dispersed participants in facilitated discussions, as long as participants are familiar with the technology and comfortable using it. In most instances, it makes sense to conduct facilitated sessions in a face-to-...

This paper reports research into the student experience of learning through discussions in a blended environment. Third year engineering students studying e-commerce engaged in both face-to-face discussions and online asynchronous discussions as key aspects of their learning experience. Adopting a quantitative methodology, questionnaires based on what students thought they were learning through...