Many participatory processes fail to generate social change and collaborative outcomes. This failure can partly be explained by how divergent stakeholders' frames are handled. This paper builds on ...the framing and participation literature to explain how facilitators can manage frame diversity and foster collaborative outcomes. It suggests two pragmatic steps: identifying frames and managing frames. The two steps are applied to a participatory process for natural resource management in Fogera, Ethiopia. Effectiveness of facilitators’ strategies to manage frame diversity in the Fogera case is discussed. Two main elements challenging effectiveness are identified: counter-strategies used by facilitators and most-powerful stakeholders, and the constraining factors knowledge, champions and frame sponsorship. We argue that these elements need to be taken into account by participatory process facilitators when managing frame diversity.
•A diversity of frames can cause participatory processes to fail.•We support facilitators in identifying frames and managing frame diversity.•Five strategies can be used by facilitators to manage frame diversity.•Counter-strategies and constraining factors can hinder strategies' effectiveness.•Three factors were identified in Fogera: knowledge, champions and frame sponsorship.
Modeling complex systems, such as the ones found in the certification of fire protection systems, generally requires the intervention of many specialists, each one using its own formalisms, concepts ...and tools. To model such systems, many specific languages are required and to be integrated they should be formally described. In this proposal, we suggest to use functional programming concepts to formalize and integrate the languages involved in the field of fire safety systems. Formalization is done by specifying constructor functions and integration by the way of generic/higher-order functions.
This paper describes how high-level of Object-Oriented concepts can be used to provide a generic, portable and polymorphic Fuzzy Logic framework. It highlights the way in which such OO concepts allow ...the extension of the programming language idioms with the semantics of the fuzzy logic field. A progressive approach presents; in a first step Fuzzy Logic systems; then, relevant classes, design patterns and architectures are identified. The considered aspects cover the composite structure, the polymorphic behaviour and the building of a system of fuzzy expressions. Finally, an example illustrates how the framework can be used in a conventional design strategy.
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