An intelligent dynamic simulation model for designing software development processes

This paper describes a computer-aided software development process design. This is a computerized intelligent tool designed to aid managers of software development projects in planning, managing and controlling the development process of medium to large scale software projects. The application of this computerized tool should help reduce the uncertainties involved in the budget, personnel and schedule planning of software development projects.     

Taking Adoption Issues into the New Millennium: An Introduction

The prevalence of adoption in our society and our awareness of adoption-related issues have increased markedly in recent years, due to socioeconomic and sociopolitical changes at the national and international level. Given the high incidence of adoption in the United States today, it is perplexing and unfortunate that many adoptive triad members still feel that the complexities of adoption are not fully understood. In addition, many clinicians still feel that clear and useful guidelines and training for therapy with adoptive triad members are hard to find. This introduction addresses these concerns in general in the context of discussing the different contributions included in this special issue.     

BEYOND LINEARITY AND CIRCULARITY: DECONSTRUCTING SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY

This article attempts to clarify the concepts of linearity and circularity as applied to marital and family therapy, especially in light of the credible challenge to the concept of circular causality by feminist theorists. Distinct and theoretically legitimate meanings of linearity are defined-proportionality, unilaterality, and temporality. Circularity is redefined into two distinct meanings-recursivity and holicity. The two meanings of circularity are then subdivided in accord with Bateson's guiding distinction between "substance" and "form" (i.e., physical force and mental information). This reworking of systemic concepts is described as important as a means to justify reformulation of theory in the field. The article concludes with a call for continued deconstruction of social systems concepts as a means toward refinement of the systemic paradigm or as a means toward development of a new paradigm, which, in either case, should acknowledge individual and relational realities.     

Defining the psychomedical and systemic paradigms in marital and family therapy

A framework for defining paradigms within the field of marital and family therapy is presented. The term "paradigm" is critically analyzed as applied to mental health services. Paradigm crisis in marital and family therapy is described as resulting primarily from practical-theoretical, professional, andpolitical concerns rather than scientific anomaly. Subsequently, two paradigms are defined as related to marital and family therapy: the psychomedical and the social systems (systemic) paradigms. Both paradigms are defined according to basic propositions and methodological tenets. The need for, and the design of, critical paradigmatic experiments of the psychomedical paradigm against the systemic paradigm are addressed. Critical paradigmatic experiments are viewed as an offshoot of a postpositivistic empiricism in keeping with a contextual view of knowledge.