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The construction sector has significantly evolved in recent decades, in parallel with a huge increase in the amount of data generated and exchanged in any construction project. These data need to be managed in order to complete a successful project in terms of quality, cost and schedule in the the context of a safe project environment while appropriately organising many construction documents.

However, the origin of these data is very diverse, mainly due to the sector’s characteristics. Moreover, these data are affected by uncertainty, complexity and diversity due to the imprecise nature of the many factors involved in construction projects. As a result, construction project data are associated with large, irregular and scattered datasets.

The objective of this chapter is to introduce an approach based on a fuzzy multi-dimensional model and on line analytical processing (OLAP) operations in order to manage construction data and support the decision-making process based on previous experiences. On one hand, the proposal allows for the integration of data in a common repository which is accessible to users along the whole project’s life cycle. On the other hand, it allows for the establishment of more flexible structures for representing the data of the main tasks in the construction project management domain. The incorporation of this fuzzy framework allows for the management of imprecision in construction data and provides easy and intuitive access to users so that they can make more reliable decisions.

The eventual adaptation of archives to new technological possibilities could begin with the creation of digital versions of archival finding aids, which would allow the international diffusion of descriptive information. The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), document type definition (DTD) for archival description known as encoded archival description (EAD) is an appropriate tool for this purpose. Presents a methodological strategy that begins with an analysis of EAD and the informational object to be marked up, allowing the semiautomatic creation of a digital version.

To deal with the new circumstances arising in the digital environment, with its particular conditions for the access, distribution and use of intellectual works, three distinct approaches exist: legal (copyright laws are modified to adapt them to the new context), technological (systems designed to control access and use of works), and contractual (through licenses to regulate the conditions of use of the works). The joint use of technological measures and licenses, together with the laws that protect both, are seriously endangering the effectiveness of the limitations to copyright set forth by law to benefit libraries, their users and citizens in general. This represents a strong privatisation of access to information. Using as a point of reference the laws of countries that are on the front lines of this terrain – the USA, the European Union and Australia – some problems created by the new forms of protection of intellectual works are examined.

The requisite of creativity set down by copyright laws does not fit well into the context of digital databases. The risk of being unprotected increases in the case of factual compilations, as simple facts or data are not copyrightable, meaning that their contents can easily be copied and/or used by others without infringing copyright. After more than a decade of intense debate about the need to give or not give additional protection to non‐original databases, and about the most appropriate model to follow, international consensus is still far away. This paper analyses the situation at the present point of the long, heated process of harmonising the legal protection of databases. The European directive is first examined, as well as attempts to extrapolate it to other countries. Then the paper looks at some proposals from the USA, and finally at the treaties and projects of an international nature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the international strengthening of copyright law in developing countries and the active involvement of the international library community in the movement against it.

The paper describes the overprotection of intellectual property rights through international and bilateral treaties, the reaction against such through the proposal of a WIPO development agenda, and the contribution of the international library organizations to the debates and discussions in the WIPO arena.

The initiative for a development agenda for WIPO has proven much more successful than many had imagined, even its promoters. The most relevant proposals made by the international library community were included in the final list of approved recommendations.

The paper raises awareness of the relationship between copyright and access to knowledge and, in consequence, the need for library organizations to exert influence in such legislation.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of knowledge, among university professors, about copyright problems related to e‐learning activities.

An online questionnaire was used to survey professors teaching subjects online.

There is a considerable lack of knowledge on the part of professors regarding copyright issues, both in general terms and in specific matters related to digital learning. Strong discrepancies are found between the text of the law and the notion actually held by professors as to how legislators have formulated the law.

This information may be useful for professors themselves as well as for persons managing the e‐learning platforms of universities. It demonstrates that the law was reformed without any discussion with those actually engaged in online teaching.

The problems that the great developments in digital information and the Internet are creating for copyright may be partly solved through new legislation as well as through the implementation of technological systems (generically known as ECMS) that help protect it. These two approaches – legal and technological – interact, as the new copyright laws protect these electronic measures through the prohibition of their circumvention. The contents of the three main legal norms that have regulated this area to date, the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the European Directive and the new Australian Copyright Act, are analysed in an attempt to determine what impact they might have on the traditional limitations and exceptions to copyright (fair use/dealing, private copying, library privileges) that benefit libraries, their users and the general public.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the specification language TML for adaptive mission plans that the authors designed and implemented for the open-source framework Aerostack for aerial robotics.

The TML language combines a task-based hierarchical approach together with a more flexible representation, rule-based reactive planning, to facilitate adaptability. This approach includes additional notions that abstract programming details. The authors built an interpreter integrated in the software framework Aerostack. The interpreter was validated with flight experiments for multi-robot missions in dynamic environments.

The experiments proved that the TML language is easy to use and expressive enough to formulate adaptive missions in dynamic environments. The experiments also showed that the TML interpreter is efficient to execute multi-robot aerial missions and reusable for different platforms. The TML interpreter is able to verify the mission plan before its execution, which increases robustness and safety, avoiding the execution of certain plans that are not feasible.

One of the main contributions of this work is the availability of a reliable solution to specify aerial mission plans, integrated in an active open-source project with periodic releases. To the best knowledge of the authors, there are not solutions similar to this in other active open-source projects. As additional contributions, TML uses an original combination of representations for adaptive mission plans (i.e. task trees with original abstract notions and rule-based reactive planning) together with the demonstration of its adequacy for aerial robotics.