Valid Time in a Model Driven Framework

This thesis presents a framework for modeling and developing temporal information systems. The framework defines a model driven development process which automatically transforms temporal system models into executable systems. Temporal applications have semantics not represented in conventional modeling languages, and the main contribution in this case is a temporal extension to an existing UML profile. The UML profile is extended with temporal concepts and constructs to provide a temporal conceptual modeling language. Temporal features are introduced by model elements defined with valid time semantics, that is, the information model captures earlier and possible future states as well as the current state of entities. The approach is based on timestamping entities with valid time intervals to represent when states of an entity were valid in the modeled reality. Based on the semantically extended models designed using the temporal profile the framework allows automatic code generation of temporal information systems . Thus, we provide model driven tool support for developing temporal valid time applications

Access beyond geographic accessibility: understanding opportunities to human needs in a physical-virtual world

Access to basic human needs, such as food and healthcare, is conceptually understood to be comprised of multiple spatial and aspatial dimensions. However, research in this area has traditionally been explored with spatial accessibility measures that almost exclusively focus on just two dimensions. Namely, the availability of resources, services, and facilities, and the accessibility or ease to which locations of these opportunities can be reached with existing land-use and transport systems under temporal constraints and considering individual characteristics of people. These calculated measures are insufficient in holistically capturing available opportunities as they ignore other components, such as the emergence of virtual space to carry out activities and interactions enabled by modern information and communication technologies (ICT). Human dynamics today exist in a hybrid physical-virtual space, and recent research has highlighted the importance of understanding ICT, individual behavior, local context, social relations, and human perceptions in identifying opportunities available to people. However, there lacks a holistic approach that relates these different aspects to access research. This dissertation addresses this gap by proposing a new conceptual framework for the geography of access for various kinds of human needs, using food access as a case study to illustrate how the proposed framework can be applied to address critical societal issues. An interactive multispace geographic information system (GIS) web application is developed to better understand and visualize individual potential food access based on the conceptual framework. This dissertation contributes to the body of research with a proposed conceptual framework of access in a hybrid physical-virtual world, integration of various big and small data sources to reveal information relating to the access of people, and novel development of a multi-space GIS to analyze and visualize access to opportunities

The LADM Valuation Information Model and its application to the Turkey case

Spatial data in a Land Administration (LA) establish a fundamental geospatial data theme (see UN GGIM, 2018) and the integrated geospatial information framework for any Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). Domain-specific standards, an integral component of the SDI, play an essential role to represent the semantics of domains, specify links between distributed registries and databases, and stimulate the development and implementation for Land Administration Systems (LAS). As an international descriptive standard providing an abstract conceptual schema, the ISO 19152:2012 Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) has been used and is being used as a reference for the implementation of LAS. Various approaches have been used for the LADM implementation that includes elaborating (via a country profile) and realizing a technical model suitable for the implementation (van Oosterom and Lemmen, 2015). LADM focuses on a specific function of LA that is interested in Rights, Responsibilities and Restrictions (RRR) affecting land, and the geometrical components thereof. The land value function of LA is considered outside the scope in the first edition. Recently, for extending the flexible and modular basis of the LADM, a valuation information model is developed for the specification of valuation information maintained by public authorities. It identifies the links between property valuation and the other LA registries and databases (e.g., cadastre, land registry, building and dwelling registries) that may enable interoperability across systems. The conceptual schema of the model provides a common basis to direct the development of local and national valuation databases and information technology products and services, following an approach similar to the LADM implementation. The proposed LADM Valuation Information Model is on the agenda of the development of the second edition of LADM within ISO/TC211. The operability of the newly proposed conceptual model needs to be evaluated through technical implementation. This paper describes the development of a prototype for the implementation of the LADM Valuation Information Model and assesses its operability through a case study for Turkey. The primary aim of the paper is to test the capabilities of the LADM Valuation Information Model using the required and produced data in recurrent valuation processes, but not to build a specific information management system for Turkey. As the implementation of a LADM compliant prototype initially requires the development of a country profile at conceptual level, methodologies applied for LADM profile development are examined and then a Turkish LADM Valuation Information Model country profile is proposed using the Conceptual Schema Languages (CSL) of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and INTERLIS. INTERLIS is a formal language as well as a set of software tools that support LADM implementations. Subsequently, approaches and tools used in the LADM implementation are investigated and utilized for the automated transformations from the country profile to several technical models. In this context, the article presents the experiences gained during the implementations. Moreover, strategies for implementing and managing property valuation information more efficiently (e.g. bi-temporal aspects of valuation information management) are also studied and applied to the implementation. The generated technical models are then populated with sample datasets related to recurrent property valuation including the geometries of valuation units, as well as valuation information covering several years. The developed prototype is then tested through a number of queries to assess whether the LADM Valuation Information Model fulfils information management needs of recurrent valuations. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a holistic approach on how to develop an LADM conformant prototype for managing property valuation information

A modular, open-source information extraction framework for identifying clinical concepts and processes of care in clinical narratives

In this thesis, a synthesis is presented of the knowledge models required by clinical informa- tion systems that provide decision support for longitudinal processes of care. Qualitative research techniques and thematic analysis are novelly applied to a systematic review of the literature on the challenges in implementing such systems, leading to the development of an original conceptual framework. The thesis demonstrates how these process-oriented systems make use of a knowledge base derived from workflow models and clinical guidelines, and argues that one of the major barriers to implementation is the need to extract explicit and implicit information from diverse resources in order to construct the knowledge base. Moreover, concepts in both the knowledge base and in the electronic health record (EHR) must be mapped to a common ontological model. However, the majority of clinical guideline information remains in text form, and much of the useful clinical information residing in the EHR resides in the free text fields of progress notes and laboratory reports. In this thesis, it is shown how natural language processing and information extraction techniques provide a means to identify and formalise the knowledge components required by the knowledge base. Original contributions are made in the development of lexico-syntactic patterns and the use of external domain knowledge resources to tackle a variety of information extraction tasks in the clinical domain, such as recognition of clinical concepts, events, temporal relations, term disambiguation and abbreviation expansion. Methods are developed for adapting existing tools and resources in the biomedical domain to the processing of clinical texts, and approaches to improving the scalability of these tools are proposed and evalu- ated. These tools and techniques are then combined in the creation of a novel approach to identifying processes of care in the clinical narrative. It is demonstrated that resolution of coreferential and anaphoric relations as narratively and temporally ordered chains provides a means to extract linked narrative events and processes of care from clinical notes. Coreference performance in discharge summaries and progress notes is largely dependent on correct identification of protagonist chains (patient, clinician, family relation), pronominal resolution, and string matching that takes account of experiencer, temporal, spatial, and anatomical context; whereas for laboratory reports additional, external domain knowledge is required. The types of external knowledge and their effects on system performance are identified and evaluated. Results are compared against existing systems for solving these tasks and are found to improve on them, or to approach the performance of recently reported, state-of-the- art systems. Software artefacts developed in this research have been made available as open-source components within the General Architecture for Text Engineering framework

Geospatial Narratives and their Spatio-Temporal Dynamics: Commonsense Reasoning for High-level Analyses in Geographic Information Systems

The modelling, analysis, and visualisation of dynamic geospatial phenomena has been identified as a key developmental challenge for next-generation Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In this context, the envisaged paradigmatic extensions to contemporary foundational GIS technology raises fundamental questions concerning the ontological, formal representational, and (analytical) computational methods that would underlie their spatial information theoretic underpinnings. We present the conceptual overview and architecture for the development of high-level semantic and qualitative analytical capabilities for dynamic geospatial domains. Building on formal methods in the areas of commonsense reasoning, qualitative reasoning, spatial and temporal representation and reasoning, reasoning about actions and change, and computational models of narrative, we identify concrete theoretical and practical challenges that accrue in the context of formal reasoning about `space, events, actions, and change'. With this as a basis, and within the backdrop of an illustrated scenario involving the spatio-temporal dynamics of urban narratives, we address specific problems and solutions techniques chiefly involving `qualitative abstraction', `data integration and spatial consistency', and `practical geospatial abduction'. From a broad topical viewpoint, we propose that next-generation dynamic GIS technology demands a transdisciplinary scientific perspective that brings together Geography, Artificial Intelligence, and Cognitive Science. Keywords: artificial intelligence; cognitive systems; human-computer interaction; geographic information systems; spatio-temporal dynamics; computational models of narrative; geospatial analysis; geospatial modelling; ontology; qualitative spatial modelling and reasoning; spatial assistance systemsComment: ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (ISSN 2220-9964); Special Issue on: Geospatial Monitoring and Modelling of Environmental Change}. IJGI. Editor: Duccio Rocchini. (pre-print of article in press

A Process Modelling Framework Based on Point Interval Temporal Logic with an Application to Modelling Patient Flows

This thesis considers an application of a temporal theory to describe and model the patient journey in the hospital accident and emergency (A&E) department. The aim is to introduce a generic but dynamic method applied to any setting, including healthcare. Constructing a consistent process model can be instrumental in streamlining healthcare issues. Current process modelling techniques used in healthcare such as flowcharts, unified modelling language activity diagram (UML AD), and business process modelling notation (BPMN) are intuitive and imprecise. They cannot fully capture the complexities of the types of activities and the full extent of temporal constraints to an extent where one could reason about the flows. Formal approaches such as Petri have also been reviewed to investigate their applicability to the healthcare domain to model processes. Additionally, to schedule patient flows, current modelling standards do not offer any formal mechanism, so healthcare relies on critical path method (CPM) and program evaluation review technique (PERT), that also have limitations, i.e. finish-start barrier. It is imperative to specify the temporal constraints between the start and/or end of a process, e.g., the beginning of a process A precedes the start (or end) of a process B. However, these approaches failed to provide us with a mechanism for handling these temporal situations. If provided, a formal representation can assist in effective knowledge representation and quality enhancement concerning a process. Also, it would help in uncovering complexities of a system and assist in modelling it in a consistent way which is not possible with the existing modelling techniques. The above issues are addressed in this thesis by proposing a framework that would provide a knowledge base to model patient flows for accurate representation based on point interval temporal logic (PITL) that treats point and interval as primitives. These objects would constitute the knowledge base for the formal description of a system. With the aid of the inference mechanism of the temporal theory presented here, exhaustive temporal constraints derived from the proposed axiomatic system’ components serves as a knowledge base. The proposed methodological framework would adopt a model-theoretic approach in which a theory is developed and considered as a model while the corresponding instance is considered as its application. Using this approach would assist in identifying core components of the system and their precise operation representing a real-life domain deemed suitable to the process modelling issues specified in this thesis. Thus, I have evaluated the modelling standards for their most-used terminologies and constructs to identify their key components. It will also assist in the generalisation of the critical terms (of process modelling standards) based on their ontology. A set of generalised terms proposed would serve as an enumeration of the theory and subsume the core modelling elements of the process modelling standards. The catalogue presents a knowledge base for the business and healthcare domains, and its components are formally defined (semantics). Furthermore, a resolution theorem-proof is used to show the structural features of the theory (model) to establish it is sound and complete. After establishing that the theory is sound and complete, the next step is to provide the instantiation of the theory. This is achieved by mapping the core components of the theory to their corresponding instances. Additionally, a formal graphical tool termed as point graph (PG) is used to visualise the cases of the proposed axiomatic system. PG facilitates in modelling, and scheduling patient flows and enables analysing existing models for possible inaccuracies and inconsistencies supported by a reasoning mechanism based on PITL. Following that, a transformation is developed to map the core modelling components of the standards into the extended PG (PG*) based on the semantics presented by the axiomatic system. A real-life case (from the King’s College hospital accident and emergency (A&E) department’s trauma patient pathway) is considered to validate the framework. It is divided into three patient flows to depict the journey of a patient with significant trauma, arriving at A&E, undergoing a procedure and subsequently discharged. Their staff relied upon the UML-AD and BPMN to model the patient flows. An evaluation of their representation is presented to show the shortfalls of the modelling standards to model patient flows. The last step is to model these patient flows using the developed approach, which is supported by enhanced reasoning and scheduling

Conceptual graph-based knowledge representation for supporting reasoning in African traditional medicine

Although African patients use both conventional or modern and traditional healthcare simultaneously, it has been proven that 80% of people rely on African traditional medicine (ATM). ATM includes medical activities stemming from practices, customs and traditions which were integral to the distinctive African cultures. It is based mainly on the oral transfer of knowledge, with the risk of losing critical knowledge. Moreover, practices differ according to the regions and the availability of medicinal plants. Therefore, it is necessary to compile tacit, disseminated and complex knowledge from various Tradi-Practitioners (TP) in order to determine interesting patterns for treating a given disease. Knowledge engineering methods for traditional medicine are useful to model suitably complex information needs, formalize knowledge of domain experts and highlight the effective practices for their integration to conventional medicine. The work described in this paper presents an approach which addresses two issues. First it aims at proposing a formal representation model of ATM knowledge and practices to facilitate their sharing and reusing. Then, it aims at providing a visual reasoning mechanism for selecting best available procedures and medicinal plants to treat diseases. The approach is based on the use of the Delphi method for capturing knowledge from various experts which necessitate reaching a consensus. Conceptual graph formalism is used to model ATM knowledge with visual reasoning capabilities and processes. The nested conceptual graphs are used to visually express the semantic meaning of Computational Tree Logic (CTL) constructs that are useful for formal specification of temporal properties of ATM domain knowledge. Our approach presents the advantage of mitigating knowledge loss with conceptual development assistance to improve the quality of ATM care (medical diagnosis and therapeutics), but also patient safety (drug monitoring)

Conceptual modelling and the quality of ontologies: A comparison between object-role modelling and the object paradigm

Ontologies are key enablers for sharing precise and machine-understandable semantics among different applications and parties. Yet, for ontologies to meet these expectations, their quality must be of a good standard. The quality of an ontology is strongly based on the design method employed. This paper addresses the design problems related to the modelling of ontologies, with specific concentration on the issues related to the quality of the conceptualisations produced. The paper aims to demonstrate the impact of the modelling paradigm adopted on the quality of ontological models and, consequently, the potential impact that such a decision can have in relation to the development of software applications. To this aim, an ontology that is conceptualised based on the Object Role Modelling (ORM) approach is re-engineered into a one modelled on the basis of the Object Paradigm (OP). Next, the two ontologies are analytically compared using the specified criteria. The conducted comparison highlights that using the OP for ontology conceptualisation can provide more expressive, reusable, objective and temporal ontologies than those conceptualised on the basis of the ORM approach

Evolving information systems: meeting the ever-changing environment

To meet the demands of organizations and their ever-changing environment, information systems are required which are able to evolve to the same extent as organizations do. Such a system has to support changes in all time-and application-dependent aspects. In this paper, requirements and a conceptual framework for evolving information systems are presented. This framework includes an architecture for such systems and a revision of the traditional notion of update. Based on this evolutionary notion of update (recording, correction and forgetting) a state transition-oriented model on three levels of abstraction (event level, recording level, correction level) is introduced. Examples are provided to illustrate the conceptual framework for evolving information systems

Livelisystems: a conceptual framework integrating social, ecosystem, development and evolutionary theory

Human activity poses multiple environmental challenges for ecosystems that have intrinsic value and also support that activity. Our ability to address these challenges is constrained, inter alia, by weaknesses in cross disciplinary understandings of interactive processes of change in socio-ecological systems. This paper draws on complementary insights from social and biological sciences to propose a ‘livelisystems’ framework of multi-scale, dynamic change across social and biological systems. This describes how material, informational and relational assets, asset services and asset pathways interact in systems with embedded and emergent properties undergoing a variety of structural transformations. Related characteristics of ‘higher’ (notably human) livelisystems and change processes are identified as the greater relative importance of (a) informational, relational and extrinsic (as opposed to material and intrinsic) assets, (b) teleological (as opposed to natural) selection, and (c) innovational (as opposed to mutational) change. The framework provides valuable insights into social and environmental challenges posed by global and local change, globalization, poverty, modernization, and growth in the anthropocene. Its potential for improving inter-disciplinary and multi-scale understanding is discussed, notably by examination of human adaptation to bio-diversity and eco-system service change following the spread of Lantana camera in the Western Ghats, India