BDEF : the behavioral design data exchange format

BDDB is a Behavioral Design Data Base that manages the design data produced and consumed by different behavioral synthesis tools. These different design tools retrieve design data from BDDB, manipulate the data, and then store the results back into the data base. BDDB thus needs to address the following two issues: (1) a design data exchange approach and (2) customized design data interfaces. To address the first issue, we have developed a textual description format for describing design data objects and relationships. This language, referred to as the Behavioral Design Data Exchange Format (BDEF), is used as common format for exchanging design data between BDDB and the design tools in the behavioral synthesis environment. To address the second issue, we have developed a behavioral object type description language (generally referred to as schema definition language) for describing the global data structures required by design tools as well as the desired design subviews of this global BDDB design information. One design view class, namely, BDEF, is the topic of this report.In this report we give a formal definition of the BDEF format. Then we describe a comprehensive example of applying BDEF to the behavioral synthesis domain. That is, we present the complete BDEF syntax for the Extended Control/Data Flow Graph Model (ECDFG), which is the design representation model used by most behavioral synthesis tools in the UCI CADLAB synthesis system. We also present several example descriptions of designs using this ECDFG model. A parser/graph compiler from BDEF into the generalized ECDFG design representation as well as a BDEF generator from the ECDFG data structures into the BDEF format have been implemented

Reflexive transnational law : the privatisation of civil law and the civilisation of private law

The author examines the emergence of a transnational private law in alternative dispute resolution bodies and private norm formulating agencies from a reflexive law perspective. After introducing the concept of reflexive law he applies the idea of law as a communicative system to the ongoing debate on the existence of a New Law Merchant or lex mercatoria. He then discusses some features of international commercial arbitration (e.g. the lack of transparency) which hinder self-reference (autopoiesis) and thus the production of legal certainty in lex mercatoria as an autonomous legal system. He then contrasts these findings with the Domain Name Dispute Resolution System, which as opposed to Lex Mercatoria was rationally planned and highly formally organised by WIPO and ICANN, and which is allowing for self-reference and thus is designed as an autopoietic legal system, albeit with a very limited scope, i.e. the interference of abusive domain name registrations with trademarks (cybersquatting). From the comparison of both examples the author derives some preliminary ideas regarding a theory of reflexive transnational law, suggesting that the established general trend of privatisation of civil law need to be accompanied by a civilisation of private law, i.e. the constitutionalization of transnational private regimes by embedding them into a procedural constitution of freedom

Shingle 2.0: generalising self-consistent and automated domain discretisation for multi-scale geophysical models

The approaches taken to describe and develop spatial discretisations of the domains required for geophysical simulation models are commonly ad hoc, model or application specific and under-documented. This is particularly acute for simulation models that are flexible in their use of multi-scale, anisotropic, fully unstructured meshes where a relatively large number of heterogeneous parameters are required to constrain their full description. As a consequence, it can be difficult to reproduce simulations, ensure a provenance in model data handling and initialisation, and a challenge to conduct model intercomparisons rigorously. This paper takes a novel approach to spatial discretisation, considering it much like a numerical simulation model problem of its own. It introduces a generalised, extensible, self-documenting approach to carefully describe, and necessarily fully, the constraints over the heterogeneous parameter space that determine how a domain is spatially discretised. This additionally provides a method to accurately record these constraints, using high-level natural language based abstractions, that enables full accounts of provenance, sharing and distribution. Together with this description, a generalised consistent approach to unstructured mesh generation for geophysical models is developed, that is automated, robust and repeatable, quick-to-draft, rigorously verified and consistent to the source data throughout. This interprets the description above to execute a self-consistent spatial discretisation process, which is automatically validated to expected discrete characteristics and metrics.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Submitted for publication and under revie

Enterprise model verification and validation : an approach

This article presents a verification and validation approach which is used here in order to complete the classical tool box the industrial user may utilize in enterprise modeling and integration domain. This approach, which has been defined independently from any application domain is based on several formal concepts and tools presented in this paper. These concepts are property concepts, property reference matrix, properties graphs, enterprise modeling domain ontology, conceptual graphs and formal reasoning mechanisms