17,192 research outputs found
Three Dimensional Chern-Simons Theory as a Theory of Knots and Links
Three dimensional SU(2) Chern-Simons theory has been studied as a topological
field theory to provide a field theoretic description of knots and links in
three dimensions. A systematic method has been developed to obtain the
link-invariants within this field theoretic framework. The monodromy properties
of the correlators of the associated Wess-Zumino SU(2) conformal field
theory on a two-dimensional sphere prove to be useful tools. The method is
simple enough to yield a whole variety of new knot invariants of which the
Jones polynomials are the simplest example.Comment: 45 pages (without figures
Component Composition in Business and System Modelling
Bespoke development of large business systems can be couched in terms of the composition of components, which are, put simply, chunks of development work. Design, mapping a specification to an implementation, can also be expressed in terms of components: a refinement comprising an abstract component, a concrete component and a mapping between them. Similarly, system extension is the composition of an existing component, the legacy system, with a new component, the extension. This paper overviews work being done on a UK EPSRC funded research project formulating and formalizing techniques for describing, composing and performing integrity checks on components. Although the paper focuses on the specification and development of information systems, the techniques are equally applicable to the modeling and re-engineering of businesses, where no computer system may be involved
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