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

The effective number of relevant parties : how voting power improves Laakso-Taagepera’s index

This paper proposes a new method to evaluate the number of rel- evant parties in an assembly. The most widespread indicator of frag- mentation used in comparative politics is the ‘Effective Number of Par- ties’(ENP), designed by Laakso and Taagepera (1979). Taking both the number of parties and their relative weights into account, the ENP is arguably a good parsimonious operationalization of the number of ‘relevant’ parties. This index however produces misleading results in single-party ma jority situations as it still indicates that more than one party is relevant in terms of government formation. We propose to modify the ENP formula by replacing proportions of seats by voting power measures. This improved index behaves more in line with Sar- tori’s definition of relevance, without requiring additional information in its construction.Voting power indices; Effective Number of Parties; Party system fragmentation; Relevance; Coalition Formation

Correlations and Clustering in Dilute Matter

Nuclear systems are treated within a quantum statistical approach. Correlations and cluster formation are relevant for the properties of warm dense matter, but the description is challenging and different approximations are discussed. The equation of state, the composition, Bose condensation of bound fermions, the disappearance of bound states at increasing density because of Pauli blocking are of relevance for different applications in astrophysics, heavy ion collisions, and nuclear structure.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, contribution to the special-topics volume on nuclear correlations and cluster physics, edited by W. U. Schr\"ode

Loss induced collective subradiant Dicke behaviour in a multiatom sample

The exact dynamics of $N$ two-level atoms coupled to a common electromagnetic bath and closely located inside a lossy cavity is reported. Stationary radiation trapping effects are found and very transparently interpreted in the context of our approach. We prove that initially injecting one excitation only in the $N$ atoms-cavity system, loss mechanisms asymptotically drive the matter sample toward a long-lived collective subradiant Dicke state. The role played by the closeness of the $N$ atoms with respect to such a cooperative behavior is brought to light and carefully discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, submitted to EPJ

Access to Medicines and the Right to (Cultural) Life

Published version available from: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754677611This groundbreaking book is the first collection to investigate together the law, political science and ethical perspectives on the right and value of life

A Relation-Based Page Rank Algorithm for Semantic Web Search Engines

With the tremendous growth of information available to end users through the Web, search engines come to play ever a more critical role. Nevertheless, because of their general-purpose approach, it is always less uncommon that obtained result sets provide a burden of useless pages. The next-generation Web architecture, represented by the Semantic Web, provides the layered architecture possibly allowing overcoming this limitation. Several search engines have been proposed, which allow increasing information retrieval accuracy by exploiting a key content of Semantic Web resources, that is, relations. However, in order to rank results, most of the existing solutions need to work on the whole annotated knowledge base. In this paper, we propose a relation-based page rank algorithm to be used in conjunction with Semantic Web search engines that simply relies on information that could be extracted from user queries and on annotated resources. Relevance is measured as the probability that a retrieved resource actually contains those relations whose existence was assumed by the user at the time of query definitio

Theoretical results of research on spatial and territorial development (with examples on the european north of Russia)

This article focuses primarily on the correlation between the concepts of “spatial” and “territorial” development. It is shown that, while differing in their content, these concepts substantially complement each other when it comes to specific research studies. In this case, the topic of spatial development includes considering the general areas for the location of productive forces, geographic dimension of the specific types of economic activities, economic measurement of distances, linear communications and a network structure of the economy while. In the topic of territorial development, the author introduces the territory itself as a natural and economic capital and territorial economic management based on such capital. The study of spatial and territorial aspects of socio-economic development in the European North of Russia (ENR) showed that its immediate future is associated not so much with the large projects aimed at creating new fuel and energy, mineral and raw material, or forestry bases, as with the improvement in the existing economic systems based on scientific and technological progress and interregional integration. The progression from developed territories to new Arctic and Northern locations is associated with tremendous costs and requires time for scientific and technical preparation. The modernization of existing production facilities, territorial and production complexes is a priority in the development of productive forces in ENR. The author proposes to apply the theoretical provisions and practical recommendations formulated as a result of studying the spatial and territorial development in the elaboration of government strategic planning documents. Currently, the practice of strategic planning does not fully consider the substance of such concepts as “spatial development” and “territorial development.” This incompleteness is so significant that overcoming it should be considered as one of the key objectives pursued by the regional policy