Proving soundness of combinatorial Vickrey auctions and generating verified executable code

Using mechanised reasoning we prove that combinatorial Vickrey auctions are soundly specified in that they associate a unique outcome (allocation and transfers) to any valid input (bids). Having done so, we auto-generate verified executable code from the formally defined auction. This removes a source of error in implementing the auction design. We intend to use formal methods to verify new auction designs. Here, our contribution is to introduce and demonstrate the use of formal methods for auction verification in the familiar setting of a well-known auction

Linking with Meaning: Ontological Hypertext for Scholars

The links in ontological hypermedia are defined according to the relationships between real-world objects. An ontology that models the significant objects in a scholar’s world can be used toward producing a consistently interlinked research literature. Currently the papers that are available online are mainly divided between subject- and publisher-specific archives, with little or no interoperability. This paper addresses the issue of ontological interlinking, presenting two experimental systems whose hypertext links embody ontologies based on the activities of researchers and scholars

Scientific Visualization Using the Flow Analysis Software Toolkit (FAST)

Over the past few years the Flow Analysis Software Toolkit (FAST) has matured into a useful tool for visualizing and analyzing scientific data on high-performance graphics workstations. Originally designed for visualizing the results of fluid dynamics research, FAST has demonstrated its flexibility by being used in several other areas of scientific research. These research areas include earth and space sciences, acid rain and ozone modelling, and automotive design, just to name a few. This paper describes the current status of FAST, including the basic concepts, architecture, existing functionality and features, and some of the known applications for which FAST is being used. A few of the applications, by both NASA and non-NASA agencies, are outlined in more detail. Described in the Outlines are the goals of each visualization project, the techniques or 'tricks' used lo produce the desired results, and custom modifications to FAST, if any, done to further enhance the analysis. Some of the future directions for FAST are also described

Enhancing urban sustainability through novel visualisation

Sustainable decision making in Urban Design is a complex and non-linear process that requires the interaction of a wide variety of stakeholders. The engagement of a range of stakeholders throughout the decision making process presents challenges including the need to communicate the complex and interdependent facets of sustainability and the need to demonstrate the short and long term implications of alternative courses of action.This paper presents the results of an initial application of a prototype simulation and visualisation tool (S-City VT) that was developed to enable all stakeholders, regardless of background or experience, to understand, interact with and influence decisions made on the sustainability of urban design. S-City VT takes the unique approach of combining computer game technology with computer modelling to present stakeholders with an interactive virtual development. The paper uses the Dundee Central Waterfront Development Project as a case study to evaluate the potential for the application of the tool and explains how parallel research work on the implementation of a sustainability enhancement framework for the Central Waterfront Development has informed the choice of sustainability indictors and identified the key stakeholders in the decision making processes.The paper shows how stakeholders can be presented with the outputs from the model using a 3D visualisation of the development and thus enables judgements to be made on the relative sustainability of aspects of the development. The visualisation tool employs a number of different methods of displaying the sustainability results to the stakeholders. These methods can show data in varying levels of complexity, depending on the expertise of the stakeholder, empowering all stakeholders by illustrating possible interactions between indicator values and sustainability and by showing how different stakeholder perceptions of the importance of the indicators can influence the sustainability assessment.Initial tests on the effectiveness of the different visualisation methods in displaying the model output to communicate the sustainability of the Development are described. The results of the tests and presented and discussed and conclusions are drawn on the further development and application of the tool to model and visualise through time the possible results of decisions made at different stages of the project

Harnessing Intellectual Resources in a Collaborative Context to Create Value

The value of electronic collaboration has arisen as successful organisations recognize that they need to convert their intellectual resources into customized services. The shift from personal computing to interpersonal or collaborative computing has given rise to ways of working that may bring about better and more effective use of intellectual resources. Current efforts in managing knowledge have concentrated on producing; sharing and storing knowledge while business problems require the combined use of these intellectual resources to enable organisations to provide innovative and customized services. In this chapter the collaborative context is developed using a model for electronic collaboration through the use of which organisations may mobilse collaborative technologies and intellectual resources towards achieving joint effect.electronic collaboration;value creation;collaborative computing;knowledge management and intellectual resources

Dealing with uncertain entities in ontology alignment using rough sets

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Ontology alignment facilitates exchange of knowledge among heterogeneous data sources. Many approaches to ontology alignment use multiple similarity measures to map entities between ontologies. However, it remains a key challenge in dealing with uncertain entities for which the employed ontology alignment measures produce conflicting results on similarity of the mapped entities. This paper presents OARS, a rough-set based approach to ontology alignment which achieves a high degree of accuracy in situations where uncertainty arises because of the conflicting results generated by different similarity measures. OARS employs a combinational approach and considers both lexical and structural similarity measures. OARS is extensively evaluated with the benchmark ontologies of the ontology alignment evaluation initiative (OAEI) 2010, and performs best in the aspect of recall in comparison with a number of alignment systems while generating a comparable performance in precision

A formalized object oriented user driven approach using business forms

Although object-orientation exhibits many promises, there exists many fundamental areas that need to be addressed. Two of these areas are the widespread acceptance of the object mindset, and interactive user involvement in the object oriented business system development process. First, the mindset must grow and be extended not only by the engineering industry but also by the ever expanding service industry. Second, effective, efficient, flexible user driven tools must be developed, in the form of development approaches to reduce the reliance on scarce human resources. In order to accomplish both areas, the technology user is the key element. This research in progress concentrates on the development of a formalized business form user-driven approach using an object oriented analysis view. The resulting analysis produces an initial conceptual object model that is used by the users and designers for further object analysis, object design, design evolution, and object oriented application domain identification