Modelling and analysing user views of telecommunications services

User views of calls are modelled by behaviour trees, which are synchronised to form a network of users. High level presentations of the models are given using process algebra and an explicit theory of features, including precedences. These precedences abstractly encapsulate the possible state spaces which result from different combinations of features. The high level presentation supports incremental development of features and testing and experimentation through animation. Interactions which are not detected during the experimentation phase may be found through static analysis of the high level presentation, through dynamic analysis of the under-lying low level transition system, and through verification of temporal properties through model-checking. In each case, interactions are resolved through manipulation of the feature precedences

Analyzing equivalalences in discourse: are discourse theory and membership categorization analysis comptatible

Facing a crucial leap from political philosophy to empirical analysis, the approach to discourse analysis that arose in the aftermath of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), and that is currently known as the Essex school of discourse theory (DT), has in recent years repeatedly been accused of suffering from a methodological deficit. This paper examines to what extent membership categorization analysis (MCA), a branch of ethnomethodology that investigates lay actors' situated descriptions-in-context as practical activity, can play a part in rendering poststructuralist DT notions such as articulation and equivalence analytically tangible in empirically observable discourse. Based on a review of Laclau and Mouffe's foundational text as well as on Glynos and Howarth's recent exposition of the framework (2007), it is argued that MCA empirically substantiates many poststructuralist claims about the indeterminacy of signification. However, MCA consistently falters - and willingly so - at the point where DT would articulate emerging equivalences between identity categories as part of a second-order explanatory concept, such as Glynos and Howarth’s notion of political logic. Nevertheless, MCA also contains the kernel of an "endogenous" notion of the political that comes fairly close to DT’s all-pervasive understanding of the concept. To support these arguments, a variety of empirical sources are mobilized, ranging from the transcript of a political talk show, a newspaper report regarding a discrimination case in a dance class, to data drawn from earlier research on the way that minority members are treated by the Belgian criminal justice system

Mastering Heterogeneous Behavioural Models

Heterogeneity is one important feature of complex systems, leading to the complexity of their construction and analysis. Moving the heterogeneity at model level helps in mastering the difficulty of composing heterogeneous models which constitute a large system. We propose a method made of an algebra and structure morphisms to deal with the interaction of behavioural models, provided that they are compatible. We prove that heterogeneous models can interact in a safe way, and therefore complex heterogeneous systems can be built and analysed incrementally. The Uppaal tool is targeted for experimentations.Comment: 16 pages, a short version to appear in MEDI'201