31,727 research outputs found
The transaction pattern through automating TrAM
Transaction Agent Modelling (TrAM) has demonstrated how the early requirements of complex enterprise systems can be captured and described in a lucid yet rigorous way. Using Geerts and McCarthyâs REA (Resource-Events-Agents) model as its basis, the TrAM process manages to capture the âqualitativeâ dimensions of business transactions and business processes. A key part of the process is automated model-checking, which CG has revealed to be beneficial in this regard. It enables models to retain the high-level business concepts yet providing a formal structure at that high-level that is lacking in Use Cases. Using a conceptual catalogue informed by transactions, we illustrate the automation of a transaction pattern from which further specialisations impart a tested specification for system implementation, which we envisage as a multi-agent system in order to reflect the dynamic world of business activity. It would furthermore be able to interoperate across business domains as they would share the generalised TM as a pattern.</p
Conjoined Events
Many existing synchronous message-passing systems support
choice: engaging in one event XOR another. This paper introduces the AND operator that allows a process to engage in multiple
events together (one AND one more AND another; all conjoined),
engaging in each event only if it can atomically engage in all the
conjoined events. We demonstrate using several examples that this
operator supports new, more ?exible models of programming. We
show that the AND operator allows the behaviour of processes to
be expressed in local rules rather than system-wide constructs. We
give an optimised implementation of the AND operator and explore
the performance effect on standard communications of supporting
this new operator
Managing healthcare workflows in a multi-agent system environment
Whilst Multi-Agent System (MAS) architectures appear to offer a more flexible model for designers and developers of complex, collaborative information systems, implementing real-world business processes that can be delegated to autonomous agents is still a relatively difficult task. Although a range of agent tools and toolkits exist, there still
remains the need to move the creation of models nearer to code generation, in order that the development path be more rigorous and repeatable. In particular, it is essential that complex organisational
process workflows are captured and expressed in a way that MAS can successfully interpret. Using a complex social care system as an exemplar, we describe a technique whereby a business process is
captured, expressed, verified and specified in a suitable format for a healthcare MAS.</p
Open Transactions on Shared Memory
Transactional memory has arisen as a good way for solving many of the issues
of lock-based programming. However, most implementations admit isolated
transactions only, which are not adequate when we have to coordinate
communicating processes. To this end, in this paper we present OCTM, an
Haskell-like language with open transactions over shared transactional memory:
processes can join transactions at runtime just by accessing to shared
variables. Thus a transaction can co-operate with the environment through
shared variables, but if it is rolled-back, also all its effects on the
environment are retracted. For proving the expressive power of TCCS we give an
implementation of TCCS, a CCS-like calculus with open transactions
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