Philosophy of Blockchain Technology - Ontologies

About the necessity and usefulness of developing a philosophy specific to the blockchain technology, emphasizing on the ontological aspects. After an Introduction that highlights the main philosophical directions for this emerging technology, in Blockchain Technology I explain the way the blockchain works, discussing ontological development directions of this technology in Designing and Modeling. The next section is dedicated to the main application of blockchain technology, Bitcoin, with the social implications of this cryptocurrency. There follows a section of Philosophy in which I identify the blockchain technology with the concept of heterotopia developed by Michel Foucault and I interpret it in the light of the notational technology developed by Nelson Goodman as a notational system. In the Ontology section, I present two developmental paths that I consider important: Narrative Ontology, based on the idea of order and structure of history transmitted through Paul Ricoeur's narrative history, and the Enterprise Ontology system based on concepts and models of an enterprise, specific to the semantic web, and which I consider to be the most well developed and which will probably become the formal ontological system, at least in terms of the economic and legal aspects of blockchain technology. In Conclusions I am talking about the future directions of developing the blockchain technology philosophy in general as an explanatory and robust theory from a phenomenologically consistent point of view, which allows testability and ontologies in particular, arguing for the need of a global adoption of an ontological system for develop cross-cutting solutions and to make this technology profitable. CONTENTS: Abstract Introducere Tehnologia blockchain - Proiectare - Modele Bitcoin Filosofia Ontologii - Ontologii narative - Ontologii de intreprindere Concluzii Note Bibliografie DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24510.3360

An Evaluation of Inter-Organizational Workflow Modelling Formalisms

This paper evaluates the dynamic aspects of the UML in the context of inter-organizational workflows. Two evaluation methodologies are used. The first one is ontological and is based on the BWW (Bunge-Wand-Weber) models. The second validation is based on prototyping and consists in the development of a workflow management system in the aerospace industry. Both convergent and divergent results are found from the two validations. Possible enhancements to the UML formalism are suggested from the convergent results. On the other hand, the divergent results suggest the need for a contextual specification in the BWW models. Ce travail consiste en une évaluation des aspects dynamiques du language UML dans un contexte de workflow inter-organisationnel. Le choix du language par rapport à d'autres est motivé par sa richesse grammaticale lui offrant une très bonne adaptation à ce contexte. L'évaluation se fait par une validation ontologique basée sur les modèles BWW (Bunge-Wand-Weber) et par la réalisation d'un prototype de système de gestion de workflows inter-organisationnels. À partir des résultats convergents obtenus des deux différentes analyses, des améliorations au formalisme UML sont suggérées. D'un autre coté, les analyses divergentes suggèrent une possibilité de spécifier les modèles BWW à des contextes plus particuliers tels que ceux des workflows et permettent également de suggérer d'autres améliorations possibles au langage.Ontology, Conceptual study, Prototype Validation, UML, IS development methods and tools., Ontologie, étude conceptuelle, validation du prototype, UML, méthodes et outils de développement IS

Virtual Lego

The report, entitled Virtual Lego, reveals the route taken of exploring the technology of Virtual Reality (VR) in implementing a 3D virtual reality toy, begins with the project planning and ends with the results and recommendations of the end-product. The main objective of this project is to develop a prototype of Virtual Lego that is capable of generating and sharing users' ideas in assembling, disassembling and reassembling the basic Lego blocks inside a virtual world via a networked virtual reality. The greatest challenge to Virtual Lego is to provide the users with a sense of immersion and realism throughout their navigation and manipulation processes of the virtual objects inside the 3D scene. Not only a mean in experiencing the beauty of virtual reality, Virtual Lego is also introducing the VR tools and giving opportunities for its users to hands-on the special and high technology VR input device. The methodology consists of four phases including the research and fact-finding, system planning and design, development and testing, and project closing and submission. Virtual Lego is seen to be capable of exploring and addressing the need of new and effective approaches for educational and entertainment, regardless to the level of the ages

Implementing ALiS: Towards a Reference Architecture for Augmented Living Spaces

Augmented reality (AR) is currently discussed as an approach to promote the personal health of elderly and cognitively impaired people, with spatial AR being a promising, wearable-less solution to enable. an augmented living space (ALiS) that immersively provides and communicates individual, needs-oriented functionalities in the areas of perception, mobility, organization, and medicine. To address the knowledge gap of missing knowledge concerning the implementation of such assistance systems that support autonomy in everyday life, we derived a reference architecture (RA) based on an existing design theory. Our RA contains UML diagrams for components and sequence flows, accompanying text descriptions, and a user interface design. We successfully implemented a prototype to show the RAs feasibility and conducted an expert survey for its general usefulness with positive results. Our contributions add to the prescriptive knowledge base of the community as the results may be adapted by researchers and practitioners

Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Applications of Virtual Reality

Information Technology is growing rapidly. With the birth of high-resolution graphics, high-speed computing and user interaction devices Virtual Reality has emerged as a major new technology in the mid 90es, last century. Virtual Reality technology is currently used in a broad range of applications. The best known are games, movies, simulations, therapy. From a manufacturing standpoint, there are some attractive applications including training, education, collaborative work and learning. This book provides an up-to-date discussion of the current research in Virtual Reality and its applications. It describes the current Virtual Reality state-of-the-art and points out many areas where there is still work to be done. We have chosen certain areas to cover in this book, which we believe will have potential significant impact on Virtual Reality and its applications. This book provides a definitive resource for wide variety of people including academicians, designers, developers, educators, engineers, practitioners, researchers, and graduate students

A functional requirement model of e-learning system in secondary school in Dhi-Qar province, Iraq

Recently, the modern technology simplifies the learning programs and support communication among students, teachers, parents, and the managements of schools in educational institutions. With this development, the existing electronic learning requirements do not meet all students’ or the educational institution’s needs, due to the varying students’ needs, goals, backgrounds, knowledge levels, and learning capabilities. Furthermore, prior literature also reveals some disadvantages of current online environment systems, including lack of interaction among users and difficulty of supporting co-operative work. On the other hand, the unstable environment and the insecure situation that Iraq currently faces prompts parents to avoid sending their children to school. In addition to that, in some parts of Dhi-Qar, there are three schools running in one building, operating at different times and there is a dearth of learning materials. With regard to requirement model, there is a lack of requirement model to develop the e-learning system specifically for the secondary school. In accordance to that, this study seeks to propose a functional requirement model of e-learning system to link the stakeholders or actors of the educational process in online environment. Data were collected through interviews and questionnaires. The user requirements were obtained from literature review and interview with users. They were translated into a prototype, which was designed using an open source platform, Moodle. Finally, acceptance and usability evaluation were conducted, using questionnaires. The results reveal that the participants are satisfied with the proposed requirements, and these requirements meet all the stakeholders’ needs. Therefore, the model proposed in this study can be used for particular education institutions and other conflict areas to complement the existing traditional classrooms