18,391 research outputs found
Enterprise engineering using semantic technologies
Modern Enterprises are facing unprecedented challenges in every aspect of their businesses: from marketing research, invention of products, prototyping, production, sales to billing. Innovation is the key to enhancing enterprise performances and knowledge is the main driving force in creating innovation. The identification and effective management of valuable knowledge, however, remains an illusive topic. Knowledge management (KM) techniques, such as enterprise process modelling, have long been recognised for their value and practiced as part of normal business. There are plentiful of KM techniques. However, what is still lacking is a holistic KM approach that enables one to fully connect KM efforts with existing business knowledge and practices already in IT systems, such as organisational memories. To address this problem, we present an integrated three-dimensional KM approach that supports innovative semantics technologies. Its automated formal methods allow us to tap into modern business practices and capitalise on existing knowledge. It closes the knowledge management cycle with user feedback loops. Since we are making use of reliable existing knowledge and methods, new knowledge can be extracted with less effort comparing with another method where new information has to be created from scratch
Tele-education Process Modelling supported by the ODP Enterprise Viewpoint Language
This paper reports on applying the ODP enterprise viewpoint in the domain of tele-education. The work is conducted as part of a research activity that aims at designing a tele-education system to support planning, execution and evaluation of dynamic distributed educational processes. We explore the ODP enterprise viewpoint as a basis for communication and co-operation between educational scientists and ODP systems designers involved in the design process. Our application of the enterprise viewpoint involves four main steps. First, an educational language is proposed to describe educational processes in generic terms. Second, a set of appropriate enterprise language concepts is selected. Third, a relationship is established between the educational language and enterprise language concepts. Fourth, an educational process is modelled in terms of an entity-oriented model and a behaviour-oriented model. It is hoped that the experience gained in this exercise will provide useful feedback to both the educational and ODP communitie
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Learning from AI : new trends in database technology
Recently some researchers in the areas of database data modelling and knowledge representations in artificial intelligence have recognized that they share many common goals. In this survey paper we show the relationship between database and artificial intelligence research. We show that there has been a tendency for data models to incorporate more modelling techniques developed for knowledge representations in artificial intelligence as the desire to incorporate more application oriented semantics, user friendliness, and flexibility has increased. Increasing the semantics of the representation is the key to capturing the "reality" of the database environment, increasing user friendliness, and facilitating the support of multiple, possibly conflicting, user views of the information contained in a database
On the Notion of Abstract Platform in MDA Development
Although platform-independence is a central property in MDA models, the study of platform-independence has been largely overlooked in MDA. As a consequence, there is a lack of guidelines to select abstraction criteria and modelling concepts for platform-independent design. In addition, there is little methodological support to distinguish between platform-independent and platform-specific concerns, which could be detrimental to the beneficial exploitation of the PIM-PSM separation-of-concerns adopted by MDA. This work is an attempt towards clarifying the notion of platform-independent modelling in MDA development. We argue that each level of platform-independence must be accompanied by the identification of an abstract platform. An abstract platform is determined by the platform characteristics that are relevant for applications at a certain level of platform-independence, and must be established by balancing various design goals. We present some methodological principles for abstract platform design, which forms a basis for defining requirements for design languages intended to support platform-independent design. Since our methodological framework is based on the notion of abstract platform, we pay particular attention to the definition of abstract platforms and the language requirements to specify abstract platforms. We discuss how the concept of abstract platform relates to UML
Meta-Packages: Painless Domain Specific Languages
Domain Specific Languages are used to provide a tailored modelling notation
for a specific application domain. There are currently two main approaches to
DSLs: standard notations that are tailored by adding simple properties; new
notations that are designed from scratch. There are problems with both of these
approaches which can be addressed by providing access to a small meta-language
based on packages and classes. A meta-modelling approach based on meta-packages
allows a wide range of DSLs to be defined in a standard way. The DSLs can be
processed using standard object-based extension at the meta-level and existing
tooling can easily be defined to adapt to the new languages. This paper
introduces the concept of meta-packages and provides a simple example
Model-driven design, simulation and implementation of service compositions in COSMO
The success of software development projects to a large extent depends on the quality of the models that are produced in the development process, which in turn depends on the conceptual and practical support that is available for modelling, design and analysis. This paper focuses on model-driven support for service-oriented software development. In particular, it addresses how services and compositions of services can be designed, simulated and implemented. The support presented is part of a larger framework, called COSMO (COnceptual Service MOdelling). Whereas in previous work we reported on the conceptual support provided by COSMO, in this paper we proceed with a discussion of the practical support that has been developed. We show how reference models (model types) and guidelines (design steps) can be iteratively applied to design service compositions at a platform independent level and discuss what tool support is available for the design and analysis during this phase. Next, we present some techniques to transform a platform independent service composition model to an implementation in terms of BPEL and WSDL. We use the mediation scenario of the SWS challenge (concerning the establishment of a purchase order between two companies) to illustrate our application of the COSMO framework
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Business Grid Services
Grid services have come to represent the synthesis of web services and grid computing paradigms. Web services provide the means to modularize software, enabling loosely coupled and novel synthesis. Grid computing removes the binding between functional software components and specific hosting hardware, enabling software to be deployed dynamically over a network (e.g. intra-, extra- or inter-net). Applying the constructs of grid computing to the service orientation of enterprise software will allow business service networks to utilize more specialized services. An upper service ontology that enables business grid services to be described and then related to the grid hosting platform is presented. Explicit knowledge is required for enterprise software, hosting servers and the domain that can then be utilized by both SLA and reservation systems. The ontology presented is derived from and validated using a collection of web services taken from leading investment banks
Modelling electronic service systems using UML
This paper presents a profile for modelling systems of electronic
services using UML. Electronic services encapsulate business services,
an organisational unit focused on delivering benefit to a consumer,
to enhance communication, coordination and information management.
Our profile is based on a formal, workflow-oriented description of electronic
services that is abstracted from particular implementation technologies.
Resulting models provide the basis for a formal analysis to verify
behavioural properties of services. The models can also relate services to
management components, including workflow managers and Electronic
Service Management Systems (ESMSs), a novel concept drawn from experience
of HP Service Composer and DySCo (Dynamic Service Composer),
providing the starting point for integration and implementation
tasks. Their UML basis and platform-independent nature is consistent
with a Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) development strategy, appropriate
to the challenge of developing electronic service systems using
heterogeneous technology, and incorporating legacy systems
Embedding Requirements within the Model Driven Architecture
The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) brings benefits to software development, among them the potential for connecting software models with the business domain. This paper focuses on the upstream or Computation Independent Model (CIM) phase of the MDA. Our contention is that, whilst there are many models and notations available within the CIM Phase, those that are currently popular and supported by the Object Management Group (OMG), may not be the most useful notations for business analysts nor sufficient to fully support software requirements and specification.
Therefore, with specific emphasis on the value of the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) for business analysts, this paper provides an example of a typical CIM approach before describing an approach which incorporates specific requirements techniques. A framework extension to the MDA is then introduced; which embeds requirements and specification within the CIM, thus further enhancing the utility of MDA by providing a more complete method for business analysis
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