A design model for Open Distributed Processing systems

This paper proposes design concepts that allow the conception, understanding and development of complex technical structures for open distributed systems. The proposed concepts are related to, and partially motivated by, the present work on Open Distributed Processing (ODP). As opposed to the current ODP approach, the concepts are aimed at supporting a design trajectory with several, related abstraction levels. Simple examples are used to illustrate the proposed concepts

On Engineering Support for Business Process Modelling and Redesign

Currently, there is an enormous (research) interest in business process redesign (BPR). Several management-oriented approaches have been proposed showing how to make BPR work. However, detailed descriptions of empirical experience are few. Consistent engineering methodologies to aid and guide a BPR-practitioner are currently emerging. Often, these methodologies are claimed to be developed for business process modelling, but stem directly from information system design cultures. We consider an engineering methodology for BPR to consist of modelling concepts, their representation, computerized tools and methods, and pragmatic skills and guidelines for off-line modelling, communicating, analyzing, (re)designing\ud business processes. The modelling concepts form the architectural basis of such an engineering methodology. Therefore, the choice, understanding and precise definition of these concepts determine the productivity and effectiveness of modelling tasks within a BPR project. The\ud current paper contributes to engineering support for BPR. We work out general issues that play a role in the development of engineering support for BPR. Furthermore, we introduce an architectural framework for business process modelling and redesign. This framework consists of a coherent set of modelling concepts and techniques on how to use them. The framework enables the modelling of both the structural and dynamic characteristics of business processes. We illustrate its applicability by modelling a case from service industry. Moreover, the architectural framework supports abstraction and refinement techniques. The use of these techniques for a BPR trajectory are discussed

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Embedding machine-readable proteins interactions data in scientific articles for easy access and retrieval

Extraction of protein-protein interactions data from scientific literature remains a hard, time- and resource-consuming task. This task would be greatly simplified by embedding in the source, i.e. research articles, a standardized, synthetic, machine-readable codification for protein-protein interactions data description, to make the identification and the retrieval of such very valuable information easier, faster, and more reliable than now.
We shortly discuss how this information can be easily encoded and embedded in research papers with the collaboration of authors and scientific publishers, and propose an online demonstrative tool that shows how to help and allow authors for the easy and fast conversion of such valuable biological data into an embeddable, accessible, computer-readable codification

Federated Embedded Systems – a review of the literature in related fields

This report is concerned with the vision of smart interconnected objects, a vision that has attracted much attention lately. In this paper, embedded, interconnected, open, and heterogeneous control systems are in focus, formally referred to as Federated Embedded Systems. To place FES into a context, a review of some related research directions is presented. This review includes such concepts as systems of systems, cyber-physical systems, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, and multi-agent systems. Interestingly, the reviewed fields seem to overlap with each other in an increasing number of ways

Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Entity Relationship language Level 1

Standard graphical representations have played a crucial role in science and engineering throughout the last century. Without electrical symbolism, it is very likely that our industrial society would not have evolved at the same pace. Similarly, specialised notations such as the Feynmann notation or the process flow diagrams did a lot for the adoption of concepts in their own fields. With the advent of Systems Biology, and more recently of Synthetic Biology, the need for precise and unambiguous descriptions of biochemical interactions has become more pressing. While some ideas have been advanced over the last decade, with a few detailed proposals, no actual community standard has emerged. The Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) is a graphical representation crafted over several years by a community of biochemists, modellers and computer scientists. Three orthogonal and complementary languages have been created, the Process Descriptions, the Entity Relationships and the Activity Flows. Using these three idioms a scientist can represent any network of biochemical interactions, which can then be interpreted in an unambiguous way. The set of symbols used is limited, and the grammar quite simple, to allow its usage in textbooks and its teaching directly in high schools. The first level of the SBGN Entity Relationship language has been publicly released. Shared by the communities of biochemists, genomicians, theoreticians and computational biologists, SBGN languages will foster efficient storage, exchange and reuse of information on signalling pathways, metabolic networks and gene regulatory maps

Quantum computational capability of a 2D valence bond solid phase

Quantum phases of naturally-occurring systems exhibit distinctive collective phenomena as manifestation of their many-body correlations, in contrast to our persistent technological challenge to engineer at will such strong correlations artificially. Here we show theoretically that quantum correlations exhibited in the two-dimensional valence bond solid phase of a quantum antiferromagnet, modeled by Affleck, Kennedy, Lieb, and Tasaki as a precursor of spin liquids and topological orders, are sufficiently complex yet structured enough to simulate universal quantum computation when every single spin can be measured individually. This unveils that an intrinsic complexity of naturally-occurring 2D quantum systems -- which has been a long-standing challenge for traditional computers -- could be tamed as a computationally valuable resource, even if we are limited not to create newly entanglement during computation. Our constructive protocol leverages a novel way to herald the correlations suitable for deterministic quantum computation through a random sampling, and may be extensible to other ground states of various 2D valence bond phases beyond the AKLT state.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures; final published version, submitted to the journal on 23 Sep 2010. The article does not assume familiarity with quantum computatio