Drawing OWL 2 ontologies with Eddy the editor

In this paper we introduce Eddy, a new open-source tool for the graphical editing of OWL~2 ontologies. Eddy is specifically designed for creating ontologies in Graphol, a completely visual ontology language that is equivalent to OWL~2. Thus, in Eddy ontologies are easily drawn as diagrams, rather than written as sets of formulas, as commonly happens in popular ontology design and engineering environments. This makes Eddy particularly suited for usage by people who are more familiar with diagramatic languages for conceptual modeling rather than with typical ontology formalisms, as is often required in non-academic and industrial contexts. Eddy provides intuitive functionalities for specifying Graphol diagrams, guarantees their syntactic correctness, and allows for exporting them in standard OWL 2 syntax. A user evaluation study we conducted shows that Eddy is perceived as an easy and intuitive tool for ontology specification

Routed quantum circuits: an extended framework for coherent control and indefinite causal order

Quantum circuits form the standard framework of quantum computing, and have started playing the same role for some parts of quantum foundations. However, they cannot satisfactorily capture some possibilities offered by quantum theory, in particular coherent control and indefinite causal order. In this thesis, we therefore propose an extension to this framework, given by routed quantum circuits. Our extension is based on the addition of sectorial constraints, which specify the basic sectorial structure of the scenarios at hand, on top of the factorial structure described by the connectivity of circuits. This yields a consistent and scalable framework, applicable to pure and mixed quantum theory. It admits a sound and intuitive diagrammatic notation. We show that this framework allows to properly model all forms of coherent control of the application of a channel, for instance the superposition of a quantum information carrier's trajectory, or the 'extended circuit diagrams' recently introduced for the study of causal decompositions. We demonstrate how this leads to a redefinition of the task of coherently controlling a channel, and study in detail the necessary resources for this task. We further show that the scenarios featuring indefinite causal order also fit within our framework once feedback loops are introduced. The connectivity and sectorial constraints are then sufficient to specify the core behaviour of a process, and in particular to check that it is valid, i.e. that its cycles do not lead to any logical inconsistency. We display how several standard examples of exotic processes, including ones that violate causal inequalities, are among the class of processes that can be generated in this way; we conjecture that this class in fact includes all unitarily extendible processes.Open Acces

Protsessimudelite struktuur koosmõjus mudeli kasutusega

“Üks pilt on väärt tuhat sõna” - kui eelnev mõttetera on esitatud info edastamise kontekstis, kus lisaks tuimadele faktidele soovitakse anda edasi ka emotsiooni ja tunnet, siis kuidas toimib sama lause just nimelt tuimade faktide edastamisel? Järjest rohkem esitatakse töötajatele suunatud organisatsioonide kirjeldusi läbi erinevate jooniste ja tekstide, seda eriti protsessimudelite juures. Antud doktoritöö keskendub kahele küsimusele: (i) kuidas kombineeritakse struktuurseid ja mittestruktuurseid komponente protsesside kirjeldamisel praktikas; (ii) ja mis tagab protsessimudelite jätkusuutliku kasutuse organisatsioonis? Protsessihierarhia lisamine protsessimudelisse avaldab positiivset mõju mudeli kasutusele organisatsioonis. Samas, protsesside esitamisel diagrammi kujul tuleb arvestada lõppkasutajaga (antud kontekstis töötaja), kelle jaoks ei tarvitse olla lihtne lugeda olulist informatsiooni diagrammilt. Seega peab olema töötajatele suunatud mudelites teksti kujul esitatud faktide hulk oluliselt suurem kui läbi joonise kirjeldatu. See on eriti oluline suuremate mudelite juures, kus protsessidiagrammidega esitatav info on mahukas ja joonised sageli keerulised. Kui mudeli lugemisel peab kasutaja fookus olema eelkõige protsessijoonisel ja lisafakte esitatakse teksti kujul, siis sellised mudelid sobivad pigem tehnilisele lugejaskonnale, mitte organisatsiooni teadmistebaasi. Kui organisatsioon soovib aktiivset teadmistebaasi kasutust, siis on vaja saavutada hea tasakaal organisatsiooni (Organisatsiooni, Modelleerimise ja Kasutusega seotud edufaktorid) ja tehniliste parameetrite (Protsessimudeli ja Tarkvaraga seotud edufaktorid) vahel. Näiteks, tehnilist poolt kajastavate edufaktorite kontekstis on väga oluline ‘Mudeli struktuur’, mis otseselt mõjutab protsessimudeli laiemat kasutust organisatsioonis. Organisatsiooni ja kasutajate kontekstis mängib olulist rolli juhtkonna eeskuju protsessimudeli aktiivsel kasutamisel.A picture is worth a thousand words, but adding even a few words can greatly enhance a picture. It is common to find textual and diagrammatic components complementing each other in enterprise models in general, and in business process models in particular. This doctoral thesis discusses the questions of: (i) how do structured and unstructured components of process models co-exist with each other in practice; and (ii) what determines that a process model is used on a sustained basis within an organization? Presenting the process hierarchy of a process model in a structured form has a positive impact on the sustained use of the model. Caution is necessary when adding structured components into the descriptions of processes — it might not be easy for process workers to understand the structure(s) and obtain essential information from the diagrams. Thus, the balance between pure text and diagrams needs to be “shifted” toward the text, especially in the context of larger process models where the amount of information is great and the process diagrams tend to be voluminous and complicated. If a significant part of the information is presented on a diagram and less information is given via text (you have to “read” the diagram first), then the model is rather appropriate for technical people but has no place in the knowledge base of process workers. A good balance between the organizational setting (factors related to Organization, Users and Process Modelling) and technical parameters directly related to the knowledge base (factors related to Model and Tools) is necessary when the sustained use of knowledge base is important for the organization. One factor in particular that was highlighted in the context of technical parameters as contributing to sustained use was the Structure of the process model. The impact of management on users through a positive example plays a substantial role during the deployment phase of the knowledge base in the organization

Multi-view approaches for software and system modelling: a systematic literature review

n/

A Diagrammatic Logic for Object-Oriented Visual Modeling

Formal generalized sketches is a graph-based specification format that borrows its main ideas from categorical and ordinary first-order logic, and adapts them to software engineering needs. In the engineering jargon, it is a modeling language design pattern that combines mathematical rigor and appealing graphical appearance. The paper presents a careful motivation and justification of the applicability of generalized sketches for formalizing practical modeling notations. We extend the sketch formalism by dependencies between predicate symbols and develop new semantic notions based on the Instances-as-typed-structures idea. We show that this new framework fits in the general patterns of the institution theory and is well amenable to algebraic manipulations. Keywords: Diagrammatic modeling; model management; generic logic; categorical logic; diagram predicate; categorical sketchpublishedVersio

Next generation software environments : principles, problems, and research directions

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of research and development in software environments. Conferences have been devoted to the topic of practical environments, journal papers produced, and commercial systems sold. Given all the activity, one might expect a great deal of consensus on issues, approaches, and techniques. This is not the case, however. Indeed, the term "environment" is still used in a variety of conflicting ways. Nevertheless substantial progress has been made and we are at least nearing consensus on many critical issues.The purpose of this paper is to characterize environments, describe several important principles that have emerged in the last decade or so, note current open problems, and describe some approaches to these problems, with particular emphasis on the activities of one large-scale research program, the Arcadia project. Consideration is also given to two related topics: empirical evaluation and technology transition. That is, how can environments and their constituents be evaluated, and how can new developments be moved effectively into the production sector