The impact of enterprise application integration on information system lifecycles

Information systems (IS) have become the organisational fabric for intra-and inter-organisational collaboration in business. As a result, there is mounting pressure from customers and suppliers for a direct move away from disparate systems operating in parallel towards a more common shared architecture. In part, this has been achieved through the emergence of new technology that is being packaged into a portfolio of technologies known as enterprise application integration (EAI). Its emergence however, is presenting investment decision-makers charged with the evaluation of IS with an interesting challenge. The integration of IS in-line with the needs of the business is extending their identity and lifecycle, making it difficult to evaluate the full impact of the system as it has no definitive start and/or end. Indeed, the argument presented in this paper is that traditional life cycle models are changing as a result of technologies that support their integration with other systems. In this paper, the need for a better understanding of EAI and its impact on IS lifecycles are discussed and a classification framework proposed.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Grant Ref: (GR/R08025) and Australian Research Council (DP0344682)

Symbol Emergence in Robotics: A Survey

Humans can learn the use of language through physical interaction with their environment and semiotic communication with other people. It is very important to obtain a computational understanding of how humans can form a symbol system and obtain semiotic skills through their autonomous mental development. Recently, many studies have been conducted on the construction of robotic systems and machine-learning methods that can learn the use of language through embodied multimodal interaction with their environment and other systems. Understanding human social interactions and developing a robot that can smoothly communicate with human users in the long term, requires an understanding of the dynamics of symbol systems and is crucially important. The embodied cognition and social interaction of participants gradually change a symbol system in a constructive manner. In this paper, we introduce a field of research called symbol emergence in robotics (SER). SER is a constructive approach towards an emergent symbol system. The emergent symbol system is socially self-organized through both semiotic communications and physical interactions with autonomous cognitive developmental agents, i.e., humans and developmental robots. Specifically, we describe some state-of-art research topics concerning SER, e.g., multimodal categorization, word discovery, and a double articulation analysis, that enable a robot to obtain words and their embodied meanings from raw sensory--motor information, including visual information, haptic information, auditory information, and acoustic speech signals, in a totally unsupervised manner. Finally, we suggest future directions of research in SER.Comment: submitted to Advanced Robotic

Geometry, Dynamics, and Emergence: Cowrie Form, Image Geometry, and Coupled Subcritical Oscillations

Living Systems are dynamically controlled by processes that they themselves create: here we study the emergence of the sophisticated control regimes in models of biological systems. A major route to understanding in Biology today is discovering which genes lead to what, almost always neglecting a story for how the genes achieve their ends. From an understanding perspective this is disappointing, and we strive to make more holistic models which try to get at the underlying nature of biological logic. Towards this end, we notice geometric regimes in cowrie growth and work towards a falsifiable and explanatory mechanistic model, aiming to make the case for the importance of mechanics and dynamics in development. We also present the first systematic study of globally-coupled subcritical limit cycle oscillators, exploring a rarely remarked upon dynamical regime. This regime is biologically interesting as it has bistability between oscillations and quiescence and is a simple excitable media which could be used as a reduced neural model. I am interested in clustering in the system as an example of symmetry breaking in identical systems; small differences in initial conditions lead to differentiation of the oscillators into particular varieties, analogous to cell fate decisions. Progress on these problems works towards illuminating the biological approach to self-assembly

06031 Abstracts Collection -- Organic Computing -- Controlled Emergence

Organic Computing has emerged recently as a challenging vision for future information processing systems, based on the insight that we will soon be surrounded by large collections of autonomous systems equipped with sensors and actuators to be aware of their environment, to communicate freely, and to organize themselves in order to perform the actions and services required. Organic Computing Systems will adapt dynamically to the current conditions of its environment, they will be self-organizing, self-configuring, self-healing, self-protecting, self-explaining, and context-aware. From 15.01.06 to 20.01.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06031 ``Organic Computing -- Controlled Emergence\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. The seminar was characterized by the very constructive search for common ground between engineering and natural sciences, between informatics on the one hand and biology, neuroscience, and chemistry on the other. The common denominator was the objective to build practically usable self-organizing and emergent systems or their components. An indicator for the practical orientation of the seminar was the large number of OC application systems, envisioned or already under implementation, such as the Internet, robotics, wireless sensor networks, traffic control, computer vision, organic systems on chip, an adaptive and self-organizing room with intelligent sensors or reconfigurable guiding systems for smart office buildings. The application orientation was also apparent by the large number of methods and tools presented during the seminar, which might be used as building blocks for OC systems, such as an evolutionary design methodology, OC architectures, especially several implementations of observer/controller structures, measures and measurement tools for emergence and complexity, assertion-based methods to control self-organization, wrappings, a software methodology to build reflective systems, and components for OC middleware. Organic Computing is clearly oriented towards applications but is augmented at the same time by more theoretical bio-inspired and nature-inspired work, such as chemical computing, theory of complex systems and non-linear dynamics, control mechanisms in insect swarms, homeostatic mechanisms in the brain, a quantitative approach to robustness, abstraction and instantiation as a central metaphor for understanding complex systems. Compared to its beginnings, Organic Computing is coming of age. The OC vision is increasingly padded with meaningful applications and usable tools, but the path towards full OC systems is still complex. There is progress in a more scientific understanding of emergent processes. In the future, we must understand more clearly how to open the configuration space of technical systems for on-line modification. Finally, we must make sure that the human user remains in full control while allowing the systems to optimize

Complexity Thinking and Evolutionary Economic Geography

Thus far, most of the work towards the construction of an evolutionary economic geography has drawn upon a particular version of evolutionary economics, namely the Nelson-Winter framework, which blends Darwinian concepts and metaphors (especially variety, selection, novelty and inheritance) and elements of a behavioural theory of the firm. Much less attention has been directed to an alternative conception based on complexity theory, yet in recent years complexity theory has increasingly been concerned with the general attributes of evolutionary natural and social systems. In this paper we explore the idea of the economic landscape as a complex adaptive system. We identify several key notions of what is being called the new ‘complexity economics’, and examine whether and in what ways these can be used to help inform an evolutionary perspective for understanding the uneven development and adaptive transformation of the economic landscape.complexity theory, evolution, economic landscape, networks, emergence, regional adaptation

Unified topological characterization of electronic states in spin textures from noncommutative K-theory

The nontrivial topology of spin systems such as skyrmions in real space can promote complex electronic states. Here, we provide a general viewpoint at the emergence of topological electronic states in spin systems based on the methods of noncommutative K-theory. By realizing that the structure of the observable algebra of spin textures is determined by the algebraic properties of the noncommutative hypertorus, we arrive at a unified understanding of topological electronic states which we predict to arise in various noncollinear setups. The power of our approach lies in an ability to categorize emergent topological states algebraically without referring to smooth real- or reciprocal-space quantities. This opens a way towards an educated design of topological phases in aperiodic, disordered, or non-smooth textures of spins and charges containing topological defects.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

The social practice of sustainable agriculture under audit discipline: initial insights from the ARGOS project in New Zealand

One of the most interesting recent developments in global agri‐food systems has been the rapid emergence and elaboration of market audit systems claiming environmental qualities or sustainability. In New Zealand, as a strongly export‐oriented, high‐value food producer, these environmental market audit systems have emerged as an important pathway for producers to potentially move towards more sustainable production. There have, however, been only sporadic and fractured attempts to study the emerging social practice of sustainable agriculture – particularly in terms of the emergence of new audit disciplines in farming. The ARGOS project in New Zealand was established in 2003 as a longitudinal matched panel study of over 100 farms and orchards using different market audit systems (e.g., organic, integrated or GLOBALG.A.P.). This article reports on the results of social research into the social practice of sustainable agriculture in farm households within the ARGOS projects between 2003‐2009. Results drawn from multiple social research instruments deployed over six years provide an unparalleled level of empirical data on the social practice of sustainable agriculture under audit disciplines. Using 12 criteria identified in prior literature as contributing a significant social dynamic around sustainable agriculture practices in other contexts, the analysis demonstrated that 9 of these 12 dimensions did demonstrate differences in social practices emerging between (or co‐constituting) organic, integrated, or conventional audit disciplines. These differences clustered into three main areas: 1) social and learning/knowledge networks and expertise, 2) key elements of farmer subjectivity – particularly in relation to subjective positioning towards the environment and nature, and 3) the role and importance of environmental dynamics within farm management practices and systems. The findings of the project provide a strong challenge to some older framings of the social practice of sustainable agriculture: particularly those that rely on paradigm‐driven evaluation of social motivations, strong determinism of sustainable practice driven by coherent farmer identity, or deploying overly categorical interpretations of what it means to be ‘organic’ or ‘conventional’. The complex patterning of the ARGOS data can only be understood if the social practice of organic, integrated or (even more loosely) conventional production is understood as being co‐produced by four dynamics: subjectivity/identity, audit disciplines, industry cultures/structure and time. This reframing of how we might research the social practice of sustainable agriculture opens up important new opportunities for understanding the emergence and impact of new audit disciplines in agriculture

Globalisation of Knowledge Production and Regional Innovation Policy: Supporting Specialized Hubs in the Bangalore Software Industry

This paper is concerned with the changing role of regional innovation systems and regional policies in supporting the transition of indigenous firms in developing countries from competing on low costs towards becoming knowledge providers in global value chains. Special attention is paid to policies supporting the emergence and development of the regional innovation system in this transition process. Regional innovation systems in developing countries have very recently started to be conceptualised as specialized hubs in global innovation and production networks (Asheim, B., Coenen, L., Vang-Lauridsen, J.,2007. Face to- face, buzz and knowledge bases: socio-spatial implications for learning,innovation and innovation policy. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 25(5), 655–670; Chaminade, C., Vang, J., 2006a. Innovation policy for small andmedium size SMEs in Asia: an innovation systems perspective. In:Yeung, H. (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Asian Business. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham; Maggi, C., 2007. The salmon farming and processing cluster in Southern Chile. In: Pietrobello, C., Rabellotti, R. (Eds.), Upgrading and Governance in Clusters and Value Chains in Latin America. Harvard University Press). A specialized hub refers to a node in a global value chain that mainly undertakes one or a few of the activities required for the production and development of a given good or service or serves a particular segment of the global market. In global value chains, firms in developing countries have traditionally been responsible for the lowest added-value activities. However, a few emerging regional innovation systems in developing countries are beginning to challenge this scenario by rapidly upgrading in the value chain. There is, however, still only a poorly developed understanding of how the system of innovation emerges and evolves to support this transition process and what the role of regional innovation policy is in building the regional conditions that support indigenous small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in this transition process. This paper aims at reducing this omission by analyzing the co-evolution of the strategies of indigenous SMEs and the regional innovation system of Bangalore (India).Regional innovation systems; Evolution; Globalization of innovation; Software industry; Bangalore