Towards a Formal Theory of Interoperability

This dissertation proposes a formal theory of interoperability that explains 1) what interoperability is as opposed to how it works, 2) how to tell whether two or more systems can interoperate and 3) how to identify whether systems are interoperating or merely exchanging bits and bytes. The research provides a formal model of data in M&S that captures all possible representations of a real or imagined thing and distinguishes between existential dependencies and transformational dependencies. Existential dependencies capture the relationships within a model while transformational dependencies capture the relationships between interactions with a model. These definitions are used to formally specify interoperation, the ability to exchange information, as a necessary condition for interoperability. Theorems of interoperation that capture the nature and boundaries of the interoperation space and how to measure it are formulated. Interoperability is formally captured as a subset of the interoperation space for which transformational dependencies can be fulfilled. Theorems of interoperability that capture the interoperability space and how to measure it are presented. Using graph theory and complexity theory, the model of data is reformulated as a graph, and the complexity of interoperation and interoperability is shown to be at least NP-Complete. Model Based Data Engineering (MBDE) is formally defined using the model of data introduced earlier and transformed into a heuristic that supports interoperability. This heuristic is shown to be more powerful than current approaches in that it is consistent and can easily be verified

Community-of-Interest (COI) Model-Based Languages Enabling Composable Net-Centric Services

Net-centric services shall be designed to collaborate with other services used within the supported Community of Interest (COI). This requires that such services not only be integratable on the technical level and interoperable on the implementation level, but also that they are composable in the sense that they are semantically and pragmatically consistent and able to exchange information in a consistent and unambiguous way. In order to support Command-and-Control with Composable Net-centric Services, the human-machine interoperation must be supported as well as the machine-machine interoperation. This paper shows that techniques of computer linguistic can support the human-machine interface by structuring human-oriented representations into machine-oriented regular expressions that implement the unambiguous data exchange between machines. Distinguishing between these two domains is essential, as some requirements are mutually exclusive. In order to get the best of both worlds, an aligned approach based on a COI model is needed. This COI model starts with the partners and their respective services and business processes, identifies the resulting infrastructure components, and derives the information exchange requirements. Model-based Data Engineering leads to the configuration of data exchange specifications between the services in form of an artificial language comprising regular expressions for the machine-machine communication. Computer linguistic methods are applied to accept and generate human-oriented representations, which potentially extend the information exchange specifications to capture new information not represented in the system requirements. The paper presents the framework that was partially applied for homeland security applications and in support of the joint rapid scenario generation activities of US Joint Forces Command.

Etude longitudinale de la névralgie cervico-brachiale dans le service de neurologie du CHU Gabriel Touré, Bamako (Mali)

Introduction: La Névralgie Cervico-Brachiale (NCB) est une pathologie relativement fréquente dans la pratique courante. Elle est pourvoyeused'importants coûts médicaux et socio-économiques. Peu de données existent sur la NCB en Afrique.Méthodes: Il s'agit d'une étude longitudinale, descriptive et prospective qui s'est déroulée du 1er novembre 2009 au 30 Août 2010 au CHU Gabriel Touré de Bamako, Mali. Elle a pour objectif d'étudier les caractéristiques épidémiologiques et cliniques de la NCB. Le diagnostic à été strictement clinique, et la DN4 a permis de déterminer les caractéristiques de cette névralgie. L´intensité de la douleur a été évaluée par l'échelle verbale simple (EVS).L'échelle concis de la douleur et l'échelle HAD ont permis d'étudier l'impact de la douleur sur la qualité de vie des patients. Résultats: La fréquence de la NCB est de 10,9%.Les ménagères sont les plus touchées, 21(40,4%). L'âge moyen des patients est de 48 ±7 ans. La tranche d'âge de 50-59 ans représente la classe modale. La douleur est à prédominance nocturne chez 75,0% des patients. Les décharges  électriques sont la caractéristique principale soit 48,1% des patients et 57,7% malades présentent une douleur intense. Sur le plan  topographique, la racine C7, est la plus atteinte soit 50,0%. Sur la qualité de la vie, 44,2% des malades présentent des troubles du sommeil. Sur le plan thérapeutique l'évolution a été favorable chez 78,8% des patients sous AINS, Tramadol et Amitriptilline. Conclusion: otre travail à l'instar des études antérieures sur la NCB montre que cette pathologie reste une entité clinique relativement courante. Le pronostic généralement favorable est fonction d'un diagnostic précoce et d'une prise en charge adaptée

Fetal death in utero: epidemiological aspects, management and maternal prognosis in the obstetrics and gynecology department of the community medical centre of Ratoma

Background: Fetal death in utero (FDIU) often represents a tragedy badly lived, sometimes incomprehensible. It is considered as a failure of pregnancy's progress and monitoring. It is a frequent problem in obstetrical practice. Objective of study was to contribute to the study of FDIU in the maternity ward of the Ratoma municipal medical center.Methods: This was a prospective study of analytical type conducted over a period of 6 months from 1 January to 30 June 2017.Results: During this study period, we recorded 54 cases of FDIU out of a total of 1256 deliveries, or a frequency of 4.3%. The average age of our patients was 28.5 years with extremes of 16 to 39 years, the most represented age group was 25 to 34 years, with a frequency of 44.4%. The absence of active fetal movement was the main reason for consultation, with a frequency of 51.9%, and housewives were the most affected, with a frequency of 61.1%. The 70.4% of our patients gave birth by vaginal delivery and oxytocin was the most commonly used drug for induction of labor, i.e., 77.8%. The immediate maternal prognosis was 100% favorable and no case of maternal death was recordedConclusions: In-utero fetal death is a frequent obstetrical pathology, the awareness of women for the realization of ANC as well as the early management of risk factors detected during ANC constitutes an element of great importance. Therefore, a regular follow-up of all pregnant women even in the absence of risk factors proves necessary

Ontological Implications of the Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model

The Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model (LCIM) was developed to cope with the different layers of interoperation of modeling & simulation applications. It introduced technical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, dynamic, and conceptual layers of interoperation and showed how they are related to the ideas of integratability, interoperability, and composability. This paper will be presented in the invited session Ontology Driven Interoperability for Agile Applications using Information Systems: Requirements and Applications for Agent Mediated Decision Support at WMSCI 2006

Applying the Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model in Support of Integratability, Interoperability, and Composability for System-of-Systems Engineering

The Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model (LCIM) was developed to cope with the different layers of interoperation of modeling & simulation applications. It introduced technical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, dynamic, and conceptual layers of interoperation and showed how they are related to the ideas of integratability, interoperability, and composability. The model was successfully applied in various domains of systems, cybernetics, and informatics

Minding Morality: Ethical Artificial Societies for Public Policy Modeling

Public policies are designed to have an impact on particular societies, yet policy-oriented computer models and simulations often focus more on articulating the policies to be applied than on realistically rendering the cultural dynamics of the target society. This approach can lead to policy assessments that ignore crucial social contextual factors. For example, by leaving out distinctive moral and normative dimensions of cultural contexts in artificial societies, estimations of downstream policy effectiveness fail to account for dynamics that are fundamental in human life and central to many public policy challenges. In this paper, we supply evidence that incorporating morally salient dimensions of a culture is critically important for producing relevant and accurate evaluations of social policy when using multi-agent artificial intelligence models and simulations