Ontology-based patterns for the integration of business processes and enterprise application architectures

Increasingly, enterprises are using Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) as an approach to Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). SOA has the potential to bridge the gap between business and technology and to improve the reuse of existing applications and the interoperability with new ones. In addition to service architecture descriptions, architecture abstractions like patterns and styles capture design knowledge and allow the reuse of successfully applied designs, thus improving the quality of software. Knowledge gained from integration projects can be captured to build a repository of semantically enriched, experience-based solutions. Business patterns identify the interaction and structure between users, business processes, and data. Specific integration and composition patterns at a more technical level address enterprise application integration and capture reliable architecture solutions. We use an ontology-based approach to capture architecture and process patterns. Ontology techniques for pattern definition, extension and composition are developed and their applicability in business process-driven application integration is demonstrated

A preliminary study on electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 using FAC-ReI(CO)3(4,4′-dimethyl-2,2′-bipyridyl)((E)-2-((3-amino-pyridin-4-ylimino)-methyl)-4,6-DI-tert-butylphenol))+ complex

Indexación: Scopus.Several research to explore the possible conversion of CO2 using rhenium(I) tricarbonyl complexes have been reported the last years. In the present work, we investigated a potential use of fac-Re(CO)3(4,4′-di-methyl-2,2′-bipyridyl)L+ complex (C2), where L is an electron-withdrawing ancillary ligands which present an intramolecular hydrogen bond (IHB), in a preliminary electrocatalytic reduction of CO2. The C2 complex was synthesized and characterized according to reported methods earlier. The cyclic voltammogram profle for the C2 complex were studied in dichloromethane under inert atmosphere, and it shows a typical behavior for an electrocatalytic process, the C2 complex illustrate the electrochemical reaction mechanism corresponds to an electrochemical-chemical-electrochemical pathway (ECE). Also, a Vitreous Carbon plate used as working electrode was employed and modifed by cycling the anodic region of C2 in CH2Cl2 which involve the oxidative redox response for the -NH2 and -OH groups. The voltammogram profle involve shows a polymeric deposit on the plate surface in a CO2 saturated solution (pH=7.0). A strong electrocatalytic discharge of current is obtained with a wave foot of -1.3 V showing that C2 have the potential to be used in electrocatalyst CO2 reduction. © 2017 Sociedad Chilena de Quimica. All Rights Reserved.https://scielo.conicyt.cl/pdf/jcchems/v62n4/0717-9324-jcchems-62-04-3765.pd

Service architecture design for E-Businesses: A pattern-based approach

E-business involves the implementation of business processes over the Web. At a technical level, this imposes an application integration problem. In a wider sense, the integration of software and business levels across organisations becomes a significant challenge. Service architectures are an increasingly adopted architectural approach for solving Enterprise Applications Integration (EAI). The adoption of this new architectural paradigm requires adaptation or creation of novel methodologies and techniques to solve the integration problem. In this paper we present the pattern-based techniques supporting a methodological framework to design service architectures for EAI. The techniques are used for services identification, for transformation from business models to service architectures and for architecture modifications

Geographical Exclusion in Rural Areas of El Salvador: Its Impact on Labor Market Outcomes

The main objective of this study is to examine one aspect of social exclusion, the geographic isolation of individuals living in El Salvador`s rural areas and its impact on three labor market outcomes: labor force participation decision, sector of employment, and labor income. In this study, it is hypothesized that living in geographic isolation has a negative impact on rural workers` labor outcomes, that geographic isolation, through a combination of security hazards, increasing transaction and working costs, depresses individual`s labor force participation rates, increases the likelihood of working in low-productive jobs, and results in lower labor income levels. The main results of this study indicate that the degree of geographic isolation does not discourage men from working; on the contrary, men living farther away from urban and maquila jobs are more likely to work. The degree of geographic isolation determines individuals` sector allocation and their labor income as well. Women living farther away from urban areas or with less access to paved roads are highly concentrated in own-production agricultural activities, where women`s skills are rewarded less than comparable men`s skills. Own production in agriculture is a sector where women`s human capital accumulation does not influence their income labor level, though it does reward men`s skills. Through concentration into this sector, women living in geographic isolation obtain worse labor outcomes than men. Living in geographic isolation decreases women`s labor income. When working in own-account non-agricultural production, geographic isolation also has a negative impact on men`s labor income.

Ontology learning for semantic web services

Semantic Web Services promise automatic service discovery and composition, relying heavily on domain ontology as a core component. With large Web Service repository, manual ontology development is proving a bottleneck (with associated expense and likely errors) to the realisation of a semantic Web of services. Providing the appropriate tools that assist in and automate ontology development is essential for a dynamic service vision to be realised. As a statement of research-in-progress, this paper proposes combining different ontology learning paradigms in Web Services domain, highlighting the need for further research that accommodates the variation in Web Service descriptive and operational sources. A research agenda is proposed that recognises this variation in artefacts as they are selected, pre-processed and analyzed by ontology learning techniques

Narcotics trafficking in West Africa: a governance challenge

This repository item contains a single issue of The Pardee Papers, a series papers that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.West Africa is one of the most impoverished, underdeveloped, and instability-prone regions in the world. Many of the nation-states in the region are empirically weak: they lack the capacity to deliver public goods and services to their citizens, do not claim effective control over their territories, are marked by high levels of official corruption and are plagued by political instability and violent conflict. Since 2004, the region has faced an unprecedented surge in illicit narcotics (primarily cocaine) trafficking, raising fears within the international community that foreign (largely South American) trafficking groups would engender escalated corruption and violence across the region. This paper examines the effect that the surge in narcotics trafficking has had on governance and security in the region, paying particular attention to the experience of Guinea-Bissau and neighboring Republic of Guinea (Guinea-Conakry), two West African states that have been particularly affected by the illicit trade. The central argument presented is that narcotics trafficking is only one facet of the overall challenge of state weakness and fragility in the region. The profound weakness of many West African states has enabled foreign trafficking groups to develop West Africa into an entrepôt for cocaine destined for the large and profitable European market, sometimes with the active facilitation of high-level state actors. Thus, simply implementing counter-narcotics initiatives in the region will have a limited impact without a long-term commitment to strengthening state capacity, improving political transparency and accountability, and tackling poverty alleviation and underdevelopment. Without addressing the root issues that allowed for the penetration of trafficking groups into the states of the region in the first place, West Africa will remain susceptible to similar situations in the future, undermining the region’s nascent progress in the realms of governance, security and development. Peter L. McGuire graduated from Boston University in 2010 with a master’s degree in International Relations, with a certificate in African Studies. His current research interests include armed conflict, political corruption, and state failure in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter wrote “Narcotics Trafficking in West Africa: A Governance Challenge” while he was a 2009 Pardee Center Graduate Summer Fellow. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. For more information, visit www-staging.bu.edu/pardee/research

Why fish? Using entry-strategies to inform governance of the small-scale sector: A case-study in the Bijagós Archipelago (West Africa)

Should rural commercial small-scale fishing opportunities be closed to minimise effort and safeguard marine resources or open to offer livelihood support? In the Bijagós Archipelago (Guinea-Bissau) investigating employment pathways indicates that the sector is encouraging a diversity of institutions to flourish, reaffirming our understanding of the critical ‘safety-net’ function small-scale fishing affords. Results support the need to examine developing country smaller-scale fisheries in terms of wider social opportunities and not purely in terms of their own limitations

Flexible coordination techniques for dynamic cloud service collaboration

The provision of individual, but also composed services is central in cloud service provisioning. We describe a framework for the coordination of cloud services, based on a tuple‐space architecture which uses an ontology to describe the services. Current techniques for service collaboration offer limited scope for flexibility. They are based on statically describing and compositing services. With the open nature of the web and cloud services, the need for a more flexible, dynamic approach to service coordination becomes evident. In order to support open communities of service providers, there should be the option for these providers to offer and withdraw their services to/from the community. For this to be realised, there needs to be a degree of self‐organisation. Our techniques for coordination and service matching aim to achieve this through matching goal‐oriented service requests with providers that advertise their offerings dynamically. Scalability of the solution is a particular concern that will be evaluated in detail

Targeting to the "poor": Clogged pipes and bureaucratic blinkers

Drawing on a household and village-level community survey of social income, this paper offers a critique of the widespread use of targeting in Indian social policy primarily through the use of the below poverty line card system, to include or exclude groups from access to subsidised goods and sometimes to public works. It argues that targeting is inefficient and inequitable. In India, this situation is largely an outcome of the bureaucratic raj, which has created a vast system of clogged pipes. While successive governments have dismantled state controls and interventions for the private sector, delivery of services, especially to the poor, is still firmly controlled by the same bureaucratic system, with its attendant problems. Given the limitations of targeting, the principle of universalism is worth considering as an alternative