Workflow Collaboration with Constraint Solving Capabilities

The University of Edinburgh and research sponsors are authorised to reproduce and distribute reprints and on-line copies for their purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation hereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are the author’s and shouldn’t be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of other parties.This paper describes our efforts to provide a collaborative problem solving architecture driven by semantic-based workflow orchestration and constraint problem solving. These technologies are based on shared ontologies that allows two systems of very different natures to communicate, perform specialised tasks and achieve common goals. We give an account of our approach for the workflow assisted collaboration with constraint solving capabilities. We found that systems built with semantic (web) based technologies is useful for collaboration and flexible to enhance the system with specialised capabilities. However, much care must be exercised before correct semantics may be exchanged and collaborations occur smoothly

Pion contamination in the MICE muon beam

The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will perform a systematic investigation of ionization cooling with muon beams of momentum between 140 and 240\,MeV/c at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory ISIS facility. The measurement of ionization cooling in MICE relies on the selection of a pure sample of muons that traverse the experiment. To make this selection, the MICE Muon Beam is designed to deliver a beam of muons with less than $\sim$1\% contamination. To make the final muon selection, MICE employs a particle-identification (PID) system upstream and downstream of the cooling cell. The PID system includes time-of-flight hodoscopes, threshold-Cherenkov counters and calorimetry. The upper limit for the pion contamination measured in this paper is $f_\pi < 1.4\%$ at 90\% C.L., including systematic uncertainties. Therefore, the MICE Muon Beam is able to meet the stringent pion-contamination requirements of the study of ionization cooling.Department of Energy and National Science Foundation (U.S.A.), the Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (U.K.), the European Community under the European Commission Framework Programme 7 (AIDA project, grant agreement no. 262025, TIARA project, grant agreement no. 261905, and EuCARD), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Swiss National Science Foundation, in the framework of the SCOPES programme

Reusable Components for Knowledge Base and Database Integration

Organisations increasingly need to integrate their database and knowledge-based systems into an enterprise-wide information system. This need applies to both new and legacy database and knowledge-based systems. This paper argues that modern middleware technology, notably Java and CORBA, provides an effective integration medium, particularly when combined with software agent technology. Defining the components of an enterprise information system as software agents provides a degree of uniformity which facilitates integration; Java and CORBA middleware provide a solid platform on which to implement the agent-based architecture. The paper is illustrated with an example of a medical information system prototype, featuring the integration of a number of SQL databases and a CLIPS knowledge-based system, integrated by lightweight and reusable Java/CORBA components. 2 1 Middleware for Information Integration There is currently considerable interest in using middleware technology to integr..

Designing and implementing telemonitoring for early detection of deterioration in chronic disease: defining the requirements

Item does not contain fulltextPatients with chronic disease may suffer frequent acute deteriorations and associated increased risk of hospitalisation. Earlier detection of these could enable successful intervention, improving patients' well-being and reducing costs; however, current telemonitoring systems do not achieve this effectively. We conducted a qualitative study using stakeholder interviews to define current standards of care and user requirements for improved early detection telemonitoring. We determined that early detection is not a concept that has informed technology or service design and that telemonitoring is driven by the available technology rather than by users' needs. We have described a set of requirements questions to inform the design and implementation of telemonitoring systems and suggested the research needed to develop successful early detection telemonitoring. User-centred design and genuine interdisciplinary approaches are needed to create solutions that are fit for purpose, sustainable and address the real needs of patients, clinicians and healthcare organisations

Using multi-agent systems to manage community care

This paper discusses the evolution of the INCA demonstrator through a number of re-implementations that have investigated the applicability of various aspects of multi-agent technology to the management of Community Care. The latest experiences are described, making full use of the latest developments in semantic agents to provide a richer, more rigorous and highly scalable implementation than the previous demonstrators. This is presented in the context of a simulated real-world environment, based on knowledge of the actual operational environment within which the fully deployed agents would be expected to work. In particular the grouping of different communities of agents so that scalable solutions can be fully implemented and rigorously tested. So for example the agents that one would normally expect within a single household, including the home unit and the associated sensors, alarms etc. are treated as one group, and a care provider and the associated carets also. Not only does this reduce the communications overhead but also leads to simplifications in implementation as each class of agent only needs to be implemented once and individual instances are characterized by initial configurations and their interactions with their peers

Supporting Collaboration through Semantic-based Work and Constraint Solving

The University of Edinburgh and research sponsors are authorised to reproduce and distribute reprints and on-line copies for their purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation hereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are the author’s and shouldn’t be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of other parties.This paper describes our efforts to provide a collaborative problem solving architecture driven by semantic-based workflow orchestration and constraint problem solving. These technologies are based on shared ontologies that allows two systems of very different natures to communicate, perform specialised tasks and achieve common goals. We give an account of our approach for the workflow assisted collaboration with constraint solving capabilities. We found that systems built with semantic (web) based technologies is useful for collaboration and flexible to enhance the system with specialised capabilities. However, much care must be exercised before correct semantics may be exchanged and collaborations occur smoothly