Information systems ontology is intended to facilitate interoperability among the many applications which are now becoming available on the Internet. In particular, it is intended to facilitate the development of intelligent agents which can automate a large part of the task of a user achieving...

To have a means to have the possibility for a certain period to either choose for or against making an invetsment decision, without binding oneself up front. The real option rule is that one should invest today only if the net present value is high enough to compensate for giving up the value of...

In this paper, we discuss the convergence of two time window discretization methods for vehicle routing problems with time windows. The first method provides a feasible solution for the minimization problem while the second, newly developed by the authors, provides a lower bound. Analysis shows...

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the computer-to-computer exchange of highly structured business data between one application and another within a trading community, this case, the universities and state organizations of Ukraine. This Specification drafts the reference architecture of IEDI....

In this paper we propose an emergence-driven software process for agent-based simulation that clarifies the traceability of micro and macro observations to micro and macro specifications in agent-based models. We use the concept of hyperstructures [1] to illustrate how micro and macro...

Identifying the functional roles of elements of a neural network is one of the first challenges in understanding neural information processing. Aiming at this goal, lesion studies have been used in neuroscience, most of which employing single lesions and hence, limited in their ability to reveal...

Agents, which are more or less autonomous programs performing tasks on behalf of users, act by exchange of messages. The content of messages is regulated by agreements called ontologies among the interoperating parties. In order for interoperation involving complex objects to be successful,...

The focus of this paper is on quality of ontologies as they relate to interoperating information systems. Quality is not a property of something but a judgment, so must be relative to some purpose, and generally involves recognition of design tradeoffs. Ontologies used for information systems...

This report is a tutorial on how formal upper ontologies can be useful in building systems which involve interoperating autonomous information systems. It begins with an analysis of the problems that need to be solved in order to build such systems, then looks at a material ontology of...

This paper argues that a community of interoperating information systems agents requires an ontology not only of the objects in the world, the agents themselves and the message types available; but also of the complex behavioural protocols through which tasks are accomplished. The universe of...