Next-Generation Reference Process Models. Business process modelling is a key tool for organisations striving to create efficiencies by leveraging their IT infrastructure. This project will develop techniques for increasing the productivity of business process analysts by allowing them to reuse as much as possible existing models rather than systematically desigining new ones from scratch. Specifically, the project will develop and validate a language for designing highly configurable process mo ....Next-Generation Reference Process Models. Business process modelling is a key tool for organisations striving to create efficiencies by leveraging their IT infrastructure. This project will develop techniques for increasing the productivity of business process analysts by allowing them to reuse as much as possible existing models rather than systematically desigining new ones from scratch. Specifically, the project will develop and validate a language for designing highly configurable process models. This language will enable superior approaches to business process modelling and hence smarter use of information. This will place Australia at the forefront of developments in business process management: a crucial technology in today's global, dynamic and heterogeneous environments.Read moreRead less
A Framework for Supporting Consistent and Reliable Collaborative Business Transactions. Business integration and enterprise computing is at the heart of ICT objectives and initiatives global wide. The project aims to be of unique value to Australian industry and provide a means to achieve excellence in the field of research that promises to shape the future of e-business technology. The research conducted within this project will position Australia as one of the leaders in the business transacti ....A Framework for Supporting Consistent and Reliable Collaborative Business Transactions. Business integration and enterprise computing is at the heart of ICT objectives and initiatives global wide. The project aims to be of unique value to Australian industry and provide a means to achieve excellence in the field of research that promises to shape the future of e-business technology. The research conducted within this project will position Australia as one of the leaders in the business transaction area. The project outcomes in the form of specifications and formal models will provide generic solutions that are applicable to many Australian and international companies involved in distributed computing and e-business technologies. Read moreRead less
A Formal Framework for Developing and Managing Adaptable Service Oriented Business Collaboration. Business collaboration and integration is at the heart of ICT objectives and initiatives global wide. The project aims to be of unique value to Australian industry and provide a means to achieve excellence in the field of research that promises to shape the future of e-business technology. The research conducted within this project will position Australia as one of the leaders in the business collab ....A Formal Framework for Developing and Managing Adaptable Service Oriented Business Collaboration. Business collaboration and integration is at the heart of ICT objectives and initiatives global wide. The project aims to be of unique value to Australian industry and provide a means to achieve excellence in the field of research that promises to shape the future of e-business technology. The research conducted within this project will position Australia as one of the leaders in the business collaboration area. The project outcomes in the form of framework, formal models and specifications will provide generic solutions that are applicable to many Australian and international companies involved in business process development and management in particular and e-business technologies in general.Read moreRead less
Semantic Compliance in Complex Enterprise Information Systems. Large organisations have invested heavily to reduce the number of dependent information systems they support. Larger integrated systems should provide increased information reach and better coordination of activities. However there are major problems in practice - integration requires common meaning and context. Information-sharing within cooperating organisations is improved by enforcing compliance of databases with a master model. ....Semantic Compliance in Complex Enterprise Information Systems. Large organisations have invested heavily to reduce the number of dependent information systems they support. Larger integrated systems should provide increased information reach and better coordination of activities. However there are major problems in practice - integration requires common meaning and context. Information-sharing within cooperating organisations is improved by enforcing compliance of databases with a master model. Our research refines, extends and tests an approach for semantic compliance checking based on mathematical category theory. It investigates structures that help detect irregular data. The research uses models from NSW Health. Outcomes include improved processes and software for checking compliance and data anomalies.Read moreRead less
Ontologically-based Evaluation, Comparison and Engineering of Integrated Process Modelling Techniques. Integrated process modelling techniques such as UML and ARIS form the conceptual platform for many management and IT projects. Though most IS development tools contain these techniques, anecdotal evidence indicates many shortcomings. This project uses a well-established theory developed in philosophy and applied in information systems domains for the evaluation of these techniques. The expec ....Ontologically-based Evaluation, Comparison and Engineering of Integrated Process Modelling Techniques. Integrated process modelling techniques such as UML and ARIS form the conceptual platform for many management and IT projects. Though most IS development tools contain these techniques, anecdotal evidence indicates many shortcomings. This project uses a well-established theory developed in philosophy and applied in information systems domains for the evaluation of these techniques. The expected outcomes are evaluations of ARIS and UML. Thus, this project contributes to the development of two of the most popular modelling techniques. Based on the theory used and the results of an international empirical study, suggestions for the further development of these techniques will be derived.Read moreRead less
Formalising and automating the elicitation and reconciliation of requirements from multiple stakeholders. It is well recognised that requirements specifications are often error-prone and that it is much cheaper to detect and fix these errors early in the software development life cycle than later. A major problem with requirements determination is that each and every stakeholder has his/her own representation of the enterprise reality. This project seeks to take these views and use set-theore ....Formalising and automating the elicitation and reconciliation of requirements from multiple stakeholders. It is well recognised that requirements specifications are often error-prone and that it is much cheaper to detect and fix these errors early in the software development life cycle than later. A major problem with requirements determination is that each and every stakeholder has his/her own representation of the enterprise reality. This project seeks to take these views and use set-theoretical techniques from Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to automatically generate and compare the underlying conceptual models. A process model based on FCA has been proposed which we will extend and empirically evaluate in this project. The result will be a more rigorous and yet pragmatic approach to requirements engineering which offers the greatest economic leverage.Read moreRead less
Exploiting Database Technologies for the Visualization and Analysis of Measured and Simulated Plant Structures in Bioinformatics. The project will contribute to both bioinformatics and database research at both the national and international levels, although this project is specifically focusing on plant architecture but it has great potential other fields such as solving computationally difficult problems of branching in nature such as DNA and crystal related research. The results of this resea ....Exploiting Database Technologies for the Visualization and Analysis of Measured and Simulated Plant Structures in Bioinformatics. The project will contribute to both bioinformatics and database research at both the national and international levels, although this project is specifically focusing on plant architecture but it has great potential other fields such as solving computationally difficult problems of branching in nature such as DNA and crystal related research. The results of this research can be applied to all kinds of plants such as rice, cotton, rose etc.Read moreRead less
Components for Active Knowledge Portals. Businesses require people to collaborate and share knowledge in their work processes especially when they are in different locations. Such collaboration emerges by dynamically creating parallel and disconnected collaborative tasks that must be coordinated to meet organizational goals. This project will define the semantics of such emerging processes in the context of software digital workspaces that support them. It will then identify ways of constructing ....Components for Active Knowledge Portals. Businesses require people to collaborate and share knowledge in their work processes especially when they are in different locations. Such collaboration emerges by dynamically creating parallel and disconnected collaborative tasks that must be coordinated to meet organizational goals. This project will define the semantics of such emerging processes in the context of software digital workspaces that support them. It will then identify ways of constructing and using workspaces by creating active knowledge portals to support emerging processes. These portals will include software agents that are sensitive to the business context and help coordinate tasks within the emerging process.Read moreRead less
Harmonized Messaging - A New Foundation for Automated Process Communication. Process communication, especially in web environments is characterized by complex interactions between heterogeneous and autonomous systems within the enterprise and often between trading partners. An overwhelming number of initiatives and proposals are underway to provide solutions for process specification and communication. However, the focus is often on defining APIs rather than the semantics of the underlying messa ....Harmonized Messaging - A New Foundation for Automated Process Communication. Process communication, especially in web environments is characterized by complex interactions between heterogeneous and autonomous systems within the enterprise and often between trading partners. An overwhelming number of initiatives and proposals are underway to provide solutions for process specification and communication. However, the focus is often on defining APIs rather than the semantics of the underlying message exchange. We see a great potential in changing the current messaging infrastructure to suit its new role in facilitating complex, long running interactions for collaborative processes operating in a decentralized environment. This envisaged next generation of messaging technology will extend its ability to support dynamic business processes in a web-centric environment. Providing a level of harmonisation to multiple messages to form a single custom definable backbone of a newly formed message stream, creates a highly challenging new research direction. There is a strong potential that the project outcomes will present a new way of overcoming well understood difficulties in dealing with multiple communicating processes owned by different partners and executing on disparate systems.Read moreRead less
Metamodel-based Methodology for Developing Agent-Oriented Systems. In the context of building high quality software, agent technology offers substantial promise. However, its widespread deployment by industry is hampered by the lack of commercially acceptable development methodologies. Here, we expand a metamodel-based process framework (the OPEN Process Framework) to support agent-oriented (AO) software development that will eventually both form a de facto standard for AO methodologies and be ....Metamodel-based Methodology for Developing Agent-Oriented Systems. In the context of building high quality software, agent technology offers substantial promise. However, its widespread deployment by industry is hampered by the lack of commercially acceptable development methodologies. Here, we expand a metamodel-based process framework (the OPEN Process Framework) to support agent-oriented (AO) software development that will eventually both form a de facto standard for AO methodologies and be acceptable for commercial software application development. To create this extension, significant research in AO software engineering is required. Our basis will be the OPF plus elements from existing AO methodologies, notably Tropos and Gaia, whose authors will collaborate actively.Read moreRead less