Meta Objects Research Articles

Using the Business Ontology to Develop Enterprise Standards

The Business Ontology presented in this publication has taken the Global University Alliance's members over a decade to research and develop, spending hundreds of ‘man years' to create. One of the major challenges facing practitioners and their interactions with academia is overcoming a presently fragmented way of thinking, working and modelling around enterprise concepts. Business frameworks, methods, approaches and concepts currently have their own vocabulary. Each of these vocabularies has its own definition of terms, including conflicting visual representations. (Moody, 2009) This paper therefore elaborates on how the academics have created a rich business taxonomy, defined enterprise meta objects, semantics, enterprise layers as well as the related artefacts. These artefacts have been constructed rigorously to meet up to academic standards and need to be relevant for practitioners as well. (Sein, Henfridsson, Purao, Rossi, & Lindgren, 2011) The objectives are therefore to share the business ontology and elaborate on its research and development journey, and how the business ontology helps to remedy the inconsistent use of business relevant terms and the semantic relations between them to create the basis for enterprise relevant models and meta-models. In addition to that, it provides practitioners with the ability to map them to their various ways of thinking, working and modelling. The business ontology will be introduced as a domain ontology and the paper shows how it can be used to develop enterprise standards and industry standards.

A Computational Reflection Based Distributed Query Model

Distributed software systems often intertwine the handling of application functionalities with distribution related issues including location transparent access to services, workload allocation among different hosts, adaptation to changing conditions of the network. In the paper, a computational reflection based distributed query model is proposed. The model uses computational reflection to divide the distributed query system into two levels: the meta level and the base level. Meta objects that existed in the meta level are responsible for control and description of the base level, hence the state change of the base level could be captured by the meta level and be controlled according to the meta level’s reaction. The advantages of the model are that adapt different changes such as data resources in the network, network conditions, query plan, and provide the capability of fault tolerance.

Multiobject tracking in video using a trisection paradigm

This paper proposes a technique for analyzing the following three problems: (a) segmentation of moving objects, (b) feature extraction, and (c) the solution of the correspondence problem in multiobject tracking in video sequences. In (c), we use a paradigm to solve the correspondence problem and to determine a motion trajectory based on a trisectional structure. The paradigm distinguishes between real-world objects, extracts image features such as motion blobs and color patches, and abstracts objects such as meta objects that denote real-world physical objects. The efficiency of the proposed method for determining the motion trajectories of moving objects will be demonstrated in this paper on the basis of the analysis of real image sequences that are subjected to severe disturbances (e.g., increasing congestion, shadow casting, and lighting transitions).

A dynamic object behavior model and implementation based on computational reflection

A dynamic object behavior model based on computational reflection is proposed. This model consists of function level and meta level, the meta objects in meta level manage the base objects and behaviors in function level, including dynamic binding and unbinding of base object and behavior. We implement this model with RoleJava Language, which is our self linguistic extension of the Java Language. Meta Objects are generated automatically at compile-time, this makes the reflecton mechanism transparent to programmers. Finally an example applying this model to a banking system is presented.

Reflection and time-dependent computing: Experiences with the R2 architecture

In this paper we present an application of computational reflection in the programming oftime-dependent systems. A time-dependent system performs its tasks according to timing specifications specified within the system or imposed from outside the system. Reflective techniques can be applied to programming time-dependent systems because (1) some application programs require the introduction of a new language construct for specifying timing requirements and (2) different applications may require domain-specific scheduling algorithms. To allow a programmer to add or modify language constructs or scheduling algorithms, however, a clear reflective architecture and program interfaces must be provided. This paper proposes a concurrent object-based reflective architecture (R 2 architecture) for time-dependent computing. This architecture is based on anindividual reflection scheme and introduces new meta-level objects (real-time meta objects) that are responsible for time-dependent capabilities. An alarm-clock object and a scheduler object are introduced, and message protocols between them and real-time meta objects are defined. We implemented this architecture on ABCL/R2 and created the Sampled Sound Player program as an application. With this application we provided three different scheduler objects and measured the impact of different scheduling algorithms on sound playback. The measured results show that a scheduler with more complex computations at the meta level exhibited less scheduling overhead, thus was capable of better sound playback. The other example, Time-dependent Graceful Degradation Scheme, demonstrates the programming of functionality degradation triggered by failure to satisfy timing specifications.

Adaptable object migration

Migration is one example of the insufficiently used potentials of distributed systems. Although migration can enhance the efficiency and the reliability of distributed systems, it is still rarely used. Two limitations contained in nearly all existing migration implementations prevent a widespread usage: migration is restricted to processes and the migration mechanism, i.e. the way state is transferred, is not adaptable to changing requirements.In our approach, migration is an operation provided by every object of any type. Triggered by higher level migration policies, the object migrates itself using an object-specific migration mechanism. Changing requirements are handled by higher level migration policies that adapt migration by exchanging the object's mechanisms.Adaptable migration was implemented within the BirliX operating system. Different migration mechanisms are accomplished by different meta objects, which can be attached to other objects. If an object has to be migrated, the meta object does the migration. Changing environmental requirements are handled by exchanging the meta object. As a result, each object has its own migration mechanism. The approach has been examined by implementing a couple of well-known migration mechanisms via meta objects. This paper describes the meta object implementation of the Charlotte migration mechanism.