Responsible composition and optimization of integration processes under correctness preserving guarantees

The development of Information Technology (IT) demands the integration of systems (legacy or new), so that they can operate in a distributed way and promoting the reuse of design, code and information in a high granularity level. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) plays a fundamental role in this scenario. It can be conducted by different means, for example, by sharing the access to databases or using Web Services (WS). Both solutions are being adopted by organizations, although they present advantages and disadvantages that should be analysed. Several restrictions can be present in the particular integration scenario, causing problems to be solved before deciding if the integration should be done by data access or WS. So, this work has the objective of documenting these problems and solutions in the pattern format, in order to make available to other developers the knowledge acquired when doing EAI. These solutions can be used to improve reuse in certain integration contexts, depending on the organization business rules.

Semantics and Verification of Data Flow in UML 2.0 Activities

ARICS is an embedded autonomous mission controller (AMC), designed to be used onboard highly autonomous vehicles (AV). It is designed to meet the requirements for extended autonomous capabilities. Such capabilities are required by long range, long endurance AVs, such as autonomous underwater vehicles-AUVs. Although the architecture is kept as generic and common as possible, the specific functional processing modules (FPMs) may be different for various vehicles and applications. ARICS is designed to provide the AUV with the following onboard, real-time, self-contained capabilities: a) Goal-directed and event-driven reactive mission and system management; b) Plan updating, adjusting, or replanning; c) Complete in-mission, on-the-move, planning; d) Context-sensitive and event-driven exception handling; e) Fault management, error recovery, and module/functionality reconfiguration; f) Coordinating the AUV's cooperative operation with other AUVs, when operating in cooperative mode; g) Optimal resource management. This paper describes the architecture of ARICS, the architecture of the Mission Manager, the architecture of the main FPMs, the data flow between the processes, as well as, design principles and implementation issues.

Web Service orchestration frameworks support a coarse-grained kind of exception handling because they cannot identify the causes of the occurring exceptions as precisely as needed to solve problems at their origin. This paper presents a framework for Web Service orchestration which employs diagnostic services to support a fine grained identification of the causes of the exceptions and the consequent execution of effective exception handlers. Our framework is particularly suitable for intelligent exception handling in Enterprise Application Integration.

Over the last few years, patterns became focus of many activities in both, software development and research. Because of the financial significance of enterprise application integration (EAI) technologies corresponding patterns in this area are especially important and, thus, found a lot of interest. Even a standard textbook has been well-established in this space ("Enterprise Integration Patterns"). People are asking for guidelines about how to use the patterns from this textbook in their environment. A Whitepaper of Hohpe provides a sample integration scenario together with guidelines of how to implement this integration scenario based on a subset of the patterns in the BizTalk Server 2004 environment. In this document, we use the same scenario and the same patterns as in this Whitepapper and show how to implement them in WebSphere.

Vertical vs. horizontal integration: Game analysis for the rare earth industrial integration in China

This is a highly readable book about the emerging economic complex of “Greater China.” The author, based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is the foremost authority on the subject matter. The book, which culminates from well over a decade of painstaking research and publication, traces the process and pattern of economic integration among the Chinese trio – the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan – over the past two decades or so. The analysis is set against the broader background of Chinese economic reforms and opening to the West, as well as the changing political context in East Asia that has facilitated increased economic interaction in the region.The book starts with a broad description of the economic structure and relative economic strengths of the Chinese trio, and furnishes a useful conceptual framework for understanding the evolving economic relationships. Chapter two shows how FDI (foreign direct investment) from Hong Kong and Taiwan has triggered an accelerated process of integration with the mainland, and as a result led to the drastic expansion of China's external trade. Chapter three examines the particular characteristics of economic integration between Hong Kong and the mainland on the one hand, and between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait on the other hand. It reveals how cultural (affinity) and geographical (proximity) factors have played a role, and what policy readjustments have been made in the three constituent parts of the “China circle” to bring about a “new brand of ‘new-style’ economic integration,” which is unique in the global context of trade and investment liberalization.

Transborder labor migration constitutes a significant facet of contemporary global mobility, profoundly influencing the cultural landscapes of both sending and receiving societies. This article examines the multifarious effects of labor migration across national borders on processes of cultural integration, emphasizing the dynamics of identity negotiation, social adaptation, and intercultural interaction. Drawing upon interdisciplinary perspectives from sociology, anthropology, and migration studies, the paper explores how migrant laborers contribute to cultural transformation while navigating challenges related to cultural preservation, social inclusion, and potential marginalization. The analysis highlights both the opportunities and tensions inherent in transborder labor mobility, underscoring its role in reshaping cultural identities and integration patterns in increasingly interconnected societies. Policy implications aimed at fostering inclusive and sustainable cultural integration amid labor migration flows are also discussed.

Graph transformation is a general visual modeling language which is suitable for stating the dynamic semantics of the designed models formally. We present a highly understandable yet precise approach to formally define the behavioral semantics of UML 2.0 Activity diagrams by using graph transformation. In our approach we take into account control flow and data flow semantics. Our proposed semantics is based on token-like semantics and traverse-to-completion. The main advantage of our approach is automated formal verification and analysis of UML Activities. We use AGG to design Activities and we use our previous approach to model checking graph transformation system. Hereby, designers can verify and analyze designed Activity diagrams. Since workflow modeling is one of the main application areas of the Activities, we use our proposed semantics for modeling and verification of workflows to illustrate our approach.

The relevance of studying integration processes in the education system is determined by new requirements for the educational environment, which serve as the basis for the further development of the entire system of education. Optimization of integration processes in the education system is specified by their realization principles, which entail “controlled self-organization” of integrated structures in the interests of “the man, society, state”. The purpose of the study is to search for and to justify the methods and means of optimizing integration processes in the education system. The article defines a set of methodological principles. Implementation of this set of principles makes it possible to optimize the processes of integration of the educational subjects and the educational environment as a whole. It includes the systemic, integration, synergetic and acmeological approaches. The study specifies the content and peculiarities of these approaches, presents research data analysis in the context of the issues under discussion. One of the most important results of integration processes in the system of education is the development of the personality and of the person’s role in the “increase” of educational, and also social capital as a significant resource of social development.

Scholars have developed a number of theories to explain economic regionalism in the postwar years. While the existing theories provide some intellectual insights on economic regionalism in one respect or the other, they could hardly explain a unique process and pattern of regional economic integration in East Asia that has developed since the mid-1980s. The analytical framework that is developed in this chapter is intended to explore economic regionalism in the world economy in general and regional economic integration in East Asia in particular. While the overall structure of this analytical framework is seminal, the approach is built on the basis of many insightful thoughts of contemporary international political economy theories with respect to economic regionalism, incorporating global (structural), regional and national factors into a unified analytical framework.1 As such, a review of major theoretic perspectives on economic regionalism is useful.

This paper analyses the link between exchange rates and stock markets in four Central and Eastern European countries. We simultaneously explore the comovements of foreign exchange markets and stock markets at the cross-country level and the link between these two markets within each country while employing a Dynamic Conditional Correlation Mixed Data Sampling (DCC-MIDAS) model. Such an approach to financial markets conveys a much more visible picture of the existing patterns of financial integration between these markets that would otherwise be neglected. The estimates reveal significant differences between the patterns of correlation in our sample countries. First, the paper finds a quite low degree of convergence between foreign exchange markets, with rising correlations during some of the crisis episodes. Second, both the 2004 European Union enlargement and the European sovereign debt crisis underpin the stock market comovements in the Central and Eastern European countries. Third, the correlations between the exchange rate returns and stock markets rise mostly during the European sovereign debt crisis and to a lesser extent during the global financial crisis, revealing signs of contagion and lower portfolio diversification opportunities. These results are of utmost relevance for the process of financial integration and they also have important implications for policy makers, risk management, and investors.

PurposeThis study investigates the evolutionary pattern of China's electronics industry and China's industrial integration into the Northeast Asian region from a historical perspective. The purpose is to shed some light on the catch‐up path of China's technological capabilities using some empirical evidence covering the period of 1974‐2000.Design/methodology/approachMarket share and the Finger‐Kreinin similarity index (FKSI) are used as measures to trace the path of catch‐up from both quantitative and structural perspectives and evidence is provided at the sectoral level. The Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) classification systems is adopted and FKSI values are derived from international trade data at both four‐digit SITC and sectoral levels.FindingsFirst, the take‐off points toward rapid progress of China's technological capability in different sectors happened not concurrently but in a sequentially manner. Second, as to structural evolution, the process of China's integration into the world market and the Northeast Asian region started in 1978 and the extent of integration has become higher and higher ever since. Until late 1990s, gaps between China and Japan and between China and Korea have been successfully narrowed in terms of comprehensiveness of export structure in electronics.Originality/valueThe period of 1974‐2000 saw the tremendous transition in China from a centralized and planned system into a market‐driven economy. It also saw several noteworthy shifts of China's industrial policy in order to build up its innovative capacity and to catch‐up with Japan and Korea. Unlike many other studies that deeply root in macroeconomic approach, this study traces the evolution of China's performance at the sectoral level by focusing on electronics industry. The findings of this paper are explained in terms of national industrial policy, location effects, and low‐cost sourcing.

The cortico-hippocampal network is an emerging neural framework with striking evidence that it supports cognition in humans, especially memory; this network includes the anterior temporal (AT) system, the posterior medial (PM) system, the anterior hippocampus (aHIPPO), and the posterior hippocampus (pHIPPO). This study aimed to detect aberrant patterns of functional connectivity within and between large-scale cortico-hippocampal networks in first-episode schizophrenia patients compared with a healthy control group via resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and to explore the correlations of these aberrant patterns with cognition. A total of 86 first-episode, drug-naïve schizophrenia patients and 102 healthy controls (HC) were recruited to undergo rs-fMRI examinations and clinical evaluations. We conducted large-scale edge-based network analysis to characterize the functional architecture of the cortico-hippocampus network and investigate between-group differences in within/between-network functional connectivity. Additionally, we explored the associations of functional connectivity (FC) abnormalities with clinical characteristics, including scores on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and cognitive scores. Compared with the HC group, schizophrenia patients exhibited widespread alterations to within-network FC of the cortico-hippocampal network, with decreases in FC involving the precuneus (PREC), amygdala (AMYG), parahippocampal cortex (PHC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), perirhinal cortex (PRC), retrosplenial cortex (RSC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), angular gyrus (ANG), aHIPPO, and pHIPPO. Schizophrenia patients also showed abnormalities in large-scale between-network FC of the cortico-hippocampal network, in the form of significantly decreased FC between the AT and the PM, the AT and the aHIPPO, the PM and the aHIPPO, and the aHIPPO and the pHIPPO. A number of these signatures of aberrant FC were correlated with PANSS score (positive, negative, and total score) and with scores on cognitive test battery items, including attention/vigilance (AV), working memory (WM), verbal learning and memory (Verb_Lrng), visual learning and memory (Vis_Lrng), reasoning and problem-solving (RPS), and social cognition (SC). Schizophrenia patients show distinct patterns of functional integration and separation both within and between large-scale cortico-hippocampal networks, reflecting a network imbalance of the hippocampal long axis with the AT and PM systems, which regulate cognitive domains (mainly Vis_Lrng, Verb_Lrng, WM, and RPS), and particularly involving alterations to FC of the AT system and the aHIPPO. These findings provide new insights into the neurofunctional markers of schizophrenia.

Understanding public opinion on the EU remains a pressing issue. In contrast to previous studies on EU attitudes in general, we pose the following question: Which factors help us to understand public support for five specific scenarios for the EU’s future? We promote the still undertheorized identity approach that has developed alongside the utilitarian and the cue-taking perspectives. We argue that a European Social Capital – composed of trust, norms and networks with other Europeans – is related to support for further integration scenarios. The multivariate analyses are based upon a mass survey conducted in Austria. Our results show a significant correlation between higher levels of European Social Capital and positive attitudes towards scenarios for more integration. This adds to the identity approach in the literature on EU attitudes. Our study has important implications for the EU’s reform debate. If people feel emotionally connected with other Europeans, they are willing to accept deeper integration processes. Pure economic arguments seem insufficient.