Authors: Ji Ruan and Wendy MacCaull
Centre of Logic and Information, StFX University, Canada

Download: PDF.

Abstract:

This paper presents an approach to monitor healthcare workflows using a logic-based formal method. We introduce a monitoring architecture with workflows and knowledge bases, and propose a logical language, FO-LTL-K, to express temporal and knowledge properties to be monitored. We formalize some of the norms for palliative care using the proposed logic and characterize the complexity of the model checking problem.

Keywords: Data and knowledge integration, Temporal knowledge representations, Logic-based methods, Ontologies, Complexity.

Accepted by the Second International Workshop on Knowledge Representation for Health Care (KR4HC-2010), Lisbon, Portugal, August 2010.

I presented it on August 17, 2010 in Lisbon. Here is a photo of me:
.

Group photo of the workshop:

Link to the full photo album.

Authors: Ji Ruan, Wendy MacCaull, and Heather Jewers
Centre of Logic and Information, StFX University, Canada

Download: PDF.

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose the use of an agent-based architecture to enhance workflow system capacity to support interprofessional, patient-centred palliative care delivery. This paper outlines the concept of palliative care and describes how agents can be used to assist care providers to address the needs of the patient and family. Our architecture is illustrated in a diagram and the agents are described in terms of the services they provide, and the dependencies among them. The dependencies determine the information flow, which facilitates the communication and collaboration among the patient and care providers.

Keywords: Agent-based Modelling; Patient-centred Healthcare; Palliative Care; Collaboration; Team Approach

Accepted by the Second International Workshop on Collaborative Agents – REsearch and Development (CARE 2010), Toronto, Canada, August 2010.

Here is a photo of me presenting this paper:

Group photo:

Link to the full photo album.

An interesting venue to submit your papers.

PRIMA is a leading scientific conference for research on intelligent agent and multi-agent systems, attracting high quality, state-of-the-art research from all over the world. The conference endeavours to bring together researchers, developers, and academic and industry leaders, who are active and interested in agents and multi-agent systems, their practices and related areas. The conference has a strong focus on practice, and is focused on becoming the premier forum for prototype and deployed agent systems. Thus PRIMA particularly encourages reports on development of prototype and deployed agent and multi-agent systems, and experiments that demonstrate the capability of agents to handle real-world challenges. In order to facilitate the inclusion of system descriptions, which are often not served well by paper descriptions, PRIMA includes a Multimedia submission track (see below).

For full detail, follow this link: CFP PRIMA2010.

Important dates:

Papers
July 24th, 2010 (abstract)
July 31st, 2010 (paper)

Author Response
August 19-22

Author notification
September 1st, 2010

Camera-ready papers
September 20th, 2010

Conference dates
November 12th – 15th, 2010

On 2010, March, 23rd, 3AM (Beijing Time), Google announced that it would no longer censor the search results for the Chinese Government in Google.cn, which is subsequently redirected to Google.com.hk. I appreciate that Google has made such a brave decision to counter our Government to promote the freedom of Internet (freedom of Speech), which is universal human rights. Google Rocks!

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China.

(see the whole announcement from Google Blog.)

Title: Connecting Dynamic Epistemic and Temporal Epistemic Logics For Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract:

I will give a relation between a logic of knowledge and change, with a semantics on Kripke models, and a logic of knowledge and time, with a semantics on interpreted systems. In particular, given an epistemic state (pointed Kripke model with equivalence relations) and a formula in a dynamic epistemic logic (a logic describing the consequences of epistemic actions), we construct an interpreted system relative to that epistemic state and that formula that satisfies the translation of the formula into a temporal epistemic logic. The construction involves that the protocol that is implicit in the dynamic epistemic formula, i.e. the set of sequences of actions being executed to evaluate the formula, is made explicit. We first focus on the logic of knowledge and change that is known as public announcement logic, then generalize our results to a dynamic epistemic logic. The results presented are from a joint work with Dr. Hans van Ditmarsch, and Prof. Wiebe van der Hoek. In the end, I will share some latest thoughts on an extension of Multi-Agent Systems framework with a social network connecting agents.

Updated: Talk photo album

Hi,

In today’s class I announced a few things.

Course plan:
* Today: Distributed Objects (1)
* Friday Nov 27: Distributed Objects (2). Afternoon Lab: No New Assignments, but I will be there for your last Lab assignment.
* Monday Nov 30: Design Patterns/ Last Lab deadline.

– The following two lectures will not be included in the final exam. But I think they may fit your interests.

* Wednesday Dec 2: Reasoning about Multi-Agent Systems (It is about the research I did in my PhD. I think it might be more interesting than the course itself. There is also a relation to the course from the perspective of agents. ) / Last lecture assignment deadline (I will release the assignment today).
* Friday Dec 5: A Review Of This Course (I will review the important stuff we’ve discussed in the past. It might be helpful for you to prepare the final exam. And besides, there will be one last interesting thing I want  to show to you.) /Last Chance to ask me questions in person, as I will travel to Liverpool afterwords.

* Exam Time: 9am-11:30am December 10, 2009
* Location: NH125

Please do come to the next Wednesday’s class. The head of the department will come to let you do an evaluation (filling some forms) on this course, while I will not present in the class. The time slot is:

• 9:15-9:30 am on Wednesday, December 2ed.

After that, we will start an interesting talk on my research.

When I arrived in the classroom on time, there were few students, possibly due to the rain. But I was glad that most of you showed up eventually. There seems to be a separation between Canadian students and the Chinese Students.  So from the next class on, we use a mixture of seats policy:
The ones come after the fourth person should sit in the different side of the aisle from he or she did in the previous class. You are encouraged to know each other better, especially between Canadian girls and Chinese boys. (I omitted the other important option because there is no Chinese girls in the class. The Canadian boys could complain to the head or the admission manager of the dept.)

Yours,

Ji