Interests
of Nick Rossiter
I am generally interested in information
systems, with particular attention to their formal basis and to their
application. More specific areas of interest are:
1. Interoperability in Heterogeneous
Information Systems
The way forward in this complex area appears
to be the application of a multi-level architecture to information systems in
order to relate a top layer of abstractions via a series of mappings to the
actual application data. This direction of mapping identifies policies,
organization and instantiation. The equally important dual direction identifies
naming, meta and meta-meta mappings. Currently four levels seem sufficient and
work is continuing on designing an approach, which is as general and powerful
as possible. The usage and limitations of tools such as the Semantic Web, RDF
(Resource Description Framework), XML (eXtensible Markup Language), the Grid
and MOF (Meta Object Facility) are under examination with a view to developing
a sounder foundation for such approaches.
2. Application of Category Theory to
Information Systems
A significant interest is the application of
category theory to real-world problems. The priority has been to formalize
information systems where higher-order logic is of clear relevance. So the
first efforts have been made in:
a.
Object-relational
database systems where there are interesting abstractions such as association,
inheritance and aggregation.
b.
Information resource
dictionary systems, where reference models play an important part in handling
heterogeneous systems.
c.
Hypertext systems where
awareness is an important concept to capture.
Other areas examined are the application of
category theory to image and multimedia systems, natural language,
environmental systems and physics.
3. Natural Computing
The new areas of natural computing involving
techniques such as molecular computers and quantum computing could be of major
significance to information systems in the long term. The potential of quantum
computing, both in general and in database searching, has been investigated and
remains a topic of interest.
4. Databases in Engineering
In collaboration with the Engineering Design
Centre, Newcastle University, work has recently been done in analysis, design
and implementation of an object-oriented engineering-design database providing
version management in a cooperative environment.
5. Databases for Document, Semi-structured
and Unstructured Information
A long-standing interest is the handling in
databases of information with less structure than found typically in
administrative data. This resulted in a number of papers criticising the
relational model in this respect and looking at object-based solutions. The
current interest is in the potential of StruQL and XML for the improved handling
of this type of data.