The Ampersand Conference 2015

On Tuesday June 23rd, 2015, the Ampersand Conference was held at the Open University of the Netherlands at its location in Zwolle. This wiki-page represents the proceedings of this conference.

Inspire and aspire

Rule-based design is a hot topic in Business Engineering. Since Ampersand is capable of generating correct software and producing working information systems, interest in this approach for rule-based design is growing. Current research is taking place at the Open University, Hogeschool Arnhem-Nijmegen, and TNO.

The purpose of this conference was to exchange and share recent developments in the Ampersand project with interested researchers and practitioners. This meeting was held from a research perspective, reported about recent progress in the theory, tools and practical applications of rule-based design, which is founded on the rigorous framework of Relation Algebra. It attracted interest from user organizations, research institutions and software industry. The presentations that were given can be viewed by clicking the hyperlinks below. They give an overview of the things that are going on in the Ampersand project. This can be relevant for software engineers and architects, who are interested in this new paradigm for generating business process software.''

Contributions

• Why Ampersand? (by prof.dr.ir. S. Joosten, Open Universiteit) ''An overview of the Ampersand project.''
• Demo of an application generated with Ampersand (by M. Stornebrink MSc, TNO) Ampersand source code of the demo
• Why Ampersand generates flexible systems (ir. H. Joosten, Ordina) architecture of applications that are generated by Ampersand.
• Learning how to prototype business rules (dr. L. Wedemeijer, Open Universiteit) ''some experiences from the OU-course in Rule-based Design'' ''how students get on with the formalisms, the tool, and rule-model design''
• [https://github.com/AmpersandTarski/ampersand/files/532/2015jun23_AmpersandConference_AmpersandAndTheSemanticWeb_LloydRutledge.pdf](Ampersand and the Semantic Web) (dr. L.W. Rutledge, Open Universiteit) ''this talk compares both the theory, and the main tools of Ampersand and the Semantic Web.'' ''It also discusses research to merge the two, both as formal logic, and as unified'' ''applications for data processes and user interfaces.''
• the current Ampersand type checker (ir. S.J.C. Joosten, Eindhoven University of Technology) ''the current type checker has been designed to be predictable for the user.'' ''To achieve predictability, we aim at robust semantics of expressions:'' ''the meaning of an expression should not change when another part of the script changes,'' ''or when the user applies one of the 'laws' of relation algebra to it.'' ''This talk takes you through some of the considerations, and'' ''gives insight in the current state of the type checker.''
• the Ampersand contribution to an IT project (prof.dr.ir. S. Joosten, Open Universiteit) ''at the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority''
• Architecture research for health care institutions with Ampersand (D. Tarenskeen, Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen)

Participants

• Eric Baardman (Belastingdienst)
• René Bakker (Hogeschool_van_Arnhem_en_Nijmegen)
• Marko Van Eekelen (OUNL)
• Esther Hageraats
• Rien Hamers (Fontys Hogeschool)
• Ruud Hermans
• Johan Heuvelman (Ordina)
• Frans van 't Hof
• Han Joosten (Ordina)
• Rieks Joosten (TNO)
• Sebastiaan Joosten (TU Eindhoven)
• Stef Joosten (OUNL en Ordina)
• Arjan Kok
• Oeta Kumara (Ordina)
• Gerard Michels (ValueBlue BV)
• Lloyd Rutledge (OUNL)
• Marko Seunninga (HCS-Company)
• Sylvie Spreeuwenberg (LibRT en Business Rules Platform Nederland)
• Michiel Stornebrink (TNO)
• Debbie Tarenskeen (Hogeschool_van_Arnhem_en_Nijmegen)
• Mando van der Waarden (Ordina)
• Lex Wedemeijer (OUNL)
• Jaap van der Woude (TU Eindhoven)