Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

A web service choreography standard enables a standardized description of business processes that allows not only a clear specification of the control flow, but also it forms the basis for the actual process execution. Such standards are part of the Web Services stack and facilitate Enterprise Systems interoperability. A simple indication of the rapid growth of this area is the number of new and existing standards. While the need for the theoretical evaluation and comparison of these standards is being addressed, regardless of the results of such evaluations and comparisons, the interoperability enabled by such standards is still limited. This limitation stems from a number of shortcomings. First, there is a lack of agreement on a general ontology that can be used to describe any type of phenomena in the world. Second, there is limited agreement on the actual set of phenomena that is being modeled in the Enterprise Systems interoperability domain. Third, interoperability is limited by the lack of agreement on the mapping of such phenomena to the chosen general ontology. Last, a means for replicating the constructivist processes that humans use to ascribe meaning to phenomena is lacking. In this paper, we address each of these limitations. We argue that the BWW representation model is a good choice of a general ontology to be used in this domain. Utilizing this ontology for the purposes of analysis, we present the unique set of phenomena that is currently being modeled by the collective of the four leading Enterprise Systems interoperability standards, . ebXML BPSS, BPML, BPEL4WS, and, WSCI, and the mappings of these phenomena to the chosen general ontology. Further, we discuss the problems in true interoperability of being able to negotiate and ascribe meaning to constructs.

Automatic discovery of services is a crucial task for the e-Science and e-Business communities. Finding a suitable way to address this issue has become one of the key points to convert the Web in a distributed source of computation, as it enables the location of distributed services to perform a required functionality. To provide such an automatic location, the discovery process should be based on the semantic match between a declarative description of the service being sought and a description being offered. This problem requires not only an algorithm to match these descriptions, but also a language to declaratively express the capabilities of services. This section presents a context-aware ontology selection framework, which allows an increase in precision of the retrieved results by taking the contextual information into account.

What are the key success factors for a knowledge management system (KMS), and how to design and implement successful knowledge management systems, are topical research areas. We argue that designing effective knowledge management systems requires not only a focused view, which is achieved by considering organizational imperatives and technological solutions, but it also benefits from a larger perspective that considers a user-centered design, the individual needs of the users (e.g. work tasks, responsibilities), individual motivational drivers, usability and ergonomics issues. This article emphasizes the role of user models and user modeling within Ontology-based Knowledge Management System (OKMS), integrating a highly interdisciplinary approach. It shows how user models, models of the knowledge workers and user modeling processes can be applied in the context of knowledge management systems. An ontology-based user modeling approach is proposed and concrete examples of how ontology-based inferences can be used for expertise modeling are provided. This chapter emphasizes the importance of using ontology-based representations for modeling the users and providing enhanced user support and advanced features in KMSs.

As the number of Internet users and the number of accessible Web pages grows, it is becoming increasingly difficult for users to find documents that are relevant to their particular needs. Users who submit a query to a publicly available search engine must wade through hundreds of results, most of them irrelevant. The core of the problem is that, whether they are an eighth grade student or a Nobel Prize winner, the identical Web pages are selected and they are presented in the same way. In this chapter, we report on research that is aimed at providing search results tailored to individual users. In order to provide these personalized search results, the search engine exploits information about the user captured in automatically created user profiles. We compare a variety of mechanisms for automatically creating the user profiles, and discuss open issues in user profile creation, representation, and use.

Information system design for a supply chain with its complex organizational dynamics and operational uncertainty is a challenging task. The problem assumes greater significance due to the necessity of integrating largely distributed and diverse information system implementations. A framework to address these issues is proposed. Its implementation is a semantic application that is deployed on the Web and managed by agents. This chapter describes the usefulness of separating domain knowledge from information system solutions and developing models in the form of ontologies. An ontology-driven information system for supply chain management incorporating various forms of modeling in decision-making is described. Ontology is proposed as a separate component in information system architecture that effectively complements its three other constituents, viz., interface, management, and gathering. We demonstrate how ontology development is becoming a critical aspect of the information system design. The object-oriented system development life cycle is utilized for this purpose. The role of ontology in information system’s two temporal dimensions is demonstrated. At development time, ontology replaces the information system analysis completely and the design stage partly. At run time, ontology separates the domain knowledge from other components and delivers it to them upon request, thus ensuring the compatibility of information support with organizational dynamics, and its adaptability to the rapidly changing environment.

Today, enterprises have information technology that could fulfill their requirements in each operational phase and with external partners, e.g., suppliers. For instance, in industrial environment, many applications are available to support operating their Product Life Cycle stages. However, organizations typically acquire them aiming to solve focused needs, without an overall view of the global enterprise’s system integration. Even when enterprise models are interoperable, very often difficulties arise with respect to data semantics when information has to be exchanged, though common semantic models are not in place. Researchers have proposed methodologies and platforms to assist the integration of applications and data. However, implementing new technology in organizations is a complex task, and the advent of continuous technological evolution makes organizations unable to be constantly updated. Such dynamics has a recognized impact in costs and work environment that companies cannot afford, and most of such proposals do not go beyond the research phase. This chapter proposes a methodology to enhance enterprise’s interoperability, keeping the same organization’s technical and operational environment, improving its methods of work and the usability of the installed technology through ontological harmonization of the enterprise product models in use. The presented work was developed and has been applied in the scope of the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) SMART-fm program (www.ims.org) and European ATHENA project (www.athena-ip.org), under real industrial environments.

An initial fragment of a core ontology for the manufacturing domain is presented and motivated. It consists of an ontological classification of ADACOR concepts according to the DOLCE foundational ontology. The ontology is conceptually transparent and semantically explicit thus suitable for information communication, sharing, and retrieval. The system here described considers entities performing the manufacturing scheduling and control operations only.

Babylon Knowledge Explorer (BKE) is an integrated suite of tools and information sources being developed in GlaxoSmithKline’s to support the prototyping and implementation of ontology-driven information systems and ontology-enhanced knowledge applications. In this paper we describe the current state of BKE development and focus on some of its distinctive or novel approaches, highlighting

Ontology provides an overarching framework and vocabulary for describing system components and relationships. As such, they represent a means to devise, analyze and compare information systems. This research investigates the development of a software-based ontology within the context of a rural wireless emergency medical (EMS) services. Wireless EMS has developed in response to the unprecedented growth of wireless as a means to communicate in emergency situations. Using an inductive, field-based approach, this study devises and tests a new ontology-based framework for wireless emergency response in rural Minnesota. The ontology is developed by integrating concepts and findings from in-depth field reviews in Minnesota into an ontological software originating out of bioinformatics. This software, Protégé 2000, is an open source ontological software system developed by Stanford University’s Medical Informatics group. Using Protégé 2000, the authors developed a wireless EMS ontological framework populated by the real data gathered from field interviews and related data collection. This EMS framework distinguishes between classes of systems, instances within the classes, and the relationships among classes and instances. The next step in the research involved conducting a simulation of performance using a sample of case study data and demonstrated important linkages among system classes. It is expected that use of such performance ontology will assist researchers and program managers with identifying basic problems in terms of technical and non-technical rural EMS issues, as well as possible patterns of inconsistency or discrepancies across EMS deployments.

In the information society the security of information during access and communication has of basic importance. Smart cards (SC) can integrate security services and the actual application functions, so they are perfect tool to fulfill the role of the key of information society. As there is extremely high number of different smart card applications developed individually, connecting these systems, their interoperability is a growing problem. An additional problem is that the combination of functions on one card needs the thorough configuration of the smart card software. Because of the frequent changes in the SC applications during the life cycle of the card, there is a more frequent need for the reconfiguration of the card software as well. A structured, general description, reference architecture of the smart card system elements and the possible relations among them could support the interoperability and configuration/ reconfiguration in a great extent. The chapter gives a short overview on smart card systems and applications, and introduces ontology — based smart card reference architecture and an smart card attack tree.