Towards a Unifying View of QoS-Enhanced Web Service Description and Discovery Approaches

The number of web services increased vastly in the last years. Various providers offer web services with the same functionality, so for web service consumers it is getting more complicated to select the web service, which best fits their requirements. That is why a lot of the research efforts point to discover semantic means for describing web services taking into account not only functional characteristics of services, but also the quality of service (QoS) properties such as availability, reliability, response time, trust, etc. This motivated us to research current approaches presenting complete solutions for QoS enabled web service description, publication and discovery. In this paper we present comparative analysis of these approaches according to their common principals. Based on such analysis we extract the essential aspects from them and propose a pattern for the development of QoS-aware service-oriented architectures

VIPR: A Visual Interface Tool for Programming Semantic Web Rules

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Semantic technologies have evolved from the initial purpose of supporting semantic integration, information exchange for the semantic web, towards a generic set of engineering tools for knowledge modelling, representation, inference. However, there is still much work required within the area of Semantic computing, the area highlights a key research challenge involving the complexity in engineering Semantic rules, associated dedicated models. Many existing tools focus on the creation of models, but concentrate on providing support for domain experts, isolating users with no knowledge engineering experience. This paper aims to address this issue by introducing a novel approach to enable the visual creation of Semantic web rules, for use within ontological models, context-aware applications. The developed tool, known as VIPR, aims to provide a user-friendly, interactive approach to aid in the creation of Semantic rules for ontologies. The work describes the design process involved in creating VIPR, presents the results of a comparative user evaluation. The research highlights the extent to which this tool has on improving the usability, intuitiveness of creating rules in an interactive environment, assesses how the tool can improve the learnability level for users with no prior knowledge engineering experience

Rule-Based Intelligence on the Semantic Web: Implications for Military Capabilities

Rules are a key element of the Semantic Web vision, promising to provide a foundation for reasoning capabilities that underpin the intelligent manipulation and exploitation of information content. Although ontologies provide the basis for some forms of reasoning, it is unlikely that ontologies, by themselves, will support the range of knowledge-based services that are likely to be required on the Semantic Web. As such, it is important to consider the contribution that rule-based systems can make to the realization of advanced machine intelligence on the Semantic Web. This report aims to review the current state-of-the-art with respect to semantic rule-based technologies. It provides an overview of the rules, rule languages and rule engines that are currently available to support ontology-based reasoning, and it discusses some of the limitations of these technologies in terms of their inability to cope with uncertain or imprecise data and their poor performance in some reasoning contexts. This report also describes the contribution of reasoning systems to military capabilities, and suggests that current technological shortcomings pose a significant barrier to the widespread adoption of reasoning systems within the defence community. Some solutions to these shortcomings are presented and a timescale for technology adoption within the military domain is proposed. It is suggested that application areas such as semantic integration, semantic interoperability, data fusion and situation awareness provide the best opportunities for technology adoption within the 2015 timeframe. Other capabilities, such as decision support and the emulation of human-style reasoning capabilities are seen to depend on the resolution of significant challenges that may hinder attempts at technology adoption and exploitation within the 2020 timeframe

Young motherhood and consumption : an exploration of the consumer practices of a group of young mothers in Bristol

This thesis explores the consumer practices of a group of young mothers in the city of Bristol. A staged and incremental research design was followed, which incorporated aspects of participant observation, activity based focus groups and a photo elicitation exercise. The study focuses on how a group of young mothers managing on limited incomes engaged with expansive markets for maternity and the new baby, and the meaning and emotion they attached to "baby stuff". The research describes how for the young women in this study buying for babies was a priority and part of their everyday caring work, involving the careful management of budgets and the skilful negotiation of consumer markets as well as the negation of mothers' own consumer projects ..and youth identities. While perhaps a financial necessity, it is suggested that the focus on meeting the 'needs' of babies over those of mothers enables these young women to locate themselves as 'good mothers', who put their children first. The thesis also explores how for the participants in the research material goods, and in particular the adornment and presentation of infants, played a crucial role in displaying maternal competence in the face of a sense of public visibility and condemnation. Appearance was everything and commodities provided protection for both mothers and children from the negative associations of poverty and an inability to consume. Further to this, the research examines the practices of giving gifts to babies and the making of maternal memory as significant aspects of the materiality of maternity for these young women. It is suggested that giving gifts to babies represents an important form of contemporary gift giving, which enables the expression and constitution of relationships between babies and their social networks. The collection and collation of "baby stuff" provides a means of creating childhood memories and histories which can be recalled through these objects. In this part of the investigation the practice of giving "mum" jewellery and getting the names of babies tattooed on mothers' bodies emerge as two furthers sites where these young women make the maternal visible . The study highlights the significance and myriad roles that consumer culture plays in the lives of young mothers, providing a rich account of the experiences and struggles of young mothers through an original lens. This work fills a gap in the literature on motherhood and consumption and makes a relevant contribution to a number of additional areas of scholarship including youth and consumption; low-income consumption; and indeed young motherhood, engaging also with contemporary debates over commercialisation and commodity consumption in late modernity and discourses about 'disordered' working class consumer practice

Understanding agency and resistance strategies (UNARS): children’s experiences of domestic violence

This report focuses on children’s experiences of domestic violence, in families affected by domestic violence. Our report is concerned with children’s experiences in situations where the main perpetrator and victim of violence would be legally defined as two adults in an intimate relationship (not where the child is involved in ‘dating violence’). Research and professional practice that focuses on children as damaged witnesses to domestic violence tends to describe children as passive and helpless. Our study, based on interviews with more than a hundred children across four European countries, recognises the significant suffering caused to children who experience domestic violence. However, it also tells a parallel story, about the capacity of children who experience domestic violence to cope, to maintain a sense of agency, to be resilient, and to find ways of resisting violence, and build a positive sense of who they are. Our project highlights the implications of policy and professional discourses that position children as ‘damaged’ and as ‘witnesses’, but that do not recognise children’s capacity to experience domestic violence, make sense of it, and respond to it in ways that are agentic, resilient and resistant. Describing children as ‘witnesses’, ‘exposed to domestic violence’ and ‘damaged by it’ erodes children’s capacity to represent their experiences, and to articulate the ways that they cope with and resist such experiences. By focusing on children’s capacity for conscious meaning making and agency in relation to their experiences of domestic violence, we highlight the importance of recognising its impact on children, and their right to representation as victims in the context of domestic violence

The Experiences of Higher Education Students in Further Education Colleges: A Post-Structural Analysis

The overall aim of this thesis was to consider and critically analyse the discourses that shape students’ experiences of HE-in-FE. This research analysed the discourses drawn upon by students and staff within a small FEC to describe their experiences in order to analyse how such discourses enable and constrain the experiences of the students. The research aimed to trouble the taken for granted discourses, in particular, those of widening participation, vulnerability and support, to highlight how such discourses may be enabling and constraining the HE-in-FE students’ experiences and identities. The drive to increase participation in HE in England and the focus on widening participation in HE has resulted in the expansion of the provision of HE-in-FE. Such provision traditionally attracts non-traditional students, that is, those from working class backgrounds who are usually first-generation entrants to HE. The widening participation discourses within which these non-traditional students are located shape their experiences as students. There is little research which analyses how these students’ experiences are shaped by the discourses. In order to meet the research aims a post-structuralist approach was taken to the research. A case study was conducted within a small Further Education College (FEC) in the north of England. A range of research methods were employed within the study including interviews, non-participant observations, photo elicitation group interviews and documentary analysis. Using this data, the discourses used to describe the experiences of HE-in-FE students were captured and analysed using discourse analysis. The findings of this research suggest that that the widening participation discourse shapes the experiences of HE-in-FE students in contradictory ways. HE-in-FE students have been placed within a deficit discourse which influences the students’ confidence and self-esteem, shaping their identities and experiences. This works to reproduce social disadvantage and as such the provision of HE-in-FE may act as a new mechanism for maintaining inequality. At the same time however, widening participation positions students as having potential. This has the contradictory effect of shaping students’ identities positively. Students construct an identity characterised by a sense of independence and determination to improve

Young motherhood and consumption : an exploration of the consumer practices of a group of young mothers in Bristol

This thesis explores the consumer practices of a group of young mothers in the city of Bristol. A staged and incremental research design was followed, which incorporated aspects of participant observation, activity based focus groups and a photo elicitation exercise. The study focuses on how a group of young mothers managing on limited incomes engaged with expansive markets for maternity and the new baby, and the meaning and emotion they attached to "baby stuff". The research describes how for the young women in this study buying for babies was a priority and part of their everyday caring work, involving the careful management of budgets and the skilful negotiation of consumer markets as well as the negation of mothers' own consumer projects ..and youth identities. While perhaps a financial necessity, it is suggested that the focus on meeting the 'needs' of babies over those of mothers enables these young women to locate themselves as 'good mothers', who put their children first. The thesis also explores how for the participants in the research material goods, and in particular the adornment and presentation of infants, played a crucial role in displaying maternal competence in the face of a sense of public visibility and condemnation. Appearance was everything and commodities provided protection for both mothers and children from the negative associations of poverty and an inability to consume. Further to this, the research examines the practices of giving gifts to babies and the making of maternal memory as significant aspects of the materiality of maternity for these young women. It is suggested that giving gifts to babies represents an important form of contemporary gift giving, which enables the expression and constitution of relationships between babies and their social networks. The collection and collation of "baby stuff" provides a means of creating childhood memories and histories which can be recalled through these objects. In this part of the investigation the practice of giving "mum" jewellery and getting the names of babies tattooed on mothers' bodies emerge as two furthers sites where these young women make the maternal visible . The study highlights the significance and myriad roles that consumer culture plays in the lives of young mothers, providing a rich account of the experiences and struggles of young mothers through an original lens. This work fills a gap in the literature on motherhood and consumption and makes a relevant contribution to a number of additional areas of scholarship including youth and consumption; low-income consumption; and indeed young motherhood, engaging also with contemporary debates over commercialisation and commodity consumption in late modernity and discourses about 'disordered' working class consumer practice