Integration via Meaning: Using the Semantic Web to deliver Web Services

Presented at the CRIS2002 Conference in Kassel.-- 9 pages.-- Contains: Conference paper (PDF) + PPT presentation.The major developments of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the last two years have been Web Services and the Semantic Web. The former allows the construction of distributed systems across the WWW by providing a lightweight middleware architecture. The latter provides an infrastructure for accessing resources on the WWW via their relationships with respect to conceptual descriptions. In this paper, I shall review the progress undertaken in each of these two areas. Further, I shall argue that in order for the aims of both the Semantic Web and the Web Services activities to be successful, then the Web Service architecture needs to be augmented by concepts and tools of the Semantic Web. This infrastructure will allow resource discovery, brokering and access to be enabled in a standardised, integrated and interoperable manner. Finally, I survey the CLRC Information Technology R&D programme to show how it is contributing to the development of this future infrastructure

INFRAWEBS semantic web service development on the base of knowledge management layer

The paper gives an overview about the ongoing FP6-IST INFRAWEBS project and describes the main layers and software components embedded in an application oriented realisation framework. An important part of INFRAWEBS is a Semantic Web Unit (SWU) – a collaboration platform and interoperable middleware for ontology-based handling and maintaining of SWS. The framework provides knowledge about a specific domain and relies on ontologies to structure and exchange this knowledge to semantic service development modules. INFRAWEBS Designer and Composer are sub-modules of SWU responsible for creating Semantic Web Services using Case-Based Reasoning approach. The Service Access Middleware (SAM) is responsible for building up the communication channels between users and various other modules. It serves as a generic middleware for deployment of Semantic Web Services. This software toolset provides a development framework for creating and maintaining the full-life-cycle of Semantic Web Services with specific application support

A Framework for Grid-Enabling Scientific Workflow Systems. Architecture and application case studies on interoperability and heterogeneity in support for Grid workflow automation.

Since the early 2000s, Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) have played a key role in the development of complex applications within a virtual organization (VO) context. Grids and workflows have emerged as vital technologies for addressing the (SOA) paradigm. Given the variety of Grid middleware, scientific workflow systems and Grid workflows available, bringing the two technologies together in a flexible, reusable and generalized way has been largely overlooked, particularly from a scientific end user perspective. The lack of domain focus in this area has led to a slow uptake of Grid technologies. This thesis aims to design a framework for Grid-enabling workflows, which identifies the essential technological components, how these components fit together in layered architecture and the interactions between them. To produce such a framework, this thesis first investigates the definition of a Grid-workflow architecture and mapping Grid functionality to workflow nodes, focusing on striking a balance between performance, usability and the Grid functionality supported. Next, it presents an examination of framework extensions for supporting various forms of Grid heterogeneity, essential for ii VO based collaboration. Given the complex nature of Grid technologies, the work presented here investigates abstracting Grid based workflows through high-level definitions and resolution using semantic technologies. Finally, this thesis presents a way to resolves abstract Grid workflows using semantic technologies and intelligent, autonomous agents. The frameworks presented in this thesis are tested and evaluated within the context of domain-based case studies defined in the SIMDAT, BRIDGE and ARGUGRID EU funded research projects

An active, ontology-driven network service for Internet collaboration

Web portals have emerged as an important means of collaboration on the WWW, and the integration of ontologies promises to make them more accurate in how they serve users’ collaboration and information location requirements. However, web portals are essentially a centralised architecture resulting in difficulties supporting seamless roaming between portals and collaboration between groups supported on different portals. This paper proposes an alternative approach to collaboration over the web using ontologies that is de-centralised and exploits content-based networking. We argue that this approach promises a user-centric, timely, secure and location-independent mechanism, which is potentially more scaleable and universal than existing centralised portals