The Semantic Grid: A future e-Science infrastructure

e-Science offers a promising vision of how computer and communication technology can support and enhance the scientific process. It does this by enabling scientists to generate, analyse, share and discuss their insights, experiments and results in an effective manner. The underlying computer infrastructure that provides these facilities is commonly referred to as the Grid. At this time, there are a number of grid applications being developed and there is a whole raft of computer technologies that provide fragments of the necessary functionality. However there is currently a major gap between these endeavours and the vision of e-Science in which there is a high degree of easy-to-use and seamless automation and in which there are flexible collaborations and computations on a global scale. To bridge this practice–aspiration divide, this paper presents a research agenda whose aim is to move from the current state of the art in e-Science infrastructure, to the future infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision. Here the future e-Science research infrastructure is termed the Semantic Grid (Semantic Grid to Grid is meant to connote a similar relationship to the one that exists between the Semantic Web and the Web). In particular, we present a conceptual architecture for the Semantic Grid. This architecture adopts a service-oriented perspective in which distinct stakeholders in the scientific process, represented as software agents, provide services to one another, under various service level agreements, in various forms of marketplace. We then focus predominantly on the issues concerned with the way that knowledge is acquired and used in such environments since we believe this is the key differentiator between current grid endeavours and those envisioned for the Semantic Grid

Some Observations on Multi-Agent Based Negotiation in B2C E-Commerce

Multi-agent based negotiation is the emergent functionality of E-Commerce. There are several approach deployed by various researcher in the B2C, E-Commerce model. In this research paper we provide some observations on various negotiation mechanism which are deployed in various E-Commerce mode

Preliminary specification and design documentation for software components to achieve catallaxy in computational systems

This Report is about the preliminary specifications and design documentation for software components to achieve Catallaxy in computational systems. -- Die Arbeit beschreibt die Spezifikation und das Design von Softwarekomponenten, um das Konzept der Katallaxie in Grid Systemen umzusetzen. Eine Einführung ordnet das Konzept der Katallaxie in bestehende Grid Taxonomien ein und stellt grundlegende Komponenten vor. Anschließend werden diese Komponenten auf ihre Anwendbarkeit in bestehenden Application Layer Netzwerken untersucht.Grid Computing

GPR: A Data Mining Tool Using Genetic Programming

This paper proposes an inductive data mining technique (named GPR) based on genetic programming. Unlike other mining systems, the particularity of our technique is its ability to discover business rules that satisfy multiple (and possibly conflicting) decision or search criteria simultaneously. We present a step-by-step method to implement GPR, and introduce a prototype that generates production rules from real life data. We also report in this article on the use of GPR in an organization that seeks to understand how its employees make decisions in a voluntary separation program. Using a personnel database of 12,787 employees with 35 descriptive variables, our technique is able to discover employees\u27 hidden decision making patterns in the form of production rules. As our approach does not require any domain specific knowledge, it can be used without any major modification in different domains

Dagstuhl News January - December 2006

"Dagstuhl News" is a publication edited especially for the members of the Foundation "Informatikzentrum Schloss Dagstuhl" to thank them for their support. The News give a summary of the scientific work being done in Dagstuhl. Each Dagstuhl Seminar is presented by a small abstract describing the contents and scientific highlights of the seminar as well as the perspectives or challenges of the research topic

A Client-Aware Reputation System for e-Services

In the Internet age, people are becoming more an more familiar in experiencing online services. Given the intrinsic distributed nature of the electronic transactions involved, there is the need to prove somehow the trustworthiness of such services for supporting a user in her choice. To this aim, different techniques have been presented. For example, a simple but useful solution is to rely on feedback of past users testifying if they have been satisfied by a service. In this paper, we consider a scenario for business transactions where a reputation management system helps clients in choosing services that best satisfy their attitudes and preferences. Specifically, a reputation value is associated to each service at stake. This value is updated according to past and new clients interactions. In fact, at the end of each interaction with a service, clients provide feedback regarding that service. The main feature of our proposal is the client awareness. This derives from designing and implementing a probabilistic client model based on real behaviours of users when they choose a service and give feedback. This client model has been obtained by collecting and processing real data from ones of the most popular websites for travel advice. We present an evaluation aimed at validating our proposal. In the simulations, we also deal with the issue of false feedback, reported by clients that intentionally aim at subverting the reputation value of a service. The simulations results show that our system is robust up to a certain number of malicious feedback

KSNet-Approach to Knowledge Fusion from Distributed Sources

The rapidity of the decision making process is an important factor in different branches of the human life (business, healthcare, industry, military applications etc.). Since responsible persons make decisions using available knowledge, it is important for knowledge management systems to deliver necessary and timely information. Knowledge logistics is a new direction in the knowledge management addressing this. Technology of knowledge fusion, based on the synergistic use of knowledge from multiple distributed sources, is a basis for these activities. The paper presents an overview of a Knowledge Source Network configuration approach (KSNet-approach) to knowledge fusion, multi-agent architecture and research prototype of the KSNet knowledge fusion system based on this approach

A Cooperative Approach for Composite Ontology Matching

Ontologies have proven to be an essential element in a range of applications in which knowl-edge plays a key role. Resolving the semantic heterogeneity problem is crucial to allow the interoperability between ontology-based systems. This makes automatic ontology matching, as an anticipated solution to semantic heterogeneity, an important, research issue. Many dif-ferent approaches to the matching problem have emerged from the literature. An important issue of ontology matching is to find effective ways of choosing among many techniques and their variations, and then combining their results. An innovative and promising option is to formalize the combination of matching techniques using agent-based approaches, such as cooperative negotiation and argumentation. In this thesis, the formalization of the on-tology matching problem following an agent-based approach is proposed. Such proposal is evaluated using state-of-the-art data sets. The results show that the consensus obtained by negotiation and argumentation represent intermediary values which are closer to the best matcher. As the best matcher may vary depending on specific differences of multiple data sets, cooperative approaches are an advantage. *** RESUMO - Ontologias são elementos essenciais em sistemas baseados em conhecimento. Resolver o problema de heterogeneidade semântica é fundamental para permitira interoperabilidade entre sistemas baseados em ontologias. Mapeamento automático de ontologias pode ser visto como uma solução para esse problema. Diferentes e complementares abordagens para o problema são propostas na literatura. Um aspecto importante em mapeamento consiste em selecionar o conjunto adequado de abordagens e suas variações, e então combinar seus resultados. Uma opção promissora envolve formalizara combinação de técnicas de ma-peamento usando abordagens baseadas em agentes cooperativos, tais como negociação e argumentação. Nesta tese, a formalização do problema de combinação de técnicas de ma-peamento usando tais abordagens é proposta e avaliada. A avaliação, que envolve conjuntos de testes sugeridos pela comunidade científica, permite concluir que o consenso obtido pela negociação e pela argumentação não é exatamente a melhoria de todos os resultados individuais, mas representa os valores intermediários que são próximo da melhor técnica. Considerando que a melhor técnica pode variar dependendo de diferencas específicas de múltiplas bases de dados, abordagens cooperativas são uma vantagem