Semantic technologies: from niche to the mainstream of Web 3? A comprehensive framework for web Information modelling and semantic annotation

Context: Web information technologies developed and applied in the last decade have considerably changed the way web applications operate and have revolutionised information management and knowledge discovery. Social technologies, user-generated classification schemes and formal semantics have a far-reaching sphere of influence. They promote collective intelligence, support interoperability, enhance sustainability and instigate innovation. Contribution: The research carried out and consequent publications follow the various paradigms of semantic technologies, assess each approach, evaluate its efficiency, identify the challenges involved and propose a comprehensive framework for web information modelling and semantic annotation, which is the thesis’ original contribution to knowledge. The proposed framework assists web information modelling, facilitates semantic annotation and information retrieval, enables system interoperability and enhances information quality. Implications: Semantic technologies coupled with social media and end-user involvement can instigate innovative influence with wide organisational implications that can benefit a considerable range of industries. The scalable and sustainable business models of social computing and the collective intelligence of organisational social media can be resourcefully paired with internal research and knowledge from interoperable information repositories, back-end databases and legacy systems. Semantified information assets can free human resources so that they can be used to better serve business development, support innovation and increase productivity

Enhancement of the usability of SOA services for novice users

Recently, the automation of service integration has provided a significant advantage in delivering services to novice users. This art of integrating various services is known as Service Composition and its main purpose is to simplify the development process for web applications and facilitates reuse of services. It is one of the paradigms that enables services to end-users (i.e.service provisioning) through the outsourcing of web contents and it requires users to share and reuse services in more collaborative ways. Most service composers are effective at enabling integration of web contents, but they do not enable universal access across different groups of users. This is because, the currently existing content aggregators require complex interactions in order to create web applications (e.g., Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)) as a result not all users are able to use such web tools. This trend demands changes in the web tools that end-users use to gain and share information, hence this research uses Mashups as a service composition technique to allow novice users to integrate publicly available Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) services, where there is a minimal active web application development. Mashups being the platforms that integrate disparate web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create user defined web applications; presents a great opportunity for service provisioning. However, their usability for novice users remains invalidated since Mashup tools are not easy to use they require basic programming skills which makes the process of designing and creating Mashups difficult. This is because Mashup tools access heterogeneous web contents using public web APIs and the process of integrating them become complex since web APIs are tailored by different vendors. Moreover, the design of Mashup editors is unnecessary complex; as a result, users do not know where to start when creating Mashups. This research address the gap between Mashup tools and usability by the designing and implementing a semantically enriched Mashup tool to discover, annotate and compose APIs to improve the utilization of SOA services by novice users. The researchers conducted an analysis of the already existing Mashup tools to identify challenges and weaknesses experienced by novice Mashup users. The findings from the requirement analysis formulated the system usability requirements that informed the design and implementation of the proposed Mashup tool. The proposed architecture addressed three layers: composition, annotation and discovery. The researchers developed a simple Mashup tool referred to as soa-Services Provisioner (SerPro) that allowed novice users to create web application flexibly. Its usability and effectiveness was validated. The proposed Mashup tool enhanced the usability of SOA services, since data analysis and results showed that it was usable to novice users by scoring a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 72.08. Furthermore, this research discusses the research limitations and future work for further improvements

Web service composition: A survey of techniques and tools

Web services are a consolidated reality of the modern Web with tremendous, increasing impact on everyday computing tasks. They turned the Web into the largest, most accepted, and most vivid distributed computing platform ever. Yet, the use and integration of Web services into composite services or applications, which is a highly sensible and conceptually non-trivial task, is still not unleashing its full magnitude of power. A consolidated analysis framework that advances the fundamental understanding of Web service composition building blocks in terms of concepts, models, languages, productivity support techniques, and tools is required. This framework is necessary to enable effective exploration, understanding, assessing, comparing, and selecting service composition models, languages, techniques, platforms, and tools. This article establishes such a framework and reviews the state of the art in service composition from an unprecedented, holistic perspective

Composição de serviços para aplicações biomédicas

Doutoramento em Engenharia InformáticaA exigente inovação na área das aplicações biomédicas tem guiado a evolução das tecnologias de informação nas últimas décadas. Os desafios associados a uma gestão, integração, análise e interpretação eficientes dos dados provenientes das mais modernas tecnologias de hardware e software requerem um esforço concertado. Desde hardware para sequenciação de genes a registos electrónicos de paciente, passando por pesquisa de fármacos, a possibilidade de explorar com precisão os dados destes ambientes é vital para a compreensão da saúde humana. Esta tese engloba a discussão e o desenvolvimento de melhores estratégias informáticas para ultrapassar estes desafios, principalmente no contexto da composição de serviços, incluindo técnicas flexíveis de integração de dados, como warehousing ou federação, e técnicas avançadas de interoperabilidade, como serviços web ou LinkedData. A composição de serviços é apresentada como um ideal genérico, direcionado para a integração de dados e para a interoperabilidade de software. Relativamente a esta última, esta investigação debruçou-se sobre o campo da farmacovigilância, no contexto do projeto Europeu EU-ADR. As contribuições para este projeto, um novo standard de interoperabilidade e um motor de execução de workflows, sustentam a sucesso da EU-ADR Web Platform, uma plataforma para realizar estudos avançados de farmacovigilância. No contexto do projeto Europeu GEN2PHEN, esta investigação visou ultrapassar os desafios associados à integração de dados distribuídos e heterogéneos no campo do varíoma humano. Foi criada uma nova solução, WAVe - Web Analyses of the Variome, que fornece uma coleção rica de dados de variação genética através de uma interface Web inovadora e de uma API avançada. O desenvolvimento destas estratégias evidenciou duas oportunidades claras na área de software biomédico: melhorar o processo de implementação de software através do recurso a técnicas de desenvolvimento rápidas e aperfeiçoar a qualidade e disponibilidade dos dados através da adopção do paradigma de web semântica. A plataforma COEUS atravessa as fronteiras de integração e interoperabilidade, fornecendo metodologias para a aquisição e tradução flexíveis de dados, bem como uma camada de serviços interoperáveis para explorar semanticamente os dados agregados. Combinando as técnicas de desenvolvimento rápidas com a riqueza da perspectiva "Semantic Web in a box", a plataforma COEUS é uma aproximação pioneira, permitindo o desenvolvimento da próxima geração de aplicações biomédicas.The demand for innovation in the biomedical software domain has been an information technologies evolution driver over the last decades. The challenges associated with the effective management, integration, analyses and interpretation of the wealth of life sciences information stemming from modern hardware and software technologies require concerted efforts. From gene sequencing hardware to pharmacology research up to patient electronic health records, the ability to accurately explore data from these environments is vital to further improve our understanding of human health. This thesis encloses the discussion on building better informatics strategies to address these challenges, primarily in the context of service composition, including warehousing and federation strategies for resource integration, as well as web services or LinkedData for software interoperability. Service composition is introduced as a general principle, geared towards data integration and software interoperability. Concerning the latter, this research covers the service composition requirements within the pharmacovigilance field, namely on the European EU-ADR project. The contributions to this area, the definition of a new interoperability standard and the creation of a new workflow-wrapping engine, are behind the successful construction of the EUADR Web Platform, a workspace for delivering advanced pharmacovigilance studies. In the context of the European GEN2PHEN project, this research tackles the challenges associated with the integration of heterogeneous and distributed data in the human variome field. For this matter, a new lightweight solution was created: WAVe, Web Analysis of the Variome, provides a rich collection of genetic variation data through an innovative portal and an advanced API. The development of the strategies underlying these products highlighted clear opportunities in the biomedical software field: enhancing the software implementation process with rapid application development approaches and improving the quality and availability of data with the adoption of the Semantic Web paradigm. COEUS crosses the boundaries of integration and interoperability as it provides a framework for the flexible acquisition and translation of data into a semantic knowledge base, as well as a comprehensive set of interoperability services, from REST to LinkedData, to fully exploit gathered data semantically. By combining the lightness of rapid application development strategies with the richness of its "Semantic Web in a box" approach, COEUS is a pioneering framework to enhance the development of the next generation of biomedical applications

Open Research Knowledge Graph

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the alpha release of the Open Research Knowledge Graph (ORKG), it is both timely and exhilarating to celebrate the significant strides made in this pioneering project. We designed this book as a tribute to the evolution and achievements of the ORKG and as a practical guide encapsulating its essence in a form that resonates with both the general reader and the specialist. The ORKG has opened a new era in the way scholarly knowledge is curated, managed, and disseminated. By transforming vast arrays of unstructured narrative text into structured, machine-processable knowledge, the ORKG has emerged as an essential service with sophisticated functionalities. Over the past five years, our team has developed the ORKG into a vibrant platform that enhances the accessibility and visibility of scientific research. This book serves as a non-technical guide and a comprehensive reference for new and existing users that outlines the ORKG’s approach, technologies, and its role in revolutionizing scholarly communication. By elucidating how the ORKG facilitates the collection, enhancement, and sharing of knowledge, we invite readers to appreciate the value and potential of this groundbreaking digital tool presented in a tangible form. Looking ahead, we are thrilled to announce the upcoming unveiling of promising new features and tools at the fifth-year celebration of the ORKG’s alpha release. These innovations are set to redefine the boundaries of machine assistance enabled by research knowledge graphs. Among these enhancements, you can expect more intuitive interfaces that simplify the user experience, and enhanced machine learning models that improve the automation and accuracy of data curation. We also included a glossary tailored to clarifying key terms and concepts associated with the ORKG to ensure that all readers, regardless of their technical background, can fully engage with and understand the content presented. This book transcends the boundaries of a typical technical report. We crafted this as an inspiration for future applications, a testament to the ongoing evolution in scholarly communication that invites further collaboration and innovation. Let this book serve as both your guide and invitation to explore the ORKG as it continues to grow and shape the landscape of scientific inquiry and communication

Value Creation through Co-Opetition in Service Networks

Well-defined interfaces and standardization allow for the composition of single Web services into value-added complex services. Such complex Web Services are increasingly traded via agile marketplaces, facilitating flexible recombination of service modules to meet heterogeneous customer demands. In order to coordinate participants, this work introduces a mechanism design approach - the co-opetition mechanism - that is tailored to requirements imposed by a networked and co-opetitive environment

Actas del Taller de Trabajo Zoco’08 / JISBD Integración de Aplicaciones Web : XIII Jornadas de Ingeniería del Software y Bases de Datos Gijón, 7 al 10 de Octubre de 2008

Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2007-64119Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-0260

Structural sustainability appraisal in BIM

The provision of Application Programming Interface (API) in BIM-enable tools can contribute to facilitating BIM-related research. APIs are useful links for running plug-ins and external programmes but they are yet to be fully exploited in expanding the BIM scope. The modelling of n-Dimensional (nD) building performance measures can potentially benefit from BIM extension through API implementations. Sustainability is one such measure associated with buildings. For the structural engineer, recent design criteria have put great emphasis on the sustainability credentials as part of the traditional criteria of structural integrity, constructability and cost. This paper examines the utilization of API in BIM extension and presents a demonstration of an API application to embed sustainability issues into the appraisal process of structural conceptual design options in BIM. It concludes that API implementations are useful in expanding the BIM scope. Also, the approach including process modelling, algorithms and object-based instantiations demonstrated in the API implementation can be applicable to other nD building performance measures as may be relevant to the various professional platforms in the construction domain

CLOUD-BASED SOLUTIONS IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY, OPENNESS AND EFFICIENCY OF OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA

A central pillar of open government programs is the disclosure of data held by public agencies using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This disclosure relies on the creation of open data portals (e.g. Data.gov) and has subsequently been associated with the expression Open Government Data (OGD). The overall goal of these governmental initiatives is not limited to enhance transparency of public sectors but aims to raise awareness of how released data can be put to use in order to enable the creation of new products and services by private sectors. Despite the usage of technological platforms to facilitate access to government data, open data portals continue to be organized in order to serve the goals of public agencies without opening the doors to public accountability, information transparency, public scrutiny, etc. This thesis considers the basic aspects of OGD including the definition of technical models for organizing such complex contexts, the identification of techniques for combining data from several portals and the proposal of user interfaces that focus on citizen-centred usability. In order to deal with the above issues, this thesis presents a holistic approach to OGD that aims to go beyond problems inherent their simple disclosure by providing a tentative answer to the following questions: 1) To what extent do the OGD-based applications contribute towards the creation of innovative, value-added services? 2) What technical solutions could increase the strength of this contribution? 3) Can Web 2.0 and Cloud technologies favour the development of OGD apps? 4) How should be designed a common framework for developing OGD apps that rely on multiple OGD portals and external web resources? In particular, this thesis is focused on devising computational environments that leverage the content of OGD portals (supporting the initial phase of data disclosure) for the creation of new services that add value to the original data. The thesis is organized as follows. In order to offer a general view about OGD, some important aspects about open data initiatives are presented including their state of art, the existing approaches for publishing and consuming OGD across web resources, and the factors shaping the value generated through government data portals. Then, an architectural framework is proposed that gathers OGD from multiple sites and supports the development of cloud-based apps that leverage these data according to potentially different exploitation roots ranging from traditional business to specialized supports for citizens. The proposed framework is validated by two cloud-based apps, namely ODMap (Open Data Mapping) and NESSIE (A Network-based Environment Supporting Spatial Information Exploration). In particular, ODMap supports citizens in searching and accessing OGD from several web sites. NESSIE organizes data captured from real estate agencies and public agencies (i.e. municipalities, cadastral offices and chambers of commerce) in order to provide citizens with a geographic representation of real estate offers and relevant statistics about the price trend.A central pillar of open government programs is the disclosure of data held by public agencies using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This disclosure relies on the creation of open data portals (e.g. Data.gov) and has subsequently been associated with the expression Open Government Data (OGD). The overall goal of these governmental initiatives is not limited to enhance transparency of public sectors but aims to raise awareness of how released data can be put to use in order to enable the creation of new products and services by private sectors. Despite the usage of technological platforms to facilitate access to government data, open data portals continue to be organized in order to serve the goals of public agencies without opening the doors to public accountability, information transparency, public scrutiny, etc. This thesis considers the basic aspects of OGD including the definition of technical models for organizing such complex contexts, the identification of techniques for combining data from several portals and the proposal of user interfaces that focus on citizen-centred usability. In order to deal with the above issues, this thesis presents a holistic approach to OGD that aims to go beyond problems inherent their simple disclosure by providing a tentative answer to the following questions: 1) To what extent do the OGD-based applications contribute towards the creation of innovative, value-added services? 2) What technical solutions could increase the strength of this contribution? 3) Can Web 2.0 and Cloud technologies favour the development of OGD apps? 4) How should be designed a common framework for developing OGD apps that rely on multiple OGD portals and external web resources? In particular, this thesis is focused on devising computational environments that leverage the content of OGD portals (supporting the initial phase of data disclosure) for the creation of new services that add value to the original data. The thesis is organized as follows. In order to offer a general view about OGD, some important aspects about open data initiatives are presented including their state of art, the existing approaches for publishing and consuming OGD across web resources, and the factors shaping the value generated through government data portals. Then, an architectural framework is proposed that gathers OGD from multiple sites and supports the development of cloud-based apps that leverage these data according to potentially different exploitation roots ranging from traditional business to specialized supports for citizens. The proposed framework is validated by two cloud-based apps, namely ODMap (Open Data Mapping) and NESSIE (A Network-based Environment Supporting Spatial Information Exploration). In particular, ODMap supports citizens in searching and accessing OGD from several web sites. NESSIE organizes data captured from real estate agencies and public agencies (i.e. municipalities, cadastral offices and chambers of commerce) in order to provide citizens with a geographic representation of real estate offers and relevant statistics about the price trend

Service architecting and dynamic composition in pervasive smart ecosystems for the Internet of things based on sensor network technology

Why pervasive awareness and Ambient Intelligence are perceived by a great part of the academia and industry as a massive revolution in the short-term? In our best knowledge, a cornerstone of this thought is based on the fact that the ultimate nature of the smart environment paradigm is not in the technology itself, but on a people-centered approach. Perhaps, is in this apparently simple conception where precisely lies the boldness of this promising vision, which has been consolidated in recent years with the emerging proliferation of mobile, personal, portable, wearable and sensory computing: to reach everyone and everywhere. On the one hand, it touches our daily lives in a close manner, minimizing the required attention from the users, anticipating to their needs with the main intention of redefining our idea of Quality of Experience. On the other hand, this new wave impacts everywhere at both global and personal scales allowing expanded connectivity between devices and smart objects, in a dynamic and ubiquitous manner, as a natural extension of the physical world around us. According to the above, this doctoral dissertation focuses on contributing to the integration of software and networking engineering advances in the field of pervasive smart spaces and environment using sensor networks. This is founded on the convergence of some information technology and computer science paradigms, such as service and agent orientation, semantic technologies and knowledge management in the framework of pervasive computing and the Internet of Things. To this end, the nSOM (nano Service-Oriented Middleware) and nSOL (nano Semantics-Oriented Language) approaches are presented. Firstly, the nSOM proposal defines a service-oriented platform for the implementation, deployment and exposure of agent-based in-network services to the Internet cloud on heterogeneous sensor devices. Secondly, the nSOL solution enables an abstraction for supporting ubiquitous service composition based on semantic knowledge management. The integration of both contributions leads to the formal modelling and practical development of adaptive virtual sensor services for pervasive Ambient Intelligence ecosystems. This work includes also the related performance characterization of the resulting prototype according to several metrics such as code size, volatile memory footprint, CPU overhead, service time delay and battery lifetime. Main foundations and outcomes presented in this essay are contextualized in the following European Research Projects: μSWN (FP6 code: IST-034642), DiYSE (ITEA2 code: 08005) and LifeWear (ITEA2 code: 09026). --------------------¿Por qué la sensibilidad ubicua y la inteligencia ambiental son percibidas por una gran parte de las comunidades académica e industrial como una revolución masiva en el corto plazo? En nuestra opinión, una piedra angular de este pensamiento es el hecho de que la naturaleza última del paradigma de entornos inteligentes no reside en la tecnología en sí misma, sino en una aproximación centrada en las personas. Y es quizá en esta aparente simple concepción donde se halla precisamente el atrevimiento de esta prometedora visión, consolidada en los últimos años con la emergente proliferación de la computación móvil, personal, portable, llevable y sensorial: llegar a todos y a todas partes. Por un lado, esta alcanza nuestras vidas de una manera cercana, minimizando la atención requerida por los usuarios, anticipándose a sus necesidades con el objetivo de redefinir nuestra idea de calidad de experiencia. Por otro lado, esta impacta en todas partes tanto a escala global como personal, con una conectividad expandida entre dispositivos y objetos inteligentes, de un modo ubicuo y dinámico, como una extensión natural del mundo que nos rodea. Conforme a lo anterior, esta tesis doctoral se centra en contribuir en la integración de los avances de ingeniería de redes y software en el ámbito de los espacios y entornos inteligentes ubicuos basados en redes de sensores. Esto se fundamenta en la convergencia de diversos paradigmas de las tecnologías de la información y ciencia de la computación, tales como orientación a servicios y agentes, tecnologías semánticas y de gestión del conocimiento en el contento de la computación ubicua en la Internet de las Cosas. Para este fin, se presentan las aproximaciones nSOM (nano Service-Oriented Middleware) y nSOL (nano Semantics-Oriented Language). En primer lugar, nSOM define una plataforma orientada a servicios para la implementación, despliegue y exposición a la nube de servicios basados en agentes e implementados en red sobre dispositivos heterogéneos de sensores. En segundo lugar, nSOL habilita una abstracción para proporcionar composición ubicua de servicios basada en gestión semántica del conocimiento. La integración de ambas contribuciones conduce a un modelado formal y de implementación práctica de servicios de sensor virtual adaptativos para ecosistemas de inteligencia ambiental. Este trabajo incluye la caracterización del rendimiento del prototipo resultante, basándonos para ello en métricas tales como tamaño de código, tamaño de memoria volátil, sobrecarga de procesamiento, retardo en tiempo de servicio y autonomía de baterías. Los principales fundamentos y resultados discutidos en este ensayo están contextualizados en los siguientes Proyectos de Investigación Europeos: μSWN (FP6 código: IST-034642), DiYSE (ITEA2 código: 08005) y LifeWear (ITEA2 código: 09026).Presidente: Juan Ramón Velasco Pérez; Vocal: Juan Carlos Dueñas; Secretario: Mario Muñoz Organer