Framework for the Analysis of the Adaptability, Extensibility, and Scalability of Semantic Information Integration and the Context Mediation Approach

Technological advances such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) have increased the feasibility and importance of effectively integrating information from an ever widening number of systems within and across enterprises. A key difficulty of achieving this goal comes from the pervasive heterogeneity in all levels of information systems. A robust solution to this problem needs to be adaptable, extensible, and scalable. In this paper, we identify the deficiencies of traditional semantic integration approaches. The COntext INterchange (COIN) approach overcomes these deficiencies by declaratively representing data semantics and using a mediator to create the necessary conversion programs from a small number of conversion rules. The capabilities of COIN is demonstrated using an example with 150 data sources, where COIN can automatically generate the over 22,000 conversion programs needed to enable semantic interoperability using only six parametizable conversion rules. This paper presents a framework for evaluating adaptability, extensibility, and scalability of semantic integration approaches. The application of the framework is demonstrated with a systematic evaluation of COIN and other commonly practiced approaches.This work has been supported, in part, by MITRE Corp., the MIT-MUST project, the Singapore-MIT Alliance, and Suruga Bank

MARCO ONTOLÓGICO PARA LA ESTRUCTURACIÓN SEMÁNTICA Y LA RECUPERACIÓN DE RECURSOS BIBLIOGRÁFICOS EMPLEANDO PROCESAMIENTO DEL LENGUAJE NATURAL

Resumen: El proyecto tiene como propósito crear un modelo ontológico que describa y relacione los elementos requeridos para el procesamiento del lenguaje natural en el dominio de las búsquedas bibliográficas semánticas. Esta propuesta será abordada como una investigación del tipo descriptiva bajo un enfoque mixto dado que se pretende describir de modo sistemático las características de un modelo que describe una problemática muy común que puede ser abordada desde una perspectiva tecnológica. Palabras clave: Recuperación de la información, web semántica, procesamiento de lenguaje natural

Reconciling Semantic Heterogeneity in Web Services Composition

Service Oriented Computing (SOC) is a popular computing paradigm for the development of distributed Web applications. Service composition, a key element of SOC, is severely hampered by various types of semantic heterogeneity among the services. In this paper, we address the various semantic differences from the context perspective and use a lightweight ontology to describe the concepts and their specializations. Atomic conversions between the contexts are implemented using XPath functions and external services. The correspondences between the syntactic service descriptions and the semantic concepts are established using a flexible, standard-compliant mechanism. Given the naive BPEL composition ignoring semantic differences, our reconciliation approach can automatically determine and reconcile the semantic differences. The mediated BPEL composition incorporates necessary conversions to convert the data exchanged between different services. Our solution has the desirable properties (e.g., adaptability, extensibility and scalability) and can significantly alleviate the reconciliation efforts for Web services composition.This work was partially supported by the MIT Sloan China Management Education Project and grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 60674080 and No. 60704027) and the National High-Tech R&D (863) Plan of China (No. 2007AA04Z150)

Aspectos de la Cultura Organizacional que Influencian el Proceso de Implantación de Sistemas de Información en las Organizaciones

En la presente Tesis de Investigación se documenta un modelo para categorizar y caracterizar los aspectos de la Cultura Organizacional que influencian el proceso de Implantación de Sistemas de Información en Organizaciones. Para el cumplimiento del objetivo descrito se estructura una investigación desde el enfoque cualitativo, el paradigma realista crítico y diferentes métodos que cohesionan y contrastan dos entornos: el primero, el contexto de trabajo con expertos en procesos que evidencian la relación Sistema de Información-Organización; el segundo, la participación directa de la autora en los procesos de implantación de tres sistemas organizacionales. La categorización y caracterización, de los aspectos de la Cultura Organizacional que tienen injerencia en la implantación de Sistemas de Información, resultan útiles a la hora de abarcar procesos donde las organizaciones tienen claridad frente a que los Sistemas de Información representan más que una aplicación de software.Abstract. The present document shows the categorization and characterization model of the Organizational Culture aspects that influences the Implantation process of Information Systems in organizations. To achieve the main goal of investigation it is structured a qualitative research that exhibits the critical realism paradigm and the methods that cohere and contrast two environments: the first one, the context that results working with experts in process that evidences the Information Systems-Organization relationship; the second one, the direct author participation in three organizational implantation processes. The categorization and the characterization, of the organizational culture aspects that influences the Information Systems implantation, are helpful when the organizations have the main clarity to visualize the Information Systems as more as a software application.Maestrí

Semantic adaptability for the systems interoperability

In the current global and competitive business context, it is essential that enterprises adapt their knowledge resources in order to smoothly interact and collaborate with others. However, due to the existent multiculturalism of people and enterprises, there are different representation views of business processes or products, even inside a same domain. Consequently, one of the main problems found in the interoperability between enterprise systems and applications is related to semantics. The integration and sharing of enterprises knowledge to build a common lexicon, plays an important role to the semantic adaptability of the information systems. The author proposes a framework to support the development of systems to manage dynamic semantic adaptability resolution. It allows different organisations to participate in a common knowledge base building, letting at the same time maintain their own views of the domain, without compromising the integration between them. Thus, systems are able to be aware of new knowledge, and have the capacity to learn from it and to manage its semantic interoperability in a dynamic and adaptable way. The author endorses the vision that in the near future, the semantic adaptability skills of the enterprise systems will be the booster to enterprises collaboration and the appearance of new business opportunities