Financial Information Mediation: A Case Study of Standards Integration for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment Using the COIN Mediation Technology

Each player in the financial industry, each bank, stock exchange, government agency, or insurance company operates its own financial information system or systems. By its very nature, financial information, like the money that it represents, changes hands. Therefore the interoperation of financial information systems is the cornerstone of the financial services they support. E-services frameworks such as web services are an unprecedented opportunity for the flexible interoperation of financial systems. Naturally the critical economic role and the complexity of financial information led to the development of various standards. Yet standards alone are not the panacea: different groups of players use different standards or different interpretations of the same standard. We believe that the solution lies in the convergence of flexible E-services such as web-services and semantically rich meta-data as promised by the semantic Web; then a mediation architecture can be used for the documentation, identification, and resolution of semantic conflicts arising from the interoperation of heterogeneous financial services. In this paper we illustrate the nature of the problem in the Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) industry and the viability of the solution we propose. We describe and analyze the integration of services using four different formats: the IFX, OFX and SWIFT standards, and an example proprietary format. To accomplish this integration we use the COntext INterchange (COIN) framework. The COIN architecture leverages a model of sources and receivers’ contexts in reference to a rich domain model or ontology for the description and resolution of semantic heterogeneity.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

The development and the use of clearing house server infrastructure for gis interoperabilty

Rapid development of internet technology allows more spatial and tabular data available and accessible publicly. But those data can not be utilized directly due to the differences in data acquisition techniques, data definition and their semantic meaning. This situation reveals the need of interoperable GIS to support seamless information sharing. This is the future GIS architecture that may increase the reusability of available spatial datasets and reduce data acquisition cost. Under the whole framework of the on going research has identified four components (modules) to support the application of GJS interoperability. This paper discusses the development and the use of clearinghouse component (module) to facilitate end users to search, locate and retrieve the required spatial information or meta data from different organization at different time and places. This allows making further enquire about particular spatial data-information. The detail discussions on GIS Interoperability model as well as the development of architecture of these clearinghouse servers are given. The development of clearing house server employs an open sources approach and open file format. In this regards, fully available source code allows modification and customization without licensing restrictions

A Framework for Semantic Interoperability for Distributed Geospatial Repositories

Interoperable access of geospatial information across disparate geospatial applications has become essential. Geospatial data are highly heterogeneous -- the heterogeneity arises both at the syntactic and semantic levels. Finding and accessing appropriate data in such a distributed environment is an important research issue. The paper proposes a methodology for interoperable access of geospatial information based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specified standards. An architecture for integrating diverse geospatial data repositories has been proposed using service-based methodology. The semantic issues for discovery and retrieval of geospatial data over distributed geospatial services have also been proposed in the paper. The proposed architecture utilizes the ontological concepts for service description and subsequent discovery of services. An approach for semantic similarity assessment of geospatial services has been discussed

Ontological View-driven Semantic Integration in Open Environments

In an open computing environment, such as the World Wide Web or an enterprise Intranet, various information systems are expected to work together to support information exchange, processing, and integration. However, information systems are usually built by different people, at different times, to fulfil different requirements and goals. Consequently, in the absence of an architectural framework for information integration geared toward semantic integration, there are widely varying viewpoints and assumptions regarding what is essentially the same subject. Therefore, communication among the components supporting various applications is not possible without at least some translation. This problem, however, is much more than a simple agreement on tags or mappings between roughly equivalent sets of tags in related standards. Industry-wide initiatives and academic studies have shown that complex representation issues can arise. To deal with these issues, a deep understanding and appropriate treatment of semantic integration is needed. Ontology is an important and widely accepted approach for semantic integration. However, usually there are no explicit ontologies with information systems. Rather, the associated semantics are implied within the supporting information model. It reflects a specific view of the conceptualization that is implicitly defining an ontological view. This research proposes to adopt ontological views to facilitate semantic integration for information systems in open environments. It proposes a theoretical foundation of ontological views, practical assumptions, and related solutions for research issues. The proposed solutions mainly focus on three aspects: the architecture of a semantic integration enabled environment, ontological view modeling and representation, and semantic equivalence relationship discovery. The solutions are applied to the collaborative intelligence project for the collaborative promotion / advertisement domain. Various quality aspects of the solutions are evaluated and future directions of the research are discussed

An Approach for Service Oriented Discovery and Retrieval of Spatial Data

ABSTRACT Successful information integration and sharing data across disparate systems and designs are required for fast access to and interpretation of many types of geospatial information. Spatial data are highly heterogeneous -not only they differ from data representation and storage methods, but they also differ in the way of querying the data. Finding and accessing spatial data in an environment like this is a crucial task. Enterprise geographic information system (E-GIS) is an organization-wide approach to GIS implementation, operation, and management. The main focus of the paper is to integrate diverse spatial data repositories for geographic applications using service-based methodology. We have adopted service-oriented architecture (SOA) for the discovery and retrieval of geospatial data. The architecture uses a central ontology as metadata information, which acts as service broker. Ontology-based discovery and retrieval of geographic data solves the problem of semantic heterogeneity, the major bottleneck for spatial interoperability. The implementation is in compliant with the Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS), the web service standards proposed by OGC. The need for loosely coupled service-based access of data in the spatial domain has been exploited. A query processing mechanism in distributed environment of spatial data sources has been discussed at the end. The proposed system has been implemented and fully tested

Model-Driven Semantic Web Rule Engineering

The tutorial was given at the Conference Center of Fairmount Spring Hotel in Banff on the 10th of May, 2007 and the tutorial was scheduled for the main conference program. We approximately had 60 participants. The overall impressions of all participants were very positive about the quality of the tutorial and the information presented. Many participants stressed that they especially like how we combined three different areas (i.e., MDE, Semantic Web, and service-oriented architectures) in a very consistent and informative way, so that they were able to grasp a completely-new perspective on how these area could be combined and practically used. Our approach was especially appreciated by participants coming from industrial settings, who like the way we tried to combine novel and not widely adopted Semantic Web technologies with well-known software engineering techniques. However, our impression was that the next editions of the tutorial to be submitted to other conferences could slightly be updated, so that we can put less emphasis on the fundamental technologies (e.g., ontologies and metamodeling) and more focus on semantic service-oriented architectures and Web applications. This is due to the fact that tutorials should always have strong analysis on how some novel technologies can be transferred to industrial setting. Of course, this also depends on the conference where we are going to present the tutorial, since different research communities have different background knowledge, and thus they need more emphasis on different background knowledge, which decreases the time we can spend on advance applications. Moreover, even the audience from the same community does not have the same background knowledge and tutorial presenters should always make some trade-offs. Our plan is to revise the tutorial accordingly and submit it to other conferences such as International Semantic Web Conference and International Conference on Software Engineering. In addition to new tutorial editions, we also plan to write a paper that will be covering the tutorial subject. That paper will be submitted to an international journal such as ACM Computing Surveys and Knowledge Engineering Reviews or as a book chapter to an edited book. We hope that this paper will not only be a suitable lecture note, but it could be a relevant visionary paper for the future development of this area of integration of Semantic Web technologies into software development process. I am also happy to report that Dr. Marco Brambilla of Politecnico di Milano, who is a member of the well-known WebML research group and leading Web engineering company (WebRatio), expressed his wish to collaborate with us in the future tutorial editions and the work on the future papers covering the tutorial subject. On the grounds of the subject of this tutorial, I have already submitted a project proposal in collaboration with Prof. Marek Hatala and TELUS Communications for a NSERC strategic project grant in April 2007. This project proposal is also fully coordinated with the European consortia led by Prof. Gerd Wagner that also submitted a project proposal to EU commission for a grant within Framework Program 7. In addition, Dr. Brambilla is also very enthusiastic about setting up similar research collaboration in the future, and we made a plan on how to collaborate by trying to get involve our students to work on the subjects that are looking at the intersections of our research areas. At the conference, I had a contact with Mr. Ralf Gerstner of Springer who was the editor of the research monograph “Model-Driven Architecture and Ontology Development” where I was the led author. He invited me to write another book that will be covering the subject of this tutorial, as he was very positive about the high interest of the audience, rising importance of the subject and the feedback we got form the audience at the WWW2007. Our plan is that we should first proceed with the above-mentioned paper and also produce some more research experiments with the technology till the end of this year, and then prepare a book proposal in early 2008. My personal plan is to try to develop a new computer science course at Athabasca University that will cover the subject of this tutorial as well as to revise some of the existing ones (e.g., COMP 603 and COMP 610) that can benefit from the expertise in this area. I anticipate that the experience obtained at the WWW2007 conference will be used as a very good input for increasing the quality of that new course and potentially increase competitiveness of Athabasca University’s courses by offering challenging research subjects that are attracting a high attention of industry and which we explore collaboratively with world leading researchers. Thanks to the research reputation and presentation experience in the area covered in the tutorial, I am invited to give 3 technology lectures (2 hours altogether) at the 2nd Summer School on Generative Transformational Technologies in Software Engineering (GTTSE 2007) in Braga, Portugal from July 1st till July 7, 2007. Given that this event attracts the most renowned researchers giving talks (which will be excellent opportunity to share research experience, disseminate our research results, and collaborate with well-known researchers) and encouraged with the positive experience from WWW2007, I plan to apply for another A&PDF award to support my attendance at GTTSE 2007.Model Driven Engineering (MDE) and the Semantic Web represent two key technologies with a far-reaching vision for the future of software engineering and Web engineering. the main promise of MDE is to raise the level of abstraction from technology-platform-specific concepts to the higher levels of platform-independence and "computation-independent" modeling. The Semantic Web vision starts from another perspective: sharing data, resources and knowledge between parties that belong to different organizations, different cultures and/or different communities. Ontologies and rule play the main role in the Semantic Web for publishing community vocabularies and policies, for annotating resources and for turning Web applications into inference-enabled collaboration platforms. Although these two technology visions have been developed by two different communities, they share number of principles and goals, and there are important synergies that can be achie3ved by combining them with each other. The ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) standard (http://ontology.omg.org) by the OMG can be viewed as a first step towards bridging MDE and the Semantic Web. Another important building block is domain-specific modeling languages suitable for describing specific domains. MDE provides a set of principles and techniques how to create domain-specific modeling languages by using metamodeling, how to transform from one type of modeling language to another, and how to change level of abstractions (e.g., from platform-specific to platform-independent and back). The most well-known initiatives in this areas are the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) by the OMG and the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). The main goal of this tutorial is to give an introduction into state-of-the-art Web engineering methods based on the principles, models, and technologies of both MDE and the Semantic Web. The tutorial starts from the basics of the Semantic Web and MDE (e.g., ontology languages, modeling languages, mode transformations), and then explores how they can be employed in various states of Web engineering by addressing the following questions: 1) How can we develop ontologies and rules with MDE-based approaches and standards?, 2) How can we develop Semantic Web services that follow MDE recommendations?, 3) How we can build next generation Web applications that are taking advantage of both Semantic Web and MDE?Academic & Professional Development Fund (A&PDF

Framework for the semantic alignment of enterprise’s domain knowledge

Nowadays, the consumption of goods and services on the Internet are increasing in a constant motion. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) mostly from the traditional industry sectors are usually make business in weak and fragile market sectors, where customized products and services prevail. To survive and compete in the actual markets they have to readjust their business strategies by creating new manufacturing processes and establishing new business networks through new technological approaches. In order to compete with big enterprises, these partnerships aim the sharing of resources, knowledge and strategies to boost the sector’s business consolidation through the creation of dynamic manufacturing networks. To facilitate such demand, it is proposed the development of a centralized information system, which allows enterprises to select and create dynamic manufacturing networks that would have the capability to monitor all the manufacturing process, including the assembly, packaging and distribution phases. Even the networking partners that come from the same area have multi and heterogeneous representations of the same knowledge, denoting their own view of the domain. Thus, different conceptual, semantic, and consequently, diverse lexically knowledge representations may occur in the network, causing non-transparent sharing of information and interoperability inconsistencies. The creation of a framework supported by a tool that in a flexible way would enable the identification, classification and resolution of such semantic heterogeneities is required. This tool will support the network in the semantic mapping establishments, to facilitate the various enterprises information systems integration

Metadata-driven data integration

Cotutela: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya i Université Libre de Bruxelles, IT4BI-DC programme for the joint Ph.D. degree in computer science.Data has an undoubtable impact on society. Storing and processing large amounts of available data is currently one of the key success factors for an organization. Nonetheless, we are recently witnessing a change represented by huge and heterogeneous amounts of data. Indeed, 90% of the data in the world has been generated in the last two years. Thus, in order to carry on these data exploitation tasks, organizations must first perform data integration combining data from multiple sources to yield a unified view over them. Yet, the integration of massive and heterogeneous amounts of data requires revisiting the traditional integration assumptions to cope with the new requirements posed by such data-intensive settings. This PhD thesis aims to provide a novel framework for data integration in the context of data-intensive ecosystems, which entails dealing with vast amounts of heterogeneous data, from multiple sources and in their original format. To this end, we advocate for an integration process consisting of sequential activities governed by a semantic layer, implemented via a shared repository of metadata. From an stewardship perspective, this activities are the deployment of a data integration architecture, followed by the population of such shared metadata. From a data consumption perspective, the activities are virtual and materialized data integration, the former an exploratory task and the latter a consolidation one. Following the proposed framework, we focus on providing contributions to each of the four activities. We begin proposing a software reference architecture for semantic-aware data-intensive systems. Such architecture serves as a blueprint to deploy a stack of systems, its core being the metadata repository. Next, we propose a graph-based metadata model as formalism for metadata management. We focus on supporting schema and data source evolution, a predominant factor on the heterogeneous sources at hand. For virtual integration, we propose query rewriting algorithms that rely on the previously proposed metadata model. We additionally consider semantic heterogeneities in the data sources, which the proposed algorithms are capable of automatically resolving. Finally, the thesis focuses on the materialized integration activity, and to this end, proposes a method to select intermediate results to materialize in data-intensive flows. Overall, the results of this thesis serve as contribution to the field of data integration in contemporary data-intensive ecosystems.Les dades tenen un impacte indubtable en la societat. La capacitat d’emmagatzemar i processar grans quantitats de dades disponibles és avui en dia un dels factors claus per l’èxit d’una organització. No obstant, avui en dia estem presenciant un canvi representat per grans volums de dades heterogenis. En efecte, el 90% de les dades mundials han sigut generades en els últims dos anys. Per tal de dur a terme aquestes tasques d’explotació de dades, les organitzacions primer han de realitzar una integració de les dades, combinantles a partir de diferents fonts amb l’objectiu de tenir-ne una vista unificada d’elles. Per això, aquest fet requereix reconsiderar les assumpcions tradicionals en integració amb l’objectiu de lidiar amb els requisits imposats per aquests sistemes de tractament massiu de dades. Aquesta tesi doctoral té com a objectiu proporcional un nou marc de treball per a la integració de dades en el context de sistemes de tractament massiu de dades, el qual implica lidiar amb una gran quantitat de dades heterogènies, provinents de múltiples fonts i en el seu format original. Per això, proposem un procés d’integració compost d’una seqüència d’activitats governades per una capa semàntica, la qual és implementada a partir d’un repositori de metadades compartides. Des d’una perspectiva d’administració, aquestes activitats són el desplegament d’una arquitectura d’integració de dades, seguit per la inserció d’aquestes metadades compartides. Des d’una perspectiva de consum de dades, les activitats són la integració virtual i materialització de les dades, la primera sent una tasca exploratòria i la segona una de consolidació. Seguint el marc de treball proposat, ens centrem en proporcionar contribucions a cada una de les quatre activitats. La tesi inicia proposant una arquitectura de referència de software per a sistemes de tractament massiu de dades amb coneixement semàntic. Aquesta arquitectura serveix com a planell per a desplegar un conjunt de sistemes, sent el repositori de metadades al seu nucli. Posteriorment, proposem un model basat en grafs per a la gestió de metadades. Concretament, ens centrem en donar suport a l’evolució d’esquemes i fonts de dades, un dels factors predominants en les fonts de dades heterogènies considerades. Per a l’integració virtual, proposem algorismes de rescriptura de consultes que usen el model de metadades previament proposat. Com a afegitó, considerem heterogeneïtat semàntica en les fonts de dades, les quals els algorismes de rescriptura poden resoldre automàticament. Finalment, la tesi es centra en l’activitat d’integració materialitzada. Per això proposa un mètode per a seleccionar els resultats intermedis a materialitzar un fluxes de tractament intensiu de dades. En general, els resultats d’aquesta tesi serveixen com a contribució al camp d’integració de dades en els ecosistemes de tractament massiu de dades contemporanisLes données ont un impact indéniable sur la société. Le stockage et le traitement de grandes quantités de données disponibles constituent actuellement l’un des facteurs clés de succès d’une entreprise. Néanmoins, nous assistons récemment à un changement représenté par des quantités de données massives et hétérogènes. En effet, 90% des données dans le monde ont été générées au cours des deux dernières années. Ainsi, pour mener à bien ces tâches d’exploitation des données, les organisations doivent d’abord réaliser une intégration des données en combinant des données provenant de sources multiples pour obtenir une vue unifiée de ces dernières. Cependant, l’intégration de quantités de données massives et hétérogènes nécessite de revoir les hypothèses d’intégration traditionnelles afin de faire face aux nouvelles exigences posées par les systèmes de gestion de données massives. Cette thèse de doctorat a pour objectif de fournir un nouveau cadre pour l’intégration de données dans le contexte d’écosystèmes à forte intensité de données, ce qui implique de traiter de grandes quantités de données hétérogènes, provenant de sources multiples et dans leur format d’origine. À cette fin, nous préconisons un processus d’intégration constitué d’activités séquentielles régies par une couche sémantique, mise en oeuvre via un dépôt partagé de métadonnées. Du point de vue de la gestion, ces activités consistent à déployer une architecture d’intégration de données, suivies de la population de métadonnées partagées. Du point de vue de la consommation de données, les activités sont l’intégration de données virtuelle et matérialisée, la première étant une tâche exploratoire et la seconde, une tâche de consolidation. Conformément au cadre proposé, nous nous attachons à fournir des contributions à chacune des quatre activités. Nous commençons par proposer une architecture logicielle de référence pour les systèmes de gestion de données massives et à connaissance sémantique. Une telle architecture consiste en un schéma directeur pour le déploiement d’une pile de systèmes, le dépôt de métadonnées étant son composant principal. Ensuite, nous proposons un modèle de métadonnées basé sur des graphes comme formalisme pour la gestion des métadonnées. Nous mettons l’accent sur la prise en charge de l’évolution des schémas et des sources de données, facteur prédominant des sources hétérogènes sous-jacentes. Pour l’intégration virtuelle, nous proposons des algorithmes de réécriture de requêtes qui s’appuient sur le modèle de métadonnées proposé précédemment. Nous considérons en outre les hétérogénéités sémantiques dans les sources de données, que les algorithmes proposés sont capables de résoudre automatiquement. Enfin, la thèse se concentre sur l’activité d’intégration matérialisée et propose à cette fin une méthode de sélection de résultats intermédiaires à matérialiser dans des flux des données massives. Dans l’ensemble, les résultats de cette thèse constituent une contribution au domaine de l’intégration des données dans les écosystèmes contemporains de gestion de données massivesPostprint (published version