Progressive Ontology Alignment for Meaning Coordination: an Information-Theoretic Foundation

We elaborate on the mathematical foundations of the meaning coordination problem that agents face in open environments. We investigate to which extend the Barwise-Seligman theory of information flow provides a faithful theoretical description of the partial semantic integration that two agents achieve as they progressively align their underlying ontologies through the sharing of tokens, such as instances. We also discuss the insights and practical implications of the Barwise-Seligman theory with respect to the general meaning coordination proble

The Information-Flow Approach to Ontology-Based Semantic Integration

In this article we argue for the lack of formal foundations for ontology-based semantic alignment. We analyse and formalise the basic notions of semantic matching and alignment and we situate them in the context of ontology-based alignment in open-ended and distributed environments, like the Web. We then use the mathematical notion of information flow in a distributed system to ground three hypotheses that enable semantic alignment. We draw our exemplar applications of this work from a variety of interoperability scenarios including ontology mapping, theory of semantic interoperability, progressive ontology alignment, and situated semantic alignment

Modelling Requirements for Content Recommendation Systems

This paper addresses the modelling of requirements for a content Recommendation System (RS) for Online Social Networks (OSNs). On OSNs, a user switches roles constantly between content generator and content receiver. The goals and softgoals are different when the user is generating a post, as opposed as replying to a post. In other words, the user is generating instances of different entities, depending on the role she has: a generator generates instances of a "post", while the receiver generates instances of a "reply". Therefore, we believe that when addressing Requirements Engineering (RE) for RS, it is necessary to distinguish these roles clearly. We aim to model an essential dynamic on OSN, namely that when a user creates (posts) content, other users can ignore that content, or themselves start generating new content in reply, or react to the initial posting. This dynamic is key to designing OSNs, because it influences how active users are, and how attractive the OSN is for existing, and to new users. We apply a well-known Goal Oriented RE (GORE) technique, namely i-star, and show that this language fails to capture this dynamic, and thus cannot be used alone to model the problem domain. Hence, in order to represent this dynamic, its relationships to other OSNs' requirements, and to capture all relevant information, we suggest using another modelling language, namely Petri Nets, on top of i-star for the modelling of the problem domain. We use Petri Nets because it is a tool that is used to simulate the dynamic and concurrent activities of a system and can be used by both practitioners and theoreticians.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

A formal foundation for ontology alignment interaction models

Ontology alignment foundations are hard to find in the literature. The abstract nature of the topic and the diverse means of practice makes it difficult to capture it in a universal formal foundation. We argue that such a lack of formality hinders further development and convergence of practices, and in particular, prevents us from achieving greater levels of automation. In this article we present a formal foundation for ontology alignment that is based on interaction models between heterogeneous agents on the Semantic Web. We use the mathematical notion of information flow in a distributed system to ground our three hypotheses of enabling semantic interoperability and we use a motivating example throughout the article: how to progressively align two ontologies of research quality assessment through meaning coordination. We conclude the article with the presentation---in an executable specification language---of such an ontology-alignment interaction model

Institutionalising Ontology-Based Semantic Integration

We address what is still a scarcity of general mathematical foundations for ontology-based semantic integration underlying current knowledge engineering methodologies in decentralised and distributed environments. After recalling the first-order ontology-based approach to semantic integration and a formalisation of ontological commitment, we propose a general theory that uses a syntax-and interpretation-independent formulation of language, ontology, and ontological commitment in terms of institutions. We claim that our formalisation generalises the intuitive notion of ontology-based semantic integration while retaining its basic insight, and we apply it for eliciting and hence comparing various increasingly complex notions of semantic integration and ontological commitment based on differing understandings of semantics

Agreement Computing

[EN] In this paper we introduce the concept of Agreement Computing, motivate the central role that the concept of agreement plays in open software systems and discuss a number of research challenges that need to be addressed to make the agreement computing vision a reality.Research supported by the Agreement Technologies CONSOLIDER project under contract CSD2007-0022 and INGENIO 2010 and by the Agreement Technologies COST Action, IC0801.Sierra Garcia, C.; Botti Navarro, VJ.; Ossowski, DS. (2011). Agreement Computing. KI - Künstliche Intelligenz. 25(1):57-61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-010-0070-yS5761251Arcos JL, Esteva M, Noriega P, Rodríguez JA, Sierra C (2005) Engineering open environments with electronic institutions. Eng Appl Artif Intell 18(2):191–204Boella G, Noriega P, Pigozzi G, Verhagen H (2009) In: Dagstuhl seminar proceedings 09121: normative multi-agent systems.Henrik G, Wright V (1963) Norm and action, a logical enquiry. Routledge and Kegan Paul, LondonHermenegildo M, Albert E, López-García P, Puebla G (2005) Abstraction carrying code and resource-awareness. In: Principle and practice of declarative programming. ACM Press, New YorkJennings N, Faratin P, Lomuscio A, Parsons S, Sierra C, Wooldridge M (2001) Automated negotiation: prospects methods and challenges. Group Decis Negot 10(2):199–215Jøsang A, Ismail R, Boyd C (2007) A survey of trust and reputation systems for online service provision. Decis Support Syst 43(2):618–644Kalfoglou Y, Schorlemmer M (2003) IF-Map: an ontology-mapping method based on information-flow theory. In: Spaccapietra S, March S, Aberer K (eds) Journal on data semantics I. Lecture notes in computer science, vol 2800. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 98–127Ko RKL, Lee SSG, Lee EW (2009) Business process management (bpm) standards: a survey. Bus Process Manag J 15(5):744–791Kraus S (1997) Negotiation and cooperation in multi-agent environments. Artif Intell 94(1–2):79–97March J (1996) A preface to understanding how decisions happen in organizations. In: Organizational decision-making, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeNecula GC, Lee P (1996) Proof-carrying code. Tech repRoss A (1968) Directives and norms. Humanities, Atlantic HighlandsSierra C, Debenham J (2006) Trust and honour in information-based agency. In: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems. ACM Press, New York, pp 1225–1232Simon HA Administrative behavior. Free Press (1997)Vasirani M, Ossowski S (2009) A market-inspired approach to reservation-based urban road traffic management. In: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems, IFAAMAS, pp. 617–62

WEB SEMANTICS DATA

Data Semantics is a wide area that continuously faces new challenges arising from the invention of new infor- mation formats and novel applications. An area that is partic- ularly challenging with respect to identifying, representing and using data semantics is the Web. This paper attempts to characterize the nature and challenges of Data Semantics on the Web as an interesting research area to be covered by the Journal on Data Semantics

Towards a Business Process Quality Culture: From High-Level Guidelines to Grassroots Actions

We present an information systems development (ISD) approach to integrate quality culture in business processes. Action research is our mode of inquiry and a company from the food industry provides the setting. Food production involves auditing throughout the supply chain and a demanding information system, with numerous goals and rules grounded on the organizational policies and values. However, there is a lack of holistic process-oriented approaches to leverage a quality culture. This paper provides a contribution, with the ISO2 approach, offering a set of artifacts to support the ISD lifecycle. An audit from a food retail group confirmed the positive outcome of its use, internalizing quality principles while developing the IS, and it is planning to suggest its adoption by their network of food suppliers

Significance of Semantic Reconciliation in Digital Forensics

Digital forensics (DF) is a growing field that is gaining popularity among many computer professionals, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders who must always cooperate in this profession. Unfortunately, this has created an environment replete with semantic disparities within the domain that needs to be resolved and/or eliminated. For the purpose of this study, semantic disparity refers to disagreements about the meaning, interpretation, descriptions and the intended use of the same or related data and terminologies. If semantic disparity is not detected and resolved, it may lead to misunderstandings. Even worse, since the people involved may not be from the same neighbourhood, they may not be aware of the existence of the semantic disparities, and probably might not easily realize it. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to discuss semantic disparity in DF and further elaborates on how to manage it. In addition, this paper also presents the significance of semantic reconciliation in DF. Semantic reconciliation refers to reconciling the meaning (including the interpretations and descriptions) of terminologies and data used in digital forensics. Managing semantic disparities and the significance of semantic reconciliation in digital forensics constitutes the main contributions of this paper. Keywords: Digital forensics, semantic disparity, managing semantic disparity, semantic reconciliation, significance of semantic reconciliatio

Ontology mapping using description logic and bridging axioms

In the last decade various proposals have been made to promote fruitful and efficient collaboration among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the form of virtual enterprises (VEs). The success of VEs depends on seamless interoperability of knowledge and data sharing. Ontology implementation is becoming an essential and successful tool for VE operation but commonly ontology mapping is also required to achieve interoperability. The current state of the art in ontology mapping indicates that mapping systems require a great deal of human intervention as mapping brings various types of conflicts and inconsistencies. The ontology mapping method proposed in this paper uses description logic (DL) based bridging axioms between the ontologies. Atomic concept level similarity has been taken as input to establish the complex concepts and roles level mapping. Manufacturing and marketing enterprise ontologies are considered and their mapping has been demonstrated as an example of the proposed mapping process. © 2012 Elsevier B.V