Ubiquitous Semantic Applications

As Semantic Web technology evolves many open areas emerge, which attract more research focus. In addition to quickly expanding Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud, various embeddable metadata formats (e.g. RDFa, microdata) are becoming more common. Corporations are already using existing Web of Data to create new technologies that were not possible before. Watson by IBM an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language can be a great example. On the other hand, ubiquitous devices that have a large number of sensors and integrated devices are becoming increasingly powerful and fully featured computing platforms in our pockets and homes. For many people smartphones and tablet computers have already replaced traditional computers as their window to the Internet and to the Web. Hence, the management and presentation of information that is useful to a user is a main requirement for today’s smartphones. And it is becoming extremely important to provide access to the emerging Web of Data from the ubiquitous devices. In this thesis we investigate how ubiquitous devices can interact with the Semantic Web. We discovered that there are five different approaches for bringing the Semantic Web to ubiquitous devices. We have outlined and discussed in detail existing challenges in implementing this approaches in section 1.2. We have described a conceptual framework for ubiquitous semantic applications in chapter 4. We distinguish three client approaches for accessing semantic data using ubiquitous devices depending on how much of the semantic data processing is performed on the device itself (thin, hybrid and fat clients). These are discussed in chapter 5 along with the solution to every related challenge. Two provider approaches (fat and hybrid) can be distinguished for exposing data from ubiquitous devices on the Semantic Web. These are discussed in chapter 6 along with the solution to every related challenge. We conclude our work with a discussion on each of the contributions of the thesis and propose future work for each of the discussed approach in chapter 7

An application of the OntoWiki technology to typification of buildings in Slovenia

There is a large number of existing buildings and new constructions in Slovenia, for which the owners don't know what energy properties their buildings are showing. In comparison to new constructions, the bigger problem are proving to be with existing buildings, where the problems are in obtaining information and details of the analysis for the calculation of these properties. The goal of the thesis was to design a web application which would be used by the general public that offers information about the energy performance of building, using the building typology.\ud \ud When designing the application, a key assumption was that the user supplies only information which is not already contained in existing public databases in order to facilitate the process of obtaining results. Precise details of buildings were obtained from the databases of the Geodetic Administration of the Republic of Slovenia. The obtained data were properly structured and a data model of buildings was designed, which the application offers to the user. A further procedure requires from the user only a basic description of the thermal building envelope. For example it is necessary to define the materials in structural elements of roof, wall and floor. Based on the data entered by the user and acquired from the model of buildings, the application seeks for a specific typical building, which is showing similar characteristics to the user one. We have made a thorough review of typical buildings from project Intelligent Energy Europe Tabula, which represents the latest building typology in Slovenia. The results of the project Tabula were used to design a specific procedure to search for a most appropriate typical building based on data specified by the user. This procedure takes into account the construction period of the building as well as building size. With all collected data, the building is first categorized in one of the six periods of construction and then on the basis of surfaces of structure elements and its heat transfer coefficient, seeks for the most similar typical building and assigns its energy indicators as a final result. We adapted the OntoWiki system to the algorithm requirements and made a prototype application. The last part of the thesis is a comparison of the actual data on delivered energy, derived from the E-TOOL, with results given by the application, with which we evaluated the nature of such allocation of energy indicators and gave reasons for the deviations.\u

Promoting health citizenship and multilingualism in the health insurance industry

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThe thesis explores the role of semiotic structuring of health information in relation to language, multimodality and health literacy and the affordances for agentive participation among consumers of two leading South African medical schemes - Discovery Health Medical Scheme (Discovery Health) and the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS). The focus is on who has access to health information, how this information is constructed and what the semiotic health habitat looks like for citizen-consumers. Through a virtual ethnographic approach the thesis explores the design of genres of health information artefacts: application forms, application guides, a comic book, and a variety of website images. The choice to study the commercial package of a private health industry is aimed at finding and defining codes of practice in health communication that could be replicable in the public health sector. A new perspective emerging out of the thesis is how semiotic structuring of style, stance-taking, and choice of registers affects reading positions, and how these determine with what voice citizenconsumers can engage with this information