Community analysis through semantic rules and role composition derivation

Online communities provide a useful environment for web users to communicate and interact with other users by sharing their thoughts, ideas and opinions, and for resolving problems and issues. Companies and organisations now host online communities in order to support their products and services. Given this investment such communities are required to remain healthy and flourish. The behaviour that users exhibit within online communities is associated with their actions and interactions with other community users while the role that a user assumes is the label associated with a given type of behaviour. The domination of one type of behaviour within an online community can impact upon its health, for example, it might be the case within a question-answering community that there is a large portion of expert users and very few users asking questions, thereby reducing the involvement of and the need for experts. Understanding how the role composition - i.e. the distribution of users assuming different roles - of a community affects its health informs community managers with the early indicators of possible reductions or increases in community activity and how the community is expected to change. In this paper we present an approach to analyse communities based on their role compositions. We present a behaviour ontology that captures user behaviour within a given context (i.e. time period and community) and a semantic-rule based methodology to infer the role that a user has within a community based on his/her exhibited behaviour. We describe a method to tune roles for a given community-platform through the use of statistical clustering and discretisation of continuous feature values. We demonstrate the utility of our approach through role composition analyses of the SAP Community Network by: a) gauging the differences between communities, b) predicting community activity increase/decrease, and c) performing regression analysis of the post count within each community. Our findings indicate that communities on the SAP Community Network differ in terms of their average role percentages and experts, while being similar to one another in terms of the dominant role in each community - being a novice user. The findings also indicate that an increase in expert users who ask questions and initiate discussions was associated with increased community activity and that for 23 of the 25 communities analysed we were able to accurately detect a decrease in community activity using the community’s role composition

Web-oriented Event Processing

How can the Web be made situation-aware? Event processing is a suitable technology for gaining the necessary real-time results. The Web, however, has many users and many application domains. Thus, we developed multi-schema friendly data models allowing the re-use and mix from diverse users and application domains. Furthermore, our methods describe protocols to exchange events on the Web, algorithms to execute the language and to calculate access rights

Web-oriented Event Processing

How can the Web be made situation-aware? Event processing is a suitable technology for gaining the necessary real-time results. The Web, however, has many users and many application domains. Thus, we developed multi-schema friendly data models allowing the re-use and mix from diverse users and application domains. Furthermore, our methods describe protocols to exchange events on the Web, algorithms to execute the language and to calculate access rights

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

Electrospun carbon hybrid fibers as binder-free electrodes for electrochemical energy storage

There is a great need for the development and improvement of electrochemical energy storage devices for applications ranging from energy and power management to portable electronic devices. My work explores electrode materials for devices with higher energy storage capacity and rate handling, namely electrical double-layer capacitors, lithium-ion batteries, and sodium-ion batteries. To this end, I report the synthesis and properties of electrospun fiber mats composed of nanoporous carbon, transition metal oxide/carbon hybrid material, or silicon oxycarbide. Based on a comprehensive array of structural and chemical analysis and electrochemical benchmarking, this work evaluates the potential and drawbacks of electrospun materials as electrodes. Key findings demonstrate that electrospinning of molecular precursor is an attractive approach for the synthesis of carbon and hybrid fiber mats as free-standing electrodes. By following a one-pot synthesis approach, material properties such as phase composition, crystal structure, and phase distribution are well tuned to achieve the desired electrochemical properties. Compared to polymer-bound free-standing electrodes, the continuous fiber network yields a superior gravimetric electrochemical performance, related to the absence of additives and the continuous path for electron transport. However, the large interfiber space and low electrode density limit the usefulness of adopting electrospun fiber mats to size-sensitive applicationsMobile Anwendungen und Strommanagement erfordern verstärkt die Entwicklung verbesserter elektrochemischer Energiespeicher. Diese Dissertation erforscht vor diesem Hintergrund elektrogesponnene Fasern als hochleistungsfähige Elektroden für elektrische Doppelschichtkondensatoren, Lithium-Ionen-Batterien und Natrium-Ionen- Batterien. Hierzu kommen Fasern aus nanoporösen Kohlenstoff, Kohlenstoff/Metalloxid- Hybridmaterialien oder Siliziumoxykarbid zum Einsatz. Diese werden umfangreicher Materialanalyse und elektrochemischer Charakterisierung unterzogen um die Grenzen und Chancen für den Einsatz als Elektroden aufzuzeigen. Meine Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Elektrospinnen eine vielversprechende Methode ist um nanoskalige Fasermatten zu erzeugen, die direkt ohne weitere Beaufschlagung mit Leitadditiv oder Polymerbinder als Elektroden für elektrochemische Energiespeicher verwendet werden können. Durch die dargestellte one-pot Synthese können wichtige Eigenschaften wie Phasenzusammensetzung, Kristallstruktur und Phasenverteilung gezielt auf die gewünschten elektrochemischen Eigenschaften hin optimiert werden. Im Vergleich zu polymergebundenen freistehenden Elektroden liefert das hochvernetzte Fasernetzwerk eine höhere gravimetrische Leistung. Der große freie Raum zwischen den einzelnen Fasern führt jedoch zu einer geringen Leistung bezogen auf das Elektrodenvolumen, wodurch die Verwendung von Fasermatten als Elektroden für platzsensitive elektrochemische Energiespeicher eingeschränkt wird

Semantic web and semantic technologies to enhance innovation and technology watch processes

Innovation is a key process for Small and Medium Enterprises in order to survive and evolve in a competitive environment. Ideas and idea management are considered the basis for Innovation. Gathering data on how current technologies and competitors evolve is another key factor for companies' innovation. Therefore, this thesis focuses the application of Information and Communication Technologies and more specifically Semantic Web and Semantic Technologies on Idea Management Systems and Technology Watch Systems. Innovation and Technology Watch platform managers usually face many problems related with the data they collect and manage. Those managers have to deal with a large amount of information distributed in different platforms, not always interoperable among them. It is vital to share data between platforms so it can be converted into knowledge. Many of the tasks they perform are non productive and too much time and effort is expended on them. Moreover, Innovation process managers have difficulties in identifying why an idea contest has been successful. Our proposal is to analyze different Information and Communication Technologies that can assist companies with their Innovation and Technology Watch processes. Thus, we studied several Semantic and Web technologies, we build some conceptual models and tested them in different case studies to see the results achieved in real scenarios. The outcome of this thesis has been the creation of a solution architecture to enable interoperability among platforms and to ease the work of the process' managers. In this framework and to complement the architecture, two ontologies have been developed: (1) Gi2Mo Wave and (2) Mentions Ontology. On one hand, Gi2Mo Wave focused on annotating the background of idea contests, assisting on the analysis of the contests and easing its replication. On the other hand, Mentions Ontology focused on annotating the elements mentioned in plain text content, such as ideas or news items. That way, Mentions Ontology creates a way to link the related content, enabling the interoperability among content from different platforms. In order to test the architecture, a new web Idea Management System and a Technology Watch system have been also developed. The platforms incorporate semantic ontologies and tools to enable interoperability. We also demonstrate how Semantic Technologies reduce human workload by contributing on the automatic classification of content in the Technology Watch process. Finally, conclusions have been gathered according to the results achieved testing the used technologies, identifying the ones with best results.Berrikuntza prozesu oso garrantzitsu bat da Enpresa Txiki eta Ertainen lehiakor eta bizirik irauteko ingurumen lehiakor batean. Berrikuntza prozesuek ideiak eta ideien kudeaketa dituzte oinarri gisa. Teknologiek eta lehiakideek nola eboluzionatzen duten jakitzea ere garrantzitsua da enpresen berrikuntzarako, eta baita ere informazio hori kudeatzea. Beraz, Informazio eta Komunikazio sistemen aplikazioan oinarritzen da tesi hau, zehazkiago Web Semantika eta Teknologia Semantikoetan eta hauen aplikazioa Ideia Kudeaketa eta Zaintza Teknologikoko sistemetan. Berrikuntza eta Zaintza Teknologikoko plataformen kudeatzaileek arazo larriak izaten dituzte jasotako datuekin eta haien kudeaketarekin. Kudeatzaile horiek plataforma ezberdinetan banatutako informazio kantitate handi batekin topo egiten dute eta plataforma horiek ez dira beti elkar eraginkorrak. Beraz, beharrezkoa da plataforma ezberdinetako datuak elkarren artean partekatzea gero datu horiek “ezagutza” bihurtzeko. Gainera, kudeatzaileek egiten dituzten zeregin kopuru handi bat zeregin ez emankorrak dira, denbora eta esfortzu handia suposatzen dute baliozko ezer gehitu gabe. Eta ez hori bakarrik, berrikuntza prozesuko kudeatzaileek zail izaten dute ideia lehiaketen arrakastaren arrazoiak identifikatzen. Gure proposamena Informazio eta Komunikazio Teknologia ezberdinak frogatzea da enpresen berrikuntzako eta zaintza teknologikoko prozesuetan laguntzeko. Honela, hainbat teknologia semantiko eta web teknologia aztertu dira, modelo kontzeptual batzuk eraikitzen eta probatzen benetako erabilpen kasutan lortutako emaitzak konprobatzeko. Tesi honen lorpena plataformen arteko elkar eraginkortasuna ahalbidetzen duen eta prozesuen kudeatzaileen lana errazten duen modelo baten sorpena izan da. Horrela eta sortutako modeloa konplimentatzeko, bi ontologia sortu dira: (1) Gi2Mo- Wave eta (2) Mentions Ontology. Alde batetik, Gi2Mo-Wave ontologia ideien eta ideia lehiaketen testuinguruaren errepresentazio semantikoan oinarritu da. Horrela testuinguruaren analisia errazten da, ideia lehiaketa arrakastatsuak errepikatzea ere errazagoa eginez. Bestalde, Mentions-Ontology ontologia eduki ezberdinen (ideiak edo berriak adibidez) testuetan aipatutako elementuen errepresentazio semantikoan oinarritu da. Horrela, Mentions Ontology ontologiak edukia elkar konektatzeko era bat sortzen du, plataforma ezberdinen edukiaren arteko elkar eraginkortasuna ahalbidetzen. Modelo edo arkitektura hau frogatzeko, Ideia Kudeaketa Sistema eta Zaintza teknologikoko web plataforma berri batzuk garatu dira ere. Plataforma hauek tresna eta ontologia semantikoak dituzte txertatuta, beraien arteko elkar eraginkortasuna ahalbidetzeko. Gainera, teknologia semantikoen aplikazioarekin giza lan kargaren murrizketa nola gauzatu ere frogatzen dugu, Zaintza Teknologikoko edukiaren klasifikazio automatikoan ekarpenak eginez. Bukatzeko, konklusioak bildu dira erabili diren teknologien frogetatik jasotako emaitzetan oinarrituta eta emaitza onenak lortu dituztenak identifikatu dira.El proceso de Innovación es un proceso clave para la supervivencia y evolución de las Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas en un entorno competitivo. Las ideas y la gestión de ideas se consideran la base de la innovación. Recopilar datos sobre cómo evolucionan las actuales tecnologías y los competidores es otro factor clave para la innovación de las empresas. Por lo tanto, esta tesis se centra en la aplicación de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación, más concretamente la aplicación de Web Semántica y Tecnologías Semánticas en los Sistemas de Gestión de ideas y de Vigilancia Tecnológica. Los gestores de las plataformas de innovación y de vigilancia tecnológica se enfrentan a muchos problemas relacionados con los datos que recogen y gestionan. Esos gestores se enfrentan a una gran cantidad de información distribuida en diferentes plataformas, no siempre interoperables entre ellas. Es de vital importancia que las diferentes plataformas sean capaces de compartir datos entre ellas, de modo que esos datos puedan convertirse en el conocimiento. Muchas de las tareas realizadas por estos gestores son tareas no productivas y se invierte demasiado tiempo y esfuerzo en realizarlas. Además, los responsables de los procesos de innovación tienen dificultades para identificar por qué un concurso de ideas ha sido un éxito. Nuestra propuesta es analizar diferentes Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación que puedan ayudar a las empresas con sus procesos de Innovación y Vigilancia Tecnológica. Por ello, hemos estudiado varias tecnologías semánticas y Web, hemos desarrollado algunos modelos conceptuales y los hemos probado en diferentes casos de estudio para ver los resultados obtenidos en escenarios reales. El resultado de este trabajo ha sido la creación de una arquitectura que permite la interoperabilidad entre plataformas y que facilita el trabajo de los responsables de los procesos. En este marco, y para complementar la arquitectura, se han desarrollado dos ontologías: (1) Gi2Mo Wave y (2) Mentions Ontology. Gi2Mo Wave se centra en la anotación del contexto de los de ideas, ayudando en el análisis de los concursos y facilitando su replicación. Por otro lado, Mentions Ontology se centra en la anotación de los elementos mencionados en el texto plano de contenidos de diferente índole, como por ejemplo ideas o noticias. Así, Mentions Ontology crea una forma de encontrar relaciones entre contenidos, lo que permite la interoperabilidad entre los contenidos de diferentes plataformas. Con el fin de probar la arquitectura, también se han desarrollado dos plataformas: un Sistema de Gestión de Ideas y un Sistema de Vigilancia Tecnológica. Las plataformas incorporan ontologías semánticas y herramientas para permitir su interoperabilidad. Además, demostramos cómo reducir la carga de trabajo humana, mediante el uso de tecnologías semánticas para la clasificación automática del contenido del proceso de la Vigilancia Tecnológica. Por último, probando las tecnologías y herramientas se han recogido las conclusiones de acuerdo con los resultados obtenidos, identificando las que obtienen los mejores resultados

Semantically-enhanced recommendations in cultural heritage

In the Web 2.0 environment, institutes and organizations are starting to open up their previously isolated and heterogeneous collections in order to provide visitors with maximal access. Semantic Web technologies act as instrumental in integrating these rich collections of metadata by defining ontologies which accommodate different representation schemata and inconsistent naming conventions over the various vocabularies. Facing the large amount of metadata with complex semantic structures, it is becoming more and more important to support visitors with a proper selection and presentation of information. In this context, the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) funded the Cultural Heritage Information Personalization (CHIP) project in early 2005, as part of the Continuous Access to Cultural Heritage (CATCH) program in the Netherlands. It is a collaborative project between the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Eindhoven University of Technology and the Telematica Instituut. The problem statement that guides the research of this thesis is as follows: Can we support visitors with personalized access to semantically-enriched collections? To study this question, we chose cultural heritage (museums) as an application domain, and the semantically rich background knowledge about the museum collection provides a basis to our research. On top of it, we deployed user modeling and recommendation technologies in order to provide personalized services for museum visitors. Our main contributions are: (i) we developed an interactive rating dialog of artworks and art concepts for a quick instantiation of the CHIP user model, which is built as a specialization of FOAF and mapped to an existing event model ontology SEM; (ii) we proposed a hybrid recommendation algorithm, combining both explicit and implicit relations from the semantic structure of the collection. On the presentation level, we developed three tools for end-users: Art Recommender, Tour Wizard and Mobile Tour Guide. Following a user-centered design cycle, we performed a series of evaluations with museum visitors to test the effectiveness of recommendations using the rating dialog, different ways to build an optimal user model and the prediction accuracy of the hybrid algorithm. Chapter 1 introduces the research questions, our approaches and the outline of this thesis. Chapter 2 gives an overview of our work at the first stage. It includes (i) the semantic enrichment of the Rijksmuseum collection, which is mapped to three Getty vocabularies (ULAN, AAT, TGN) and the Iconclass thesaurus; (ii) the minimal user model ontology defined as a specialization of FOAF, which only stores user ratings at that time, (iii) the first implementation of the content-based recommendation algorithm in our first tool, the CHIP Art Recommender. Chapter 3 presents two other tools: Tour Wizard and Mobile Tour Guide. Based on the user's ratings, the Web-based Tour Wizard recommends museum tours consisting of recommended artworks that are currently available for museum exhibitions. The Mobile Tour Guide converts recommended tours to mobile devices (e.g. PDA) that can be used in the physical museum space. To connect users' various interactions with these tools, we made a conversion of the online user model stored in RDF into XML format which the mobile guide can parse, and in this way we keep the online and on-site user models dynamically synchronized. Chapter 4 presents the second generation of the Mobile Tour Guide with a real time routing system on different mobile devices (e.g. iPod). Compared with the first generation, it can adapt museum tours based on the user's ratings artworks and concepts, her/his current location in the physical museum and the coordinates of the artworks and rooms in the museum. In addition, we mapped the CHIP user model to an existing event model ontology SEM. Besides ratings, it can store additional user activities, such as following a tour and viewing artworks. Chapter 5 identifies a number of semantic relations within one vocabulary (e.g. a concept has a broader/narrower concept) and across multiple vocabularies (e.g. an artist is associated to an art style). We applied all these relations as well as the basic artwork features in content-based recommendations and compared all of them in terms of usefulness. This investigation also enables us to look at the combined use of artwork features and semantic relations in sequence and derive user navigation patterns. Chapter 6 defines the task of personalized recommendations and decomposes the task into a number of inference steps for ontology-based recommender systems, from a perspective of knowledge engineering. We proposed a hybrid approach combining both explicit and implicit recommendations. The explicit relations include artworks features and semantic relations with preliminary weights which are derived from the evaluation in Chapter 5. The implicit relations are built between art concepts based on instance-based ontology matching. Chapter 7 gives an example of reusing user interaction data generated by one application into another one for providing cross-application recommendations. In this example, user tagging about cultural events, gathered by iCITY, is used to enrich the user model for generating content-based recommendations in the CHIP Art Recommender. To realize full tagging interoperability, we investigated the problems that arise in mapping user tags to domain ontologies, and proposed additional mechanisms, such as the use of SKOS matching operators to deal with the possible mis-alignment of tags and domain-specific ontologies. We summarized to what extent the problem statement and each of the research questions are answered in Chapter 8. We also discussed a number of limitations in our research and looked ahead at what may follow as future work

An application framework for the systematic construction of multimedia-based Collaborative Complex Learning Resources

Aquest treball de tesi proposa aportar una infraestructura de programari per donar suport a nous tipus de metodologies i recursos d'aprenentatge col·laboratiu augmentats pedagògicament i a través d'una plataforma d'aplicació innovadora anomenada Plataforma de Virtualització de Sessions Col·laboratives (VCSF de l'angles Virtualized Collaborative Sessions Framework). El VCSF ajuda a satisfer els requisits pedagògics exigents de l'aprenentatge col·laboratiu en línia d’avui en dia, com ara augmentar la participació de l'estudiant i millorar el rendiment de l'aprenentatge durant la col·laboració. Al seu torn, l'aplicació sistemàtica de la plataforma VCSF, enriquida amb tecnologies semàntiques, permet als desenvolupadors d'e-learning aprofitar experiències d'aprenentatge col·laboratiu prèvies a través de la reutilització de programari, estalviant temps de desenvolupament i esforç. La plataforma ha sigut prototipada i provada amb èxit en entorns reals, el que demostra la capacitat de reutilització del programari i els beneficis pedagògics de l'enfocament VCSF.Este trabajo de tesis propone aportar una infraestructura de software para apoyar a nuevos tipos de metodologías y recursos de aprendizaje colaborativo aumentados pedagógicamente ya través de una plataforma de aplicación innovadora llamada Plataforma de Virtualización de Sesiones Colaborativa (VCSF del inglés Virtualized Collaborative Sessions Framework). El VCSF ayuda a satisfacer los requisitos pedagógicos exigentes del aprendizaje colaborativo en línea de hoy en día, tales como aumentar la participación del estudiante y mejorar el rendimiento del aprendizaje durante la colaboración. A su vez, la aplicación sistemática de la plataforma VCSF, enriquecida con tecnologías semánticas, permite a los desarrolladores de e-learning aprovechar experiencias de aprendizaje colaborativo previas a través de la reutilización de software, ahorrando tiempo de desarrollo y esfuerzo. La plataforma ha sido prototipada y probada con éxito en entornos reales, lo que demuestra la capacidad de reutilización del software y los beneficios pedagógicos del enfoque VCSF.This thesis project aims to provide a software infrastructure to support new types of pedagogically augmented collaborative learning methodologies and resources by means of an innovative application framework called Virtualized Collaborative Sessions Framework (VCSF). The VCSF helps meet challenging pedagogical requirements in online collaborative learning, such as increasing students' engagement and learning performance during the collaboration. In turn, the systematic application of the VCSF platform, enriched with semantic technologies, enables e-learning developers to leverage successful collaborative learning experiences through software reuse, saving in both development time and effort. The framework has been prototyped and successfully tested in real environments, thus showing the software reuse capability and the pedagogical benefits of the VCSF approach

Contextual Social Networking

The thesis centers around the multi-faceted research question of how contexts may be detected and derived that can be used for new context aware Social Networking services and for improving the usefulness of existing Social Networking services, giving rise to the notion of Contextual Social Networking. In a first foundational part, we characterize the closely related fields of Contextual-, Mobile-, and Decentralized Social Networking using different methods and focusing on different detailed aspects. A second part focuses on the question of how short-term and long-term social contexts as especially interesting forms of context for Social Networking may be derived. We focus on NLP based methods for the characterization of social relations as a typical form of long-term social contexts and on Mobile Social Signal Processing methods for deriving short-term social contexts on the basis of geometry of interaction and audio. We furthermore investigate, how personal social agents may combine such social context elements on various levels of abstraction. The third part discusses new and improved context aware Social Networking service concepts. We investigate special forms of awareness services, new forms of social information retrieval, social recommender systems, context aware privacy concepts and services and platforms supporting Open Innovation and creative processes. This version of the thesis does not contain the included publications because of copyrights of the journals etc. Contact in terms of the version with all included publications: Georg Groh, [email protected] zentrale Gegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die vielschichtige Frage, wie Kontexte detektiert und abgeleitet werden können, die dazu dienen können, neuartige kontextbewusste Social Networking Dienste zu schaffen und bestehende Dienste in ihrem Nutzwert zu verbessern. Die (noch nicht abgeschlossene) erfolgreiche Umsetzung dieses Programmes führt auf ein Konzept, das man als Contextual Social Networking bezeichnen kann. In einem grundlegenden ersten Teil werden die eng zusammenhängenden Gebiete Contextual Social Networking, Mobile Social Networking und Decentralized Social Networking mit verschiedenen Methoden und unter Fokussierung auf verschiedene Detail-Aspekte näher beleuchtet und in Zusammenhang gesetzt. Ein zweiter Teil behandelt die Frage, wie soziale Kurzzeit- und Langzeit-Kontexte als für das Social Networking besonders interessante Formen von Kontext gemessen und abgeleitet werden können. Ein Fokus liegt hierbei auf NLP Methoden zur Charakterisierung sozialer Beziehungen als einer typischen Form von sozialem Langzeit-Kontext. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt liegt auf Methoden aus dem Mobile Social Signal Processing zur Ableitung sinnvoller sozialer Kurzzeit-Kontexte auf der Basis von Interaktionsgeometrien und Audio-Daten. Es wird ferner untersucht, wie persönliche soziale Agenten Kontext-Elemente verschiedener Abstraktionsgrade miteinander kombinieren können. Der dritte Teil behandelt neuartige und verbesserte Konzepte für kontextbewusste Social Networking Dienste. Es werden spezielle Formen von Awareness Diensten, neue Formen von sozialem Information Retrieval, Konzepte für kontextbewusstes Privacy Management und Dienste und Plattformen zur Unterstützung von Open Innovation und Kreativität untersucht und vorgestellt. Diese Version der Habilitationsschrift enthält die inkludierten Publikationen zurVermeidung von Copyright-Verletzungen auf Seiten der Journals u.a. nicht. Kontakt in Bezug auf die Version mit allen inkludierten Publikationen: Georg Groh, [email protected]

Using semantic technologies to resolve heterogeneity issues in sustainability and disaster management knowledge bases

This thesis examines issues of semantic heterogeneity in the domains of sustainability indicators and disaster management. We propose a model that links two domains with the following logic. While disaster management implies a proper and efficient response to a risk that has materialised as a disaster, sustainability can be defined as the preparedness to unexpected situations by applying measurements such as sustainability indicators. As a step to this direction, we investigate how semantic technologies can tackle the issues of heterogeneity in the aforementioned domains. First, we consider approaches to resolve the heterogeneity issues of representing the key concepts of sustainability indicator sets. To develop a knowledge base, we apply the METHONTOLOGY approach to guide the construction of two ontology design candidates: generic and specic. Of the two, the generic design is more abstract, with fewer classes and properties. Documents describing two indicator systems - the Global Reporting Initiative and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - are used in the design of both candidate ontologies. We then evaluate both ontology designs using the ROMEO approach, to calculate their level of coverage against the seen indicators, as well as against an unseen third indicator set (the United Nations Statistics Division). We also show that use of existing structured approaches like METHONTOLOGY and ROMEO can reduce ambiguity in ontology design and evaluation for domain-level ontologies. It is concluded that where an ontology needs to be designed for both seen and unseen indicator systems, a generic and reusable design is preferable. Second, having addressed the heterogeneity issues at the data level of sustainability indicators in the first phase of the research, we then develop a software for a sustainability reporting framework - Circles of Sustainability - which provides two mechanisms for browsing heterogeneous sustainability indicator sets: a Tabular view and a Circular view. In particular, the generic design of ontology developed during the first phase of the research is applied to this software. Next, we evaluate the overall usefulness and ease of use for the presented software and the associated user interfaces by conducting a user study. The analysis of quantitative and qualitative results of the user study concludes that the Circular view is the preferred interface by most participants for browsing semantic heterogeneous indicators. Third, in the context of disaster management, we present a geotagger method for the OzCrisisTracker application that automatically detects and disambiguates the heterogeneity of georeferences mentioned in the tweets' content with three possibilities: definite, ambiguous and no-location. Our method semantically annotates the tweet components utilising existing and new ontologies. We also concluded that the accuracy of geographic focus of our geotagger is considerably higher than other systems. From a more general perspective the research contributions can be articulated as follows. The knowledge bases developed in this research have been applied to the two domain applications. The thesis therefore demonstrates how semantic technologies, such as ontology design patterns, browsing tools and geocoding, can untangle data representation and navigation issues of semantic heterogeneity in sustainability and disaster management domains