Towards smart style : combining RDF semantics with XML document transformations

The 'Document Web' has established itself through the creation of an impressive family of XML and related languages. In addition to this, the 'Semantic Web' is developing its own family of languages based primarily on RDF. Although these families were both developed specifically for 'the Web', each language family has been developed from different premises with specific goals in mind. The result is that combining both families in a single application is surprisingly difficult. This is unfortunate, since the combination of semantic processing with document processing provides advantages in both directions --- namely using semantic inferencing for more intelligent document processing and using document processing tools for presenting semantic representations to an end-user. In this paper, we investigate this integration problem, focusing on the role of (RDF) semantics in selecting, structuring and styling (XML) content. We analyze the approaches taken by two example architectures and use our analysis to derive a more integrated alternative

Ontology selection: ontology evaluation on the real Semantic Web

The increasing number of ontologies on the Web and the appearance of large scale ontology repositories has brought the topic of ontology selection in the focus of the semantic web research agenda. Our view is that ontology evaluation is core to ontology selection and that, because ontology selection is performed in an open Web environment, it brings new challenges to ontology evaluation. Unfortunately, current research regards ontology selection and evaluation as two separate topics. Our goal in this paper is to explore how these two tasks relate. In particular, we are interested to get a better understanding of the ontology selection task and filter out the challenges that it brings to ontology evaluation. We discuss requirements posed by the open Web environment on ontology selection, we overview existing work on selection and point out future directions. Our major conclusion is that, even if selection methods still need further development, they have already brought novel approaches to ontology evaluatio

Ontology Services for Knowledge Organization Systems

Ontologies and other knowledge organization systems, such as controlled vocabularies, can be used to enhance the findability of information. By describing the contents of documents using a shared, harmonized terminology, information systems can provide efficient search and browsing functionalities for the contents. Explicit descriptive metadata aims to solve some of the prevailing issues in full text search in many search engines, including the processing of synonyms and homonyms. The use of ontologies as domain models enables the machine-processability of contents, semantic reasoning, information integration, and other intelligent ways of processing the data. The utilization of knowledge organization systems in content indexing and information retrieval can be facilitated by providing automated tools for their efficient use. This thesis studies and presents novel methods and systems for publishing and using knowledge organization systems as ontology services. The research is conducted by designing and evaluating prototype systems that support the use of ontologies in real-life use cases. The research follows the principles of the design science and action research methodologies. The presented ONKI system provides user interface components and application programming interfaces that can be integrated into external applications to enable ontology-based workflows. The features of the system are based on analyzing the needs of the main user groups of ontologies. The common functionalities identified in ontology-based workflows include concept search, browsing, and selection. The thesis presents the Linked Open Ontology cloud approach for managing and publishing a set of interlinked ontologies in an ontology service. The system enables the users to use multiple ontologies as a single, interoperable, cross-domain representation instead of individual ontologies. For facilitating the simultaneous use of ontologies published in different ontology repositories, the Normalized Ontology Repository approach is presented. As a use case of managing and publishing a semantically rich knowledge organization system as an ontology, the thesis presents the Taxon Meta-Ontology model for biological nomenclatures and classifications. The model supports the representation of changes and differing opinions of taxonomic concepts. The ONKI system and the ontologies developed using the methods presented in this thesis have been provided as a living lab service http://onki.fi, which has been run since 2008. The service provides tools and support for the users of ontologies, including content indexers, information searchers, ontology developers, and application developers.Ontologioita ja muita tietämyksen järjestämisen menetelmiä, kuten kontrolloituja sanastoja, voidaan käyttää tiedon löytämisen parantamiseksi. Kun dokumenttien sisällöt kuvaillaan käyttämällä jaettua, yhtenäistettyä terminologiaa, tietojärjestelmät voivat tarjota tehokkaita haku- ja selaustoiminnallisuuksia sisältöihin. Eksplisiittisesti esitetty, kuvaileva metatieto pyrkii ratkaisemaan monien hakukoneiden käyttämän kokotekstihaun ongelmia, kuten synonyymien ja homonyymien huomioimisen. Ontologioiden käyttäminen käsitemalleina mahdollistaa sisältöjen koneellisen käsittelyn, semanttisen päättelyn, tiedon integroinnin ja muita älykkäitä menetelmiä. Tietämyksen järjestämisen menetelmien hyödyntämistä sisältöjen indeksoinnissa ja haussa voidaan helpottaa tarjoamalla käyttäjille automatisoituja työkaluja niiden tehokkaaseen käyttämiseen. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan ja esitetään uudenlaisia menetelmiä ja järjestelmiä tietämyksen järjestämisen menetelmien julkaisemiseksi ontologiapalveluina. Tutkimus on toteutettu suunnittelemalla ja arvioimalla prototyyppijärjestelmiä, jotka edistävät ontologioiden käyttämistä todellisissa käyttötapauksissa. Tutkimus nojautuu suunnittelutieteen ja toimintatutkimuksen metodologioiden periaatteisiin. Työssä esitetty ONKI-järjestelmä tarjoaa käyttöliittymäkomponentteja ja ohjelmallisia rajapintoja, jotka voidaan integroida ulkoisiin sovelluksiin ontologiaperustaisten työnkulkujen mahdollistamiseksi. Järjestelmän ominaisuudet on toteutettu perustuen ontologioiden keskeisten käyttäjäryhmien tarpeiden selvittämiseen. Ontologiaperustaisista työnkuluista tunnistettuja yleisiä toiminnallisuuksia ovat käsitteen haku, selailu ja valinta. Tässä työssä esitetään linkitetyn avoimen ontologiapilven menetelmä toisiinsa linkitettyjen ontologioiden ylläpitämiseen ja julkaisemiseen ontologiapalvelussa. Järjestelmän avulla käyttäjät voivat käyttää useita ontologioita yhtenä, yhteentoimivana, alat yhdistävänä kokonaisuutena erillisten ontologioiden sijaan. Eri ontologiapalveluissa julkaistujen ontologioiden samanaikaisen käytön helpottamiseksi esitetään normalisoidun ontologiapalvelun menetelmä. Käyttötapauksena semanttisesti rikkaan tietämyksen järjestämisen menetelmän ylläpitämisestä ja julkaisemisesta työssä esitetään biologisten nimistöjen ja luokitusten taksonominen ontologiamalli. Malli mahdollistaa taksonomisten käsitteiden muutosten ja toisistaan poikkeavien näkemysten esittämisen. ONKI-järjestelmä ja työssä esitetyillä menetelmillä kehitetyt ontologiat ovat olleet käytettävissä living lab -palvelussa http://onki.fi, joka on ollut toiminnassa vuodesta 2008 lähtien. Palvelu tarjoaa työkaluja ja tukea ontologioiden käyttäjille, kuten tiedon indeksoijille, hakijoille, ontologioiden kehittäjille ja sovelluskehittäjille

An Indexation and Discovery Architecture for Semantic Web Services and its Application in Bioinformatics

Recently much research effort has been devoted to the discovery of relevant Web services. It is widely recognized that adding semantics to service description is the solution to this challenge. Web services with explicit semantic annotation are called Semantic Web Services (SWS). This research proposes an indexation and discovery architecture for SWS, together with a prototype application in the area of bioinformatics. In this approach, a SWS repository is created and maintained by crawling both ontology-oriented UDDI registries and Web sites that hosting SWS. For a given service request, the proposed system invokes the matching algorithm and a candidate set is returned with different degree of matching considered. This approach can add more flexibility to the current industry standards by offering more choices to both the service requesters and publishers. Also, the prototype developed in this research shows the value can be added by using SWS in application areas such as bioinformatics

Managing metadata in open learning repositories and P2P networks

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Ontology-based infrastructure for intelligent applications

Ontologies currently are a hot topic in the areas of knowledge management and enterprise application integration. In this thesis, we investigate how ontologies can also be used as an infrastructure for developing applications that intelligently support a user with various tasks. Based on recent developments in the area of the Semantic Web, we provide three major contributions. We introduce inference engines, which allow the execution of business logic that is specified in a declarative way, while putting strong emphasis on scalability and ease of use. Secondly, we suggest various solutions for interfacing applications that are developed under this new paradigm with existing IT infrastructure. This includes the first running solution, to our knowledge, for combining the emerging areas of the Semantic Web Services. Finally, we introduce a set of intelligent applications, which is built on top of onologies and Semantic Web standards, providing a proof of concept that the engineering effort can largely be based on standard components.Ontologien sind derzeit ein viel diskutiertes Thema in Bereichen wie Wissensmanagement oder Enterprise Application Integration. Diese Arbeit stellt dar, wie Ontologien als Infrastruktur zur Entwicklung neuartiger Applikationen verwendet werden können, die den User bei verschiedenen Arbeiten unterstützen. Aufbauend auf den im Rahmen des Semantischen Webs entstandenen Spezifikationen, werden drei wesentliche Beiträge geleistet. Zum einen stellen wir Inferenzmaschinen vor, die das Ausführen von deklarativ spezifizierter Applikationslogik erlauben, wobei besonderes Augenmerk auf die Skalierbarkeit gelegt wird. Zum anderen schlagen wir mehrere Lösungen zum Anschluss solcher Systeme an bestehende IT Infrastruktur vor. Dies beinhaltet den, unseres Wissens nach, ersten lauffähigen Prototyp der die beiden aufstrebenden Felder des Semantischen Webs und Web Services verbindet. Schließlich stellen wir einige intelligente Applikationen vor, die auf Ontologien basieren und somit großteils von Werkzeugen automatisch generiert werden können

Semantic Interoperability in Digital Library Systems

This report is a state-of-the-art overview of activities and research being undertaken in areas relating to semantic interoperability in digital library systems. It has been undertaken as part of the cluster activity of WP5: Knowledge Extraction and Semantic Interoperability (KESI). The authors and contributors draw on the research expertise and experience of a number of organisations (UKOLN, ICS-FORTH, NETLAB, TUC-MUSIC, University of Glamorgan) as well as several work-packages (WP5: Knowledge Extraction and Semantic Interoperability; WP3: Audio-Visual and Non-traditional Objects) within the DELOS2 NoE. In addition, a workshop was held [KESI Workshop Sept. 2004] (co-located with ECDL 2004) in order to provide a forum for the discussion of issues relevant to the topic of this report. We are grateful to those who participated in the forum and for their valuable comments, which have helped to shape this report. Definitions of interoperability, syntactic interoperability and semantic interoperability are presented noting that semantic interoperability is very much about matching concepts as a basis. The NSF Post Digital Libraries Futures Workshop: Wave of the Future [NSF Workshop] has identified semantic interoperability as being of primary importance in digital library research

International Conference on Computer Science and Communication Engineering

UBT Annual International Conference is the 8th international interdisciplinary peer reviewed conference which publishes works of the scientists as well as practitioners in the area where UBT is active in Education, Research and Development. The UBT aims to implement an integrated strategy to establish itself as an internationally competitive, research-intensive university, committed to the transfer of knowledge and the provision of a world-class education to the most talented students from all background. The main perspective of the conference is to connect the scientists and practitioners from different disciplines in the same place and make them be aware of the recent advancements in different research fields, and provide them with a unique forum to share their experiences. It is also the place to support the new academic staff for doing research and publish their work in international standard level. This conference consists of sub conferences in different fields like: – Computer Science and Communication Engineering– Management, Business and Economics– Mechatronics, System Engineering and Robotics– Energy Efficiency Engineering– Information Systems and Security– Architecture – Spatial Planning– Civil Engineering , Infrastructure and Environment– Law– Political Science– Journalism , Media and Communication– Food Science and Technology– Pharmaceutical and Natural Sciences– Design– Psychology– Education and Development– Fashion– Music– Art and Digital Media– Dentistry– Applied Medicine– Nursing This conference is the major scientific event of the UBT. It is organizing annually and always in cooperation with the partner universities from the region and Europe. We have to thank all Authors, partners, sponsors and also the conference organizing team making this event a real international scientific event. Edmond Hajrizi, President of UBTUBT – Higher Education Institutio