1,144 research outputs found
Issues about the Adoption of Formal Methods for Dependable Composition of Web Services
Web Services provide interoperable mechanisms for describing, locating and
invoking services over the Internet; composition further enables to build
complex services out of simpler ones for complex B2B applications. While
current studies on these topics are mostly focused - from the technical
viewpoint - on standards and protocols, this paper investigates the adoption of
formal methods, especially for composition. We logically classify and analyze
three different (but interconnected) kinds of important issues towards this
goal, namely foundations, verification and extensions. The aim of this work is
to individuate the proper questions on the adoption of formal methods for
dependable composition of Web Services, not necessarily to find the optimal
answers. Nevertheless, we still try to propose some tentative answers based on
our proposal for a composition calculus, which we hope can animate a proper
discussion
Context-Aware Modeling Using Semantic Web and Z Notation
Surveys in user context modeling have shown that the semantic web is one of
the promising approach to represent and structure the contextual information captured
from user’s surrounding environment in a context-aware application. A benefit of
using semantic web language is that it enables application to reason user contextual
information in order to get the knowledge of user’s behavior. However, regarding its
notation format, semantic web is suitable for implementation level or to be consumed
by application run-time.
Context-aware application is a part of distributed computing system. In distributed
computing system, the language used for specification should be distinguished from
the implementation / run-time purpose. This is known as separation of modeling language.
Regarding the context-aware application, for those who are concerned with
specification of context modeling, the language that is used for specification should
also be distinguished from the implementation one.
This thesis aims at proposing the use of formal specification technique to develop
a generic context ontology model of user’s behavior at the Computer and Information
Sciences Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. Initially, the context ontology
was written in OWL semantic web language. The further process is mapping onto
a formal specification language, i.e. onto Z notation. As a result, specification of context
ontology and its consistency checking have been developed and verified beyond
the semantic web language environment. An inconsistency of context model has been
detected during the verification of Z model, which cannot be revealed by current OWL
DL reasoner.
The context-aware designers might benefit from the formal specification of context
ontology, where the designers could fully use formal verification technique to check
the correctness of context ontology. Thus, the modeling approach in this thesis has
shown that it could complement the context ontology development process, where the
checking and refinement are performed beyond the semantic web reasone
Practical applications of multi-agent systems in electric power systems
The transformation of energy networks from passive to active systems requires the embedding of intelligence within the network. One suitable approach to integrating distributed intelligent systems is multi-agent systems technology, where components of functionality run as autonomous agents capable of interaction through messaging. This provides loose coupling between components that can benefit the complex systems envisioned for the smart grid. This paper reviews the key milestones of demonstrated agent systems in the power industry and considers which aspects of agent design must still be addressed for widespread application of agent technology to occur
Leveraging Semantic Web Technologies for Managing Resources in a Multi-Domain Infrastructure-as-a-Service Environment
This paper reports on experience with using semantically-enabled network
resource models to construct an operational multi-domain networked
infrastructure-as-a-service (NIaaS) testbed called ExoGENI, recently funded
through NSF's GENI project. A defining property of NIaaS is the deep
integration of network provisioning functions alongside the more common storage
and computation provisioning functions. Resource provider topologies and user
requests can be described using network resource models with common base
classes for fundamental cyber-resources (links, nodes, interfaces) specialized
via virtualization and adaptations between networking layers to specific
technologies.
This problem space gives rise to a number of application areas where semantic
web technologies become highly useful - common information models and resource
class hierarchies simplify resource descriptions from multiple providers,
pathfinding and topology embedding algorithms rely on query abstractions as
building blocks.
The paper describes how the semantic resource description models enable
ExoGENI to autonomously instantiate on-demand virtual topologies of virtual
machines provisioned from cloud providers and are linked by on-demand virtual
connections acquired from multiple autonomous network providers to serve a
variety of applications ranging from distributed system experiments to
high-performance computing
Data-driven agriculture for rural smallholdings
Spatial information science has a critical role to play in meeting the major challenges facing society in the coming decades, including feeding a population of 10 billion by 2050, addressing environmental degradation, and acting on climate change. Agriculture and agri-food value-chains, dependent on spatial information, are also central. Due to agriculture\u27s dual role as not only a producer of food, fibre and fuel, but also as a major land, water and energy consumer, agriculture is at the centre of both the food-water-energy-environment nexus and resource security debates. The recent confluence of a number of advances in data analytics, cloud computing, remote sensing, computer vision, robotic and drone platforms, and IoT sensors and networks have lead to a significant reduction in the cost of acquiring and processing data for decision support in the agricultural sector. When combined with cost-effective automation through development of swarm farming technologies, the technology has the potential to decouple productivity and cost efficiency from economies of size, reducing the need to increase farm size to remain economically viable. We argue that these pressures and opportunities are driving agricultural value-chains towards high-resolution data-driven decision-making, where even decisions made by small rural landowners can be data-driven. We survey recent innovations in data, especially focusing on sensor, spatial and data mining technologies with a view to their agricultural application; discuss economic feasibility for small farmers; and identify some technical challenges that need to be solved to reap the benefits. Flexibly composable information resources, coupled with sophisticated data sharing technologies, and machine learning with transparently embedded spatial and aspatial methods are all required
Practical semantics for the Internet of Things: Physical states, device mashups, and open questions
Abstract—The Internet of Things (IoT) envisions cross-domain applications that combine digital services with services provided by resource-constrained embedded devices that connect to the physical world. Such smart environments can comprise a large number of devices from various different vendors. This requires a high degree of decoupling and neither devices nor user agents can rely on a priori knowledge of service APIs. Semantic service descriptions are applicable to heterogeneous application domains due to their high level of abstraction and can enable auto-matic service composition. This paper shows how the RESTdesc description format and semantic reasoning can be applied to create Web-like mashups in smart environments. Our approach supports highly dynamic environments with resource-constrained IoT devices where services can become unavailable due to device mobility, limited energy, or network disruptions. The concepts are backed by a concrete system architecture whose implementation is publicly available. It is used to evaluate the semantics-based approach in a realistic IoT-related scenario. The results show that current reasoners are able to produce medium-sized IoT mashups, but struggle with state space explosion when physical states become part of the proofing process. I
- …