Interim research assessment 2003-2005 - Computer Science

This report primarily serves as a source of information for the 2007 Interim Research Assessment Committee for Computer Science at the three technical universities in the Netherlands. The report also provides information for others interested in our research activities

An Ontology-based Approach to Web Site Design and Development

Building a data-intensive web site is a complex task. Ad-hoc rapid prototyping approaches easily lead to unsatisfactory results, e. g. poor maintainability and extensibility. The situation becomes even more difficult when customization issues arise and web sites need to present customized views to individual users. To address this problem, a number of model-based approaches have been proposed, which attempt to simplify the design and development of data-intensive web sites. However these approaches suffer a number of limitations, such as relatively little support for the composition of sophisticated user interfaces and the specification of presentation styles and little support for customization design. In this work we propose and implement an ontology-based approach, OntoWeaver, which provides comprehensive support for the design and development of data-intensive web sites. In particular, OntoWeaver provides a set of ontologies to represent all aspects of data-intensive web sites in a declarative and re-usable format. The declarative nature of the specification of web sites opens up a number of possibilities with respect to intelligent analysis and management. Moreover, OntoWeaver includes providing high level support for developing customized web sites. Finally, it offers a powerful tool suite to support the design and development of data-intensive web sites. In the course of this research, we have also extended OntoWeaver by addressing the issue of integrating web service technology into a high level web site design framework

SWWS 2005 PC Co-chairs' Message

Welcome to the Proceedings of the first IFIP WG 2.12 & WG 12.4 International Workshop on Web Semantics (SWWS’05). This book reflects the issues raised and presented during the SWWS workshop which proves to be an interdisciplinary forum for subject matters involving the theory and practice of web semantics. A special session on Regulatory Ontologies has been organized to allow researcher of different backgrounds (such as Law, Business, Ontologies, artificial intelligence, philosophy, and lexical semantics) to meet and exchange ideas. This first year, a total of 35 papers were submitted to SWWS. Each submission was reviewed by at least two experts. The papers were judged according to their originality, validity, significance to theory and practice, readability and organization, and relevancy to the workshop topics and beyond. This resulted in the selection of 18 papers for presentation at the workshop and publication in this proceedings. We feel that these Proceedings will inspire further research and create an intense following. The Program Committee comprised: Aldo Gangemi, Amit Sheth, Androod Nikvesh, Mihaela Ulieru, Mohand-Said Hacid, Mukesh Mohania, Mustafa Jarrar, Nicola Guarino, Peter Spyns, Pieree Yves Schobbens, Qing Li, Radboud Winkels, Ramasamy Uthurusamy, Richard Benjamins, Rita Temmerman, Robert Meersman, Robert Tolksdorf, Said Tabet, Stefan Decker, Susan Urban, Tharam Dillon, Trevor Bench-Capon, Usuama Fayed, Valentina Tamma, Wil van der Aalst, York Sure, and Zahir Tari

Artefacts, Technicity and Humanisation industrial design and the problem of anoetic technologies

This thesis concerns the intellectual heritage and autonomy of West European and American industrial design as a discourse community at a moment when biotechnological developments are challenging the certainty of what it means to be human. Proceeding from the assumption that industrial design is an autonomous intellectual engagement played out through the interpretation of technology as an artefact, the thesis identifies how this is a critical moment for industrial designers, who appear to be unable to respond to a problem of the apparent disconnection and the progressive displacement of the human in reference to technology. The thesis identifies the cause of this as the understanding of the artefact, which has conventionally been placed at the centre of its analysis. The way that this has been constructed has not only impacted on design solutions but has led to a particular understanding of technology. It is this understanding of the artefact that has ceased to be sustainable and has precipitated the crisis. The thesis argues that, by revisiting the artefact as a mutable consequence of culture, it is possible to relieve the problem by opening up the scope for finding new methodological approaches. These can be used to develop design strategies that are sufficiently subtle and coherent in their terms to engage with the open complexity of future discussions of the distributed and enacted human

1995 BRAC Commission

Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Systems Design Center - Data Call 1994. Tabular data, memos, charts, graphs, documents. Box 144, L-072

Proceedings of the 11th Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning

These are the proceedings of the 11th Nonmonotonic Reasoning Workshop. The aim of this series is to bring together active researchers in the broad area of nonmonotonic reasoning, including belief revision, reasoning about actions, planning, logic programming, argumentation, causality, probabilistic and possibilistic approaches to KR, and other related topics. As part of the program of the 11th workshop, we have assessed the status of the field and discussed issues such as: Significant recent achievements in the theory and automation of NMR; Critical short and long term goals for NMR; Emerging new research directions in NMR; Practical applications of NMR; Significance of NMR to knowledge representation and AI in general

Housing quality and lost (public) space in Croatia

IN ENGLISH: In the post-socialist period and within the current social transition context, urban and rural Croatia has, just like other transition countries, experienced many changes in the social structure and space. One example is the housing quality which is a replica of the situation in the Croatian society and has also undergone some major changes. Socially oriented housing construction co-financed by the state and the cities is in an unfavourable position compared to private housing construction. In the last twenty years the amount of the social housing construction has been only a minor part of the total contruction work in the country. For instance, out of nine newly planned residential housing developments in Zagreb, the capital city, only three have been completed and the work on the rest of them has stopped and is unlikely to continue. Private construction work prevails especially on the edge of the city and is characterised by high density housing. This type of housing construction doesn't benefit the majority of citizens in search of accommodation (price per square meter is too high, low-quality building). There is also a big problem of the community facilities (primary and secondary infrastructure, schools, kindergartens, playgrounds, green areas, sidewalks, public transport etc.). The existing globalisation-transition circumstances of the Croatian society corroborate the fact which experts of various profiles often point out: ignoring the process of (urban) planning will irreparably damage the space. The city transformation shows the absence of comprehensive urban planning which results in an ever increasing number of random buildings which do not fit in the surroundings. This leads up to yet another important issue – the shrinking and, in some cases, disappearance of public space which becomes the “lost space“. In recent years there has been a lot of building in the city core and on the edge which does not quite fit in the existing urban structure, image or the skyline of the city. The current situation in the process of planning can be characterized as a conflict and imbalance between the powerful actors (mostly political and economic) and less powerful actors (mostly professional and civil). The actors who have the political power and influence and the ones who possess the capital are forming an “alliance” between two important layers of the social structure. The lack of civil and professional actors, “lost spatial actors”, and therefore of civic aggregation is also present and that is also the cause of public space “disappearance” and undermined process of public participation. --------------- IN CROATIAN: U postsocijalističkom razdoblju i trenutnom tranzicijskom kontekstu urbana i ruralna Hrvatska su, kao i ostale tranzicijske zemlje, doživjele mnoge promjene u društvenoj strukturi i samom prostoru. Na primjeru kvalitete stanovanja kao replike stanja u hrvatskom društvu mogu se vidjeti značajne promjene. Društveno usmjerena stambena izgradnja sufinancirana od strane države i gradova je stoga rjeđa i u nepovoljnijoj je situaciji prema privatnoj stanogradnji. Zadnjih dvadeset godina udjel socijalne stambene gradnje je zanemariv u ukupnoj izgradnji na razini zemlje. Primjerice, od devet planiranih stambenih naselja izgrađenih po modelu POS-a u Zagrebu samo su tri i završena. Na ostalima je proces gradnje zastao i ne čini se da će se privesti kraju. Privatna je gradnje prisutnija, posebno na rubovima grada, a obilježava je visoka gustoća gradnje. Ovakav tip gradnje ne odgovara većini stanovnika koji su u procesu potražnje stambene nekretnine (visoka cijena kvadratnog metra, a slaba kvaliteta gradnje). Postoji također i problem nedostatne opremljenosti susjedstva (primarna i sekundarna infrastruktura, škole, vrtići, igrališta, zelene površine, pješačke staze, javni transport itd.). Navedene globalizacijsko-tranzicijske okolnosti hrvatskog društva potvrđuju ono što eksperti različitih profila ističu, a to je da će ignoriranje procesa (urbanog) planiranja nepovratno uništiti prostor gradova. Ovakve transformacije pokazuju nedostatak sustavnog urbanog planiranja što rezultira sve većim brojem zgrada koje se ne uklapaju u neposrednu okolinu. To nadalje dovodi do drugog važnog aspekta – smanjivanja i u nekim slučajevima, nestanka javnog prostora koji postaje „izgubljeni prostor“. Posljednjih je godina izgrađen velik broj zgrada, i u središtu i na rubovima grada, koje se ne uklapaju u postojeću urbanu strukturu, izgled ili vizuru grada. Ovakvu situaciju obilježavaju sukob i neravnoteža između moćnijih društvenih aktera (većinom političkih i ekonomskih) i onih manje moćnih (većinom profesionalnih i civilnih). Politički i ekonomski akteri se često povezuju u „savez“ dvaju najjačih u društvenoj strukturi. S druge strane nedostatak utjecaja civilnih i profesionalnih aktera kao „izgubljenih prostornih aktera“ dovodi do „nestanka“ javnih prostora te smanjenja važnosti procesa participacije (sudjelovanja javnosti)