Applying semantic web services to enterprise web

Enterprise Web provides a convenient, extendable, integrated platform for information sharing and knowledge management. However, it still has many drawbacks due to complexity and increasing information glut, as well as the heterogeneity of the information processed. Research in the field of Semantic Web Services has shown the possibility of adding higher level of semantic functionality onto the top of current Enterprise Web, enhancing usability and usefulness of resource, enabling decision support and automation. This paper aims to explore the use of Semantic Web Services in Enterprise Web and discuss the Semantic Web Services (SWS) approach for designing Enterprise Web applications. A Semantic Web Service oriented model is presented, in which resources and services are described by ontology, and processed through Semantic Web Service, allowing integrated administration, interoperability and automated reasoning

Ontology-based standards development: Application of OntoStanD to ebXML business process specification schema

Business-to-Business (B2B) interoperations are an important part of today's global economy. Business process standards are developed to provide a common understanding of the information shared between trading partners. These standards, however, mainly capture the syntax of the transactions and not their semantics. This paper proposes the use of ontologies as the basis for standards development and presents an ontology for the ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (ebBP) with the aim of empowering the capture and sharing of semantics embedded within B2B processes as well as enabling knowledge deduction and reasoning over the shared knowledge. The paper utilises the Ontology-based Standards Development methodology (OntoStanD) as a methodological approach for designing ontological models of standards. This research demonstrates how Semantic Web technologies can be utilised as a basis for standards development and representation in order to improve standards-based interoperability between trading partners

Supporting Semantically Enhanced Web Service Discovery for Enterprise Application Integration

The availability of sophisticated Web service discovery mechanisms is an essential prerequisite for increasing the levels of efficiency and automation in EAI. In this chapter, we present an approach for developing service registries building on the UDDI standard and offering semantically-enhanced publication and discovery capabilities in order to overcome some of the known limitations of conventional service registries. The approach aspires to promote efficiency in EAI in a number of ways, but primarily by automating the task of evaluating service integrability on the basis of the input and output messages that are defined in the Web service’s interface. The presented solution combines the use of three technology standards to meet its objectives: OWL-DL, for modelling service characteristics and performing fine-grained service matchmaking via DL reasoning, SAWSDL, for creating semantically annotated descriptions of service interfaces, and UDDI, for storing and retrieving syntactic and semantic information about services and service providers

Towards Seamless Product Structure Information Integration

Although B2B integration is nothing new, interoperability is still a big issue in product data communication. However new technologies are introduced and existing standards evolve to better support all operations to improve the situation. In this paper we introduce a product structure information exchange case from automotive supply chain. Current integration has proprietary XML interface between partners and the integration has constantly errors requiring manual checks for the incoming information and interface have been inflexible to changes in the systems. We review relevant technical and content standards to solve this case. The traditionally used message validation technologies such as DTD or XML Schema lack the expressive power to solve some problems and thus we present a practical case for new semantic web service technologies

Ontology-based information standards development

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Standards may be argued to be important enablers for achieving interoperability as they aim to provide unambiguous specifications for error-free exchange of documents and information. By implication, therefore, it is important to model and represent the concept of a standard in a clear, precise and unambiguous way. Although standards development organisations usually provide guidelines for the process of developing and approving standards, they are usually more concerned with administrative aspect of the process. As a consequence, the state-of-the-art lacks practical support for developing the structure and content of a standard specification. In short, there is no systematic development method currently available: (a) For developing the conceptual model underpinning a standard; and/or (b) to guide a group of stakeholders to develop a standard specification. Semantic interoperability is considered to be an essential factor for effective interoperation – the ability to achieve semantic interoperability effectively and efficiently being strongly equated with quality by some. Semantics require that the meaning of terms, their relationships and also the restrictions and rules in the standards should be clearly defined in the early stages of standard development and act as a basis for the latter stages. This research proposes that ontology can help standards developers and stakeholders to address the issues of improving conceptual models and providing a robust and shared understanding of the domain. This thesis presents OntoStanD, a comprehensive ontology-based standards development methodology, which utilises the best practices of the existing ontology creation methods. The potential value of OntoStanD is in providing a comprehensive, clear and unambiguous method for developing robust information standards, which are more test friendly and of higher quality. OntoStanD also facilitates standards conformance testing and change management, impacts interoperability and also assists in improved communication among the standards development team. Last, OntoStanD provides an approach that is repeatable, teachable and potentially general enough for creating any kinds of information standard.Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe Ltd, Google Anitaborg Memorial Scholarshi

Ontology-based information standards development

Standards may be argued to be important enablers for achieving interoperability as they aim to provide unambiguous specifications for error-free exchange of documents and information. By implication, therefore, it is important to model and represent the concept of a standard in a clear, precise and unambiguous way. Although standards development organisations usually provide guidelines for the process of developing and approving standards, they are usually more concerned with administrative aspect of the process. As a consequence, the state-of-the-art lacks practical support for developing the structure and content of a standard specification. In short, there is no systematic development method currently available: (a) For developing the conceptual model underpinning a standard; and/or (b) to guide a group of stakeholders to develop a standard specification. Semantic interoperability is considered to be an essential factor for effective interoperation – the ability to achieve semantic interoperability effectively and efficiently being strongly equated with quality by some. Semantics require that the meaning of terms, their relationships and also the restrictions and rules in the standards should be clearly defined in the early stages of standard development and act as a basis for the latter stages. This research proposes that ontology can help standards developers and stakeholders to address the issues of improving conceptual models and providing a robust and shared understanding of the domain. This thesis presents OntoStanD, a comprehensive ontology-based standards development methodology, which utilises the best practices of the existing ontology creation methods. The potential value of OntoStanD is in providing a comprehensive, clear and unambiguous method for developing robust information standards, which are more test friendly and of higher quality. OntoStanD also facilitates standards conformance testing and change management, impacts interoperability and also assists in improved communication among the standards development team. Last, OntoStanD provides an approach that is repeatable, teachable and potentially general enough for creating any kinds of information standard.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceFujitsu Laboratories of Europe LtdGoogle Anitaborg Memorial ScholarshipGBUnited Kingdo