Translating semantic web service based business process models

We describe a model-driven translation approach between Semantic Web Service based business process models in the context of the SUPER project. In SUPER we provide a set of business process ontologies for enabling access to the business process space inside the organisation at the semantic level. One major task in this context is to handle the translations between the provided ontologies in order to navigate from different views at the business level to the IT view at the execution level. In this paper we present the results of our translation approach, which transforms instances of BPMO to instances of sBPEL

GROM: a general rewriter of semantic mappings

We present GROM, a tool conceived to handle high-level schema mappings between semantic descriptions of a source and a target database. GROM rewrites mappings between the virtual, view-based semantic schemas, in terms of mappings between the two physical databases, and then executes them. The system serves the purpose of teaching two main lessons. First, designing mappings among higher-level descriptions is often simpler than working with the original schemas. Second, as soon as the view-definition language becomes more expressive, to handle, for example, negation, the mapping problem becomes extremely challenging from the technical viewpoint, so that one needs to find a proper trade-off between expressiveness and scalability.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Research on conceptual modeling: Themes, topics, and introduction to the special issue

Conceptual modeling continues to evolve as researchers and practitioners reflect on the challenges of modeling and implementing data-intensive problems that appear in business and in science. These challenges of data modeling and representation are well-recognized in contemporary applications of big data, ontologies, and semantics, along with traditional efforts associated with methodologies, tools, and theory development. This introduction contains a review of some current research in conceptual modeling and identifies emerging themes. It also introduces the articles that comprise this special issue of papers from the 32nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2013).This article was supported, in part, by the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at the Georgia State University, the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University (EB-201313), and by the GEODAS-BI (TIN2012-37493-C03-03) project from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Competitivity

Interoperability of heterogeneous Systems of Systems: from requirements to a reference architecture

Interoperability stands as a critical hurdle in developing and overseeing distributed and collaborative systems. Thus, it becomes imperative to gain a deep comprehension of the primary obstacles hindering interoperability and the essential criteria that systems must satisfy to achieve it. In light of this objective, in the initial phase of this research, we conducted a survey questionnaire involving stakeholders and practitioners engaged in distributed and collaborative systems. This effort resulted in the identification of eight essential interoperability requirements, along with their corresponding challenges. Then, the second part of our study encompassed a critical review of the literature to assess the effectiveness of prevailing conceptual approaches and associated technologies in addressing the identified requirements. This analysis led to the identification of a set of components that promise to deliver the desired interoperability by addressing the requirements identified earlier. These elements subsequently form the foundation for the third part of our study, a reference architecture for interoperability-fostering frameworks that is proposed in this paper. The results of our research can significantly impact the software engineering of interoperable systems by introducing their fundamental requirements and the best practices to address them, but also by identifying the key elements of a framework facilitating interoperability in Systems of Systems

Semantic-Based Mappings

Data translation consists of the task of moving data from a source database to a target database. This task is usually performed by developing mappings, i.e., executable transformations from the source to the target schema. However, it is often the case that a richer description of the target database semantics is available under the form of a con- ceptual schema. We investigate how the mapping process changes when such a rich conceptualization of the target database is available. As a major contribution, we develop a translation algorithm that automati- cally rewrites a mapping from the source database schema to the target conceptual schema into an equivalent mapping from the source schema to the underlying target database schema. Experiments show that our ap- proach scales nicely to complex conceptual schemas and large databases

On the visualization of semantic-based mappings

The popularity of the semantic web in many domains, such as transportation, has led to an ever-increasing development of standards, vocabularies, and ontologies, which generates problems of heterogeneity and lack of interoperability. To address this issue, a large body of research focused on providing various mapping tools and techniques to translate data from one standard to another to foster smooth communication among them. While valuable advancements in mapping techniques have been achieved so far, the explainability and usability of such tools have been overlooked. Since explainability of software is being recognized as a crucial non-functional requirement for complex systems, the development of self-explaining and user-friendly graphical interfaces is becoming a pressing need. In this paper we present S2SMaT, our contribution to the problem of visualization of mappings. The tool helps users easily navigate the structure of standards, understand the suggested mappings between their terms, and in general more easily interact with the system

On the Visualization of Semantic-based Mappings

The popularity of the semantic web in many domains, such as transportation, has led to an ever-increasing development of standards, vocabularies, and ontologies, which generates problems of heterogeneity and lack of interoperability. To address this issue, a large body of research focused on providing various mapping tools and techniques to translate data from one standard to another to foster smooth communication among them. While valuable advancements in mapping techniques have been achieved so far, the explainability and usability of such tools have been overlooked. Since explainability of software is being recognized as a crucial non-functional requirement for complex systems, the development of self-explaining and user-friendly graphical interfaces is becoming a pressing need. In this paper we present S2SMaT, our contribution to the problem of visualization of mappings. The tool helps users easily navigate the structure of standards, understand the suggested mappings between their terms, and in general more easily interact with the system