Semantic Web Service Engineering: Annotation Based Approach

Web services are an emerging paradigm which aims at implementing software components in the Web. They are based on syntactic standards, notably WSDL. Semantic annotation of Web services provides better qualitative and scalable solutions to the areas of service interoperation, service discovery, service composition and process orchestration. Manual annotation is a time-consuming process which requires deep domain knowledge and consistency of interpretation within annotation teams. Therefore, we propose an approach for semi-automatically annotating WSDL Web services descriptions. This is allowed by Semantic Web Service Engineering. The annotation approach consists of two main processes: categorization and matching. Categorization process consists in classifying WSDL service description to its corresponding domain. Matching process consists in mapping WSDL entities to pre-existing domain ontology. Both categorization and matching rely on ontology matching techniques. A tool has been developed and some experiments have been carried out to evaluate the proposed approach

The Exploration of the Software-Defined Radio Concept by Prototyping Transmitter and Receiver Functions on a Digital Signal Processor

An ideal software radio is a system that performs analog-to-digital conversion directly after the antenna and then does all signal processing required in the digital domain on a platform that supports reconguration. Software-defined radio (SDR) is the term used for a more realistic approach in which part of the processing is still done in the analog domain. The use of mobile telephony has shown a spectacular growth in the last 10 years. A side eect of this rapid growth is an excess of mobile system standards. Therefore, the SDR concept is emerging as a potential pragmatic solution. It aims to build flexible radio systems, which are multipleservice, multi-standard, multi-band, re-congurable and reprogrammable, by software. First, this paper presents a global overview of SDR. Furthermore, it explains the implementation of an SDR transmitter and receiver that have been simplied for the purpose of illustration. The source code has been written in C and is running on a DSP evaluation module of Texas Instruments. The algorithms are based on a modied version of the China Wireless Telecommunication Standard (CWTS). The correctness of the implemented system has been verified and measurements of the bit error rate versus the bit-energy-to-noise-energy ratio are reported

Ontological Foundations for Geographic Information Science

We propose as a UCGIS research priority the topic of “Ontological Foundations for Geographic Information.” Under this umbrella we unify several interrelated research subfields, each of which deals with different perspectives on geospatial ontologies and their roles in geographic information science. While each of these subfields could be addressed separately, we believe it is important to address ontological research in a unitary, systematic fashion, embracing conceptual issues concerning what would be required to establish an exhaustive ontology of the geospatial domain, issues relating to the choice of appropriate methods for formalizing ontologies, and considerations regarding the design of ontology-driven information systems. This integrated approach is necessary, because there is a strong dependency between the methods used to specify an ontology, and the conceptual richness, robustness and tractability of the ontology itself. Likewise, information system implementations are needed as testbeds of the usefulness of every aspect of an exhaustive ontology of the geospatial domain. None of the current UCGIS research priorities provides such an integrative perspective, and therefore the topic of “Ontological Foundations for Geographic Information Science” is unique

A Semantic-Based Information Management System to Support Innovative Product Design

International competition and the rapidly global economy, unified by improved communication and transportation, offer to the consumers an enormous choice of goods and services. The result is that companies now require quality, value, time to market and innovation to be successful in order to win the increasing competition. In the engineering sector this is traduced in need of optimization of the design process and in maximization of re-use of data and knowledge already existing in the company. The “SIMI-Pro” (Semantic Information Management system for Innovative Product design) system addresses specific deficiencies in the conceptual phase of product design when knowledge management, if applied, is often sectorial. Its main contribution is in allowing easy, fast and centralized collection of data from multiple sources and in supporting the retrieval and re-use of a wide range of data that will help stylists and engineers shortening the production cycle. SIMI-Pro will be one of the first prototypes to base its information management and its knowledge sharing system on process ontology and it will demonstrate how the use of centralized network systems, coupled with Semantic Web technologies, can improve inter-working activities and interdisciplinary knowledge sharing

Adaptive development and maintenance of user-centric software systems

A software system cannot be developed without considering the various facets of its environment. Stakeholders – including the users that play a central role – have their needs, expectations, and perceptions of a system. Organisational and technical aspects of the environment are constantly changing. The ability to adapt a software system and its requirements to its environment throughout its full lifecycle is of paramount importance in a constantly changing environment. The continuous involvement of users is as important as the constant evaluation of the system and the observation of evolving environments. We present a methodology for adaptive software systems development and maintenance. We draw upon a diverse range of accepted methods including participatory design, software architecture, and evolutionary design. Our focus is on user-centred software systems

The future of technology enhanced active learning – a roadmap

The notion of active learning refers to the active involvement of learner in the learning process, capturing ideas of learning-by-doing and the fact that active participation and knowledge construction leads to deeper and more sustained learning. Interactivity, in particular learnercontent interaction, is a central aspect of technology-enhanced active learning. In this roadmap, the pedagogical background is discussed, the essential dimensions of technology-enhanced active learning systems are outlined and the factors that are expected to influence these systems currently and in the future are identified. A central aim is to address this promising field from a best practices perspective, clarifying central issues and formulating an agenda for future developments in the form of a roadmap