The knowledge-based software assistant

Where the Knowledge Based Software Assistant (KBSA) is now, four years after the initial report, is discussed. Also described is what the Rome Air Development Center expects at the end of the first contract iteration. What the second and third contract iterations will look like are characterized

Challenges in Bridging Social Semantics and Formal Semantics on the Web

This paper describes several results of Wimmics, a research lab which names stands for: web-instrumented man-machine interactions, communities, and semantics. The approaches introduced here rely on graph-oriented knowledge representation, reasoning and operationalization to model and support actors, actions and interactions in web-based epistemic communities. The re-search results are applied to support and foster interactions in online communities and manage their resources

Does innovation (really) matter for success? The case of an IT Consulting Firm

The paper discusses to what extent innovation is a crucial variable in explaining the success of NOVABASE, a Portuguese IT consultancy firm. In order to proceed with this discussion, the evolution of NOVABASE is described, emphasizing the most important steps in the firm’s trajectory, which are shown to result from the joint influences of upstream technological change, downstream market opportunities, and the firm’s strategic options. Then, the paper reviews some contributions stemming form studies of innovation in services, building on these to form the framework of analysis used in the empirical research. The main results of the empirical work are then presented, leading to the discussion of the possible answers to the question in title.

An Incremental Learning Method to Support the Annotation of Workflows with Data-to-Data Relations

Workflow formalisations are often focused on the representation of a process with the primary objective to support execution. However, there are scenarios where what needs to be represented is the effect of the process on the data artefacts involved, for example when reasoning over the corresponding data policies. This can be achieved by annotating the workflow with the semantic relations that occur between these data artefacts. However, manually producing such annotations is difficult and time consuming. In this paper we introduce a method based on recommendations to support users in this task. Our approach is centred on an incremental rule association mining technique that allows to compensate the cold start problem due to the lack of a training set of annotated workflows. We discuss the implementation of a tool relying on this approach and how its application on an existing repository of workflows effectively enable the generation of such annotations

CoPe_it! - Supporting collaboration, enhancing learning

CoPe_it! is an innovative web-based tool that complies with collaborative practices to provide members of communities with the appropriate means to manage individual and collective knowledge, and collaborate towards the solution of diverse issues. In this article, we demonstrate its applicability in tackling data-intensive collaboration settings, which are characterized by big volumes of complex and interrelated data obtained from diverse sources, and knowledge expressed by diverse participants. We focus on issues related to the representation of such settings and the proposed approach towards making it easier for participants to follow the evolution of a collaboration, comprehend it in its entirety, and meaningfully aggregate data in order to resolve the issue under consideration

A semantic web approach for built heritage representation

In a built heritage process, meant as a structured system of activities aimed at the investigation, preservation, and management of architectural heritage, any task accomplished by the several actors involved in it is deeply influenced by the way the knowledge is represented and shared. In the current heritage practice, knowledge representation and management have shown several limitations due to the difficulty of dealing with large amount of extremely heterogeneous data. On this basis, this research aims at extending semantic web approaches and technologies to architectural heritage knowledge management in order to provide an integrated and multidisciplinary representation of the artifact and of the knowledge necessary to support any decision or any intervention and management activity. To this purpose, an ontology-based system, representing the knowledge related to the artifact and its contexts, has been developed through the formalization of domain-specific entities and relationships between them