Knowledge society arguments revisited in the semantic technologies era

In the light of high profile governmental and international efforts to realise the knowledge society, I review the arguments made for and against it from a technology standpoint. I focus on advanced knowledge technologies with applications on a large scale and in open- ended environments like the World Wide Web and its ambitious extension, the Semantic Web. I argue for a greater role of social networks in a knowledge society and I explore the recent developments in mechanised trust, knowledge certification, and speculate on their blending with traditional societal institutions. These form the basis of a sketched roadmap for enabling technologies for a knowledge society

Position paper on realizing smart products: challenges for Semantic Web technologies

In the rapidly developing space of novel technologies that combine sensing and semantic technologies, research on smart products has the potential of establishing a research field in itself. In this paper, we synthesize existing work in this area in order to define and characterize smart products. We then reflect on a set of challenges that semantic technologies are likely to face in this domain. Finally, in order to initiate discussion in the workshop, we sketch an initial comparison of smart products and semantic sensor networks from the perspective of knowledge technologies

Using TREC for cross-comparison between classic IR and ontology-based search models at a Web scale

The construction of standard datasets and benchmarks to evaluate ontology-based search approaches and to compare then against baseline IR models is a major open problem in the semantic technologies community. In this paper we propose a novel evaluation benchmark for ontology-based IR models based on an adaptation of the well-known Cranfield paradigm (Cleverdon, 1967) traditionally used by the IR community. The proposed benchmark comprises: 1) a text document collection, 2) a set of queries and their corresponding document relevance judgments and 3) a set of ontologies and Knowledge Bases covering the query topics. The document collection and the set of queries and judgments are taken from one of the most widely used datasets in the IR community, the TREC Web track. As a use case example we apply the proposed benchmark to compare a real ontology-based search model (Fernandez, et al., 2008) against the best IR systems of TREC 9 and TREC 2001 competitions. A deep analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of this benchmark and a discussion of how it can be used to evaluate other ontology-based search systems is also included at the end of the paper

A conceptual architecture for semantic web services development and deployment

Several extensions of the Web Services Framework (WSF) have been proposed. The combination with Semantic Web technologies introduces a notion of semantics, which can enhance scalability through automation. Service composition to processes is an equally important issue. Ontology technology – the core of the Semantic Web – can be the central building block of an extension endeavour. We present a conceptual architecture for ontology-based Web service development and deployment. The development of service-based software systems within the WSF is gaining increasing importance. We show how ontologies can integrate models, languages, infrastructure, and activities within this architecture to support reuse and composition of semantic Web services

BIM semantic-enrichment for built heritage representation

In the built heritage context, BIM has shown difficulties in representing and managing the large and complex knowledge related to non-geometrical aspects of the heritage. Within this scope, this paper focuses on a domain-specific semantic-enrichment of BIM methodology, aimed at fulfilling semantic representation requirements of built heritage through Semantic Web technologies. To develop this semantic-enriched BIM approach, this research relies on the integration of a BIM environment with a knowledge base created through information ontologies. The result is knowledge base system - and a prototypal platform - that enhances semantic representation capabilities of BIM application to architectural heritage processes. It solves the issue of knowledge formalization in cultural heritage informative models, favouring a deeper comprehension and interpretation of all the building aspects. Its open structure allows future research to customize, scale and adapt the knowledge base different typologies of artefacts and heritage activities

The Knowledge Life Cycle for e-learning

In this paper, we examine the semantic aspects of e-learning from both pedagogical and technological points of view. We suggest that if semantics are to fulfil their potential in the learning domain then a paradigm shift in perspective is necessary, from information-based content delivery to knowledge-based collaborative learning services. We propose a semantics driven Knowledge Life Cycle that characterises the key phases in managing semantics and knowledge, show how this can be applied to the learning domain and demonstrate the value of semantics via an example of knowledge reuse in learning assessment management