Iterchanging Discrete Event Simulationprocess Interaction Modelsusing The Web Ontology Language - Owl

Discrete event simulation development requires significant investments in time and resources. Descriptions of discrete event simulation models are associated with world views, including the process interaction orientation. Historically, these models have been encoded using high-level programming languages or special purpose, typically vendor-specific, simulation languages. These approaches complicate simulation model reuse and interchange. The current document-centric World Wide Web is evolving into a Semantic Web that communicates information using ontologies. The Web Ontology Language OWL, was used to encode a Process Interaction Modeling Ontology for Discrete Event Simulations (PIMODES). The PIMODES ontology was developed using ontology engineering processes. Software was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of interchanging models from commercial simulation packages using PIMODES as an intermediate representation. The purpose of PIMODES is to provide a vendor-neutral open representation to support model interchange. Model interchange enables reuse and provides an opportunity to improve simulation quality, reduce development costs, and reduce development times

An ontology-based approach for semantic level information exchange and integration in applications for product lifecycle management

During product lifecycle management (PLM), product information fromCAD/CAE applications regularly needs to be exchanged and shared between the variousapplications. However, these applications often have different product data semantics andcorresponding representations. The interoperability problem caused by the heterogeneoussemantics and data representation is critical and needs to be addressed and automated.Recent research has focused on integration frameworks for CAD/CAE applications inorder to improve interoperability. There are fundamental problems that still need to beaddressed.We identified the following important roadblocks and sought to address thesespecifically in our work: 1) The need for an adequate product knowledge representationof engineering design/analysis, which is easily expandable, and customizable fortraditional and non-traditional (e.g. virtual prototyping) design information systems thatalso allows the sharing of product data semantics across all these heterogeneous systemsto support distributed, collaborative engineering capabilities; 2) The need for a way togenerate product data semantics by using engineering design/analysis knowledge tointerpret actual product data 3) The need for a way to reconcile the differences in thedifferent product semantics by finding underlying similarities between differentknowledge representations that are from different viewports and reconcile, and use thesesimilarities to then translate product data semantics correctly.This dissertation proposes an ontology-based approach for a semantic levelexchange and integration to improve interoperability, which includes an ontologybuilding tool, ontology mapping tools and custom tools to associate ontologies to prductdata. For the purpose of semantic level integration, a way of representing engineeringdesign/analysis knowledge using an engineering ontology is proposed. A layeredstructure is used for building knowledge into engineering ontologies so as to improve thescalability and composition adaptivity. Based on the knowledge, a semantic layer is builtupon product data to use concepts/relations in ontologies to describe actual product data,which can be used to represent understandings about a product design from differentperspectives. To enable translating different understandings (product data semantics)using different ontologies, an ontology mapping method is proposed to find matchingconcepts between different ontologies, based on three basic relation types betweenconcepts: composition, inheritance and attribute.A scenario is explained to describe the working mechanism of the system and todemonstrate the concept of semantic level integration framework for a simple example. Asample assembly is designed and simulated in different software packages and anintegrated process is made to exchange information between them. The scenariosuccessfully demonstrates the ontology based approach

User driven modelling: Visualisation and systematic interaction for end-user programming with tree-based structures

This thesis addresses certain problems encountered by teams of engineers when modelling complex structures and processes subject to cost and other resource constraints. The cost of a structure or process may be ‘read off’ its specifying model, but the language in which the model is expressed (e.g. CAD) and the language in which resources may be modelled (e.g. spreadsheets) are not naturally compatible. This thesis demonstrates that a number of intermediate steps may be introduced which enable both meaningful translation from one conceptual view to another as well as meaningful collaboration between team members. The work adopts a diagrammatic modelling approach as a natural one in an engineering context when seeking to establish a shared understanding of problems.Thus, the research question to be answered in this thesis is: ‘To what extent is it possible to improve user-driven software development through interaction with diagrams and without requiring users to learn particular computer languages?’ The goal of the research is to improve collaborative software development through interaction with diagrams, thereby minimising the need for end-users to code directly. To achieve this aim a combination of the paradigms of End-User Programming, Process and Product Modelling and Decision Support, and Semantic Web are exploited and a methodology of User Driven Modelling and Programming (UDM/P) is developed, implemented, and tested as a means of demonstrating the efficacy of diagrammatic modelling.In greater detail, the research seeks to show that diagrammatic modelling eases problems of maintenance, extensibility, ease of use, and sharing of information. The methodology presented here to achieve this involves a three step translation from a visualised ontology, through a modelling tool, to output to interactive visualisations. An analysis of users groups them into categories of system creator, model builder, and model user. This categorisation corresponds well with the three-step translation process where users develop the ontology, modelling tool, and visualisations for their problem.This research establishes and exemplifies a novel paradigm of collaborative end-user programming by domain experts. The end-user programmers can use a visual interface where the visualisation of the software exactly matches the structure of the software itself, making translation between user and computer, and vice versa, much more direct and practical. The visualisation is based on an ontology that provides a representation of the software as a tree. The solution is based on translation from a source tree to a result tree, and visualisation of both. The result tree shows a structured representation of the model with a full visualisation of all parts that leads to the computed result.In conclusion, it is claimed that this direct representation of the structure enables an understanding of the program as an ontology and model that is then visualised, resulting in a more transparent shared understanding by all users. It is further argued that our diagrammatic modelling paradigm consequently eases problems of maintenance, extensibility, ease of use, and sharing of information. This method is applicable to any problem that lends itself to representation as a tree. This is considered a limitation of the method to be addressed in a future project

Information modelling for the development of sustainable construction (MINDOC)

In previous decades, controlling the environmental impact through lifecycle analysis has become a topical issue in the building sector. However, there are some problems when trying to exchange information between experts for conducting various studies like the environmental assessment of the building. There is also heterogeneity between construction product databases because they do not have the same characteristics and do not use the same basis to measure the environmental impact of each construction product. Moreover, there are still difficulties to exploit the full potential of linking BIM, SemanticWeb and databases of construction products because the idea of combining them is relatively recent. The goal of this thesis is to increase the flexibility needed to assess the building’s environmental impact in a timely manner. First, our research determines gaps in interoperability in the AEC (Architecture Engineering and Construction) domain. Then, we fill some of the shortcomings encountered in the formalization of building information and the generation of building data in Semantic Web formats. We further promote efficient use of BIM throughout the building life cycle by integrating and referencing environmental data on construction products into a BIM tool. Moreover, semantics has been improved by the enhancement of a well-known building-based ontology (namely ifcOWL for Industry Foundation Classes Web Ontology Language). Finally, we experience a case study of a small building for our methodology

SES and Ecore for Ontology-based Scenario Modeling in Aviation Scenario Definition Language (ASDL)

The Aviation Scenario Definition Language (ASDL) is a domain-specific language proposal which aims to provide a standard aviation scenario specification mechanism and enable the reuse of scenario generation methods among different simulators. This paper presents a model-based scenario development approach that exploits Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) core (Ecore) and System Entity Structure (SES) for metamodeling and modeling these elements. The construction of the ASDL metamodel using both platforms is described to illustrate the processes. As a result of comparing two approaches, it is concluded that they follow a similar structure in the hierarchical definition of modeled elements despite there being different toolsets available in each method. Thereby, each metamodel can be easily converted into the other type using transformations. As an application use case, the use of the proposed ontology-based scenario development in the aviation domain is discussed, where a training tool is being developed that utilizes SES/Ecore approach to build a scenario-driven training tool for air traffic controllers

MDA-based interoperability establishment using language independent information models

Nowadays, more and more enterprises realize that one important step to success in their business is to create new and innovative products. Many times the solution to do that is to abandon the idea of an enterprise as an "isolated island", and get collaboration with others: worldwide non-hierarchical networks are characterized by collaboration and non-centralized decision making. This paper proposes a conceptual model common to the entire business network, in a framework that enables the abstraction of individual models at their meta-level and increase language independency and interoperability, keeping all the enterprise software's integrity intact. The strategy presented allows an incremental mapping construction, to achieve growing integration.publishersversionpublishe

User driven modelling : visualisation and systematic interaction for end-user programming with tree-based structures

This thesis addresses certain problems encountered by teams of engineers when modelling complex structures and processes subject to cost and other resource constraints. The cost of a structure or process may be ‘read off’ its specifying model, but the language in which the model is expressed (e.g. CAD) and the language in which resources may be modelled (e.g. spreadsheets) are not naturally compatible. This thesis demonstrates that a number of intermediate steps may be introduced which enable both meaningful translation from one conceptual view to another as well as meaningful collaboration between team members. The work adopts a diagrammatic modelling approach as a natural one in an engineering context when seeking to establish a shared understanding of problems. Thus, the research question to be answered in this thesis is: ‘To what extent is it possible to improve user-driven software development through interaction with diagrams and without requiring users to learn particular computer languages?’ The goal of the research is to improve collaborative software development through interaction with diagrams, thereby minimising the need for end-users to code directly. To achieve this aim a combination of the paradigms of End-User Programming, Process and Product Modelling and Decision Support, and Semantic Web are exploited and a methodology of User Driven Modelling and Programming (UDM/P) is developed, implemented, and tested as a means of demonstrating the efficacy of diagrammatic modelling. In greater detail, the research seeks to show that diagrammatic modelling eases problems of maintenance, extensibility, ease of use, and sharing of information. The methodology presented here to achieve this involves a three step translation from a visualised ontology, through a modelling tool, to output to interactive visualisations. An analysis of users groups them into categories of system creator, model builder, and model user. This categorisation corresponds well with the three-step translation process where users develop the ontology, modelling tool, and visualisations for their problem. This research establishes and exemplifies a novel paradigm of collaborative end-user programming by domain experts. The end-user programmers can use a visual interface where the visualisation of the software exactly matches the structure of the software itself, making translation between user and computer, and vice versa, much more direct and practical. The visualisation is based on an ontology that provides a representation of the software as a tree. The solution is based on translation from a source tree to a result tree, and visualisation of both. The result tree shows a structured representation of the model with a full visualisation of all parts that leads to the computed result. In conclusion, it is claimed that this direct representation of the structure enables an understanding of the program as an ontology and model that is then visualised, resulting in a more transparent shared understanding by all users. It is further argued that our diagrammatic modelling paradigm consequently eases problems of maintenance, extensibility, ease of use, and sharing of information. This method is applicable to any problem that lends itself to representation as a tree. This is considered a limitation of the method to be addressed in a future project.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Towards Interoperability in E-health Systems: a three-dimensional approach based on standards and semantics

Proceedings of: HEALTHINF 2009 (International Conference on Helath Informatics), Porto (Portugal), January 14-17, 2009, is part of BIOSTEC (Intemational Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies)The interoperability problem in eHealth can only be addressed by mean of combining standards and technology. However, these alone do not suffice. An appropiate framework that articulates such combination is required. In this paper, we adopt a three-dimensional (information, conference and inference) approach for such framework, based on OWL as formal language for terminological and ontological health resources, SNOMED CT as lexical backbone for all such resources, and the standard CEN 13606 for representing EHRs. Based on tha framewok, we propose a novel form for creating and supporting networks of clinical terminologies. Additionally, we propose a number of software modules to semantically process and exploit EHRs, including NLP-based search and inference, wich can support medical applications in heterogeneous and distributed eHealth systems.This work has been funded as part of the Spanish nationally funded projects ISSE (FIT-350300-2007-75) and CISEP (FIT-350301-2007-18). We also acknowledge IST-2005-027595 EU project NeO

Syntactic and Semantic Interoperability Among Hydrologic Models

Development of integrated hydrologic models requires coupling of multidisciplinary, independent models and collaboration between different scientific communities. Component-based modeling provides an approach for the integration of models from different disciplines. A key advantage of component-based modeling is that it allows components to be created, tested, reused, extended, and maintained by a large group of model developers and end users. One significant challenge that must be addressed in creating an integrated hydrologic model using a component-based approach is enhancing the interoperability of components between different modeling communities and frameworks. The major goal of this work is to advance the integration of water related model components coming from different disciplines using the information underlying these models. This is achieved through addressing three specific research objectives. The first objective is to investigate the ability of component-based architecture to simulate feedback loops between hydrologic model components that share a boundary condition, and how data is transfered between temporally misaligned model components. The second objective is to promote the interoperability of components across water-related disciplinary boundaries and modeling frameworks by establishing an ontology for components\u27 metadata. The third study objective is to develop a domain-level ontology for defining hydrologic processes