The business process modelling ontology

In this paper we describe the Business Process Modelling Ontology (BPMO), which is part of an approach to modelling business processes at the semantic level, integrating knowledge about the organisational context, workflow activities and Semantic Web Services. We harness knowledge representation and reasoning techniques so that business process workflows can: be exposed and shared through semantic descriptions; refer to semantically annotated data and services; incorporate heterogeneous data though semantic mappings; and be queried using a reasoner or inference engine. In this paper we describe our approach and evaluate BPMO through a use case

Developing a curriculum of open educational resources for Linked Data

The EUCLID project is developing an educational curriculum about Linked Data, supported by multimodal Open Educational Resources (OERs) tailored to the real needs of data practitioners. The EUCLID OERs facilitate professional training for data practitioners, who aim to use Linked Data in their daily work. The EUCLID OERs are implemented as a combination of living learning materials and activities (eBook, online courses, webinars, face-to-face training), produced via a rigorous process and validated by the user community through continuous feedback

Library project management in a collaborative web-based working environment

This paper discusses the emerging paradigm of project management performed in a web-based working environment. It highlights how project management and its associated features are strongly linked to fulfilling quality and value criteria for customers, and it examines how collaborative working environments can greatly reduce the administrative burden of managing large projects, especially and almost paradoxically, when resources are limited. Specifically, the paper examines the application of a project management methodology (PRINCE2) together with the use of a collaborative web-based working environment over a number of pilot projects at Leeds University Library. It describes the pilot phase of a library management decision to run a series of major Library projects using project management methodology, while continuing to run other projects through the existing locally developed planning mechanisms and describes the pitfalls of these latter alternatives, less sophisticated project management tools, and describes the main issues that this change in practice has brought to light. It draws preliminary conclusions about the effectiveness of this change in practice in one of the UK’s largest academic libraries

Experiences from semantic web service tutorials

We have given around 20 tutorials on Semantic Web Services in international events during the last two years. This position paper presents our experiences and depicts central aspects relevant for education, dissemination and exploitation of Semantic Web and Semantic Web service technologies in academia and industry

Growth of YBa2Cu3O7-δ Thin-Films–Nucleation, Heteroepitaxy and Interfaces

A major research effort in high-temperature oxide superconductors is the growth of high-quality thin-films. The physical properties of polycrystalline thin-films are controlled by their microstructure which is influenced by the early stages of film growth and the establishment of epitaxy. In this article, the nucleation and heteroepitactic growth of YBa2Cu3O7-δ thin-films is reviewed. Many of the examples illustrating film growth will be taken from studies using transmission electron microscopy. The importance of the substrate surface in controlling film growth will be discussed, in particular the growth of YBa2Cu3O7-δ films on vicinal MgO surfaces, enabling the formation of highly-oriented microstructures on a substrate where there is a large lattice mismatch. In this case, film growth is described as a form of graphoepitaxy, and models will be presented to show the mechanism for film growth and also how the lattice misfit can be reduced by small rotations of the YBa2Cu3O7-δ lattice

Towards a semantic event-based service-oriented architecture

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is commonly lauded as a silver bullet for Enterprise Application Integration, inter-organizational business processes implementation, and even as a general solution for the development of all complex Web-oriented applications. However, SOA without semantic descriptions of its data, processes and messaging models fails to achieve a truly flexible and dynamic infrastructure. In this paper we explain where semantics are necessary for SOA and present early work on a Semantic Execution Environment which couples the ServiceOriented and Event-Driven architecture styles with formal semantics

SOA4All: enabling Web-scale service economies

Establishing Web services as resources on the Web opens up highly productive but challenging new possibilities for service economies. In addition, lifting services to the semantic level enables more sophisticated means for automating the service-related management processes and the composition of arbitrary functionality into new services and businesses. In this paper we present the SOA4All approach to a global service delivery platform. By means of semantic technologies, SOA4All facilitates the creation of service infrastructures and increases the interoperability between large numbers of distributed and heterogeneous functionalities on the Web

An Investigation of Surface Albedo Variations During the Recent Sahel Drought

Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) 3 green sensor data are used to measure surface reflectance variations in the Sahara/Sahel during the recent drought period 1967–74. The magnitude of the seasonal reflectance change is shown to be as much as 80% for years of normal precipitation and less than 50% for drought years. Year-to-year comparisons during both wet and dry seasons reveal the existence of a surface reflectance cycle coincident with the drought intensity. The relationship between the green reflectance and solar albedo is examined and estimated to be about 0.6 times the reflectance change observed by the green channel