Multi-representation Ontology in the Context of Enterprise Information Systems

International audienceIn the last decade, ontologies as shared common vocabulary played a major role in many AI applications and informationintegration for heterogeneous, distributed systems. The problems of integrating and developing information systems anddatabases in heterogeneous, distributed environment have been translated in the technical perspectives as system’sinteroperability. Ontologies, however, are foreseen to play a key role in resolving partially the semantic conflicts anddifferences that exist among systems. Domain ontologies, however, are constructed by capturing a set of concepts and theirlinks according to various criteria such as the abstraction paradigm, the granularity scale, interest of user communities, andthe perception of the ontology developer. Thus, different applications of the same domain end up having severalrepresentations of the same real world phenomenon. Multi-representation ontology is an ontology (or ontologies) thatcharacterizes ontological concept by a variable set of properties (static and dynamic) or attributes in several contexts and/ orin several scales of granularity. This paper introduces the formalism used for defining the paradigm of multi-representationontology and shows the manifestation of this paradigm with Enterprise Information Systems

Utilisation des ontologies contextuelles pour le partage sémantique entre les systèmes d\u27information dans l\u27entreprise

Aujourd\u27hui le partage sémantique entre les systèmes d\u27information est devenu un challenge dans les entreprises. En effet, ces systèmes constituent les fondements de la gestion du métier de l\u27entreprise, mènent les stratégies économiques et décisionnelles, et gèrent la communication avec les partenaires. Pour ces raisons, ces systèmes doivent être amenés à fonctionner ensemble pour permettre d\u27atteindre les objectifs visés par l\u27entreprise. Nous constatons que le partage sémantique représente une réelle barrière empêchant de faire interopérer et réutiliser ces systèmes à travers une architecture pratique. Depuis quelques années, l\u27usage des ontologies est de plus en plus grandissant pour résoudre le problème de partage sémantique. Le but de cette thèse est de contextualiser les ontologies et de s\u27en servir comme base formelle pour mettre en place des plateformes d\u27intégration et d\u27échange de données dans les systèmes d\u27information d\u27entreprise (SIE). Une architecture et une implémentation couvrant des scénarios d\u27utilisation, vient à l\u27appui du cadre formel

From Ontology Phobia to Contextual Ontology use in Enterprise Information Systems

National audienceShared understanding in an enterprise is necessary to permit a unifying framework serving as the basis of communication between people, interoperability between systems, and other system engineering benefits such as reusability, reliability, and specification. Bringing systems to work together is increasingly becoming essential for leveraging the Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) and reaching common goals. Currently, enterprises develop their systems independently with low consideration for the collaboration that systems can play with other systems. Certainly, semantic sharing represents the daunting barrier for making these systems work together through common shared understanding. In the last decade, theoretical research such as ontologies and context were suggested separately as formal support for treating the semantics-sharing problem. In order to resolve this main problem, we intend to pair up the two notions of Context and Ontologies. Typically, contextualization can be seen at the ontology level in order to enable the multiple views and multi-representation requirements. Hence, the formal representation of contextual ontologies should preserve adequate reasoning mechanisms. A machine understandable semantics and interpretation should be also given for information in a context, according to a specific system’s point of view. However, we perceived a growing ontology phobia in many enterprises. This fear is based on misunderstanding of ontologies’ advantages and lack of practical applications for theoretical proposals. The aim of this chapter is twofold. On one hand, it concentrates on studying the application of tightening together context and ontologies which can serve as formal background for reaching a suitable EIS environment. It invests in resolving the semantic-sharing problem between these systems. It focuses on suggesting a formalism for contextual ontologies based on a combination of Description Logics and Modal Logics. On the other hand, it investigates issues and arguments helping to overcome the ontology phobia. It shows with examples the usefulness of these contextual ontologies for resolving the semantic-sharing problem between some EIS

"A Data Warehouse Architecture Using an XML-based ETL":

International audienceXML enables to migrate data from relational databasesand other sources into future applications. It integratesstructured and unstructured data to present newapplication and knowledge management opportunities.By another way, data warehousing is an essentialelement of decision support, which has increasinglybecome a focus of the database industry. Meta-datacontains data dictionary and repository; it describeswarehousing process, data storage and informationdelivery. This paper defines how XML impacts andchanges the concept of the data warehouse. It describesan XML based tool for a structured, reusable and moreefficient data warehouse (DW). Otherwise, it shows theability to specify the warehousing tools with rulesdefined in the meta-data dictionary

Studying Enterprise Information Systems Semantic Sharing Problem

International audienceNowadays, global environment information systems and other global technologies are creating new opportunities for organizational coordination and innovation. In essence, this originated area of research is concerned with the study of information systems as tools supporting the business processes and management of organizations. The purpose of this paper is to bring to the surface the common problems of existing enterprise information systems. Particularly, it focuses on the problem of semantics sharing, and its amplitude in terms of slowing down the effectiveness of cooperative applications. It pinpoints how some research advances (e.g. ontologies and context) can be used for resolving these problems. The work aims at showing that using an appropriate and solid theoretical foundation can provide useful outcome for research into enterprise information system. Therefore, we are arguing the design of a complete distributed systems architecture that takes into account ontologies and context to improve the interoperability and the reusability between these systems

From Ontology Phobia to Contextual Ontology use in Enterprise Information Systems

National audienceShared understanding in an enterprise is necessary to permit a unifying framework serving as the basis of communication between people, interoperability between systems, and other system engineering benefits such as reusability, reliability, and specification. Bringing systems to work together is increasingly becoming essential for leveraging the Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) and reaching common goals. Currently, enterprises develop their systems independently with low consideration for the collaboration that systems can play with other systems. Certainly, semantic sharing represents the daunting barrier for making these systems work together through common shared understanding. In the last decade, theoretical research such as ontologies and context were suggested separately as formal support for treating the semantics-sharing problem. In order to resolve this main problem, we intend to pair up the two notions of Context and Ontologies. Typically, contextualization can be seen at the ontology level in order to enable the multiple views and multi-representation requirements. Hence, the formal representation of contextual ontologies should preserve adequate reasoning mechanisms. A machine understandable semantics and interpretation should be also given for information in a context, according to a specific system’s point of view. However, we perceived a growing ontology phobia in many enterprises. This fear is based on misunderstanding of ontologies’ advantages and lack of practical applications for theoretical proposals. The aim of this chapter is twofold. On one hand, it concentrates on studying the application of tightening together context and ontologies which can serve as formal background for reaching a suitable EIS environment. It invests in resolving the semantic-sharing problem between these systems. It focuses on suggesting a formalism for contextual ontologies based on a combination of Description Logics and Modal Logics. On the other hand, it investigates issues and arguments helping to overcome the ontology phobia. It shows with examples the usefulness of these contextual ontologies for resolving the semantic-sharing problem between some EIS

Towards an Architecture of Enterprise Information Systems using Contextual Ontologies

International audienceEISMO (Enterprise Information System Multi-representation Ontology) project aims at defining aframework for the EIS cooperation. It is based on the paradigm of multi-representation ofontologies and aims at offering adequate services to different applications. Our goal at first is toprove the ability of EISMO to provide global understanding over EIS. In second, EISMO aims atachieving information systems interoperability (intra-inter), communication between systems, andreusability.For these purposes, we propose a conceptual framework to identify relevant information in order toallow the reusability and a better communication. Then we propose the architectural scope which,among other services, permits global query answering, or offers to reuse existing services when oneintroduce new models

"An Analysis of EDI message Translation and Message Integration Problems ":

International audienceEDI is characterized by the possibility of sending/treating messages between information systems without any human intervention. A large number of translations are needed in order to enable the communication between an enterprise and its suppliers and clients. Therefore, translators and wrappers are used to enable this task. In this paper, we study the message translation and conversion associated with B2B and E-commerce needs. We examine the message translation process and show the problems and lacks of existing solutions. We identify the mapping between different messages and define a representative framework to map between different representations. At the end, we suggest the use of semi-automatic transformation tool. This translator differs by being easy to use for managers and people with limited technical skills. It facilitates the task of definition of a large number of translations by using matching techniques between source and target message

Sharing semantics among enterprise information systems with contextual ontologies: theory and practice

International audienceThe Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) manages enterprise business, appliesstrategic and economic decisions, and holds communication with partners. Shared semantics arenecessary to leverage system engineering benefits such as reusability and interoperability.In the last decade, research on ontologies and contexts was driven separately as formal supportfor treating the semantics sharing problem. In this paper, we show how to pair-up contexts andontologies as a formal background for reaching a suitable global enterprise environment.To promote contextual ontologies, we present how to exploit technically the proposed formalismthrough an architecture and a prototype called Enterprise Information System ContextualOntologies

"A Mapping Framework for EDI Message Translation ":

International audienceEDI is characterized by the possibility of sending/treating messages between information systems without any human intervention. A large number of translations are needed in order to enable the communication between an enterprise and its suppliers and clients. Therefore, translators and wrappers are needed to enable this task. In this paper, we define a representative framework to map between different representations. We apply this framework for translating EDI messages. We examine the message translation process and show the problems and lack of existing solutions. We also identify the mapping between different messages. Finally, we suggest the use of semi-automatic transformation tool. This translator differs by being easy to use for managers and people with limited technical skills. It facilitates the task of definition of a large number of translations by using matching techniques between source and target message