Technical Issues in the Development of Knowledge-Based Services for the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web aims to extend the current Web with formal semantics in order to improve how users experience the Web, by ameliorating current activities and supporting the automation of some others. So far, current Semantic Web prototypes mostly aim at collecting and exposing information. Still, a semantic layer can support applying Knowledge-Based Systems techniques to the development of brand-new fully-fledged Knowledge-Based Services for the Web. In this paper, we present the technical issues that have to be faced in the development of such a kind of application by presenting the Online Design of Events Application: a Semantic Web-based design support system that assists event organisers in the process of preparing events such as workshops and conferences, by effectively reasoning over an inter-organisational process across the Web

Opportunistic Reasoning for the Semantic Web: Adapting Reasoning to the Environment

Despite the efforts devoted so far, the Semantic Web vision appears to be an eluding target. We propose a paradigm shift for the Semantic Web centred around the pragmatics of developing Semantic Web applications in order to overcome the bootstrapping problem it suffers from. This paradigm is based on the vision of the Semantic Web as the result emerging from the integration and collaboration of a plethora of Semantic Web applications, rather that as a global entity. On the basis of this assumption we describe and propose Opportunistic Reasoning as a general purpose reasoning model suitable for the development of reasonably scalable Semantic Web applications

A new navigation paradigm for virtual reality: the guided visit through a virtual world

The three main navigation paradigms for virtual worlds, i.e., free navigation, automatic tours, and multiuser navigation show important limitations when dealing with guided visits that involve interactive cooperation among several users in 3D virtual worlds over the Internet. In this paper, we present our research into this issue and some important results. We propose a new navigation paradigm denominated guided visit through a virtual world, where the capacity of a user guiding several remote users through the virtual world is enriched with the capacity to dynamically interchange the role of guiding between the connected users. The user that acts as a guide moves freely through the virtual world, and his/her movements are reproduced by the browsers of the other guided users. We also present the architecture and the system we developed that implements this paradigm, as well as its integration in a working realworld application that demonstrates its use

A Framework for Ontology Reuse and Persistence Integrating UML and Sesame

Nowadays there is a great effort underway to improve the World Wide Web. A better content organisation, allowing automatic processing, leading to the Semantic Web is one of the main goals. In the light of bringing this technology closer to the Software Engineering community we propose an architecture allowing an easier development for ontology-based applications. Thus, we first present a methodology for ontology creation and automatic code generation using the widely adopted CASE UML tools. And based on a study of the art of the different RDF storage and querying systems, we couple this methodology with the Sesame system for providing a framework able to deal with large knowledge bases

Music Rights Clearance Business Analysis and Delivery

Semantic Web Services can be seen as remote Problem Solving Methods offered via the Web through platform and language independent interfaces. They can be seamlessly integrated to achieve more complex functionality by composing pre-existing software components. Despite technical advantages surrounding Semantic Web Services technologies, their perspective overlooks the commercial aspects of services in the real – non-IT – world, and is therefore incomplete and limiting. Real-world services – business activities such as insurances, medical services, ADSL etc – have nowadays an increasing social and economic importance. Important trends are the bundling of services and a growing customer-need orientation. Thus, there is a need for a computational background for describing real-world services and applying knowledge-based technologies for reasoning about them: configuring composite services and analysing them from a business perspective. We have developed ontologies and software tools to fill this gap, and applied them to industrial case studies. We present here a case study from the music industry, going from the analysis of a new business scenario to the development of an application called Xena that coordinates IT infrastructures in order to provide a profitable service that reflects major business principles. As opposed to currently proposed solutions in the Semantic Web Services community, our system is an automated implementation of a real-world service where important business decisions can be traced back

Music rights clearance business analysis and delivery

Abstract. Semantic Web Services can be seen as remote Problem Solving Methods offered via the Web through platform and language independent interfaces. They can be seamlessly integrated to achieve more complex functionality by composing pre-existing software components. Despite technical advantages surrounding Semantic Web Services technologies, their perspective overlooks the commercial aspects of services in the real – non-IT – world, and is therefore incomplete and limiting. Real-world services – business activities such as insurances, medical services, ADSL etc – have nowadays an increasing social and economic importance. Important trends are the bundling of services and a growing customer-need orientation. Thus, there is a need for a computational background for describing real-world services and applying knowledgebased technologies for reasoning about them: configuring composite services and analysing them from a business perspective. We have developed ontologies and software tools to fill this gap, and applied them to industrial case studies. We present here a case study from the music industry, going from the analysis of a new business scenario to the development of an application called Xena that coordinates IT infrastructures in order to provide a profitable service that reflects major business principles. As opposed to currently proposed solutions in the Semantic Web Services community, our system is an automated implementation of a real-world service where important business decisions can be traced back.