A Generic Evaluation Model for Semantic Web Services

Semantic Web Services promise seamless interoperability of data and applications on a semantic level, thus turning the Web from a world-wide information repository for human consumption only to a device of distributed computation. To this end, appropriate semantic descriptions of Web services and intelligent mechanisms working on this need a solid foundation in terms of the underlying semantically-enabled communication technologies. Recent advances in middleware technologies propose semantics-aware tuplespaces as an instrument for coping with the arising requirements of scalability, heterogeneity and dynamism. An additional argument is that Semantic Web Services have inherited the communication model of XML-based Web services, which is based on message exchange, thus being a priori incompatible with the REST architectural model of the Web. Analogously to the conventional Web, truly Web-compliant service communication should be based on persistent publication instead of message passing. In this chapter, we present “Triple Space computing”, a Triple Space-based coordination middleware for Semantic Web Services. We take a closer look at the respective data, infrastructure and coordination models that enable the management of formal knowledge and that support the interaction patterns characteristic for the Semantic Web and Semantic Web Services. Applying Triple Space computing to Semantic Execution Environments and Service-Oriented Infrastructures is the second main topic of this chapter.

Summary form only given. The emerging concept of semantic Web services aims at more sophisticated Web Service technologies: on basis of semantic description frameworks, intelligent mechanisms are envisioned for discovery, composition, and contracting of Web services. The tutorial explains the current state of the art in semantic Web services on basis of the Web service modeling ontology WSMO and related initiatives. Commencing from the vision and arising challenges for semantic Web services, the tutorial in detail explains the specifications of recent frameworks for semantic Web services and presents the Web service execution environment WSMX as the WSMO reference implementation. The tutorial consists of three main sections that subsequently provide a complete overview of semantic Web services and the latest status of WSMO. The tutorial addresses academic as well as industrial researches and developers that are working with Web services and are interested in semantic Web services.

New York, Springer, 2006 ISBN 978-0387302393USA, Chapman & Hall/ CRC, 2007 ISBN 978-1584889335

Firstly, this paper expounded that the traditional searching based on keywords has a severe deficiency on Recall and Precision because the computer can't understand what information mean efficiently. In Succession, through extending from ordinary information to Geo-spatial information, on the support of geo-ontology theory and semantic web services technology, this paper discussed the principle, methods and application of ontology-driven geo-spatial information retrieving mechanism in semantic web. In other word, How to structure the framework for running this mechanism, how to build the ontology information models and how to establish the ontology-driven services models are discussed in detail in context. A design of systems for implementing the mechanism and experiment are given at the end of the text.

Evaluations of procedures in medical image processing are notoriously difficult and often unconvincing. From a detailed bibliographic study, we analyzed the way evaluation studies are conducted and extracted a number of entities common to any evaluation protocol. From this analysis, we propose here a generic evaluation model (GEM). The GEM includes the notion of hierarchical evaluation, identifies the components which have always to be defined when designing an evaluation protocol and shows the relationships that exist between these components. By suggesting rules applying to the different components of the GEM, we also show how this model can be used as a first step towards guidelines for evaluation.

Matching web services and client requirements in the form of goals is a significant challenge in the discovery of semantic web services. The most common but unsatisfactory approach to matching is set‐based, where both the client and web services declare what objects they require and what objects they can provide. Matching then becomes the simple task of comparing sets of objects. This approach is inadequate because it says nothing about the functionality required by the client or the functionality provided by the web service. As an alternative, we use the Frame Logic as implemented in Flora‐2 to specify web service capabilities and client requirements, including their preconditions, postconditions, and ontologies, implement a logic‐based discovery agent using Flora‐2, demonstrate its usefulness in a medical appointment making scenario, and show its efficiency both theoretically and by benchmarking. The result is an expressive yet concise representation scheme for semantic web services, and a practical, efficient, powerful, and fully implemented matching engine based purely on logical inference for web service discovery, with direct applicability to Web Service Modeling Ontology and Web Service Modeling Language, because both are based on Frame Logic.

Semantic Web Service technology provides a strong support for automation software development based on Web service. By analyzing the existing description models and methods of semantic Web service, a Semantic Web Service Description Model (WSDM4S) and its formal description based on SHOIN+(D) are proposed, which attempt to offer an effective model for description, publication, discovery, composition, and execution of Web services based on semantic description. And a Semantic Web Service Description Language (WSDL4S) based on XML is designed to support the WSDM4S. Based on WSDL4S, Web Services could be packaged into basic semantic unit of semantic software development.

A number of technologies are mentioned under the rubric of “The Semantic Web”, but good overviews of these technologies with an eye toward practical applications are scarce. Moreover, much of the early focus in this field has been on the development of representation languages for static conceptual information, while there has been less emphasis on how to make semantic web applications practically useful in the context of knowledge work. To achieve this, a better coupling is needed between ontology, service descriptions and workflow modeling. This paper reviews all the basic technologies involved in this, and outlines what can be achieved by merging them in the context of real world workflow descriptions.

Context-awareness is gaining wide importance, especially when targeting pervasive environments, whereas Web Services are often exploited as building blocks of context-aware applications because of their interoperability properties. In this framework, Web Services can be used as business services requiring context data for their functionality, but also as context sources offering access to context information. Combining the development of context-aware Web Services with Model-Driven Engineering techniques requires the identification and matching of appropriate context models with Web Service models. In this paper, a new ongoing research direction is presented, which refers to model transformation for allowing the identification of appropriate context sources and ensuring their compatibility with Web Services. Matchmaking principles between Web Service and context models are examined in order to extract a reasoning mechanism on context adaptation compatibility. In specific, the principles of graph transformation are mainly exploited.

Semantic Web Services (SWS) are an important part of the Semantic Web, traditionally focused on discovery and composition of e-services. In the area of e-commerce services, it is necessary to go past the granularity of service discovery and also to consider discovering the actual offers provided by a service. Nevertheless, Semantic Web Services research has only recently started to consider offer discovery. In this paper, we present a solution for offer discovery that uses WSMO-Lite, the new lightweight semantic Web service annotation framework.

Recent researches combined the semantic web services paradigm with the search for e-learning resources. Meanwhile, more and more learning resources are generated by different courseware providers. This paper presents a learner selection and discovery architecture for distributed e-learning environments based on semantic Web services (SWS) to allow sharing, discovery, filtering and recommending relevant learning objects (LOs) based on learner profile through courseware providers. This paper presents an SWS architecture which is based on Web service modeling ontology (WSMO), and which uses the learning object metadata (LOM) standard to describe the learning object.

Web service is a technological solution for software interoperability that supports the seamless integration of diverse applications. In the vision of web service architecture, web services are described by the Web Service Description Language (WSDL), discovered through Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) and communicate by the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Such a divination has never been fully accomplished yet. Although it was criticized that WSDL only has a syntactic definition of web services, but was not semantic, prior initiatives in semantic web services did not establish a correct methodology to resolve the problem. This paper examines the distinction and relationship between the syntactic and semantic definitions for web services that characterize different purposes in service computation. Further, this paper proposes that the semantics of web service are neutral and independent from the service interface definition, data types and platform. Such a conclusion can be a universal law in software engineering and service computing. Several use cases in the GIScience application are examined in this paper, while the formalization of geospatial services needs to be constructed by the GIScience community towards a comprehensive ontology of the conceptual definitions and relationships for geospatial computation. Advancements in semantic web services research will happen in domain science applications.

Although Semantic Web Services are expected to produce a revolution in the development of Web-based systems, very few enterprise-wide design experiences are available; one of the main reasons is the lack of sound Software Engineering methods and tools for the deployment of Semantic Web applications. In this chapter, we present an approach to software development for the Semantic Web based on classical Software Engineering methods (i.e., formal business process development, computer-aided and component-based software design, and automatic code generation) and on semantic methods and tools (i.e., ontology engineering, semantic service annotation and discovery).

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore useful Semantic Web technologies and ontology-based applications for digital libraries. It also investigates the perceptions of university librarians and academicians in Pakistan about Semantic Web technologies and their use in digital libraries.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory research design based on Delphi research strategy was conducted to answer the research questions. Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 50 key informants including university librarians and academicians to explore their perceptions about Semantic Web technologies and their use in digital libraries. Thematic analysis of interview data was conducted to obtain results.FindingsThe results of this paper showed that DuraCloud, Semantic information mashup, OntoEdit and resource description framework (RDF) are the various Semantic Web applications which are useful for digital libraries to develop semantic relationships among digital contents and increase their accessibility in the web environment. Findings revealed that Semantic Web provides precise results and meets user information needs in an effective way. Results also showed that next-generation digital libraries use context-awareness technology, intelligent agent software and detecting sensors to analyze user information needs and provide dynamic information services. This paper recommended that librarians should embrace the use of emerging web technologies in libraries and offer library services through the medium of the web.Practical implicationsThis paper envisaged the future of digital library services and Semantic Web applications that can be used to re-structure metadata of digital library. This paper has practical implications for librarians to consider the useful applications of Semantic Web for digital library and enhance the interoperability of metadata among heterogeneous information systems. Practically, results obtained from this paper are highly useful for library schools and LIS teachers to up-date their curriculum by incorporating new contents related to web languages and Semantic Web applications for digital libraries.Originality/valueThis paper identifies various Semantic Web applications which are useful for developing Semantic Digital Libraries.

A semantic web service environment for B2B and B2C auction applications within extended and virtual enterprises