Bringing communities to the semantic web and the semantic web to communities

Semantic Web Services are the key technology providing services for the users' convenience in the semantic web environment. Many companies in various fields are researching and developing languages for constructing Semantic Web Services such as DAML-S, WSDL, X-LANG and BPEL4WS. DAML-S is a method that accesses the existing Web Service method from a semantic web environment. However, the current Semantic Web Services Discovery System does not provide sufficient processing of quality factors (performance, accessibility, availability, reliability and transaction) nor reliable and accurate service results desired by the user through a UDDi search method. The present study analyzes the disadvantages of the current web services and suggests a Semantic Web Services Discovery System based on QoS applying semantic web technologies as a solution to the problems. The suggested system provides a UDDi and DAML-S based discovery engine to allow efficient web service discovery and composition.

Search engines play important role in the success of the Web. Search engine helps the users to find the relevant information on the internet. Due to many problems in traditional search engines has led to the development of semantic web. Semantic web technologies are playing a crucial role in enhancing traditional search, as it work to create machines readable data and focus on metadata. However, it will not replace traditional search engines. In the environment of semantic web, search engine should be more useful and efficient for searching the relevant web information. It is a way to increase the accuracy of information retrieval system. This is possible because semantic web uses software agents; these agents collect the information, perform relevant transactions and interact with physical devices. This paper includes the survey on the prevalent Semantic Search Engines based on their advantages, working and disadvantages and presents a comparative study based on techniques, type of results, crawling, and indexing.

Semantic Web evolution brought a new vision into agent research. The interpretation of this second generation web will be realized by autonomous computational entities, called agents, to handle the semantic content on behalf of their human users. Surely, Semantic Web environment has specific architectural entities and a different semantic which must be considered to model a Multi-agent System (MAS) within this environment. Hence, in this study, we introduce a MAS development process which supports the Semantic Web environment. Our approach is based on Model Driven Development (MDD) which aims to change the focus of software development from code to models. We first define an architecture for Semantic Web enabled MASs and then provide a MAS metamodel which consists of the first class meta-entities derived from this architecture. We also define a model transformation process for MDD of such MASs. We present a complete transformation process in which the source and the target metamodels, entity mappings between models and the implementation of the transformation for two different real MAS frameworks by using a well-known model transformation language are all included. In addition to the model-to-model transformation, the implementation of the model-to-code transformation is given as the last step of the system development process. The evaluation of the proposed development process by considering its use within the scope of a real commercial software project is also discussed.

PurposeThe advent of web services and the semantic web have opened up opportunities for a new generation of interoperable systems on the web. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of semantics in design and construction, and how this has long been recognised and addressed to varying extents by researchers.Design/methodology/approachThere is now the potential for designs to be developed through a system of collaborating design services and for input by the construction team members. The potential also extends to the construction phase where the designers can provide more timely responses to problems encountered in the field. Within this environment, there is the need for effective mechanisms for design and construction information management, in addition to an ontology that facilitates the sharing of design and construction information and the underlying semantics. This paper explores these trends in collaborative design and construction, and presents an ontology‐based approach to project information management in a semantic web environment.FindingsThe findings include a framework for semantic web‐based information management (SWIMS), which provides for effective collaborative information management. Examples, based on design and construction information, are presented to illustrate the key concepts.Originality/valueThis paper presents an innovative approach to overcoming the limitations of conventional information management approaches in construction. The proposed approach is expected to enhance collaboration, and avoid information loss, overload and misunderstanding,

Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences: a review of the state of the art

Integrating semantic dimension into openEHR archetypes for the management of cerebral palsy electronic medical records

Conventional focused crawling systems have difficulties on contextual information retrieval in semantic web environment. In order to deal with these problems, we propose a cooperative crawler platform based on evolution strategy to build semantic structure (i.e., local ontologies) of web spaces. Mainly, multiple crawlers can discover semantic instances (i.e., ontology fragments) from annotated resources in a web space, and a centralized meta-crawler can carry out incremental aggregation of the semantic instances sent by the multiple crawlers. To do this, we exploit similarity-based ontology matching algorithm for computing semantic fitness of a population, i.e., summation of all possible semantic similarities between the semantic instances. As a result, we could efficiently obtain the best mapping condition (i.e., maximizing the semantic fitness) of the estimated semantic structures. We have shown two significant contributions of this paper; (1) reconciling semantic conflicts between multiple crawlers, and (2) adapting to evolving semantic structures of web spaces over time.

Purpose This paper aims to establish an efficient maintenance management system tailored for healthcare facilities, recognizing the crucial role of medical equipment in providing timely and precise patient care.Design/methodology/approach The system is designed to function both as an information portal and a decision-support system. A knowledge-based approach is adopted centered on Semantic Web Technologies (SWTs), leveraging a customized ontology model for healthcare facilities’ knowledge capitalization. Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) is integrated to address decision-support aspects, including equipment criticality assessment, maintenance strategies selection and contracting policies assignment. Additionally, Semantic Query-enhanced Web Rule Language (SQWRL) is incorporated to streamline the retrieval of decision-support outcomes and other useful information from the system’s knowledge base. A real-life case study conducted at the University Hospital Center of Oran (Algeria) illustrates the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach.Findings Case study results reveal that 40% of processed equipment is highly critical, 40% is of medium criticality, and 20% is of negligible criticality. The system demonstrates significant efficacy in determining optimal maintenance strategies and contracting policies for the equipment, leveraging combined knowledge and data-driven inference. Overall, SWTs showcases substantial potential in addressing maintenance management challenges within healthcare facilities.Originality/value An innovative model for healthcare equipment maintenance management is introduced, incorporating ontology, SWRL and SQWRL, and providing efficient data integration, coordinated workflows and data-driven context-aware decisions, while maintaining optimal flexibility and cross-departmental interoperability, which gives it substantial potential for further development.

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.

Deploying defeasible logic rule bases for the semantic web

Corporate memory (CM) is the total body of data, information and knowledge required to deliver the strategic aims and objectives of an organization. In the current market, the rapidly increasing volume of unstructured documents in the enterprises has brought the challenge of building an autonomic framework to acquire, represent, learn and maintain CM, and efficiently reason from it to aid in knowledge discovery and reuse. The concept of semantic web is being introduced in the enterprises to structure information in a machine readable way and enhance the understandability of the disparate information. Due to the continual popularity of the semantic web, this paper develops a framework for CM management on the semantic web. The proposed approach gleans information from the documents, converts into a semantic web resource using resource description framework (RDF) and RDF Schema and then identifies relations among them using latent semantic analysis technique. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated through empirical experiments conducted on two case studies.

Ontologies will play a central role in the development of the Semantic Web. It is unrealistic to assume that such ontologies will be developed from scratch. Rather, we assume that existing resources such as thesauri and lexical data bases will be reused in the development of ontologies for the Semantic Web. In this paper we describe a method for converting existing source material to a representation that is compatible with Semantic Web languages such as RDF(S) and OWL. The method is illustrated with three case studies: converting WordNet, AAT and MeSH to RDF(S) and OWL.KeywordsHierarchical RelationSyntactic TransformationPort ResourceSubclass RelationDescriptor RecordThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Included in this issue of the Bulletin are three articles that reflect a central concern with the disruptive impact of the digital age on areas that have always been controversial - copyright, fair use and protected speech. In the first of a two-part article Tom Lipinski discusses the recent Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., Supreme Court decision, beginning with a look at the legal background of the case. He then moves on to discuss the specifics of the decision that holds peer-to-peer software providers Grokster and Stream Cast contributorily liable for “massive” copyright infringement. From another perspective, Jim Campbell looks at the expansion of copyright protections in the United States created by recent legislation and the moves to counteract perceptions of an erosion of the traditional balance between the rights of copyright holders and fair use. Finally, in his International Column, Julian Warner, international liaison to the ASIS&T Board of Directors, considers the roles of democracy, responsibility and free speech in a Web environment. Elsewhere in this issue, we look at the recent history of information retrieval research, specifically the Text REtrieval Conferences (TREC) sponsored since 1990 by the National Institute of Science and Technology. TREC's current director, Ellen Voorhees, summarizes the history and results of the use of the TREC testbeds. And last, turning from the challenge of developing the retrieval algorithms that have been so essential to the success of the Web to-date, we look at the “Semantic Web” of the future. Jay ven Eman discusses how to export to or “wrap” a thesaurus for use by software agents on the Semantic Web using the Web Ontology tool (OWL). He also discusses what additional steps are needed if agents are to take advantage of the potential of the Semantic Web in processing documents that have been indexed using terms from an OWL thesaurus. Anyone seeking to understand the Semantic Web and its relationship to traditional information retrieval or those contemplating a Semantic Web project will find much of value here, including a sober assessment of the difficulties. Join us for high-quality, in-depth explorations of the intersection of research and practice in information science and technology 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology October 28 - November 2 Westin Charlotte Charlotte, North Carolina ERRATUM We apologize for some serious cut-and-paste confusion in the “What's New?” column in the August/September 2005 issue of the Bulletin in the summary of an article by Jeffrey Pomerantz. One of his articles did, in fact, appear in volume 56, number 7 of JASIS&T. However, the title of the article in the citation is that of a summary we had previously published by Christian Schloegl and Wolfgang Stock, while the summary itself belongs to one of Jeffrey Pomerantz's later JASIS&T articles, “A conceptual framework and open research questions for chat-based reference service.” That article will appear in JASIS&T volume 56, number 12. We do not have a summary for his earlier article, the correct title of which is “A linguistic analysis of question taxonomies.”

Falconer is a semantic Web search engine enhanced SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities) application, which is designed to demonstrate the ability of accelerating the creation and reuse process of semantic Web data with easy-to-use user interfaces. In this process, semantic Web search engines feed existing semantic data into the SIOC framework, where new semantic data are composed by the community and indexed again by those search engines. Compared to existing social (semantic) Web applications, Falconer inherently conforms to SIOC specification. It provides semantic search engine based user registration suggestion, friends auto-discovery, and semantic annotation for forum post content. Another distinctive feature is that it enables users to subscribe any resource having a URI as the topic they are interested in. The relationships among users, topics, and posts are further visualized for analyzing the topic trends in the community. As all semantic data are formatted in RDF and RDFa, they can be queried with SPARQL query language.

BackgroundAs the “omics” revolution unfolds, the growth in data quantity and diversity is bringing about the need for pioneering bioinformatics software, capable of significantly improving the research workflow. To cope with these computer science demands, biomedical software engineers are adopting emerging semantic web technologies that better suit the life sciences domain. The latter’s complex relationships are easily mapped into semantic web graphs, enabling a superior understanding of collected knowledge. Despite increased awareness of semantic web technologies in bioinformatics, their use is still limited.ResultsCOEUS is a new semantic web framework, aiming at a streamlined application development cycle and following a “semantic web in a box” approach. The framework provides a single package including advanced data integration and triplification tools, base ontologies, a web-oriented engine and a flexible exploration API. Resources can be integrated from heterogeneous sources, including CSV and XML files or SQL and SPARQL query results, and mapped directly to one or more ontologies. Advanced interoperability features include REST services, a SPARQL endpoint and LinkedData publication. These enable the creation of multiple applications for web, desktop or mobile environments, and empower a new knowledge federation layer.ConclusionsThe platform, targeted at biomedical application developers, provides a complete skeleton ready for rapid application deployment, enhancing the creation of new semantic information systems. COEUS is available as open source at http://bioinformatics.ua.pt/coeus/.