Charlie Abela

DAML Enabled Web Services and Agents in the Semantic Web

Academic and industrial bodies are considering the issue of Web Services as being the next step forward. A number of efforts have been made and are evolving to define specifications and architectures for the spreading of this new breed of web applications. One such work revolves around the Semantic Web. Lead researches are trying to combine the semantic advantages that a Semantic Web can provide to Web Services. The research started with the now standardized RDF (Resource Description Framework) and continued with the creation of DAML+OIL (DARPA Agent Markup Language and Ontology Inference Layer) and its branches, particularly DAML-S (where S stands for Services) [1].The Semantic Webs point of view, being considered in this paper presents a rich environment where the advantages of incorporating semantics in searching for Web Services can be fully expressed. This paper aims to describe an environment called DASD (DAML Agents for Service Discovery) where Web Service requesters and providers can discover each other with the intermediary action of a Matchmaking service.

Task-Based user modelling for knowledge work support

A Knowledge Worker (KW) uses her computer to perform different tasks for which she gathers and uses information from disparate sources such as the Web and e-mail, and creates new information such as calendar events, e-mails, and documents (resources) This forms a Task Space (TS): an information space composed of all computer-based resources the KW uses in relation to a task Furthermore, KWs may switch between multiple tasks, some of which may be suspended and resumed after some time These effects compound the KWs ability to organise and visualise an accurate mental model of the individual TSs We propose a Task-Based User Model (TBUM) that acts as the KWs mental model for each task by automatically tracking, relating and organising resources associated with that task The generated TBUM can be used to support complex activities such as task-resumption, searching within a task-context, task sharing and collaboration.

CCBR Ontology for Reusable Service Templates

the motivation and design of CCBROnto, an OWL Ontology for Conversational Case-Base Reasoning (CCBR). We use this ontology to define cases that can eventually be stored, retrieved and reused by a mixed-initiative approach based on CCBR. We apply this technique for retrieving Web Service Composition templates.Template isDefinedBy

WISE - Workbench for Semantic Web Services

The onset of the Semantic Web has brought manyinnovations for enabling assisted interactions on the WorldWide Web through document annotation. Many efforts haveemerged throughout the past years, including RDF, OWL,OWL-S and WSMO, all seeking to improve the currentweb from a static one into a more dynamic one. SemanticWeb Services are an effective way to facilitate the discovery,selection and composition of services and to integrate theminto workflows. Presently, however, not many tools offer thefunctionality to facilitate the annotations of such services toontology frameworks such as OWL-S or WSMO. Presentedhere is an Editing Suite for such a scenario. The aim of thiswork is to provide a tool that provides two core features. Thefirst is a generic framework that allows the extraction of datafrom an SAWSDL document, as well as having an integratedvisual editor for building composite business processes. Thesecond is a set of hooking mechanisms, able to extend theabove framework so as to provide mappings from SAWSDL toany other ontology framework.

KEYSTONE Activities and Results Overview on Training Schools

This chapter reports on the results and provides a brief overview of the topics addressed by the 25 lectures and 8 industrial talks given in the three Training Schools organized in the scope of the KEYSTONE (Semantic KEYword-based Search on sTructured data sOurcEs) COST action IC1302.

Analysing and Visualising Parliamentary Questions: A Linked Data Approach

In many national parliaments, Members can exercise a basic Parliamentary function of holding the Executive to account by submitting Questions to Government Ministers. In certain parliaments, Members also have the faculty of either requesting a written answer or an oral one. Parliamentary Questions (PQs) often generate significant media attention and public interest, and are considered to be a very useful tool for parliamentarians to scrutinise the Government’s operative and financial administration. Interesting insights about individual Members of Parliament (MPs) as well as about the Parliament as a collective institution can be gleaned by analysing PQs. In this paper we present a linked data approach to PQs that is complemented with visualisations intended to increase the accessibility, by citizens, to this rich repository of parliamentary data. We use PQ data from the Maltese Parliament ranging over the last four legislatures and present an application called PQViz that exploits graph analytics to expose interesting insights from this data.

Online activity graph for document importance and association

The way in which a user interacts with her desktop while performing some task generates an information trail that can be used to identify the task context and the users interests. This new information can in turn be fed back into the system to increase the level of support available to the user for both current and future tasks. In this paper we present research which analyses user-activity log files to explore how a users activities evolve with time. Resources fall in and out of a task based on the users mental model for tackling that task. We assign time-varying, importance and association values to each resource, based on the dwell-time and the resource-switching patterns exhibited by the user while browsing. Furthermore, we propose a new dynamic graph algorithm called OnlineActivityGraph which leverages on these values to generate document clusters and short-term user models. We further present a discussion about the encouraging results obtained from our preliminary experiments.

A pervasive assistant for nursing and doctoral staff

The goal of health-care institutions is to provide patient-centric health care services. Unfortunately, this goal is frequently undermined due to human-related aspects. The PervasIve Nursing And docToral Assistant (PINATA) provides a patient-centric system powered with Ambience Intelligence techniques and Semantic Web technologies. Through PINATA, the movement of patients and medical staff is tracked via RFID sensors while an automated camera system monitors the interaction of people within their environment. The system reacts to particular situations autonomously by directing medical staff towards emergencies in a timely manner and providing them with just the information they require on their handheld devices. This ensures that patients are given the best care possible on a 24/7 basis especially when the medical staff is not around.