Ismail Khalil Ibrahim

A semantic solution for data integration in mixed sensor networks

The number of sensor networks deployed for a manifold of applications is expected to increase dramatically in the coming few years. Advances in wireless communications and the growing interest in wireless networks are spurring this. This growth will not only simplify the access to sensor information but will also motivate the creation of numerous new information. Paradoxically, this growth will make the task of getting meaningful information from disparate sensor nodes not a trivial one. On the one hand, traffic overheads and the increased probabilities of hardware failures make it very difficult to maintain an always-on, ubiquitous service. On the other hand, the heterogeneity of the sensor nodes makes finding, extracting, and aggregating data at the processing elements and sink nodes much harder. These two issues (in addition to course to the distribution, dynamicity, accuracy, and reliability issues) impose the need for more efficient and reliable techniques for information integration of data collected from sensor nodes. In this paper, we first address the issues related to data integration in wireless sensor networks with respect to heterogeneity, dynamicity, and distribution at both the technology and application levels. Second, we present and discuss a query processing algorithm which make use of the semantic knowledge about sensor networks expressed in the form of integrity constraints to reduce network traffic overheads, improve scalability and extensibility of wireless networks and increase the stability and reliability of networks against hardware and software failures. Third, we discuss a uniform interface to data collected from sensor nodes that will map sensor-specific data to the global information source based on a context exported by the data integration system.

Agent solutions for e-business transactions

Software agents have become very popular in the last few years. They have been used successfully to perform quite a diverse range of applications. In this paper we present a model for agents as mediators in e-commerce, which highlights how far technology can be used to automate e-business transactions.

Multimedia Transcoding in Mobile and Wireless Networks

In recent years, the field of multimedia communication in wireless and mobile video has grown in attraction. As the number of networks, types of devices, and content representation formats increase, the need for multimedia transcoding in wireless and mobile networks intensifies in order to provide a seamless interaction between content creation and usage. Multimedia Transcoding in Mobile and Wireless Networks addresses the transcoding of all multimedia elements including video, audio and text, while addressing both practical and theoretical problems in the field. A must have resource for all stakeholders in mobile and wireless technologies, this book embodies state-of-the-art knowledge of transcoding as it is embedded in today s pioneering technologies and leading research.

A Novel Approach for Ontology Distribution in Ubiquitous Environments

In this paper, we describe a novel approach for ontology distribution in ubiquitous environments. We present the Context Aware Explorer (CAE) framework we have developed which allows building context aware applications. Our approach, while built upon Web Ontology Language OWL and RDF Schema, is aiming at modeling context ontology for supporting context reasoning and the design of a Smart Rule Engine that maintains a shared model of context for all computing entities in the smart space. The CAE main contribution is its ability to distribute ontology based on abstract parameters related to situation and to user profile. The ultimate goal is to decrease the response time of the reasoning engine with regards to reasoning accuracy. We also describe the implementation of CAE, and its associated ontology, in a prototype demonstrator of smart environment handling indoor and outdoor context aware services. The validation of the ontology distribution approach was applied to assistive environment dedicated to people having motor disabilities and tested within laboratory conditions. Preliminary performance results are presented to highlight the impact of distributed ontology concept.

The Web Goes Mobile: Can we Keep the Pace?

The Internet, respectively the applications and services known as the Web, is undergoing significant changes. Mobile communication has enabled us with an omnipresent access to the Web, technologies such as grid computing and Web services allow us to use the Web far beyond its initial intention of document and information sharing, and intelligent agents and semantic systems aim to automate the tasks and better support us in interacting with the Web. Considering all those advances, one might ask the question how users can keep pace with all those developments and more specifically, how technology itself can help us in keeping pace. In this paper we investigate context aware adaptation and personalization as potential solutions.

Collaborative decision support in mobile environments: a requirement analysis

Decision support systems can be categorized based on the complexity of the decision problem space and group composition. The combination of the dimensions of the problem space and group compositions in mobile environments in terms of time, spatial distribution and interaction will result in a set of requirements that need to be addressed in different phases of decision process. In this paper, we explore the different requirements for designing and implementing a collaborative decision support systems.

Norms enforcement as a coordination strategy in ubiquitous environments

Ubiquitous environments are characterized by their openness, dynamicity and autonomy. Electronic institutions are the agents’ counterpart of human organizations, which are specifically designed for providing support, trust, and legitimacy in ubiquitous applications. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for norms enforcement in electronic institutions as a coordination strategy in ubiquitous environments by introducing substitution rules that map the norms set for the electronic institution to normative rules that can be implemented in the protocols to govern agents’ interactions in ubiquitous environments.

Rewriting Rules for Semantic Query Transformation in E-commerce Applications

Introduction The proliferation of e-commerce applications and the associated complexity and diversity of their information sources have posed many critical problems for accessing, relating, and combining data stored in these multiple, possibly heterogeneous information sources. Answering queries in e-commerce environments is a complicated problem that involves selecting the relevant information sources and generating a query plan to retrieve and combine the data automatically. The traditional cost-based query optimization techniques are computationally expensive because of the high connection overheads, high computation time, financial charges, and temporary unavailability, as well as the other problems of manipulating sources with different data models, semantics, and access methods. In this paper, we address the problem of integrating Answering Queries Using Views (and more generally Query Folding) with Semantic Query Optimization into one optimizer that uses the semantics of the database in the form of integrity constraints to support the query processing and optimization in e-commerce environments. A mediated schema is designed. User queries are posed in terms of this mediated schema. To allow the mediator to retrieve data, each information source is wrapped by a component that translates the component database schema into a view definition defined over the global schema. 2 The reminder of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss the information mediation architecture and Web information integration strategies. Then, we present a survey of the modern solutions of the relevant query processing techniques. We illustrate the relationship between AQUV, SQO, and QF. We present a transformation of a database schema that allows us to formulate an AQUV problem as SQO problem and propose an algorithm for AQUV based on SQO. Finally, we conclude with some remarks on the work presented in this paper. The mediation architecture, proposed by (Wiederhold 19992) constitutes the blueprint for the integration of autonomous, distributed and heterogeneous information sources. The architecture consists of three main layers. The first layer supports communication between the mediator and the application programs accessed by the mediator such as on-line database and services, proprietary legacy application, or simply Web services. This layer consists of programs, which are referred to as wrappers. The mediator l ayer is composed of two components. The first component is the specification of expert knowledge about different systems and integration paradigms. We will call this component the mediator. The second component is the query processor that interprets the mediator to answer queries. The final …

Learning domain taxonomies: the TaxoLine approach

Purpose The aim of this paper is to present an online framework for building a domain taxonomy, called TaxoLine, from Web documents automatically. Design/methodology/approach TaxoLine proposes an innovative methodology that combines frequency and conditional mutual information to improve the quality of the domain taxonomy. The system also includes a set of mechanisms that improve the execution time needed to build the ontology. Findings The performance of the TaxoLine framework was applied to nine different financial corpora. The generated taxonomies are evaluated against a gold-standard ontology and are compared to state-of-the-art ontology learning methods. Originality/value The experimental results show that TaxoLine produces high precision and recall for both concept and relation extraction than well-known ontology learning algorithms. Furthermore, it also shows promising results in terms of execution time needed to build the domain taxonomy.

IMIS 2008 Message from the Workshop Organizers MUE 2008

Welcome to Pusan and the second International Workshop on Interactive Multimedia and Intelligent Services in Mobile and Ubiquitous computing (IMIS08)! We are very pleased that the workshop continues to attract high quality submissions from a diverse and international group of researchers. With the proliferation of wireless technologies and electronic devices, there is a fast growing interest in Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing (MUC). MUC enables to create a human-oriented computing environment where computer chips are embedded in everyday objects and interact with physical world. This workshop focuses on the challenges and solutions for MUC with an emphasis on interactive multimedia and intelligent services. The workshop provides an opportunity for academic and industry professionals to discuss the latest issues and progress in the area of MUC. Most of submitted papers this year received three peer reviews from our program committee, comprising 32 members from academia and industry. It is impossible to organize such a successful program without the help of many individuals. We would like to express our appreciation to the authors of the submitted papers, and to the program committee members, who provided timely and significant reviews. We hope all of you enjoy IMIS08 and find this a productive opportunity to learn, exchange idea, make new contacts and renew old ones. May your visit also include some time to enjoy the charming city of Pusan.