Lorenzo Sommaruga

User-Friendly Ontology Editing and Visualization Tools: The OWLeasyViz Approach

This paper aims to propose solutions to the issue of ontology visualization, by presenting intuitive and user-friendly ontology editing and visualization environments mainly oriented to domain experts. It starts with an overview of existing ontology visualization methods; afterwards it describes the Semantic DB system and the OWLeasyViz ontology editor. Semantic DB is a web application framework to create simple complete semantic web applications, integrating an ontology editor, a resource editor, an inference rule editor, a reasoner, and a search engine. OWLeasyViz is an ontology editor that combines a textual and a graphical representation of OWL ontologies. It meets different user needs by providing a simple and intuitive interface to end-users who are not ontologists, and offering more advanced tools to ontology experts. The OWLeasyViz editor is intended to be a module of a semantic web integrated working environment, developed within the context of a Swiss Government funded CTI applied research project in the domain of waste water management.

DomoML: the definition of a standard markup for interoperability of human home interactions

DomoML is a mark-up language aimed at the definition of interoperability standard for domestic resources within the NICHE project (Natural Interaction in Computerised Home Environment). The project focuses on human language as a means for mediating user interaction with the home environment, enabling a user to control, query and program devices. Various heterogeneous components are going to take part in this architecture, and DomoML is the glue which allows them to be interfaced. It is a mark-up language intended to define a semantic layer on which novel value-added services (agents) can easily be built.

Curriculum visualization in 3D

This paper describes a 3D environment for representing a university undergraduate education programme. More specifically, the curriculum data selected for representation, how they are visualized in the 3D environment, and the process of generating it are detailed. Modules and curricula have been rendered in such a way that many numerical data, such as credits and duration, are translated into a graphical form, resulting in a simple and intuitive overall view. This effective visualization strategy provides added-value in comparison with the more traditional textual presentation. The 3D environment, based on the X3D language, is dynamically generated from a database thanks to an XSLT transformation. The use of a powerful XML based Web publishing tool, i.e. Apache Cocoon, allows this transformation to be easily performed on the fly.

Generic environments for knowledge management and visualization

There is an increasing need for usable tools to support knowledge elicitation, formalization and management. As an answer to this need, this paper describes fully integrated semantic web frameworks, where users can represent and manage their knowledge in a visual way, without the need of semantic web experts as intermediaries. These frameworks typically incorporate an ontology editor, a resource editor, reasoning capabilities and intuitive interaction and visualization facilities. In particular, two frameworks are presented: IRCS, a system to semantically index, search, and navigate heterogeneous resources, and AWI, a collaborative environment aiming to collect and share knowledge of user communities. These generic frameworks were developed within applied research projects and used to create semantic web applications in different domains such as water management plants and business process management. An interesting aspect of these systems is that they provide visualization tools to present both ontologies and resources in a familiar and intuitive way in order to simplify their understanding. The use of effective visualization techniques is also investigated in the EasyOnto project, where a web application that graphically represents ontologies using different methods was developed.

DomoML: an integrating devices framework for ambient intelligence solutions

Within an ambient intelligence context, this paper presents an approach to Human Home Interaction through the adoption of the DomoML web service based framework. This framework consists of a suite of XML based languages aiming to describe and interconnect home resources in order to obtain a smart home appliance of heterogeneous integrated devices. The DomoML framework is integrating and managing different devices, by abstracting them as homogeneous resources. It is based on the use of semantic web technologies, on one hand, which provide interoperability and allow the automated processing and reasoning; and, on the other hand, on the use of RESTful webservices as a mechanism of integration and communication between heterogeneous physical devices. This platform is going to be applied in elderly peoples home to enhance quality of life regarding independence of daily living and safety. The application of the framework to this domain aims to provide innovative solutions and ICT services to answer the social and health-care needs of elderly people at sustainable costs.

The intelligent web: Tools for knowledge management and sharing

Modern companies and enterprises, to be competitive, need to be able to capture, integrate, connect, manage and share heterogeneous information and knowledge, about the different actors and elements involved in their systems: processes, activities, procedures, people, documents, etc. Knowledge comes from different sources, in different formats, and sometimes is implicit and not written; in addition, it dynamically evolves, it often requires the contribution of a collaborative team. This paper describes how intelligent web tools can provide new opportunities for knowledge representation, formalization, management and sharing. It firstly introduces the concept of “intelligent web” as a synergic combination of Web 2.0 and Semantic Web technologies. The second part of the paper presents the AWI environment to demonstrate the practical applicability of the intelligent web approach for knowledge management, in particular in the field of manufacturing and business process management.

SMARTBRICKS: Developing an intelligent web tool for Business Process Management

The goal of this paper is to describe Workpackage1 of the Swiss Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) Digital Factory (DiFac) research project being carried out by CEMEX Research Group and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). This Workpackage will enable the development, testing and implementation of the SMARTBRICKS tool for Business Processes Management (BPM) by deploying an intelligent web platform based on Semantic Based technologies enabling BPM specialists to evolve from “passive consumers” of business processes contents to “active contents developers” and accelerate best practices global diffusion in CEMEX increasing its operational efficiency.

Human centered design framework to generate novel ambient intelligence interface solutions

The emergent application area of Ambient Intelligence provides new opportunities in the field of social interaction, and new means to conceive and design novel interface solutions for accessing social technologies. The maturity of technologies such as motion tracking, gesture recognition, facial expression and emotion recognition facilitate natural interactions with intelligent environments by providing technology newbies with more inclusive and universal interaction modalities. The workshop proposes the application of a Human Centered Design framework useful to conceive and design novel interface solutions for human activity sharing. Through an iterative process, participants will practice HCD methodologies and techniques and will define visions and concepts for our future life environment. From this workshop, participants will acquire multidisciplinary knowledge related to the Ambient Intelligence area, experiment an iterative process that can be adapted to other research topics, and structure concepts useful to start new investigations and developments.

“Tagsonomy”: Easy Access to Web Sites through a Combination of Taxonomy and Folksonomy

This paper analyzes possible solutions and mechanisms to facilitate information retrieval in a corporate web site. It presents advantages and problems of taxonomies and folksonomies, and proposes a hybrid approach which combines their benefits to adaptively improve access to a web site. This approach has been tested in a real scenario by developing the Easy Access system. This practical experience introduces the “tagsonomy” mechanism, i.e. the controlled combination of a top-down classification defined by the web site content manager, and a bottom-up classification defined by users. The peculiar feature is that the folksonomy is automatically generated on the basis of the user interaction with the system, and not as the result of an explicit tagging process.

The C95 Challenge project and the use of mobile technologies for training

This paper describes the use of mobile interactivexa0technologies for driver training within the C95xa0Challenge ERASMUS+ project.