Luis Álvarez Sabucedo

Knowledge-based platform for eGovernment agents: A Web-based solution using semantic technologies

Currently eGovernment is clearly gaining momentum in our society. Many solutions and projects are being developed and, among the large amount of used tools, semantics is called to play a paramount role. In order to overcome issues related to cooperation, interoperability and accessibility of services in the domain, semantics can be used to improve in-use solutions and to develop new mechanisms able to support the development of expert and intelligent systems in eGovernment. This paper addresses a semantic based philosophy to tackle a holistic platform for the domain taking into account the knowledge of the administrations. By means of intelligent documents and Life Events, as they are presented in the paper, it is possible to build up a intelligent platform to host eGovernment services, as proved by the successful study case Tecut portal.

A proposal for a semantic-driven egovernment service architecture

Governments from all over the world are currently developing solutions and initiatives for the provision of solutions in the field of eGovernment. This leads to a heterogeneity problem that makes it necessary to provide interoperability mechanisms. This paper proposes an overall approach to overcome the current drawbacks of electronic communication among different PAs. In addition, new services are included to improve the eventual performance of this kind of systems. Web semantic technologies are used and some domain-specific profiles are proposed.

An ontology for managing network services quality

The evolution of IP networks to a service-oriented paradigm poses new challenges to service providers regarding the management and auditing of network services. The upward trend in ubiquity, heterogeneity and virtualization of network services and resources demands for a formal and systematic approach to network management tasks. In this context, the semantic characterization and modeling of services provided to users is a key component to sustain autonomic service management, service negotiation and configuration. The semantic and formal description of services and resources is also relevant to assist paradigms such as cloud computing, where a large diversity of resources have to be described and managed in a highly dynamic way. This paper defines an ontology for multiservice IP networks targeting multiple service management goals, namely: (i) to foster client and service provider interoperability; (ii) to manage network service contracts, promoting the dynamic negotiation between parties; (iii) to access and query SLA/SLSs data on a individual or aggregated basis to assist service provisioning in the network; and (iv) to sustain service monitoring and auditing. A ServiceModel API is provided to take full advantage of the proposed semantic model, allowing Service Management Platforms to access the ontological contents. This ontological development takes advantage of SWRL to discover new knowledge, enriching the possibilities of systems described using this support.

Standardization in computer-based education

This paper presents the state of the art and current trends in the standardization of computer-based education, including recent approaches like virtual learning or distributed education. Equipment, communication protocols, multimedia content and formats, description and representation of educational resources, organizations, modeling languages and management issues are some of the key areas in this standardization process. The main institutions participating in the process and their roles are also identified. This survey may serve as a reference for the researcher or practitioner in this field.

An ICT-Based Platform to Monitor Protocols in the Healthcare Environment

Procedures from the healthcare domain involve highly critical actions as they may pose a risk for patients’ life. Therefore, a large effort is devoted to the standardization in clinical praxis and to the control of quality for these protocols in order to minimize hazards. In this line, this work is compelled to provide an ICT-based support to carry out these controls in a simple and effective manner. Using a methodology based on HACCP and taking advantage of Semantic tools, a holistic platform of services for traceability and control of processes has been designed and implemented. The applied paradigm is based on the use of Control Points as singular points to generate traces using observations and measures relevant for the processes considered. Based on those, it is possible to offer services for advanced querying and knowledge inference. The local deployment just requires regular mobile phones or tablets making this solution cost-effective and easily replicable.

Investigación virtual en salud: las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación como factor revolucionador en el modo de hacer ciencia

The application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the health domain enables a number of possibilities for achieving great benefits in health on multiple levels. A wide range of research opportunities within this context is presented, highlighting the important role the use of ICTs plays in health investigation, especially in collaborative environments. This document presents a brief review of the potential the application of ICTs holds for the health field and for health-related research.

A knowledge technologies-based multi-agent system for eGovernment environments

The increasing volume of eGovernment-related services is demandingnew approaches for service integration and interoperability inthis domain. Semantic Web technologies and applications can leveragethe potential of eGovernment service integration and discovery, facing theproblems of semantic heterogeneity of eGovernment information sourcesand the different levels of interoperability. In line with this, eGovernmentservices will be semantically described in the foreseeable future. In anenvironment with semantically-annotated services, software agents areessential as the entities responsible for exploiting the semantic contentin order to automate some tasks thus improving the user experience. In this paper, we first present SEMMAS, an ontology-based Multi-Agent framework for seamlessly integrating Intelligent Agents and SemanticWeb Services. The proposed framework is independent from boththe application and the domain. Our approach is backed with a proof-of conceptimplementation where the breakthrough of integrating disparateeGovernment services has been tested.

Extending BPMN Model for Improving Expressiveness and Machine-Understandability

BPMN has become the preferred support for modelling and describing processes in the context of process developing. Nevertheless, several shortcomings have been identified in its application in particular usage scenarios. In particular, contexts demanding real-time monitoring of manual services, or with requirements to feed Data Analytics system can not take full advantage of BPMN. This papers address this arising issue by suggesting an extension for BPMN. This backwards compliant enhancement supports the definition of probe-oriented features to support services aimed at facilitating the fully automatic data processing in many scenarios.

QR Codes: Outlook for Food Science and Nutrition

QR codes opens up the possibility to develop simple-to-use, cost-effective-cost, and functional systems based on the optical recognition of inexpensive tags attached to physical objects. These systems, combined with Web platforms, can provide us with advanced services that are already currently broadly used on many contexts of the common life. Due to its philosophy, based on the automatic recognition of messages embedded on simple graphics by means of common devices such as mobile phones, QR codes are very convenient for the average user. Regretfully, its potential has not yet been fully exploited in the domains of food science and nutrition. This paper points out some applications to make the most of this technology for these domains in a straightforward manner. For its characteristics, we are addressing systems with low barriers to entry and high scalability for its deployment. Therefore, its launching among professional and final users is quite simple. The paper also provides high-level indications for the evaluation of the technological frame required to implement the identified possibilities of use.

A hybrid Semantic driven recommender for services in the eGovernment domain

In its way towards the maturity of eGovernment solutions a number of paths are being explored. Among them, one of the not fully explored mechanisms are the use of social features for a better provisioning of domain services. This paper explores how to provide support for the discovery of services from Public Administrations using folksonomies. Taking advantage of these, authors develop a social site and they provide a complete mechanism to recommend new services to users using techniques from CF and CBF recommenders. Also, some conclusions are presented to enlighten future practitioners and researchers.