Marco Luca Sbodio

Discovering Semantic Web services using SPARQL and intelligent agents

This paper describes a novel approach to the description and discovery of Semantic Web services. We propose SPARQL as a formal language to describe the preconditions and postconditions of services, as well as the goals of agents. In addition, we show that SPARQL query evaluation can be used to check the truth of preconditions in a given context, construct the postconditions that will result from the execution of a service in a context, and determine whether a service execution with those results will satisfy the goal of an agent. We also show how certain optimizations of these tasks can be implemented in our framework.

CNL4DSA: a controlled natural language for data sharing agreements

A Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) is an agreement among contracting parties regulating how they share data. A DSA represents a flexible mean to assure privacy of data exchanged on the Web. As an example, a set of intelligent user agents may interact with each other, and by means of DSA, may negotiate privacy requirements on behalf of human users. However, a key factor for the adoption of privacys technologies is not only their reliability, but also their usability. Here, we propose CNL4DSA, a Controlled Natural Language for DSA aiming at lowering the barrier to adoption of DSA, and, at the same time, ensuring mapping to formal languages that enable the automatic verification of agreements.

Semantic Service Discovery using SAWSDL and SPARQL

Service discovery has always been a challenging task in the service oriented computing. Many approaches have already been put forward for the semantic service discovery or matchmaking task, where each approach uses its own logical formalism for service descriptions and user goals (i.e. formalized user request). As formalized service descriptions and user requests are used by the matchmaking process, matchmaking algorithm has a tight coupling with the underlying formalism used to describe services and goals. In this paper, we will present how SAWSDL can be used to annotate service descriptions while being agnostic to one particular service modeling formalism. The main contribution of this paper is to extend SAWSDL based service descriptions with the definition of pre and post-conditions using SPARQL query language and OWL-S Schema. We will also show how SPARQL query language can be used to formulate user goals. As a next step, we will present the matchmaking algorithm and prototype based on the matching of SPARQL based conditions and user goals.

A design phase for data sharing agreements

The number of factories, service providers, retailers, and final users that create networks and establish collaborations for increasing their productivity and competitiveness is constantly growing, especially by effect of the globalization and outsourcing of industrial activities. This trend introduces new complexities in the value supply chain, not last the need for secure and private data sharing among the collaborating parties. A Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) represents a flexible means to assure privacy and security of electronic data exchange. DSA is a formal document regulating data exchange in a controlled manner, by defining a set of policies specifying what parties are allowed, or required, or denied to do with respect to data covered by the agreement. A key factor in the adoption of DSAs is their usability. Here, we propose an approach for a consistent and automated design phase of the agreements. In particular, we present an authoring tool for a user-friendly and cooperative editing of DSA and an analysis tool to identify possible conflicts or incompatibilities among the DSA policies.

Developing a wearable assistant for hospital ward rounds: an experience report

We describe the results of a three year effort to develop, deploy, and evaluate a wearable staff support system for hospital ward rounds. We begin by describing elaborate workplace studies and staff interviews and the resulting requirements. We then present a wearable system developed on the basis of those requirements. It consists of a belt worn PC (QBIC) for the doctor, wrist worn accelerometer for gesture recognition, a wrist worn RFID reader, a bedside display, and a PDA for the nurse. Results of evaluation of the system, including simulated (with dummy patient) ward rounds with 9 different doctors and accompanying nurses are given. The results of the evaluation have lead to a new system version aimed at deployment in real life production environment (doctors and nurses performing ward rounds with real patients). The paper concludes by describing this next generation system and initial experiences from a first two week test deployment in a real life hospital setting.

Ontology-based context management components for service oriented architectures on wearable devices

Up-to-now wearable applications are built from individual optimized software components. This paper presents a structured approach to design and implement context-processing modules for context-aware systems and applications which significantly enhances reusability of this common component. Instead of monolithic, single purpose, context processing solutions, the authors suggest a generic approach to define contexts, and to employ a context management framework to realize the context-awareness services which complements the idea of an extensible wearable computing framework based on a service-oriented architecture developed by the European research project wearIT@-work.

Ontology based categorization in egovernment application

Applications in eGovernment domain often manage a knowledge base containing information about citizens. In this domain many commissions have to statute on citizens conditions in order to allow some assistance. Processes for classifying citizens have to be proposed to simplify the work of these commissions. n nWe propose a method for automatically classify instances of concepts in knowledge bases. In this categorization, instances may themselves belong to a category defined by a rule or may be associated to specific instances or concepts defined in an ontology. We consider three types of classification that can be applied to the main criteria of social care applications. n nWe also present a module allowing tools to get all required information about the categorization of elements in a knowledge base and in particular the categorization of citizens.

Using Ontological Concepts for Web Service Composition

This paper describes an approach for a composition of Web services based on their semantic descriptions. The process section of OWL-S service descriptions is built with references to ontology concepts which represent service input and output data types. We present an engine that receives a request containing a concept (OC) corresponding to a service output and a set of concepts (ICs) corresponding to a service inputs. The engine produces a sequence of services whose first element has ICs as inputs and whose last element has OC as output. The result of the composition is described as a BPEL process.

Towards safer information sharing in the cloud

Web interactions usually require the exchange of personal and confidential information for a variety of purposes, including enabling business transactions and the provisioning of services. A key issue affecting these interactions is the lack of trust and control on how data are going to be used and processed by the entities that receive it. In the traditional world, this problem is addressed using contractual agreements, those are signed by the involved parties, and law enforcement. This could be done electronically as well but, in addition to the trust issue, there is currently a major gap between the definition of legal contracts regulating the sharing of data, and the software infrastructure required to support and enforce them. How to enable organisations to provide more automation in this process? How to ensure that legal contracts can be actually enforced by the underlying IT infrastructure? How to enable end-users to express their preferences and constraints within these contracts? This article describes our R&D work to make progress towards addressing this gap via the usage of electronic Data Sharing Agreements (e-DSA). The aim is to share our vision, discuss the involved challenges and stimulate further research and development in this space. We specifically focus on a cloud scenario because it provides a rich set of use cases involving interactions and information sharing among multiple stakeholders, including users and service providers.

Improving the accessibility and efficiency of e-Government processes

This paper focuses on the conditions for obtaining real symbiotic applications in the e-Government domain. Specific services have to be delivered to the citizens with the help of civil servants. Ambient intelligence can help the interaction between citizens and specific services only if a rich middleware based on semantics has been previously designed. We propose an approach for improving the accessibility and efficiency of e-Government processes. The most innovative aspects of our approach are the use of semantics to describe e-Government services, and the use of SPARQL to define their eligibility criteria. We present a Web application that, based on our approach, automate the selection of services for citizens, and streamlines the associated e-Government process through an on-line collaborative workflow.