Robert Meersman

On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2002: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE

COOPIS 2002 FULL PAPERS.- Developing Evolutionary Cost Models for Query Optimization in a Dynamic Multidatabase Environment.- A Conceptual Markup Language That Supports Interoperability between Business Rule Modeling Systems.- Distributed Description Logics: Directed Domain Correspondences in Federated Information Sources.- Synchronization of Concurrent Workflows Using Interaction Expressions and Coordination Protocols.- CPM Revisited - An Architecture Comparison.- Modeling Coordination and Control in Cross-Organizational Workflows.- View Propagation and Inconsistency Detection for Cooperative Mobile Agents.- On Real-Time Top k Querying for Mobile Services.- Mobile Agents in Mobile Data Access Systems.- Using Agent Control and Communication in a Distributed Workflow Information System.- An Extended Alternating-Offers Bargaining Protocol for Automated Negotiation in Multi-agent Systems.- A Human Based Perception Model for Cooperative Intelligent Virtual Agents.- A Decentralized Algorithm for Coordinating Independent Peers: An Initial Examination.- Supporting Peer-to-Peer User Communities.- Context Spaces - Self-Structuring Distributed Networks for Contextual Messaging and Resource Discovery.- Supporting Cooperative Learning in Distributed Project Teams.- Discovering Emergent Virtual Work Processes in Collaborative Systems.- Flexible Merging for Asynchronous Collaborative Systems.- A Multi-version Transaction Model to Improve Data Availability in Mobile Computing.- Finding Trading Partners to Establish Ad-hoc Business Processes.- Regulating Work in Digital Enterprises: A Flexible Managerial Framework.- Collecting and Querying Distributed Traces of Composite Service Executions.- An Architecture of a Web-Based Collaborative Image Search Engine.- Parallel Processing with Autonomous Databases in a Cluster System.- Querying XML Sources Using an Ontology-Based Mediator.- Handling Partial Matches in Semistructured Data with Cooperative Query Answering Techniques.- Efficient Querying of Distributed Resources in Mediator Systems.- Managing Data Quality in Cooperative Information Systems.- Adaptive Fault Tolerant Hospital Resource Scheduling.- COOPIS 2002 POSTERS.- Mining Living Data - Providing Context Information to a Negotiation Process.- The Neem Platform: An Evolvable Framework for Perceptual Collaborative Applications.- A Model for Process Service Interaction.- Leveraging Dynamic Inheritance in Complex Ontology Representation.- A Database Approach to Global Document Spaces: Replacing Files with Shared, Connected Objects.- PROLOG/RDBMS Integration in the NED Intelligent Information System.- New Location Management for Reducing HLR Overhead Traffic in Mobile Networks.- DOA 2002 FULL PAPERS.- A Filter Object Framework for MICO.- Design and Performance of a Modular Portable Object Adapter for Distributed, Real-Time, and Embedded CORBA Applications.- Design and Performance of Asynchronous Method Handling for CORBA.- Web Services Interoperability: A Practitioners Experience.- Cooking the Web-ERP.- Web Services and CORBA.- Composing and Deploying Grid Middleware Web Services Using Model Driven Architecture.- A Design Pattern for Efficient Retrieval of Large Data Sets from Remote Data Sources.- Replacement Policies for a Distributed Object Caching Service.- Design and Performance of a Media Gateway Trader.- Object Security Attributes: Enabling Application-Specific Access Control in Middleware.- Integrating Optimistic Virtual Synchrony to a CORBA Object Group Service.- Implementing a CORBA-Based Architecture for Leveraging the Security Level of Existing Applications.- Reconciling Replication and Transactions for the End-to-End Reliability of CORBA Applications.- Runtime Performance Modeling and Measurement of Adaptive Distributed Object Applications.- An Infrastructure for Adaptable Middleware.- A Reflective Middleware Framework for Communication in Dynamic Environments.- A Dynamic Proxy Based Architecture to Support Distributed Java Objects in a Mobile Environment.- A CORBA-Based Work .ow Management System for Wireless Communication Environments.- Customizable Deployment, Composition, and Hosting of Distributed Java Applications.- Resource Discovery for Pervasive Environments.- An Adaptive Scheduling Service for Real-Time CORBA.- The Design and Performance of the jRate Real-Time Java Implementation.- Empirical Differences between COTS Middleware Scheduling Strategies.- Adding Business Rules and Constraints in Component Based Applications.- Configuring the Communication Middleware to Support Multi-user Object-Oriented Environments.- Distributed Component System Based on Architecture Description: The SOFA Experience.- On Components with Explicit Protocols Satisfying a Notion of Correctness by Construction.- ODBASE 2002 FULL PAPERS.- Well-Founded Optimism: Inheritance in Frame-Based Knowledge Bases.- A Defeasible Ontology Language.- On the Semantics of Anonymous Identity and Reification.- Extending Datatype Support in Web Ontology Reasoning.- A Conceptual Modeling Approach for Semantics-Driven Enterprise Applications.- Towards Ontological Foundations for UML Conceptual Models.- Towards Secure Object Oriented Database Systems.- Information-Flow-Based Ontology Mapping.- The Semantics of Semantic Annotation.- A User Behavior-Based Agent for Improving Web Usage.- Usage-Oriented Evolution of Ontology-Based Knowledge Management Systems.- OntoEdit: Guiding Ontology Development by Methodology and Inferencing.- Open Mind Common Sense: Knowledge Acquisition from the General Public.- Formal Ontology Engineering in the DOGMA Approach.- A Dynamic Model for Mapping XML Elements in a Object-Oriented Fashion.- KF-Diff+: Highly Efficient Change Detection Algorithm for XML Documents.- Naming in XML Documents.- Reasoning with Ontologies by Using Knowledge Conjunction in Conceptual Graphs.- Natural Language Annotations for the Semantic Web.- A Metadata Integration Assistant Generator for Heterogeneous Distributed Databases.- Intelligent Web Search via Personalizable Meta-search Agents.- ODBASE 2002 Posters.- Defining Information System Components.- Discovering Resources in the Semantic Web.- Geodata Interoperation via Semantic Correspondences.- Extending Datatype Support inWeb Ontology Reasoning.

On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2004: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE

Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS) 2004 International Conference.- CoopIS 2004 International Conference (International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems) PC Co-chairs Message.- Keynote.- Business Process Optimization.- Workflow/Process/Web Services, I.- Discovering Workflow Transactional Behavior from Event-Based Log.- A Flexible Mediation Process for Large Distributed Information Systems.- Exception Handling Through a Workflow.- Workflow/Process/Web Services, II.- A Flexible and Composite Schema Matching Algorithm.- Analysis, Transformation, and Improvements of ebXML Choreographies Based on Workflow Patterns.- The Notion of Business Process Revisited.- Workflow/Process/Web Services, III.- Disjoint and Overlapping Process Changes: Challenges, Solutions, Applications.- Untangling Unstructured Cyclic Flows - A Solution Based on Continuations.- Making Workflow Models Sound Using Petri Net Controller Synthesis.- Database Management/Transaction.- Concurrent Undo Operations in Collaborative Environments Using Operational Transformation.- Refresco: Improving Query Performance Through Freshness Control in a Database Cluster.- Automated Supervision of Data Production - Managing the Creation of Statistical Reports on Periodic Data.- Schema Integration/Agents.- Deriving Sub-schema Similarities from Semantically Heterogeneous XML Sources.- Supporting Similarity Operations Based on Approximate String Matching on the Web.- Managing Semantic Compensation in a Multi-agent System.- Modelling with Ubiquitous Agents a Web-Based Information System Accessed Through Mobile Devices.- Events.- A Meta-service for Event Notification.- Classification and Analysis of Distributed Event Filtering Algorithms.- P2P/Collaboration.- A Collaborative Model for Agricultural Supply Chains.- FairNet - How to Counter Free Riding in Peer-to-Peer Data Structures.- Supporting Collaborative Layouting in Word Processing.- A Reliable Content-Based Routing Protocol over Structured Peer-to-Peer Networks.- Applications, I.- Covering Your Back: Intelligent Virtual Agents in Humanitarian Missions Providing Mutual Support.- Dynamic Modelling of Demand Driven Value Networks.- An E-marketplace for Auctions and Negotiations in the Constructions Sector.- Applications, II.- Managing Changes to Engineering Products Through the Co-ordination of Human and Technical Activities.- Towards Automatic Deployment in eHome Systems: Description Language and Tool Support.- A Prototype of a Context-Based Architecture for Intelligent Home Environments.- Trust/Security/Contracts.- Trust-Aware Collaborative Filtering for Recommender Systems.- Service Graphs for Building Trust.- Detecting Violators of Multi-party Contracts.- Potpourri.- Leadership Maintenance in Group-Based Location Management Scheme.- TLS: A Tree-Based DHT Lookup Service for Highly Dynamic Networks.- Minimizing the Network Distance in Distributed Web Crawling.- Ontologies, DataBases, and Applications of Semantics (ODBASE) 2004 International Conference.- ODBASE 2004 International Conference (Ontologies, DataBases, and Applications of Semantics) PC Co-chairs Message.- Keynote.- Helping People (and Machines) Understanding Each Other: The Role of Formal Ontology.- Knowledge Extraction.- Automatic Initiation of an Ontology.- Knowledge Extraction from Classification Schemas.- Semantic Web in Practice.- Generation and Management of a Medical Ontology in a Semantic Web Retrieval System.- Semantic Web Based Content Enrichment and Knowledge Reuse in E-science.- The Role of Foundational Ontologies in Manufacturing Domain Applications.- Intellectual Property Rights Management Using a Semantic Web Information System.- Ontologies and IR.- Intelligent Retrieval of Digital Resources by Exploiting Their Semantic Context.- The Chrysostom Knowledge Base: An Ontology of Historical Interactions.- Text Simplification for Information-Seeking Applications.- Information Integration.- Integration of Integrity Constraints in Federated Schemata Based on Tight Constraining.- Modal Query Language for Databases with Partial Orders.- Composing Mappings Between Schemas Using a Reference Ontology.- Assisting Ontology Integration with Existing Thesauri.

On The Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2003: OTM 2003 Workshops

It is believed that transactions belong to key services of componentbased middleware. However, surprisingly, there is no general agreement on how the component-based middleware support for transactions should look like. In this paper we exploit our experiences with Jironde [4], a flexible framework that extends the Fractal component model [1, 2] with transactions via a set of transactional controllers that manage transactions on behalf of a component. Then we identify several key architectural and technical issues related to enhancing component-based middleware with transactions. We investigate how current technologies address theses issues, and the suitability of current standards to support transaction processing in component-based middleware. 1 Transactions and Components: Architectural Issues Different component models deal with component’s participation in a transaction differently. In the explicit transaction participation, the scenario of involving a component C to a transaction t essentially consists of the three steps as follows: 1) C is registered to t. 2) A client invokes various operations on C. 3) At the time of t’s validation, the transaction manager invokes specific methods of the registered C’s interfaces. These (callback) methods must be implemented by the transactional components. With the implicit transaction participation, components are not obliged to implement any functionality related to transactions. Any time C is visited by a transaction t, the transaction manager of the container keeps all necessary information to manage atomicity, concurrency control, and recovery. Different component standards deal with component participation in transactions differently. CCM use the explicit transaction participation, COM+ uses the implicit one, while EJB mix both. Component-unaware transactions manipulate data without any knowledge on whether they are organized or related to components. For component-aware transactions, components are the data they manipulate with. We believe that all the CCM, EJB, and COM+ transactions are component-unaware. A component is transaction-unaware if its code does not use any transactional primitives and is not therefore in any way dependent on any transactional standard, while a transactionaware component is the opposite. Component’s awareness of transactions reflects the implicit/explicit transaction participation but includes also some hidden expectations of the component design. Transaction-unaware container does not deal with On Enhancing Component-Based Middleware with Transactions 2 transactions, which are managed at the application level instead. Transaction-aware container provides some transaction management features, such as containerdemarcation, transaction propagation, concurrency control, etc. EJB, CCM and COM+ are examples that provide such containers. 2 Transactions and Components: Technical Issues The technical issues related to transactional component include concurrency control, recovery, and transaction context propagation. As for concurrency control, the current technologies either use a simple read/write model or do not allow any concurrent access to component instances at all. It would be beneficial to exploit the concurrency potential of components by e.g. the use of conflict matrixes defined on all the methods of all implemented interfaces. Both concurrency control and recovery of components reflect the architectural patterns presented in the previous section. Another important issue is the transaction context propagation. There are several options of how to specify a transaction propagation policy, as well as whether to define it either during the component’s development or during its deployment. A last issue is to support the definition of new propagation policies, like JOTDF [5] does.

A Logic Framework for a Semantics of Object-Oriented Data Modeling

We describe a (meta) formalism, called Data Modelling Logic (DM logic), for defining a variety of (object oriented) data models in a unified framework based on first-order logic. Using NORM, an OO model, we illustrate how essential 00 properties such as information hiding, encapsulation, inheritance and behavior may be generically described, as well as the fundamental distinction with object-oriented programming, namely persistence. A formal semantics for these concepts can so be given independently of the chosen data model. DM logic has been demonstrated in earlier work to adequately support “classical” data models such as (E)ER, NIAM, and the Relational Model, and so-called lossless transformations between them. By “programming” an OO data model in DM Logic, it should become possible to arrive at objective relationships between (OO and other) data modelling techniques.

The building blocks for specifying communication behavior of complex objects: an activity-driven approach

Communication behavior represents dynamic evolution and cooperation of a group of objects in accomplishing a task. It is an important feature in object-oriented systems. We propose the concept of activity as a basic building block for declarative specification of communication behavior in object-oriented database systems, including the temporal ordering of message exchanges within object communication and the behavioral relationships between activity executions. We formally introduce two kinds of activity composition mechanisms: activity specialization and activity aggregation for abstract implementation of communication behavior. The former is suited for behavioral refinement of existing activities into specialized activities. The latter is used for behavioral composition of simpler activities into complex activities, and ultimately, into the envisaged database system. We use first-order temporal logic as an underlying formalism for specification of communication constraints. The well known Air-traffic-control case is used as a running example to highlight the underlying concepts, to illustrate the usefulness, and to assess the effectiveness of the activity model for declarative specification of communication behavior in the relevant universe of discourse. We also propose a methodological framework for integrating activity schema with entity schema in an object-oriented design environment.

Social network of smart-metered homes and SMEs for grid-based renewable energy exchange

This paper proposes a revolutionary approach to Smart Energy Grids which empowers communities of consumers as first-class citizens with a novel role in the management of their electricity by sharing excess electricity and therefore becoming energy producers (prosumers). The approach makes innovations on smart technologies and processes by building a demand-response decision support system on top of smart metering and social web technologies. This is achieved using a framework to connect dynamic, context-aware, heterogeneous virtual and real entities on the Internet of Smart Meters (IoSM) and by studying the behavior of communities on it. The smart electricity meters are transformed into fully-fledged intelligent computers on the IoSM, enabled to (i) securely collect data from heterogeneous meters and sensors and actuators, (ii) detect smart meters with similar goals, (iii) exchange and aggregate data from multiple autonomous physical or virtual meters, and (iv) manage the actual energy demand and ensure the achievement of demand response for the community involved. The approach is centered on the community and its respective DSOs, where each prosumer is represented as a node on the IoSM through their electricity meters, sensors and actuators. This allows for rational energy exchange between technical and non-technical participants by expressing their goals in a standardized language through hybrid ontologies.

Semantic Issues in E Commerce Systems

This paper provides an overview of the Integration Rules (IRules) approach to the interconnection of distributed software components. The intended use of this rule processing technology is for the specification of event-based processing logic in the development of component-based applications for distributed environments, such as E-commerce applications. The IRules approach builds upon the use of the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) software component model, providing an environment to facilitate the integration of black-box software components. An application integrator uses the IRules Component Definition Language to extend the definition of an EJB component in the IRules environment with derived and stored attributes, externalized relationships, and events. The application integrator then uses the IRules Integration Rule Language together with a scripting language to develop applications. Integration rules provide active rule capability to the environment so that as distributed components and external sources generate event notifications, integration rules are used to invoke methods on components or on higher-level application transactions. The IRules approach is unique in that it addresses the language and semantic framework needed in the context of software component models for the effective use of rules in distributedElectronic Commerce involves coordination between different organizations using communication technology. The coordination can be achieved in the form of an electronic market or a virtual enterprise. In both cases, contracts playa central role. In the Electronic Market, contracts are agreements on a specific business transaction. In a Virtual Enterprise, the contract is a cooperation agreement for a longer period involving integrated business processes. A general framework of business communication is presented that is applied to a case study. We argue that an agent society model is most suitable for implementing contracts.

Towards freely and correctly adjusted Dijkstra's algorithm with semantic decision tables for ontology based data matching

Researches on ontology based data matching have been recently explored. In this paper, we will focus on how to adapt Dijkstras algorithm for matching two data sets and how to freely adjust the parameters of Dijkstras algorithm by the end users. A novel approach of using semantic decision tables for the adjustment will be presented and discussed. This particular approach provides a generic, user friendly, simple yet powerful solution to control an algorithm in an elegant way. In order to present the matching result, we propose a formula called GRASIM, which uses the travel cost of the shortest path, to calculate the similarities between two data sets.

Towards evaluating ontology based data matching strategies matching strategies, evaluation methodology and results

In the EC FP6 Prolix project, a generic ontology-based data matching framework (ODMF) is developed for enhancing competency management and e-learning processes. In this paper, we will focus on ODMF matching strategies and an evaluation methodology for the evaluation. We will discuss the evaluation principles and evaluation criteria in general. This evaluation methodology is applied to enterprises and being validated. The evaluation results and valuable concluding points concerning an evaluation methodology will be explained.

A self-configuring semantic decision table For parameterizing an ontology-based data matching strategy

a semantic decision table (SDT), which is a decision table annotated with an ontology (or ontologies), is a means to ensure the completeness and correctness of a decision table. It can be used to store the parameters of a matching strategy. In principle, SDTs can be used to configure any kinds of strategies, functions or algorithm. In this paper, we use an ontology-based data matching strategy, which has been developed and used for competency matching in the fields of human resource management and eLearning/training to demonstrate how SDTs can be used. In particular, we focus on how to make SDT self-configured based on the feedbacks from an end user while evaluating this strategy. We design an algorithm called Semantic Decision Table Self-Configuration Algorithm (SDT-SCA) to find the best parameters that can be stored as action stubs in an SDT. We discuss the design, implementation and industrial experiments concerning SDT-SCA.