Vagan Y. Terziyan

Developing GIS-supported location-based services

Mobile networking is developing and proliferating at a high speed. Many estimates say that the number of mobile telecom subscribers will exceed 1 billion in the year 2003. Among the terminals deployed, there will be hundreds of millions of Internet-enabled ones making Mobile Internet a reality for the big masses. The terminals and/or the mobile networks are now able to determine the position of the terminal on the earth with more and more precision. This is the basis for the new class of services called Location-Based Services (LBS). The paper discusses this new emerging application area that some people consider the central novel application class of Mobile Internet. The main topic of the paper is the question, how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the data hosted currently by them could be used in the context of LBS. We analyze their properties and relate them with the needs of LBS. We also present our LBS pilot system that is using XML-based vector formal for city maps and runs on Java-enabled mobile terminals, PDAs and smartphones.

Towards a Framework for Agent-Enabled Semantic Web Service Composition

The article presents the framework for agent-enabled dynamic Web service composition. The core of the methodology is the new understanding of a Web service as an agent capability having proper ontological description. It is demonstrated how diverse Web services may be composed and mediated by dynamic coalitions of software agents collaboratively performing tasks for service requestors. Middle Agent Layer is introduced to conduct service request to task transformation, agent-enabled cooperative task decomposition and performance. Discussed are the formal means to arrange agents’ negotiation, to represent the semantic structure of the task-activity-service hierarchy and to assess fellow-agents’ capabilities and credibility factors. Finally, it is argued that the presented formal technique is applicable to various application domains. Presented is the ongoing work on designing and implementing agent-based layered architecture for intelligent rational information and document retrieval. Finally, the discussion of the OntoServ.Net framework for the development of P2P mobile service infrastructures for industrial asset management provides the extension of the Web service composition approach.

A Dynamic Integration Algorithm for an Ensemble of Classifiers

One of the most important directions in improvement of the datamining and knowledge discovery methods is the integration of the multiple classification techniques based on ensembles of classifiers. An integration technique should solve the problem of estimation and selection of the most appropriate component classifiers for an ensemble. We discuss an advanced dynamic integration of multiple classifiers as one possible variation of the stacked generalization method using the assumption that each component classifier is best inside certain areas of the application domain. In the learning phase a performance matrix of each component classifier is derived and then used in the application phase to predict performances of each component classifier with new instances.

UbiRoad: Semantic Middleware for Context-Aware Smart Road Environments

A smart road environment is such a traffic environment that is equipped with all necessary facilities to enable seamless mobile service provisioning to the users. However, advanced sensors and network architectures deployed within the traffic environment are insufficient to make mobile service provisioning autonomous and proactive, thus minimizing drivers’ distraction during their presence in the environment. For that, an Intelligent Transportation System, which is operating on top of numerous sensor and access networks and governing the process of mobile services provisioning to the users in self-managed and proactive way, must be deployed. Specifically, such system should provide solutions to the following two interoperability problems: interoperability between the in-car and roadside devices produced and programmed by different vendors and/or providers, and the need for seamless and flexible collaboration (including discovery, coordination, conflict resolution and possibly even negotiation) amongst the smart road devices and services. To tackle these problems, in this paper we propose UbiRoad middleware intending utilization of semantic languages and semantic technologies for declarative specification of devices’ and services’ behavior, application of software agents as engines executing those specifications, and establishment of common ontologies to facilitate and govern seamless interoperation of devices, services and humans. The main contribution of the paper includes the requirements and the architecture of complex traffic management systems and shows how such systems may benefit from utilization of semantic and agent technologies.

The decision support system for telemedicine based on multiple expertise

This paper discusses the application of artificial intelligence in telemedicine and some of our research results in this area. The main goal of our research is to develop methods and systems to collect, analyse, distribute and use medical diagnostics knowledge from multiple knowledge sources and areas of expertise. Use of modern communication tools enable a physician to collect and analyse information obtained from experts worldwide with the help of a decision support medical system. In this paper we discuss a multilevel representation and processing of medical data using a system which evaluates and exploits knowledge about the behaviour of statistical diagnostics methods. The presented technique is able to acquire semantically-essential information from the complex dynamics of quasi-periodical medical signals by applying recursively-ordinary statistical tools. A method and an algorithm are elaborated to select automatically the most appropriate diagnostics method for each case under consideration. We suggest the use of a voting-type technique to search for consensus among the different opinions of medical experts. Research results can be applied in the development of a telediagnostics expert medical system and medical teleconsulting support system.

Semantic Web Enabled Web Services: State-of-Art and Industrial Challenges

Semantic Web technology has a vision to define and link Web data in a way that it can be understood and used by machines for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications. Ontological definition of every resource as it is assumed in Semantic Web, along with new techniques for semantics processing and new vision Intelligent Web Services is expected to bring Web on its new level. At present, Web Services technology is stressed by the search of a right way for further development. Combination of Semantic Web and Web Services concepts may address many of difficulties of existing technology. It is not a question of whether Semantic Web is coming or not, but a question of when it will come. However without mature standards, proof and actually working industrial cases Semantic Web has small chances to be adopted by industry. In this paper a survey of Web Services recent needs is made, state of the art of Semantic Web technology is discussed in the context of industrial applications. Some new challenges brought by Semantic Web were observed and the industrial maintenance case related to some of these challenges was considered.

General Adaption Framework: Enabling Interoperability for Industrial Web Resources

Integration of heterogeneous applications and data sources into an interoperable system is one of the most relevant challenges for many knowledge-based corporations nowadays. Development of a global environment that would support knowledge transfer from human experts to automated Web services, which are able to learn, is a very profit-promising and challenging task. The domain of industrial maintenance is not an exception. This paper outlines in detail an approach for adaptation of heterogeneous Web resources into a unified environment as a first step toward interoperability of smart industrial resources, where distributed human experts and learning Web services are utilized by various devices for self monitoring and self diagnostics. The proposed General Adaptation Framework utilizes a potential of the Semantic Web technology and primarily focuses on the aspect of a semantic adaptation (or mediation) of existing widely used models of data representation to RDF-based semantically rich format. To perform the semantic adaptation of industrial resources, the approach of two-stage transformation (syntactical and semantic) is elaborated and implemented for monitoring of a concrete industrial device with underlying XML-based data representation model as a use case.

Distributed PIN verification scheme for improving security of mobile devices

The main driving force for the rapid acceptance rate of small sized mobile devices is the capability to perform e-commerce transactions at any time and at any place, especially while on the move. There are, however, also weaknesses of this type of e-commerce, often called mobile e-commerce, or m-commerce. Due to their small size and easy portability mobile devices can easily be lost or stolen. Whereas the economic values and privacy threats protected with Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) are not particularly high for normal voice-enabled mobile phones, this is not true any more when phones have developed to Personal Trusted Devices (PTDs). Still, PINs are used also in this new context for authorization and identification purposes. PINs are currently used both for protection of the devices and for authentication, as well as authorization of the users. It is commonly recognized that not many techniques of storing the PINs into the memory of the device or on the SIM card are safe. Even less sophisticated thieves might uncover the PIN inside the stolen mobile devices and for sophisticated thieves uncovering the PIN stored “safely” might be possible. In this paper we propose a new scheme to cope with the problem of uncovering the PIN that reduces the risks of m-commerce. The basic idea is that instead of storing the entire PIN digits (or some hash value) in the mobile device, we store part of the PIN in a remote machine in the network. The PIN verification then involves both the mobile device and the remote machine, which must verify their respective parts of the PIN. Also, the improvements of the security over the existing schemes are shown using a probabilistic model. In the best case, where the probability of discovering the PIN irrespective of the storage scheme is negligible in relation to directly uncovering it, the increase in security is over 1000%.

Semantic Web Services for Smart Devices Based on Mobile Agents

Among traditional users of Web resources, industry has a growing set of smart industrial devices with embedded intelligence. Just like humans, they need online services (i.e., for condition monitoring, remote diagnostics, maintenance, etc.). In this paper, we present one possible implementation framework for such Web services. Such services should be Semantic Web enabled and form a Service Network based on internal and external agents’ platforms, which can host heterogeneous mobile agents and coordinate them to perform needed tasks. The concept of a “mobile service component†assumes not only exchanging queries and service responses, but also delivering and composition of a service provider. Mobile service component carrier (agent) can move to a field device’s local environment (embedded agent platform) and perform its activities locally. Service components improve their performance through online learning and communication with other components. Heterogeneous service components’ discovery is based on semantic P2P search.

Service matching in agent systems

The problem of service and resource matching is being actively discussed currently as a new challenging task for the next generation of semantic discovery approaches for Web services and Web agents. A significant advantage is expected when using an ontological approach to semantically describe and query services. A matchmaking problem arises when a service is being queried and it includes the distance measure between the required service description and the one from the service registry. We realized the need to analyze the applicability of different matchmaking methods to agent development tools when implemented according to agent technology specifications such as FIPA. We consider three main groups of cases: matchmaking between classes of service profiles in pure taxonomies, matchmaking between classes in faceted taxonomies, and matchmaking between instances of faceted taxonomies.