The Strategical Impact of Knowledge Markets and Knowledge Management for Small and Medium Enterprises

According to the rapidly changing environment small and medium enterprises constantly need to adapt their strategies and activities. The transition from the industrial economy to knowledge-based economy results in the increasing of the volume of the available information. Therefore knowledge markets are needed and innovation centers have to be developed. An effective knowledge management system helps small and medium enterprises to overcome their disadvantages and compete with big corporations. The review of current developments in the field of knowledge markets is also made.

INFRAWEBS Semantic Web Service Development on the Base of Knowledge Management Layer

The paper gives an overview about the ongoing FP6-IST INFRAWEBS project and describes the main layers and software components embedded in an application oriented realisation framework. An important part of INFRAWEBS is a Semantic Web Unit (SWU) – a collaboration platform and interoperable middleware for ontology-based handling and maintaining of SWS. The framework provides knowledge about a specific domain and relies on ontologies to structure and exchange this knowledge to semantic service development modules. INFRAWEBS Designer and Composer are sub-modules of SWU responsible for creating Semantic Web Services using Case-Based Reasoning approach. The Service Access Middleware (SAM) is responsible for building up the communication channels between users and various other modules. It serves as a generic middleware for deployment of Semantic Web Services. This software toolset provides a development framework for creating and maintaining the full-life-cycle of Semantic Web Services with specific application support.

The Value of Knowing that You Do Not Know

The value of knowing about data availability and system accessibility is analyzed through theoretical models of Information Economics. When a user places an inquiry for information, it is important for the user to learn whether the system is not accessible or the data is not available, rather than not have any response. In reality, various outcomes can be provided by the system: nothing will be displayed to the user (e.g., a traffic light that does not operate, a browser that keeps browsing, a telephone that does not answer); a random noise will be displayed (e.g., a traffic light that displays random signals, a browser that provides disorderly results, an automatic voice message that does not clarify the situation); a special signal indicating that the system is not operating (e.g., a blinking amber indicating that the traffic light is down, a browser responding that the site is unavailable, a voice message regretting to tell that the service is not available). This article develops a model to assess the value of the information for the user in such situations by employing the information structure model prevailing in Information Economics. Examples related to data accessibility in centralized and in distributed systems are provided for illustration.