FP6-ist INFRAWEBS European Research Project

Project Focus: The main INFRAWEBS project focus and objective is the development of an application-oriented software toolset for creating, maintaining and executing WSMO-based Semantic Web Services (SWS) within their whole life cycle. This next generation of tools and systems will enable software and service providers to build open and extensible development platforms for web service applications. These services will run on open standards and specifications, such as BPEL4WS, WSMO, WSMX, WSML, SPARQL, RDF, etc. In particular, they will be compliant with WSMO (Web Services Modelling Ontology), a W3C initiative in Semantic Web services.

INFRAWEBS Axiom Editor – A Graphical Ontology-Driven Tool for Creating Complex Logical Expressions

The current INFRAWEBS European research project aims at developing ICT framework enabling software and service providers to generate and establish open and extensible development platforms for Web Service applications. One of the concrete project objectives is developing a full-life-cycle software toolset for creating and maintaining Semantic Web Services (SWSs) supporting specific applications based on Web Service Modelling Ontology (WSMO) framework. According to WSMO, functional and behavioural descriptions of a SWS may be represented by means of complex logical expressions (axioms). The paper describes a specialized userfriendly tool for constructing and editing such axioms – INFRAWEBS Axiom Editor. After discussing the main design principles of the Editor, its functional architecture is briefly presented. The tool is implemented in Eclipse Graphical Environment Framework and Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

Adjusting WSMO API Reference Implementation to Support More Reliable Entity Persistence

* The research has been partially supported by INFRAWEBS - IST FP62003/IST/2.3.2.3 Research Project No. 511723 and “Technologies of the Information Society for Knowledge Processing and Management” - IIT-BAS Research Project No. 010061.

Visualisation of quality information for geospatial and remote sensing data:providing the GIS community with the decision support tools for geospatial dataset quality evaluation

The evaluation of geospatial data quality and trustworthiness presents a major challenge to geospatial data users when making a dataset selection decision. The research presented here therefore focused on defining and developing a GEO label – a decision support mechanism to assist data users in efficient and effective geospatial dataset selection on the basis of quality, trustworthiness and fitness for use. This thesis thus presents six phases of research and development conducted to: (a) identify the informational aspects upon which users rely when assessing geospatial dataset quality and trustworthiness; (2) elicit initial user views on the GEO label role in supporting dataset comparison and selection; (3) evaluate prototype label visualisations; (4) develop a Web service to support GEO label generation; (5) develop a prototype GEO label-based dataset discovery and intercomparison decision support tool; and (6) evaluate the prototype tool in a controlled human-subject study. The results of the studies revealed, and subsequently confirmed, eight geospatial data informational aspects that were considered important by users when evaluating geospatial dataset quality and trustworthiness, namely: producer information, producer comments, lineage information, compliance with standards, quantitative quality information, user feedback, expert reviews, and citations information. Following an iterative user-centred design (UCD) approach, it was established that the GEO label should visually summarise availability and allow interrogation of these key informational aspects. A Web service was developed to support generation of dynamic GEO label representations and integrated into a number of real-world GIS applications. The service was also utilised in the development of the GEO LINC tool – a GEO label-based dataset discovery and intercomparison decision support tool. The results of the final evaluation study indicated that (a) the GEO label effectively communicates the availability of dataset quality and trustworthiness information and (b) GEO LINC successfully facilitates ‘at a glance’ dataset intercomparison and fitness for purpose-based dataset selection.

Services on Application Level in Grid for Scientific Calculations

AMS Subj. Classification: 00-02, (General)

Automated Data Retrieval in Distance Learning Quality

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2015

Projected sequential Gaussian processes:a C++ tool for interpolation of large datasets with heterogeneous noise

Heterogeneous datasets arise naturally in most applications due to the use of a variety of sensors and measuring platforms. Such datasets can be heterogeneous in terms of the error characteristics and sensor models. Treating such data is most naturally accomplished using a Bayesian or model-based geostatistical approach; however, such methods generally scale rather badly with the size of dataset, and require computationally expensive Monte Carlo based inference. Recently within the machine learning and spatial statistics communities many papers have explored the potential of reduced rank representations of the covariance matrix, often referred to as projected or fixed rank approaches. In such methods the covariance function of the posterior process is represented by a reduced rank approximation which is chosen such that there is minimal information loss. In this paper a sequential Bayesian framework for inference in such projected processes is presented. The observations are considered one at a time which avoids the need for high dimensional integrals typically required in a Bayesian approach. A C++ library, gptk, which is part of the INTAMAP web service, is introduced which implements projected, sequential estimation and adds several novel features. In particular the library includes the ability to use a generic observation operator, or sensor model, to permit data fusion. It is also possible to cope with a range of observation error characteristics, including non-Gaussian observation errors. Inference for the covariance parameters is explored, including the impact of the projected process approximation on likelihood profiles. We illustrate the projected sequential method in application to synthetic and real datasets. Limitations and extensions are discussed. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

Modelo de interoperabilidade para utilização dos recursos dos ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem através de dispositivos móveis

The technological evolution has been making the Distance Education accessible for a greater number of citizens anytime and anywhere. The potential increase of the supply for mobile devices integrated to mobile learning environments allows that the information comes out of the physical environment, creating opportunities for students and teachers to create geographically distributed learning scenarios. However, many applications developed for these environments remain isolated from each other and do not become integrated sufficiently into the virtual learning environments (AVA). This dissertation presents an interoperability model between mobile devices and distinct AVA based on webservices. For the conception of this model, requirements engineering and software architecture techniques were used. With the goal of showing the model viability, a mobile application focused on surveys has been developed, and additionally, the main functionalities related to the interoperability were tested

Uma máquina de redução de grafos extensível para a implementação de fluxos de trabalho

Graph Reduction Machines, are a traditional technique for implementing functional programming languages. They allow to run programs by transforming graphs by the successive application of reduction rules. Web service composition enables the creation of new web services from existing ones. BPEL is a workflow-based language for creating web service compositions. It is also the industrial and academic standard for this kind of languages. As it is designed to compose web services, the use of BPEL in a scenario where multiple technologies need to be used is problematic: when operations other than web services need to be performed to implement the business logic of a company, part of the work is done on an ad hoc basis. To allow heterogeneous operations to be part of the same workflow, may help to improve the implementation of business processes in a principled way. This work uses a simple variation of the BPEL language for creating compositions containing not only web service operations but also big data tasks or user-defined operations. We define an extensible graph reduction machine that allows the evaluation of BPEL programs and implement this machine as proof of concept. We present some experimental results.

Un webservice per collegare il cittadino con la propria situazione debitoria

La tesi tratta di un web service capace di estrapolare i dati da un database Oracle utilizzato da un gestionale già esistente, per darli come output ad un portale da cui il cittadino si potrà collegare, visionandoli. Il gestionale si occupa della fase coattiva, ovvero quando un contribuente non paga una multa o una qualsiasi tassa; fino ad oggi non era possibile far vedere in via telematica i dati della situazione coattiva di un contribuente. Grazie al web service da me creato un portale potrà fare vedere i dati al contribuente tramite esso. Inoltre grazie a questo web service in futuro si potranno collegare anche con altri portali o app smartphone per dare ulteriori servizi al cittadino.

Auditoría integrada de Información + Conocimiento: aplicación en un caso de estudio

Se presentan los resultados de la aplicación de una metodología integradora de auditoría de información y conocimiento, llevada a cabo en un Centro de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente de la provincia de Holguín, Cuba, conformada por siete etapas con un enfoque híbrido dirigida a revisar la estrategia y la política de gestión de información y conocimiento, identificar e inventariar y mapear los recursos de I+C y sus flujos, y valorar los procesos asociados a su gestión. La alta dirección de este centro, sus especialistas e investigadores manifestaron la efectividad de la metodología aplicada cuyos resultados propiciaron reajustar la proyección estratégica en relación con la gestión de la I+C, rediseñar los flujos informativos de los procesos claves, disponer de un directorio de sus expertos por áreas y planificar el futuro aprendizaje y desarrollo profesional.

D6.3 – Semantic Content Annotation Support

The Semantic Annotation component is a software application that provides support for automated text classification, a process grounded in a cohesion-centered representation of discourse that facilitates topic extraction. The component enables the semantic meta-annotation of text resources, including automated classification, thus facilitating information retrieval within the RAGE ecosystem. It is available in the ReaderBench framework (http://readerbench.com/) which integrates advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. The component makes use of Cohesion Network Analysis (CNA) in order to ensure an in-depth representation of discourse, useful for mining keywords and performing automated text categorization. Our component automatically classifies documents into the categories provided by the ACM Computing Classification System (http://dl.acm.org/ccs_flat.cfm), but also into the categories from a high level serious games categorization provisionally developed by RAGE. English and French languages are already covered by the provided web service, whereas the entire framework can be extended in order to support additional languages.

Detección y evitación de objetos flotantes en el contexto de un vehículo autónomo de superficie

[ES]El Instituto Universitario de Sistemas Inteligentes y Aplicaciones Numéricas en Ingeniería y en especial la División de Robótica y Oceanografía Computacional está desarrollando un velero autónomo de superficie que requiere de un sistema para la detección y evasión de obstáculos. Dicho sistema se ha desarrollado sobre una Raspberry Pi con un servicio para la captura de imágenes, así como un servidor web que permita la modificación de la configuración de la cámara. Una vez completada dicha infraestructura se tomaron las fotografías que conformarán el conjunto de entrenamiento para el sistema de visión por computador y se desarrollará este último. Los resultados se han integrado con el sistema del control modificando el rumbo cuando se detecte un obstáculo.

Type-Aware Programming Models for Distributed Applications

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Implementação de um modelo baseado em XML para suporte da dinâmica processual de negócio

Este artigo descreve um modelo para implementação de plataformas dinâmicas de negócio, exclusivamente baseadas em tecnologias XML. Apresenta um caso real que implementa as suas diversas camadas, apresentação, lógica e dados, em XML. A comunicação entre camadas é assegurada por serviços Web (WS), tornando esta arquitectura orientada aos serviços (SOA). O modelo proposto sustenta toda a programação do processo de negócio numa linguagem de alto nível, o WS-BPEL, proporcionando, desse modo, condições de adaptação ao dinamismo exigido pelo negócio da organização e à heterogeneidade dos sistemas. O caso real é de uma secretaria electrónica que surge no contexto dos portais Web universitários. O sistema desenvolvido visa oferecer um conjunto de serviços para acesso a informação e para o despoletar de acções computacionais e/ou humanas.