[pt] Com a evolução da Web atual para a Web Semântica, acredita- se que as informações disponíveis estarão estruturadas de forma a permitir o processamento automático de seu conteúdo por máquinas. Além do processamento individual, deseja-se uma melhor troca de informações entre aplicações Web. Para estes propósitos, são necessários mecanismos que garantam a interoperabilidade semântica, i.e., identificação e compatibilidade de informações. Neste sentido, ontologias são utilizadas como um recurso para disponibilizar um vocabulário estruturado e livre de ambigüidades. Ontologias fornecem um padrão bem definido para a estruturação da informação e promovem um formalismo passível de processamento automático. Neste trabalho, propomos uma estratégia para interoperabilidade de ontologias. O Componente para Alinhamento Taxonômico de Ontologias - CATO, resultado da implementação desta estratégia proposta, alinha automaticamente as taxonomias de ontologias comparadas. O alinhamento realizado é obtido em três etapas executadas seqüencialmente. A primeira etapa compara lexicalmente os conceitos das ontologias entradas e usa um mecanismo de poda estrutural dos conceitos associados como condição de parada. A segunda etapa compara estruturalmente as hierarquias das ontologias identificando as similaridades entre suas sub-árvores comuns. A terceira etapa refina os resultados da etapa anterior classificando os conceitos identificados como similares em bem similares ou pouco similares, de acordo com um percentual de similaridade prédefinido. / [en] With the Web evolving towards a Semantic Web, it is believed that the available information will be presented in a meaningful way to allow machines to automatically process its content. Besides the individual processing, a better information exchange among Web applications is desired. For this purpose, mechanisms are called for guarantee the semantic interoperability, that is, the identification and compatibility of information. In this direction, ontologies are used as one resource to make available a structured vocabulary, free of ambiguities. Ontologies provide a well-defined standard to structure the information and to promote formalism for automatic processing. In this work, we propose one strategy for ontology interoperability. The Ontology Taxonomic Alignment Component - CATO, which is the result of the implementation of this proposed strategy, provides an automatic taxonomic ontologies alignment. In this way, the alignment is obtained by a three-step process. The first step is the lexical comparison between the concepts from the entries ontologies. It uses a trimming mechanism of the related associated concepts as a stop condition. The second step is the structural comparison of the ontologies structures used to identify the similarities between common sub-trees. The third step refines the results of the previous step, classifying the similar identified concepts as very similar or little similar, according to a pre-defined similarity measurement.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1989 / Town & Country Hotel & Convention Center, San Diego, California / During the current decade, international cooperation in space projects has become more and more popular and this trend is increasing. Initially, this involved only single missions with agencies flying payloads on other agencies' spacecraft. Later, this trend continued with international ventures, involving different agencies. In the immediate future, even more challenging scenarios are foreseen. The best known example and prime driver for such sophisticated missions will be the Space Station Freedom and its participating partners' spacecraft. Some of the international missions (ESA missions) are described briefly in this paper, in order to set the scene for a better understanding of the complex needs for standards within advanced orbiting systems. These ventures call for efficient means for cooperation and interoperability. Part of these requirements can be met by following international standards for space communications and space data systems. The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) undertook the task of integrating the space data systems requirements and developing appropriate recommendations for data systems standards for these Advanced Orbiting Systems (AOS). All international partners in the Space Station Freedom Program participated in the definition, development, and review of the AOS recommendations. The need for better cooperation in space communications via data relay satellite prompted the formation of a three party international panel called the Space Network Interoperability Panel (SNIP). An important aspect is the need for verification and validation of the concept and of the detailed technical recommendations. For the immediate future, special compatibility campaigns, involving the international agencies are planned in order to ensure the smooth application and functioning of the AOS recommendations.

Flexibility and Interoperability have become important characteristics for organisations and their business processes. The need to control flexible business processes within an organisation’s boundaries and between organisations imposes major requirements on a company’s process control capabilities. Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) try to fulfil these requirements by offering respective product features. Evidence suggests that the achievement of flexible business processes and an inter-organisational process control is also influenced by implementation processes for Workflow Management Applications (WFMA). [A WFMA comprises the WFMS and "all WFMS specific data with regard to one or more business processes" [VER01]]. The impact of a WFMA implementation methodology on the fulfilment of these requirements is the research scope of the project. The thesis provides knowledge in the following areas: 1. Review of the relationship between workflow management and the claim for process flexibility respectively -interoperability. 2. Definition of a research-/evaluation framework for workflow projects. This framework is composed of all relevant research variables that have been identified for the thesis. 3. Empirical survey of relevant workflow-project objectives and their priority in the context of process flexibility and –interoperability. 4. Empirical survey of the objectives’ achievement. 5. Empirical survey of methodologies / activities that have been applied within workflow projects. 6. Derivation of the project methodologies’ effectiveness in terms of the impact that applied activities had on project objectives. 7. Evaluation of existing workflow life-cycle models in accordance with the research framework. 8. Identification of basic improvements for workflow implementation processes with respect to the achievement of flexible and interoperable business processes. The first part of the thesis argues the relevance of the subject. Afterwards research variables that constitute the evaluation framework for WFMA implementation processes are stepwise identified and defined. An empirical study then proves the variables’ effectiveness for the achievement of process flexibility and –interoperability within the WFMA implementation process. After this the framework is applied to evaluate chosen WFMA implementation methodologies. Identified weaknesses and effective methodological aspects are utilised to develop generic methodological improvements. These improvements are later validated by means of a case study and interviews with workflow experts.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The area of range telemetry and communications has been under budget constraints and interoperability enhancement requirements for some time. The near-term onslaught of multimedia communications offerings by telephony and communications companies is certain to cause range engineering personnel to conduct extensive research and possibly make numerous decisions on procurements and technologies before standards are finalized. This paper will address a low-risk migration path for range telemetry to the new multimedia communications for ranges based on current capabilities. This migration path has an end goal of positioning the ranges to take advantage of future multimedia communications as they become available, while leveraging off of current products and procurements, without a major investment.

Vid en hypotetisk torrhamn i Viared där HCT-fordon förväntas användas kommer bådekonsolidering och de-konsolidering att förekomma. Den ökade kapacitet som är möjlig attlasta på ett HCT fordon, jämfört med ett normalt fordon, bidrar till att det är mer gods somska de-konsolideras vid ankomst till terminal. För att gods inte skall bli stående på terminalenkrävs ett tydligt informationsutbyte, vilket det inte finns mycket studier kring kopplat till HCTtransporter.Syftet med examensarbetet är att undersöka informationsutbyte vid konsolidering och dekonsolidering.Arbetet kommer utgå ifrån frågeställningen om hur ett effektivt kaninformationsutbyte skapas i samband med stora volymer av gods.En av slutsatserna som kan dras efter fallstudien på Kerry Logistics är att en ökad mängd godsendast kommer bidra till volymproblem, främst i form av resursbrist. Det skulle därför intevara svårare ur ett HCT-perspektiv, utan ju mer gods som kommer samtidigt desto störretryck blir det på informationsutbytet.Att ligga steget före med informationsutbytet vid hantering och planering av stora mängdergods framgår också vara av stor vikt. Med nödvändig information tillgänglig vid rätt tillfälleeffektiviseras informationsutbytet. Olika åsikter och uppfattningar kring vilken informationsom klassas som nödvändig och önskvärd har gjort det svårt att dra slutsatser kring de berördainformationsattributens roll. Goda affärsrelationer har däremot visat sig spela en stor roll vidett effektivt informationsutbyte. / At a hypothetical dry port in Viared where HCT-vehicles are expected to be used, bothconsolidation and de-consolidation will occur. The increased capacity of freight that ispossible to load on a HCT-vehicle, compared to a normal vehicle, contributes to the fact thatthere is more freight to be de-consolidated on arrival at the terminal. In order for goods not tobe left at the terminal, a clear exchange of information is required as there is not much studiesrelated to HCT-transport. The purpose of the thesis is to explore the information exchangerelated to consolidation and de-consolidation of goods.One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the case study at Kerry Logistics is that anincreased amount of goods only will contribute to problems related to volume, primarily inlack of resources. The informations exchange will not be more difficult from an HCTperspective, but when greater amount of freight arrives at the same time the pressure willincrease on the information exchange.To be ahead of the information exchange when it comes to handling and planninglarger amounts of goods is also important. With the necessary information available at theright time, the information exchange will be more efficient. Different opinions andperceptions about what information that should be classified as necessary and/or desirable hasmade it difficult to draw conclusions about the role of the relevant information attributes.Good business relations on the other hand, have proven to play a major role in order to createefficient information exchange.

Dans un environnement collaboratif de développement de produit, plusieurs acteurs, ayant différents points de vue et intervenant dans plusieurs phases du cycle de vie de produit, doivent communiquer et échanger des connaissances entre eux. Ces connaissances, existant sous différents formats hétérogènes, incluent potentiellement plusieurs concepts tels que l’historique de conception, la structure du produit, les features, les paramètres, les contraintes, et d’autres informations sur le produit. Les exigences industrielles de réduction du temps et du coût de production nécessitent l’amélioration de l’interopérabilité sémantique entre les différents processus de développement afin de surmonter ces problèmes d’hétérogénéité tant au niveau syntaxique, structurel, que sémantique. Dans le domaine de la CAO, la plupart des méthodes existantes pour l’échange de données d’un modèle de produit sont, effectivement, basées sur le transfert des données géométriques. Cependant, ces données ne sont pas suffisantes pour saisir la sémantique des données, telle que l’intention de conception, ainsi que l’édition des modèles après leur échange. De ce fait, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’échange des modèles « intelligents », autrement dit, définis en termes d’historique de construction, de fonctions intelligentes de conception appelées features, y compris les paramètres et les contraintes. L’objectif de notre thèse est de concevoir des méthodes permettant d’améliorer l’interopérabilité sémantique des systèmes CAO moyennant les technologies du Web Sémantique comme les ontologies OWL DL et le langage des règles SWRL. Nous avons donc élaboré une approche d’échange basée sur une ontologie commune de features de conception, que nous avons appelée CDFO « Common Design Features Ontology », servant d’intermédiaire entre les différents systèmes CAO. Cette approche s’appuie principalement sur deux grandes étapes. La première étape consiste en une homogénéisation des formats de représentation des modèles CAO vers un format pivot, en l’occurrence OWL DL. Cette homogénéisation sert à traiter les hétérogénéités syntaxiques entre les formats des modèles. La deuxième étape consiste à définir des règles permettant la mise en correspondance sémantique entre les ontologies d’application de CAO et notre ontologie commune. Cette méthode de mise en correspondance se base principalement, d’une part, sur la définition explicite des axiomes et des règles de correspondance permettant l’alignement des entités de différentes ontologies, et d’autre part sur la reconnaissance automatique des correspondances sémantiques supplémentaires à l’aide des capacités de raisonnement fournies par les moteurs d’inférence basés sur les logiques de description. Enfin, notre méthode de mise en correspondance est enrichie par le développement d’une méthode de calcul de similarité sémantique appropriée pour le langage OWL DL, qui repose principalement sur les composants des entités en question tels que leur description et leur contexte. / A major issue in product development is the exchange and sharing of product knowledge among many actors. This knowledge includes many concepts such as design history, component structure, features, parameters, constraints, and more. Heterogeneous tools and multiple designers are frequently involved in collaborative product development, and designers often use their own terms and definitions to represent a product design. Thus, to efficiently share design information among multiple designers, the design intent should be persistently captured and the semantics of the modeling terms should be semantically processed both by design collaborators and intelligent systems. Regarding CAD models, most of the current CAD systems provide feature-based design for the construction of solid models. Features are devised to carry, semantically, product information throughout its life cycle. Consequently, features should be maintained in a CAD model during its migration among different applications. However, existing solutions for exchanging product information are limited to the process of geometrical data, where semantics assigned to product model are completely lost during the translation process. Current standards, such as ISO 10303, known as STEP have attempted to solve this problem, but they define only syntactic data representation so that semantic data integration is not possible. Moreover, STEP does not provide a sound basis to reason with knowledge. Our research investigates the use of Semantic Web technologies, such as ontologies and rule languages; e.g. SWRL, for the exchange of “intelligent” CAD models among different systems, while maintaining the original relations among entities of the model. Thus, we have proposed an ontological approach based on the construction of a common design features ontology, used as an Interlingua for the exchange of product data. This ontology is represented formally with OWL DL. Furthermore, axioms and mapping rules are defined to achieve the semantic integration between the applications ontologies and the common ontology. The integration process relies basically on reasoning capabilities provided by description logics in order to recognize automatically additional mappings among ontologies entities. Furthermore, the mapping process is enhanced with a semantic similarity measure in order to detect similar design features. However, this will enable data analysis, as well as manage and discover implicit relationships among product data based on semantic modeling and reasoning.

The integration of mobile and sensor technologies, and the design and implementation of different web-enabled visualizations to support inquiry learning in different educational scenarios encompass the main research efforts carried out in this thesis. These challenges are addressed from the perspectives of mobile and web engineering, visualization and technology-enhanced learning (TEL). Thus, the main research question investigated in this thesis relates to the identification of the main features that can guide the design and implementation of web and mobile applications to support inquiry learning in different contexts. This thesis consists of a collection of four publications that describe the research efforts conducted during a period of three years in relation to the Learning Ecology through Science with Global Outcomes (LETS GO) research project. The research questions investigated and the implemented technological solutions reported in these publications are closely related to the main goals and challenges of this thesis. The design and implementation of the proposed software system was guided, deployed and refined having the following aspects in mind: (1) System Requirements and Architectural Design, (2) System Implementation and Deployment, and (3) System Assessment and Web Usability Testing. During the three years of development efforts, three software prototypes were implemented utilizing service-oriented approaches. These efforts have been tested with more than 200 users in connection to several trials that took place during this period. The user trials allowed testing the software application throughout three development iterations on authentic settings, while new requirements continuously emerged in these activities. This process made it possible to verify that user requirements were adequately addressed while satisfying their needs. The outcomes of these activities led to the design and implementation of a system architecture that relies on service-oriented approaches and open standards. The main outcomes of this thesis are presented in the form of Architectural Concepts, as they can be used to guide the design and implementation of web and mobile applications to support inquiry learning. The idea behind architectural concepts is to provide a set of tools for supporting the overall life cycle of a software development process, such as requirements, design, implementation, deployment and testing while coping with rapid changes of technological implementations. Some of the architectural concepts identified in this thesis correspond well with the kind of support that inquiry-learning activities require. They provide solid foundations in terms of possibilities to tackle the requirements for supporting inquiry learning in a flexible manner.

[pt] O presente trabalho tem como meta analisar os aspectos de planejamento de redes celulares UMTS coexistentes com redes GSM, abordando de forma sintetizada os principais pontos de interesse para as operadoras de telefonia celular móvel que eventualmente estejam considerando a possibilidade de coexistência entre esses sistemas. São abordados de forma especial os processos de interoperabilidade entre as redes UMTS e GSM/GPRS/EDGE. / [en] This work has as its purpose to analyze and present on a concise manner the planning aspects for new UMTS networks as well as its interoperability issues concerning GSM legacy layer, serving as reference for the wireless network providers which adopt UMTS over GSM/GPRS/EDGE as their short-term option for deploying existing networks. It will be given special attention to most of interoperability issues which are defined by the standardization bodies (mainly INTER-RAT) and others which are being offered by some of the most representative equipments providers.

O uso de Web Services tem aberto novas possibilidades de desenvolvimento de software, entre elas a composição de serviços. A composição de serviços apresenta novas questões no ambiente computacional, entre elas a execução integral, garantindo consistência e contemplando o controle de concorrência. O workflow é um conjunto de tarefas e interações organizadas de modo que forneça uma funcionalidade ao sistema, provendo a automatização de processos complexos, através da composição de serviços. Tal composição deve ser executada de forma transacional, processando as operações com consistência. A execução de workflows oriundos de domínios diferentes, faz com que os serviços que estão sendo utilizados, não possuam ciência do contexto da execução, podendo gerar atendimentos que não sejam justos, causando situações de deadlock e de starvation. Este trabalho apresenta estratégias para a execução de workflows em domínios distintos, que requisitam múltiplos serviços de um mesmo conjunto, sem a necessidade de um coordenador central, de forma transacional. O atendimento a requisição contempla uma política justa na utilização do recurso que impede a ocorrência de deadlock ou de starvation para os workflows em execução. Os experimentos realizados neste trabalho mostram que o sistema desenvolvido, aplicando as estratégias propostas, executa as composições de serviços de maneira transacional, atendendo as requisições com justiça, livre de deadlock e starvation, mantendo o sistema independente e autônomo. / Web Services are increasing software development possibilities, among then service composition. Service composition introduces new issues on computational environment, such as the whole service execution, ensuring consistency and concurrency control. Workflow is a set of organized tasks and interactions in order to provide functionality to the system, automating complex process through composition service. Such composition must be performed by transactional support, performing operations consistently. The workflow execution from different domain clients sharing the same composition make these clients ignore the execution context. It may cause inconsistencies, from unfair attendance to deadlock or starvation. This work depicts strategies for workflow execution from different domains, requesting multiple services from the same composition, without a centralized coordinator, in transactional way. The request attendance contains a fair policy for resource usage and consumption to avoid deadlock and starvation. Applying the proposed strategy on the experiments performed in this work, it confirms that the developed system executes service composition with transactional support, avoiding deadlock or starvation, keeping the whole system autonomous and independent.

A interoperabilidade entre sistemas de informação em saúde está se tornando fundamental para o compartilhamento da informação num ambiente de saúde, onde normalmente as diversas especialidades que atuam no atendimento ao paciente armazenam seus dados, em sistemas computacionais distintos e em regiões geograficamente distribuídas. Devido à diversidade existente entre estes sistemas, a integração as vezes torna-se difícil. Os problemas de interoperabilidade podem ser técnicos, onde os componentes de computação dos sistemas não permitem a cooperação devido às diferenças nos protocolos de comunicação ou semânticos, ocasionados devido à diversidade de representação da informação transmitida. Este trabalho propõe uma arquitetura para facilitar ambos os aspectos de interoperabilidade, sendo que a interoperabilidade técnica é proporcionada pela utilização de um middleware e a semântica, pela utilização de sistemas de terminologia adotados internacionalmente. Para a implementação de referência foi utilizada como middleware a arquitetura CORBA e suas especificações para o domínio da saúde, sendo que uma das especificações CORBA para o domínio da saúde foi adotada para padronizar a comunicação com os sistemas de terminologia. Para validar a implementação, foi construído um aplicativo cliente baseado na análise de requisitos de uma UTI neonatal. O cliente foi utilizado também para acessar os componentes implementados e verificar dificuldades e ajustes que podem ser feitos na implementação. / The interoperability among health information systems are becoming fundamental to share the information in a health environment, here commonly the diverse medical specialties that act in the patient care store the data, in distinct computational systems and in geographically distributed regions.Because of the existing diversity among these information systems, the integration can be a difficult task. Interoperability problems can either be technical, when the communication components do not cooperate due to the diversity of the information representation. This work proposes an architecture to improve both interoperability aspects. The technical and partial semantic interoperability is achieved by the use if a middleware whereas the semantic interoperability by the use of internationally approved terminological systems. For the reference implementation was used the CORBA middleware architecture. One of the CORBA specifications in health care was adopted to standardize the communication with the terminological systems. To validate the implementation it was developed a client application based on the requirement analysis of neonatal ICU. The client application was also used to access the software components and to verify possible problems.