<p>Planning is indeed a highly regulated procedure at the operational level such as military related activities where the staff may benefit from documents such as guidelines that regulate the work process, responsibilities and results of such planning activities.</p><p>This thesis proposes a method for analyzing office documents that make up an operational order according to document ontology. With the semantic desktops aiming at combining semantic annotations and intelligent reasoning in desktop computers, the product of this project intends to add a plug-in to such environments such as IRIS semantic desktop, which accordingly enables such application to interpret documents whether the they  or change within the application.</p><p>The result of our work helps the end user to extract data using his/her favorite patterns such as goals, targets or even milestones that make up decisive points. This information eventually form semantic objects, which ultimately reside in the knowledgebase of the semantic desktop for further reasoning in the future referring of the application, whether automatically or upon the user's request.</p>

The shift from Web of Document into Web of Data based on Linked Data principles defined by Tim Berners-Lee posed a big challenge to build and develop applications to work in Web of Data environment. There are several attempts to build service and application models for Linked Data Cloud. In this paper, we propose a new service model for linked data "Linked-OWL" which is based on RESTful services and OWL-S and copes with linked data principles. This new model shifts the service concept from functions into linked data things and opens the road for Linked Oriented Architecture (LOA) and Web of Services as part and on top of Web of Data. This model also provides high level of dynamic service composition capabilities for more accurate dynamic composition and execution of complex business processes in Web of Data environment.

Application of ontologies in the environmental science will allow experts in this field to model their domain knowledge for more efficient exchange and reuse. This thesis presents a modular approach in reengineering existing upper-level ontologies to conceptualize specific domain knowledge. The aim of extending these upper-level ontologies is to tailor and transform the existing conceptual models into new ones designed for the use in a specific domain in the earth sciences. This thesis extends the upper-level Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Terminology (SWEET)ontologies to develop ontologies for part of the hydrogeology domain. The existing SWEET ontologies are developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion lab for Earth system science (http://sweet.jpl.nasa.gov/ontology/). In the new model, presented in this thesis, the architecture and orthogonal design of the SWEET ontologies is not disturbed but restructured at certain levels. New concepts are added to the old structure and the consistency is maintained for use by other domains. This thesis discusses the useful steps,necessary tools and other procedures involved in ontological reengineering of existing upper-level ontologies. The hydrogeology domain modeled in this thesis by means of reengineering, exemplifies the reusability methodology for the Earth system science knowledge base.

The quest to answer fundamental questions and solve complex problems is a principal tenet of Earth science. The pursuit of scientific knowledge has generated profuse research, resulting in a plethora of information-rich resources. This phenomenon offers great potential for scientific discovery. However, a deficiency in information connectivity and processing standards has become evident. This deficiency has resulted in a demand for tools to facilitate and process this upsurge in information. This ontology project is an answer to the demand for information processing tools. The primary purpose of this domain-specific ontology and knowledge base is to organize, connect, and correlate research data related to brittle deformation microstructures. This semantically enabled ontology may be queried to return not only asserted information, but inferred knowledge that may not be evident. In addition, its standardized development in OWL-DL (Web Ontology Language-Description Logic) allows the potential for sharing and reuse among other geologic science communities.

Naminės pelėdos mitybos tyrimai yra atliekami siekiant nustatyti sugaunamas grobio rūšis. Šilutės rajone iki šiol tokio pobūdžio tyrimai nebuvo atlikti. Šie tyrimai svarbūs aiškinantis pelėdos mitybą ir vienas iš geriausių būdų nustatyti smulkiųjų žinduolių rūšinę įvairovę. Darbo tikslas – atlikti naminės pelėdos mitybos tyrimus Šilutės rajone, remiantis atrajose rastomis grobio liekanomis. Darbo tikslui įvykdyti buvo iškelti uždaviniai: pagaminti ir įkelti inkilus naminei pelėdai. Surinkti pakraikus iš inkilų ir atrajas šalia inkilų, drevių ir dienojimo vietų. Ištirti atrajų fizinius parametrus, išskirti iš atrajų grobio skeleto fragmentus, įvertinti grobio kiekį. Atrajose rastas grobio liekanas apibūdinti iki šeimos/rūšies remiantis kraniometriniais skirtumais. Atlikti rūšinės įvairovės ir biomasės skaičiavimus. Šilutės rajone buvo iškelti 3 inkilai, viename iš jų perėjo naminė pelėda. Iš šio inkilo buvo surinkti pakraikai, bei 66 atrajos iš įvairių dienojimo vietų. Surinktų atrajų vidutinis ilgis 3,9±0,93 cm, svoris 2,4±0,88 g, bei vidutinis grobio kiekis vienoje atrajoje 2,1±0,82 vnt. (max. 4). Atrajose identifikuotas 141 individas. Iš visų surinktų mitybos liekanų buvo identifikuoti 166 individai. Priklausantys 11 smulkiųjų žinduolių rūšių. Naminės pelėdos mityboje didžiausią dalį sudarė smulkieji žinduoliai 89,2%, o mažiausiai mitybą įtakojo paukščiai 6%, vabzdžiai 4,2%, ir varliagyviai 0,6%. Pelėdos mityboje dominuojanti rūšis buvo paprastasis pelėnas 28,3%, o... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Nutrition studies of the towny owl are carried out to ascertain the kinds of prey of the towny owl in Silute region. Such studies have not been done in this region so far. They are important to clear out the nutrition pecularities of the towny owl and one of the best ways to find out the variety of species of small mammals. The aim of the research is to carry out the nutrition studies of the towny owl in Silute region on the ground of the remains of the prey in the owls pellet. There were tasks for the work: to make and put up the bird houses for the towny owl, to collect the litter from the bird houses and the rumination near the bird houses, tree holes and dawn places, to investigate the physical parametres of the rumination, to separate fragments of the prey skeleton from the rumination, to estimate the amount of the prey, to describe the remains of the prey on the basis of the cranometric differences, to make the calculations of the variety of the species. Three bird houses were put up in Silute region. The towny owl was hatching in one of them. The litter from the bird house and 66 rumination parts from the dawn places were collected. The averrage length of the rumination is 3,9±0,93 cm and the weight is 2,4±0,88 g. The averrage amount of the prey in one pellet is 2,1±0,82 units ( max. 4). 141 individuals were identified in the rumination. 166 individuals which belong to small mammals were identified from all nutrition remains. The biggest part in the towny owls... [to full text]

No description available.

Several species of raptors are found in prairie landscapes managed and enhanced for waterfowl. Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis ) and Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) may benefit from such management in a manner that is counter to its goals and objectives; that is, waterfowl may comprise a significant proportion of their diet, resulting in a decline in waterfowl numbers. The overall aims of this three-year study were to determine whether the feeding habits of the two raptor species are selective and to determine if waterfowl is a preferred prey group. The diet was determined through pellet analysis, prey remains and direct nest observations during the nestling growth period. Availability of most prey species was assessed through small mammal trapping and by conducting waterfowl censuses. It was determined that both raptors select for duck species. The average waterfowl biomass consumed per nestling represented 21.5% of the total biomass consumed for Great Horned Owls and 23.5% for Red-tailed Hawks. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

L'inclusion de requête est un problème bien étudié sur plusieurs décennies de recherche. En règle générale, il est défini comme le problème de déterminer si le résultat d'une requête est inclus dans le résultat d'une autre requête pour tout ensemble de données. Elle a des applications importantes dans l'optimisation des requêtes et la vérification de bases de connaissances. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de fournir des procédures solides et com- plètes pour déterminer l'inclusion des requêtes SPARQL en vertu d'exprimés en axiomes logiques de description. De plus, nous mettons en œuvre ces procédures à l'appui des résultats théoriques par l'expérimentation. À ce jour, test d'inclusion de requête a été effectuée à l'aide de différentes techniques: homomorphisme de graphes, bases de données canoniques, les tech- niques de la théorie des automates et par une réduction au problème de la va- lidité de la logique. Dans cette thèse, nous utilisons la derniere technique pour tester l'inclusion des requêtes SPARQL utilisant une logique expressive appelée μ-calcul. Pour ce faire, les graphes RDF sont codés comme des systèmes de transitions, et les requêtes et les axiomes du schéma sont codés comme des formules de μ-calcul. Ainsi, l'inclusion de requêtes peut être réduit á test de validité de formule logique. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'identifier les divers fragments de SPARQL (et PSPARQL) et les langages de description logique de schéma pour lequelle l'inculsion est décidable. En outre, afin de fournir théoriquement et expériment- alement éprouvées procédures de vérifier l'inclusion de ces fragments décid- ables. Pas durer au moins mais, cette thèse propose un point de repère pour les solveurs d'inclusion. Ce benchmark est utilisé pour tester et comparer l'état actuel des solveurs d'inclusion.

Modem construction projects, characterised by severe fragmentation from both geographical and disciplinary perspectives, require accurate and timely sharing of information. Traditional information management systems operate on a textual basis and do not always consider the meaning of information. Current web-based information management technology supports information communication to a reasonable extent but still has many limitations, such as the lack of semanticawareness and poor interoperability of software applications. This research argues that Semantic Web technologies can enhance the efficiency of information management in construction projects by providing content-based and contextspecific information to project team members, and supporting the interoperation between independent applications. A Semantic Web-based Information Management System (Sams) for construction projects was created to demonstrate the above concept. The approach adopted for this research involved creating a new framework for Semantic Web-based information management. This extensible system framework enables the system to merge diverse construction information sources, ontologies and end-user applications into the overall Semantic Web environment. The semantic components developed in this research included a project document's annotation model, a project partner's user profile model, and several lightweight IFC-based ontologies for documented information management. This supports intelligent information management and interoperation between heterogeneous information sources and applications. The system framework, prototype annotations, and ontologies were applied to a concept demonstrator that illustrated how the project documents were annotated, accessed, converted, categorised, and retrieved on the basis of content and context. The demonstrator (named SwiMS) acts as a middleware, which mediates between user needs and the information sources. Information in project partners' documents were mapped and accessed intelligently. This involved the use of rule-based filtering and thus prevented the users from being overwhelmed by irrelevant documents or missing relevant ones in heterogeneous and distributed information sources. It also enabled the adaptation of documents to individual contexts and preferences, and the dynamic composition of various document management services. Evaluation of the system framework and demonstrator revealed that the system enhances the efficiency of construction information management, with the three most beneficial areas being project knowledge management, collaborative design and communication between project team members. The Swims annotations, ontologies and deductive rules are important technologies provide an innovative approach to managing construction information. These enable the information in construction documents, both structured documents and un-structured documents, to be interpretable by computers. This ensures the efficiency and precision of construction information management.

Semantic web based decision support systems represent domain knowledge using ontologies that capture the domain concepts, their relationships and instances. Typically, decision support systems use a single knowledge model—i.e. a single ontology—which at times restricts the knowledge coverage to only select aspects of the domain knowledge. The integration of multiple knowledge models—i.e. multiple ontologies—provides a holistic knowledge model that encompasses multiple perspectives, orientations and instances. The challenge is the execution-time merging of multiple ontologies whilst maintaining knowledge consistency and procedural validity. Knowledge morphing aims at the intelligent merging of multiple computerized knowledge artifacts—represented as distinct ontological models—in order to create a holistic and networked knowledge model. In our research, we have investigated and developed a knowledge morphing framework—termed as OntoMorph—that supports ontology merging through: (1) Ontology Reconciliation whereby we harmonize multiple ontologies in terms of their vocabularies, knowledge coverage, and description granularities; (2) Ontology Merging where multiple reconciled ontologies are merged into a single merged ontology. To achieve ontology merging, we have formalized a set of semantically-defined merging criteria that determine ontology merge points, and describe the associated process-specific and knowledge consistency constraints that need to be satisfied to ensure consistent ontology merging; and (3) Ontology Execution whereby we have developed logic-based execution engines for both execution-time ontology merging and the execution of the merged ontology to infer knowledge-based recommendations. We have utilized OWL reasoning services, for efficient and decidable reasoning, to execute an OWL ontology. We have applied the OntoMorph framework for clinical decision support, more specifically to achieve the dynamic merging of multiple clinical practice guidelines in order to handle comorbid situations where a patient may have multiple diseases and hence multiple clinical guidelines are to be simultaneously operationalized. We have demonstrated the execution time merging of ontologically-modelled clinical guidelines, such that the decision support recommendations are derived from multiple, yet merged, clinical guidelines such that the inferred recommendations are clinically consistent. The thesis contributes new methods for ontology reconciliation, merging and execution, and presents a solution for execution-time merging of multiple clinical guidelines.