Web Services are self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can be published, located, and invoked through XML artefacts across the Web. Web services technologies can be applied to many kinds of applications, where they offer considerable advantages compared to the old world of product-specific APIs, platform-specific coding, and other &ldquo / brittle&rdquo / technology restrictions. Currently there are millions of web services available on the web due to the increase in e-commerce business volume. Web services can be discovered using public registries and invoked through respective interfaces. However how to automatically find, compose, invoke and monitor the web services is still an issue. The automatic discovery, composition, invocation and monitoring of web services require that semantics will be attached to service definitions. The focus of this thesis is on the composition of web services. The approach taken is to extend the DAML-S ontology that is used to define the semantics of services to include the &ldquo / succeeding services&rdquo / for any service provided. These definitions for individual service instances are declared by the service providers. They are presented to the users of the service to construct a workflow in a mobile environment. The workflow generated is represented both graphically in the mobile device and in XML-format as a BPEL4WS document. The aim of this thesis is to prove that it is possible to build a semi-automatic web service composition utility incorporating semantic constructs, using a mobile device. The generated workflow is suitable for deployment on an engine where it can be executed multiple times with different configurations.

This project presents a Materials Informatics Workbench that resolves the challenges confronting materials scientists in the aspects of materials science data assimilation and dissemination. It adopts an approach that has ingeniously combined and extended the technologies of the Semantic Web, Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL) and Open Archive Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE). These technologies enable the development of novel user interfaces and innovative algorithms and techniques behind the major components of the proposed workbench. In recent years, materials scientists have been struggling with the challenge of dealing with the ever-increasing amount of complex materials science data that are available from online sources and generated by the high-throughput laboratory instruments and data-intensive software tools, respectively. Meanwhile, the funding organizations have encouraged, and even mandated, the sponsored researchers across many domains to make the scientifically-valuable data, together with the traditional scholarly publications, available to the public. This open access requirement provides the opportunity for materials scientists who are able to exploit the available data to expedite the discovery of novel compound materials. However, it also poses challenges for them. The materials scientists raise concerns about the difficulties of precisely locating and processing diverse, but related, data from different data sources and of effectively managing laboratory information and data. In addition, they also lack the simple tools for data access and publication, and require measures for Intellectual Property protection and standards for data sharing, exchange and reuse. The following paragraphs describe how the major workbench components resolve these challenges. First, the materials science ontology, represented in the Web Ontology Language (OWL), enables, (1) the mapping between and the integration of the disparate materials science databases, (2) the modelling of experimental provenance information acquired in the physical and digital domains and, (3) the inferencing and extraction of new knowledge within the materials science domain. Next, the federated search interface based on the materials science ontology enables the materials scientists to search, retrieve, correlate and integrate diverse, but related, materials science data and information across disparate databases. Then, a workflow management system underpinning the WSBPEL engine is not only able to manage the scientific investigation process that incorporates multidisciplinary scientists distributed over a wide geographic region and self-contained computational services, but also systematically acquire the experimental data and information generated by the process. Finally, the provenance-aware scientific compound-object publishing system provides the scientists with a view of the highly complex scientific workflow at multiple-grained levels. Thus, they can easily comprehend the science of the workflow, access experimental information and keep the confidential information from unauthorised viewers. It also enables the scientists to quickly and easily author and publish a scientific compound object that, (1) incorporates not only the internal experimental data with the provenance information from the rendered view of a scientific experimental workflow, but also external digital objects with the metadata, for example, published scholarly papers discoverable via the World Wide Web (the Web), (2) is self- contained and explanatory with IP protection and, (3) is guaranteed to be disseminated widely on the Web. The prototype systems of the major workbench components have been developed. The quality of the material science ontology has been assessed, based on Gruber’s principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge–sharing, while its applicability has been evaluated through two of the workbench components, the ontology-based federated search interface and the provenance-aware scientific compound object publishing system. Those prototype systems have been deployed within a team of fuel cell scientists working within the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at the University of Queensland. Following the user evaluation, the overall feedback to date has been very positive. First, the scientists were impressed with the convenience of the ontology-based federated search interface because of the easy and quick access to the integrated databases and analytical tools. Next, they felt the surge of the relief that the complex compound synthesis process could be managed by and monitored through the WSBPEL workflow management system. They were also excited because the system is able to systematically acquire huge amounts of complex experimental data produced by self-contained computational services that is no longer handled manually with paper-based laboratory notebooks. Finally, the scientific compound object publishing system inspired them to publish their data voluntarily, because it provides them with a scientific-friendly and intuitive interface that enables scientists to, (1) intuitively access experimental data and information, (2) author self-contained and explanatory scientific compound objects that incorporate experimental data and information about research outcomes, and published scholarly papers and peer-reviewed datasets to strengthen those outcomes, (3) enforce proper measures for IP protection, (4) comply those objects with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol – Object Exchange and Reuse (OAI-ORE) to maximize its dissemination over the Web and,(5) ingest those objects into a Fedora-based digital library.

This project presents a Materials Informatics Workbench that resolves the challenges confronting materials scientists in the aspects of materials science data assimilation and dissemination. It adopts an approach that has ingeniously combined and extended the technologies of the Semantic Web, Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL) and Open Archive Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE). These technologies enable the development of novel user interfaces and innovative algorithms and techniques behind the major components of the proposed workbench. In recent years, materials scientists have been struggling with the challenge of dealing with the ever-increasing amount of complex materials science data that are available from online sources and generated by the high-throughput laboratory instruments and data-intensive software tools, respectively. Meanwhile, the funding organizations have encouraged, and even mandated, the sponsored researchers across many domains to make the scientifically-valuable data, together with the traditional scholarly publications, available to the public. This open access requirement provides the opportunity for materials scientists who are able to exploit the available data to expedite the discovery of novel compound materials. However, it also poses challenges for them. The materials scientists raise concerns about the difficulties of precisely locating and processing diverse, but related, data from different data sources and of effectively managing laboratory information and data. In addition, they also lack the simple tools for data access and publication, and require measures for Intellectual Property protection and standards for data sharing, exchange and reuse. The following paragraphs describe how the major workbench components resolve these challenges. First, the materials science ontology, represented in the Web Ontology Language (OWL), enables, (1) the mapping between and the integration of the disparate materials science databases, (2) the modelling of experimental provenance information acquired in the physical and digital domains and, (3) the inferencing and extraction of new knowledge within the materials science domain. Next, the federated search interface based on the materials science ontology enables the materials scientists to search, retrieve, correlate and integrate diverse, but related, materials science data and information across disparate databases. Then, a workflow management system underpinning the WSBPEL engine is not only able to manage the scientific investigation process that incorporates multidisciplinary scientists distributed over a wide geographic region and self-contained computational services, but also systematically acquire the experimental data and information generated by the process. Finally, the provenance-aware scientific compound-object publishing system provides the scientists with a view of the highly complex scientific workflow at multiple-grained levels. Thus, they can easily comprehend the science of the workflow, access experimental information and keep the confidential information from unauthorised viewers. It also enables the scientists to quickly and easily author and publish a scientific compound object that, (1) incorporates not only the internal experimental data with the provenance information from the rendered view of a scientific experimental workflow, but also external digital objects with the metadata, for example, published scholarly papers discoverable via the World Wide Web (the Web), (2) is self- contained and explanatory with IP protection and, (3) is guaranteed to be disseminated widely on the Web. The prototype systems of the major workbench components have been developed. The quality of the material science ontology has been assessed, based on Gruber’s principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge–sharing, while its applicability has been evaluated through two of the workbench components, the ontology-based federated search interface and the provenance-aware scientific compound object publishing system. Those prototype systems have been deployed within a team of fuel cell scientists working within the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at the University of Queensland. Following the user evaluation, the overall feedback to date has been very positive. First, the scientists were impressed with the convenience of the ontology-based federated search interface because of the easy and quick access to the integrated databases and analytical tools. Next, they felt the surge of the relief that the complex compound synthesis process could be managed by and monitored through the WSBPEL workflow management system. They were also excited because the system is able to systematically acquire huge amounts of complex experimental data produced by self-contained computational services that is no longer handled manually with paper-based laboratory notebooks. Finally, the scientific compound object publishing system inspired them to publish their data voluntarily, because it provides them with a scientific-friendly and intuitive interface that enables scientists to, (1) intuitively access experimental data and information, (2) author self-contained and explanatory scientific compound objects that incorporate experimental data and information about research outcomes, and published scholarly papers and peer-reviewed datasets to strengthen those outcomes, (3) enforce proper measures for IP protection, (4) comply those objects with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol – Object Exchange and Reuse (OAI-ORE) to maximize its dissemination over the Web and,(5) ingest those objects into a Fedora-based digital library.

Zugl.: Düsseldorf, Univ., Diss., 2006 / Hergestellt on demand

Zugl.: Braunschweig, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2008

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. "These investigations were supported in part by the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders ... and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences"--P. viii. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-152). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Submitted by Jorge Janaite Neto (janaite@gmail.com) on 2018-06-24T23:56:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 janaite_neto_j_me_mar.pdf: 1649007 bytes, checksum: 66467a076d4f716197896c6dc3c5ee2b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Satie Tagara (satie@marilia.unesp.br) on 2018-06-25T13:46:39Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 janaiteneto_j_me_mar.pdf: 1649007 bytes, checksum: 66467a076d4f716197896c6dc3c5ee2b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-25T13:46:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 janaiteneto_j_me_mar.pdf: 1649007 bytes, checksum: 66467a076d4f716197896c6dc3c5ee2b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05-30 / Não recebi financiamento / A recuperação de informação ocorre por meio da comparação entre as representações dos documentos de um acervo e a representação da necessidade de informação do usuário. Um documento é recuperado quando sua representação coincidir total ou parcialmente com a representação da necessidade de informação do usuário. O processo de recuperação de informação pode ser visto como um problema linguístico no qual o conteúdo informacional dos documentos e a necessidade de informação do usuário são representados por um conjunto de termos. A eficiência do processo de recuperação de informação depende da qualidade das representações dos documentos e dos termos empregados pelo usuário para representar sua necessidade de informação. Quanto mais compatíveis forem essas representações maior será a eficiência do processo de recuperação. A partir de uma pesquisa exploratória e descritiva fundamentada em bibliografia específica, este trabalho propõe a utilização de ontologias computacionais em sistemas de recuperação de informação baseados no Modelo Espaço Vetorial. As ontologias são empregadas como estrutura terminológica externa utilizadas tanto na expansão dos termos de indexação quanto na expansão dos termos que compõe a expressão de busca. A expansão dos termos de indexação é feita logo após a extração dos termos mais representativos do documento em análise durante o processo de indexação, consistindo na adição de novos termos conceitualmente relacionados a fim de enriquecer a representação do documento. A expansão da consulta é obtida a partir da adição de novos termos relacionados aos já existentes na expressão de busca com o objetivo de melhor contextualizá-los. Nesta proposta utiliza-se apenas a estrutura terminológica e hierárquica oferecida por uma ontologia computacional OWL, sem considerar os demais tipos de relações possíveis nem as restrições lógicas que podem ser descritas, podendo esses recursos serem utilizados em trabalhos futuros na tentativa de melhorar ainda mais a eficiência do processo de recuperação. A proposta apresentada neste estudo pode ser implementada e futuramente tornar-se um sistema de recuperação de informação totalmente operacional. / The information retrieval occurs by means of match between the representations of documents from a collection and the representation of user information’s needs. A document is retrieved when its representation matches totally or partially to the user information’s needs. The process of information retrieval can be seen as a linguistic issue in which the document information content and the user information need are represented by a set of terms. Its efficiency depends on the quality of the representations of the documents and the terms used to represent the user’s information need. The more compatible these representations were, the more efficient the retrieval process. Based on an exploratory and descriptive research substantiated in a specific bibliography, this paper offers to use computational ontologies in information retrieval systems based on the Vector Space Model. The ontologies are applied as external terminological structures used in the indexing terms expansion as well as in the expansion of the terms which compound the query expression. The indexing terms expansion is made as soon as the extraction of the more representative terms of the document in analysis during the indexing process, consisting on the adding of new conceptually related terms in order to improve the document representation. Query expansion is obtained from adding new related terms to the existent ones in the query expression to better contextualize them. In this propose, only the terminological and hierarchical structure offered by an OWL computational ontology was used, regardless other possible relations and logical restrictions that could be descripted, saving these resources to be used in further works in an attempt to improve the retrieval process efficiency. The shown proposition can be implemented and become a fully operational information retrieval system.

This thesis proposes a reference model and its computational core to support the creation of software applications within educational environments, which address Differences In Learning (DiffInL) and are applicable to both learners and instructors. This work differs from others in that the strength of this model resides on the re-usable character of the reasoning mechanism enabled by the computational environment. The starting point is the definition of agreed learning goals that the learner needs to achieve. In turn, the reference model generates personalised, best-practice teaching and learning materials, suitable for achieving the individual’s learning goals. This reference model consists of MODEL and MANAGEMENT components. The MODEL components store the domain needed to create learners and instructional models, which are required for the creation of Learning Spaces (LeS). The MANAGEMENT compo- nent also manages the semantics stored in various model components in order to carry out the configuration of an LeS. The architecture of software applications generated from the reference model is illustrated and contains: Netbeans IDE 8.0.2, JavaServer Faces framework and OWL-API library. We tested this to generate teaching practices for Learning Difficulties (LDif) student. In order to prove the feasibility of creating a software application from the reference model, an example of a particular scenario in a specific educational setting for LDif Students has been shown. This proposed model has successfully proved its ability to address the needs of LDif Students through a corresponding novel and re-usable reasoning mechanism implemented in Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) computational environments. The reference model has shown its ability to integrate with different disciplines such as psychology, sociology and human-computer interactions. The main contribution to research is the creation of a novel reference computational model which addresses the needs of people with DiffInL. The strength of this model resides on the re-usable character of the reasoning mechanism enabled by the computational environment. The whole framework allows a unified implementation which takes into account classes, constraints, matching, and inference mechanisms for the complete configuration of an LeS. The suggested approach also differs from previous work in that it is personalised, and the applied reasoning rules are dynamic. Therefore this model can be constantly “tuned” according to the questions we may ask in such environments. Overall, the proposed reference model in this research offers a promising and feasible solution that can support current educational systems and benefit both learners and instructors. It also demonstrates the applicability of the latest technologies and would allow for future technologies to be incorporated, in order to enhance the model.

From 1988 to 1990 a study of the reproductive ecology of the burrowing owl was conducted to determine seasonality and reproductive success in Dade and Broward Counties. Reproductive data for each of the three years (1988- 1990) reveal a higher reproductive success rate (54%) for 1990 than 1989 (40%) and 1988 (40%). Owls using previously used burrows had a higher success in fledging young (63%) than newly excavated burrows (19%). T-tests were conducted on several appendage measurements of male and female owls to determine sexual dimorphic traits. Metatarsus lengths of males and females were different (t=2.36, p=0.02). As of 1990,197 owls had been banded in the study area. In 1989, 75% and in 1990, 83% of the banded adults were found on the same territory. Only 4 of 129 banded nestlings have been reencountered in the study sites.

This Master thesis deals with diet of the Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) and reproductive parameters. Muridae rodents dominated diet composition and Arvicolidae rodents and birds were alternative preys. Clutch size positively correlated with proportion of rodents in diet.