The potential to share and re-use qualitative archived data has garnered much interest in recent years. This increased attention can be attributed mainly to advances in both data documentation standards and digital archiving technologies, which provide users with the ability to archive, share and disseminate qualitative research materials. However, there remain theoretical and epistemological barriers to and implications for the sharing and re-use of qualitative study data. One way to address these issues is by studying research practices (with practitioners’ active involvement), in combination with developing software tools that support digital archiving of qualitative studies. Semantic technologies, combined with metadata standards and documentation schemas have the potential to enhance qualitative data documentation, archiving and analysis. In fact, it has been established that data documentation is one of the key elements that enables data archiving. The use of appropriate standard documentation frameworks is crucial to data archives’ exposure and has a direct impact on the discoverability, search and retrieval of archived data. The technological aspect of this study has been the development of a self-archiving toolkit that makes use of such technologies. The purpose of this work was to allow users, with varying levels of research experience (e.g. from undergraduate student researchers up to more experienced senior researchers) to avail of the benefits offered by qualitative digital archiving. To complement the technological developments undertaken, the present study also explored the practices of different researchers: undergraduate student researchers, researchers involved in teaching research-oriented modules, as well as senior researchers. This exploration focused on the collection, organisation, analysis and presentation of qualitative data and how these relate to and can be supported by digital archiving to enable researchers to organise, disseminate, and visualise research collections.

Broader and broader areas of application deployment are covered by semantic technologies recently and in the meantime their scope is increasing constantly. The possibilities of semantic applications are now so vast that they cannot be judged as a single market segment any more. The business skepticism that arises due to the uncertainty of investments in such technologies is only augmented by these differences and picking up on that this thesis concentrates on the aspects that can enable and evaluate not only the economic efficiency of engaging the semantic technologies in a business environment but also the effectiveness of doing so. This work concentrates on the ways of how to prove the differences amongst semantic applications, define their distinct segments based on use-case, and subsequently identify their Critical Success Factors and evaluate them against the real conditions of the applications' deployment with the participation of people involved in their development. Following the results of these interactions this thesis presents an innovative approach that enables to construct models for judging the maturity of enterprises for the deployment of the respective applications including the actual construction of these models for all the identified applications' use-cases segments. Moreover, in a later part of the work the evaluation using these models is demonstrated on AQUA application (outcome of a project the author did personally partake in) along with sketching additional specifics that may help the timely assessment of semantics in certain cases. The results presented in later chapters are supported by the underlying background researches in the fields of Semantic Technologies and IT assessment both of whose state-of-the-art methods are described here. Usability of the current standardized methods (such as those used in COBIT) for assessing semantic applications is also considered with respect to the lack of other best practices in business deployment of semantics.

No / Analysis of existing literature reveals the growing need to tackle the issue of unified data dissemination. Where this issue has been given some focus, the outreach has been more or less limited to similar systems (i.e. cross-instance collaboration) and no particular focus has been applied on the problem of exposing this data or knowledge to third parties (i.e. cross-vendor collaboration). This paper proposes an integration of semantic technologies within the Web of Things based on the concept and principles of the Service-Oriented Architecture to realize a distributed and semi-autonomous collaboration framework that is capable of offering cross-vendor information exchange and collaboration facilities. Powered by a semantic engine and exposed as a web application with a RESTful API, the generic framework realizes an extensible knowledge management and exchange system that accounts for the dynamic landscape in business-centric Web of Things applications. Disaster management is taken as a potential application scenario to critically analyse and evaluate the system prototype and show that the asset model for the proposed framework is sufficiently capable of meeting the modern-day and next-generation collaboration needs in a world of ever-increasing cross-vendor information sharing.

A vast array of computer-based simulation tools are used to support engineering design and analysis activities. Several such activities call for the simulation of various coupled sub-systems in parallel, typically to study the emergent behavior of large, complex systems. Most sub-systems have their own simulation models associated with them, which need to interoperate with each other in a federated fashion to simulate system-level behavior. The run-time exchange of information between federate simulations requires a common information model that defines the representation of simulation concepts shared between federates. However, most federate simulations employ disparate representations of shared concepts. Therefore, it is often necessary to implement transformation stubs that convert concepts between their common representation to those used in federate simulations. The tasks of defining a common representation for shared simulation concepts and building translation stubs around them adds to the cost of performing a system-level simulation. In this thesis, a framework to support automation and reuse in the process of achieving interoperability between federate simulations is developed. This framework uses ontologies as a means to capture the semantics of different simulation concepts shared in a federation in a formal, reusable fashion. Using these semantics, a common representation for shared simulation entities, and a corresponding set of transformation stubs to convert entities from their federate to common representations (and vice-versa) are derived automatically. As a foundation to this framework, a schema to enable the capture of simulation concepts in an ontology is specified. Also, a graph-based algorithm is developed to extract the appropriate common information model and transformation procedures between federate and common simulation entities. As a proof of concept, this framework is applied to support the development of a federated air traffic simulation. To progress with the design of an airport, the combined operation of its individual systems (air traffic control, ground traffic control, and ground-based aircraft services) in handling varying volumes of aircraft traffic is to be studied. To do so, the individual simulation models corresponding to the different sub-systems of the airport need to be federated, for which the ontology-based framework is applied.

Description Logics form a family of powerful ontology languages widely used by academics and industry experts to capture and intelligently manage knowledge about the world. A key advantage of Description Logics is their amenability to automated reasoning that enables the deduction of knowledge that has not been explicitly stated. However, in order to ensure decidability of automated reasoning algorithms, suitable restrictions are usually enforced on the shape of structures that are expressible using Description Logics. As a consequence, Description Logics fall short of expressive power when it comes to representing cyclic structures, which abound in life sciences and other disciplines. The objective of this thesis is to explore ontology languages that are better suited for the representation of structured objects. It is suggested that an alternative approach which relies on nonmonotonic existential rules can provide a promising candidate for modelling such domains. To this end, we have built a comprehensive theoretical and practical framework for the representation of structured entities along with a surface syntax designed to allow the creation of ontological descriptions in an intuitive way. Our formalism is based on nonmonotonic existential rules and exhibits a favourable balance between expressive power and computational as well as empirical tractability. In order to ensure decidability of reasoning, we introduce a number of acyclicity criteria that strictly generalise many of the existing ones. We also present a novel stratification condition that properly extends `classical' stratification and allows for capturing both definitional and conditional aspects of complex structures. The applicability of our formalism is supported by a prototypical implementation, which is based on an off-the-shelf answer set solver and is tested over a realistic knowledge base. Our experimental results demonstrate improvement of up to three orders of magnitude in comparison with previous evaluation efforts and also expose numerous modelling errors of a manually curated biochemical knowledge base. Overall, we believe that our work lays the practical and theoretical foundations of an ontology language that is well-suited for the representation of structured objects. From a modelling point of view, our approach could stimulate the adoption of a different and expressive reasoning paradigm for which robustly engineered mature reasoners are available; it could thus pave the way for the representation of a broader spectrum of knowledge. At the same time, our theoretical contributions reveal useful insights into logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning. Therefore, our results should be of value to ontology engineers and knowledge representation researchers alike.

The integration and interoperability of autonomous and heterogeneous electronic government (e-government) systems of government departments and agencies for a seamless services delivery to citizens through one-stop e-government portals remain challenging issues in egovernment development. In recent years, Semantic Web technologies have emerged as promising solutions to these problems. Semantic Web technologies base on ontology allow the description and specification of electronic services (e-services), making it easy to compose, match, map and merge e-services and facilitate their semantic integration and interoperability. However, a unified and comprehensive methodology that provides structured guidelines for the semantic-driven planning and implementation of e-government systems does not exist yet. This study presents a methodology framework for the semantic-driven development of future e-government systems. The features of maturity models, software engineering and Semantic Web domains are investigated and employed to draw and specify the methodology framework. Thereafter, the semantic content of the methodology framework is further specified using ontology building methodology and Semantic Web ontology languages and platforms. The study would be useful to e-government developers, particularly those of developing countries where there is little or no practice of semantic content development in e-government processes as well as where little progress has been made towards the development of one-stop e-government portals for seamless services delivery to citizens. Part of the study would also be of interest to novice Semantic Web developers who might use it as a starting point for further investigations. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Orientador: Mariângela Spotti Lopes Fujita / Banca: Maria Luiza de Almeida Campos / Banca: Isidoro Gil Leiva / Banca: José Augusto Chaves Guimarães / Banca: Plácida Leopoldina Ventura Amorim da Costa Santos / Resumo: Ao longo dos últimos anos, a crescente utilização das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs) tem impulsionado uma nova gama de necessidades informacionais. Os ambientes digitais favorecem a transposição dos limites convencionais de representação e disseminação do conhecimento registrado, incorporando novos elementos aos processos de produção, organização e recuperação de informações. Considerando as ontologias como uma nova e instigante categoria de sistemas de representação do conhecimento, buscou-se, a partir de um diálogo interdisciplinar, fundamentos que possibilitem analisar as aproximações desta nova abordagem computacional com os instrumentos e métodos tradicionalmente utilizados no área disciplinar de Organização do Conhecimento, investigando em que medida a área de Ciência da Informação pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento de ontologias e analisando os reflexos de sua utilização em bibliotecas digitais. Para tanto, foi realizado um estudo das principais teorias e tecnologias relacionadas ao desenvolvimento de ontologias e bibliotecas digitais, contextualizando-as a partir do corpus teórico da área de Ciência da Informação. Deste modo, foi desenvolvida a Ontologia de Informações Referencias (OIR) e um protótipo de Biblioteca Digital baseado em ontologias, denominado como BibliOntO, com o objetivo de analisar a aplicabilidade de ontologias em bibliotecas digitais. Como resultados, verificou-se que as ontologias possibilitam o desenvolvimento de novos tipos de serviços de informação e melhorias nos processos de representação, organização e recuperação de informações em ambientes digitais. Constatou-se também que sua aplicação em bibliotecas digitais representa uma interessante alternativa, contribuindo para um... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Throughout the last years, the increasing use of Technologies of Information and Communication (TICs) have stimulated a new gamma of informational necessities. The digital environments favor the transposition of the conventional limits of representation and dissemination of the registered knowledge, incorporating new elements to the processes of production, organization and recovery of information. Considering the ontologies as a new and riveting category of systems of representation of knowledge, we searched, starting from a interdisciplinary dialogue, bases that allow to analyze the approaches of this new computational approach with the instruments and methods traditionally used in the area of Knowledge Organization, investigating in what scale the area of Information Science can contribute to the development of ontologies and analyzing the consequences of its use in digital libraries. Therefore, a study of the main theories and technologies related to the development of ontologies and digital libraries was carried through, contextualized in the theoretical framework of the area of Information Science. In this way, the Ontology of Referential Informations (OIR) and a prototype of a Digital Library based on ontologies, called BibliOntO, was developed with the objective of analyzing the applicability of ontologies in digital libraries. As results, it was verified that the ontologies allow the development of new types of information services and improvements in the processes of representation, organization and recovery of information in digital environments. It was also evidenced that its application in digital libraries represents an interesting alternative, contributing for an adjusted attendance of the informational necessities of the users, in a way that the ontologies consist as a new... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Data storing semantic technologies separate it from applications code and gives availability for computers as well as people understand and share semantics in real time. These technologies also enable to add new data source or link between software applications as easy as to draw new link in the model. Unfortunately these technologies are yet not developed and popular as we could notice strong benefits of them in daily life. Introduction of semantic search system is an attempt to show the strong points of semantic technologies. Semantic search is more precise because of its opportunities to narrow handled domain down, it gives more exact result than usual, keyword based search. This advantage is clearly shown when database is very large and is filled with plenty of data. It also gives possibility to retrieve results from multiple distant data sources and form custom or predefined result sets as a central hub for some data domain. Automatic ontology generation based on database schema and metadata is suggested in this work. Such solution ensures that semantic search, which uses generated ontology, serves up-to-date search services even when structure of database is changed.

The integration and interoperability of autonomous and heterogeneous electronic government (e-government) systems of government departments and agencies for a seamless services delivery to citizens through one-stop e-government portals remain challenging issues in egovernment development. In recent years, Semantic Web technologies have emerged as promising solutions to these problems. Semantic Web technologies base on ontology allow the description and specification of electronic services (e-services), making it easy to compose, match, map and merge e-services and facilitate their semantic integration and interoperability. However, a unified and comprehensive methodology that provides structured guidelines for the semantic-driven planning and implementation of e-government systems does not exist yet. This study presents a methodology framework for the semantic-driven development of future e-government systems. The features of maturity models, software engineering and Semantic Web domains are investigated and employed to draw and specify the methodology framework. Thereafter, the semantic content of the methodology framework is further specified using ontology building methodology and Semantic Web ontology languages and platforms. The study would be useful to e-government developers, particularly those of developing countries where there is little or no practice of semantic content development in e-government processes as well as where little progress has been made towards the development of one-stop e-government portals for seamless services delivery to citizens. Part of the study would also be of interest to novice Semantic Web developers who might use it as a starting point for further investigations. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-03-25Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:03:13Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ramalho_ras_dr_mar.pdf: 1320132 bytes, checksum: e9d768ced5bb5495c1b0c73b924672b4 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Ao longo dos últimos anos, a crescente utilização das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs) tem impulsionado uma nova gama de necessidades informacionais. Os ambientes digitais favorecem a transposição dos limites convencionais de representação e disseminação do conhecimento registrado, incorporando novos elementos aos processos de produção, organização e recuperação de informações. Considerando as ontologias como uma nova e instigante categoria de sistemas de representação do conhecimento, buscou-se, a partir de um diálogo interdisciplinar, fundamentos que possibilitem analisar as aproximações desta nova abordagem computacional com os instrumentos e métodos tradicionalmente utilizados no área disciplinar de Organização do Conhecimento, investigando em que medida a área de Ciência da Informação pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento de ontologias e analisando os reflexos de sua utilização em bibliotecas digitais. Para tanto, foi realizado um estudo das principais teorias e tecnologias relacionadas ao desenvolvimento de ontologias e bibliotecas digitais, contextualizando-as a partir do corpus teórico da área de Ciência da Informação. Deste modo, foi desenvolvida a Ontologia de Informações Referencias (OIR) e um protótipo de Biblioteca Digital baseado em ontologias, denominado como BibliOntO, com o objetivo de analisar a aplicabilidade de ontologias em bibliotecas digitais. Como resultados, verificou-se que as ontologias possibilitam o desenvolvimento de novos tipos de serviços de informação e melhorias nos processos de representação, organização e recuperação de informações em ambientes digitais. Constatou-se também que sua aplicação em bibliotecas digitais representa uma interessante alternativa, contribuindo para um... / Throughout the last years, the increasing use of Technologies of Information and Communication (TICs) have stimulated a new gamma of informational necessities. The digital environments favor the transposition of the conventional limits of representation and dissemination of the registered knowledge, incorporating new elements to the processes of production, organization and recovery of information. Considering the ontologies as a new and riveting category of systems of representation of knowledge, we searched, starting from a interdisciplinary dialogue, bases that allow to analyze the approaches of this new computational approach with the instruments and methods traditionally used in the area of Knowledge Organization, investigating in what scale the area of Information Science can contribute to the development of ontologies and analyzing the consequences of its use in digital libraries. Therefore, a study of the main theories and technologies related to the development of ontologies and digital libraries was carried through, contextualized in the theoretical framework of the area of Information Science. In this way, the Ontology of Referential Informations (OIR) and a prototype of a Digital Library based on ontologies, called BibliOntO, was developed with the objective of analyzing the applicability of ontologies in digital libraries. As results, it was verified that the ontologies allow the development of new types of information services and improvements in the processes of representation, organization and recovery of information in digital environments. It was also evidenced that its application in digital libraries represents an interesting alternative, contributing for an adjusted attendance of the informational necessities of the users, in a way that the ontologies consist as a new... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)