<p>The thesis presents a type system for a substantial fragment of XML query language Xcerpt. The system is descriptive; the types associated with Xcerpt constructs are sets of data terms and approximate the semantics of the constructs.</p><p>A formalism of Type Definitions, related to XML schema languages, is adopted to specify such sets. The type system is presented as typing rules which provide a basis for type inference and type checking algorithms, used in a prototype implementation. Correctness of the type system wrt. the formal semantics of Xcerpt is proved and exactness of the result types inferred by the system is discussed.</p><p>The usefulness of the approach is illustrated by example runs of the prototype on Xcerpt programs.</p><p>Given a non-recursive Xcerpt program and types of data to be queried, the type system is able to infer a type of results of the program. If additionally a type specification of program results is given, the system is able to prove type correctness of a (possibly recursive) program. Type correctness means that the program produces results of the given type whenever it is applied to data of the given type. Non existence of a correctness proof suggests that the program may be incorrect. Under certain conditions (on the program and on the type specification), the program is actually incorrect whenever the proof attempt fails.</p> / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2006:9

In this thesis, a system, called Ontology-Based Spatio-Temporal Video Management System (OntoVMS) is developed in order to supply a framework which can be used for semantic data modeling and querying in video files. OntoVMS supports semantic data modeling which can be divided into concept modeling, spatio-temporal relation and trajectory data modeling. The system uses Rhizomik MPEG-7 Ontology as the core ontology. Moreover ontology expression capability is extended by automatically attaching domain ontologies. OntoVMS supports querying of all spatial relations such as directional relations (north, south ...), mixed directional relations (northeast, southwest ...), distance relations (near, far), positional relations (above, below ...) and topological relations (inside, touch ...) / temporal relations such as starts, equal, precedes / and trajectories of objects of interest. In order to enhance querying capability, compound queries are added to the framework so that the user can combine simple queries by using &quot / (&quot / , &quot / )&quot / , &quot / AND&quot / and &quot / OR&quot / operators. Finally, the use of the system is demonstrated with a semi-automatic face annotation tool.

In this thesis, we present an ontology-based information extraction and retrieval system and its application to soccer domain. In general, we deal with three issues in semantic search, namely, usability, scalability and retrieval performance. We propose a keyword-based semantic retrieval approach. The performance of the system is improved considerably using domain-specific information extraction, inference and rules. Scalability is achieved by adapting a semantic indexing approach. The system is implemented using the state-of-the-art technologies in SemanticWeb and its performance is evaluated against traditional systems as well as the query expansion methods. Furthermore, a detailed evaluation is provided to observe the performance gain due to domain-specific information extraction and inference. Finally, we show how we use semantic indexing to solve simple structural ambiguities.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-55). Also available in print.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-41).

Business processes are fundamental to the operations of a company. Each product manufactured and every service provided is the result of a series of actions that constitute a business process. Business process management is an organizational principle that makes the processes of a company explicit and offers capabilities to implement procedures, control their execution, analyze their performance, and improve them. Therefore, business processes are documented as process models that capture these actions and their execution ordering, and make them accessible to stakeholders. As these models are an essential knowledge asset, they need to be managed effectively. In particular, the discovery and reuse of existing knowledge becomes challenging in the light of companies maintaining hundreds and thousands of process models. In practice, searching process models has been solved only superficially by means of free-text search of process names and their descriptions. Scientific contributions are limited in their scope, as they either present measures for process similarity or elaborate on query languages to search for particular aspects. However, they fall short in addressing efficient search, the presentation of search results, and the support to reuse discovered models. This thesis presents a novel search method, where a query is expressed by an exemplary business process model that describes the behavior of a possible answer. This method builds upon a formal framework that captures and compares the behavior of process models by the execution ordering of actions. The framework contributes a conceptual notion of behavioral distance that quantifies commonalities and differences of a pair of process models, and enables process model search. Based on behavioral distances, a set of measures is proposed that evaluate the quality of a particular search result to guide the user in assessing the returned matches. A projection of behavioral aspects to a process model enables highlighting relevant fragments that led to a match and facilitates its reuse. The thesis further elaborates on two search techniques that provide concrete behavioral distance functions as an instantiation of the formal framework. Querying enables search with a notion of behavioral inclusion with regard to the query. In contrast, similarity search obtains process models that are similar to a query, even if the query is not precisely matched. For both techniques, indexes are presented that enable efficient search. Methods to evaluate the quality and performance of process model search are introduced and applied to the techniques of this thesis. They show good results with regard to human assessment and scalability in a practical setting. / Geschäftsprozesse bilden die Grundlage eines jeden Unternehmens, da jedes Produkt und jede Dienstleistung das Ergebnis einer Reihe von Arbeitsschritten sind, deren Ablauf einen Geschäftsprozess darstellen. Das Geschäftsprozessmanagement rückt diese Prozesse ins Zentrum der Betrachtung und stellt Methoden bereit, um Prozesse umzusetzen, abzuwickeln und, basierend auf einer Auswertung ihrer Ausführung, zu verbessern. Zu diesem Zweck werden Geschäftsprozesse in Form von Prozessmodellen dokumentiert, welche die auszuführenden Arbeitsschritte und ihre Ausführungsbeziehungen erfassen und damit eine wesentliche Grundlage des Geschäftsprozessmanagements bilden. Um dieses Wissen verwerten zu können, muss es gut organisiert und leicht auffindbar sein – eine schwierige Aufgabe angesichts hunderter bzw. tausender Prozessmodelle, welche moderne Unternehmen unterhalten. In der Praxis haben sich bisher lediglich einfache Suchmethoden etabliert, zum Beispiel Freitextsuche in Prozessbeschreibungen. Wissenschaftliche Ansätze hingegen betrachten Ähnlichkeitsmaße und Anfragesprachen für Prozessmodelle, vernachlässigen dabei aber Maßnahmen zur effizienten Suche, sowie die verständliche Wiedergabe eines Suchergebnisses und Hilfestellungen für dessen Verwendung. Diese Dissertation stellt einen neuen Ansatz für die Prozessmodellsuche vor, wobei statt einer Anfragesprache Prozessmodelle zur Formulierung einer Anfrage verwendet werden, welche exemplarisch das Verhalten der gesuchten Prozesse beschreiben. Dieser Ansatz fußt auf einem formalen Framework, welches ein konzeptionelles Distanzmaß zur Bewertung gemeinsamen Verhaltens zweier Geschäftsprozesse definiert und die Grundlage zur Suche bildet. Darauf aufbauend werden Qualitätsmaße vorgestellt, die einem Benutzer bei der Bewertung von Suchergebnissen behilflich sind. Verhaltensausschnitte, die zur Aufnahme in das Suchergebnis geführt haben, können im Prozessmodell hervorgehoben werden. Die Arbeit führt zwei Suchtechniken ein, die konkrete Distanzmaße einsetzen, um Prozesse zu suchen, die das Verhalten einer Anfrage exakt enthalten (Querying), oder diesem in Bezug auf das Verhalten ähnlich sind (Similarity Search). Für beide Techniken werden Indexstrukturen vorgestellt, die effizientes Suchen ermöglichen. Abschließend werden allgemeine Methoden zur Evaluierung von Prozessmodellsuchansätzen vorgestellt, mit welchen die genannten Suchtechniken überprüft werden. Im Ergebnis zeigen diese eine hohe Qualität der Suchergebnisse hinsichtlich einer Vergleichsstudie mit Prozessexperten, sowie gute Skalierbarkeit für große Prozessmodellsammlungen.

No description available.

In this thesis, we propose an extension to the multiple-valued infinitesimal logic frame-work to provide a simple representation for prioritized constraints. We introduce two unary operators, µ and w, to infinitesimal logic in order to define preferential constraints and backup constraints, respectively. The new framework naturally allows us to define a hierarchy of priorities among constraints. Also, we present a lazy algorithm for evaluating the multiple-valued prioritized constraint expressions of our representation. Our algorithm, which is similar to the alpha-beta pruning technique for minimax game tree evaluation, is based on a recursive depth-first traversal of the parse tree for the expression and works by evaluating operands within an increasingly narrower range of interest. Our implementation of this representation for querying a movies database demonstrates the expressive power and flexibility of our framework.

XML data is often accompanied by type information, usually expressed by some schema language. Sometimes XML data can be related to ontologies defining classes of objects, such classes can also be interpreted as types. Type systems proved to be extremely useful in programming languages, for instance to automatically discover certain kinds of errors. This thesis deals with an XML query language Xcerpt, which originally has no underlying type system nor any provision for taking advantage of existing type information. We provide a type system for Xcerpt; it makes possible type inference and checking type correctness. The system is descriptive: the types associated with Xcerpt constructs are sets of data terms and approximate the semantics of the constructs. A formalism of Type Definitions is adapted to specify such sets. The formalism may be seen as a simplification and abstraction of XML schema languages. The type inference method, which is the core of this work, may be seen as abstract interpretation. A non standard way of assuring termination of fixed point computations is proposed, as standard approaches are too inefficient. The method is proved correct wrt. the formal semantics of Xcerpt. We also present a method for type checking of programs. A success of type checking implies that the program is correct wrt. its type specification. This means that the program produces results of the specified type whenever it is applied to data of the given type. On the other hand, a failure of type checking suggests that the program may be incorrect. Under certain conditions (on the program and on the type specification), the program is actually incorrect whenever the proof attempt fails. A prototype implementation of the type system has been developed and usefulness of the approach is illustrated on example programs. In addition, the thesis outlines possibility of employing semantic types (ontologies) in Xcerpt. Introducing ontology classes into Type Definitions makes possible discovering some errors related to the semantics of data queried by Xcerpt. We also extend Xcerpt with a mechanism of combining XML queries with ontology queries. The approach employs an existing Xcerpt engine and an ontology reasoner; no modifications are required.

Thesis (M.S.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Computer Science, Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.