No / Many datasets are available in the form of conventional databases, or simplified comma separated values. The machines do not adequately handle these types of unstructured data. There are compatibility issues as well, which are not addressed well to manage the transformation. The literature describes several rigid techniques that do the transformation from unstructured or conventional data sources to Resource Description Framework (RDF) with data loss and limited customization. These techniques do not present any remote way that helps to avoid compatibility issues among these data forms simultaneous utilization. In this article, a new approach has been introduced that allows data mapping. This mapping can be used to understand their differences at the level of data representations. The mapping is done using Extensible Markup Language (XML) based data structures as intermediate data presenter. This approach also allows bi-directional data transformation from conventional data format and RDF without data loss and with improved remote availability of data. This is a solution to the issue concerning update when dealing with any change in the remote environment for the data. Thus, traditional systems can easily be transformed into Semantic Web-based system. The same is true when transforming data back to conventional data format, i.e. Database (DB). This bidirectional transformation results in no data loss, which creates compatibility between both traditional and semantic form of data. It will allow applying inference and reasoning on conventional systems. The census un-employment dataset is used which is being collected from US different states. Remote bi-directional transformation is mapped on the dataset and developed linkage using relationships between data elements. This approach will help to handle both types of data formats to co-exist at the same time, which will create opportunities for data compatibility, statistical powers and inference on linked data found in remote areas.

The structure of education has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Despite major changes in how students are learning, there has not been as dramatic of a shift in how student learning is assessed. Standard letter grades are still the paradigm for evaluating a student's mastery of course content and the grade point average is still one of the largest determining factors in judging a graduate's academic aptitude. This research presents a modern approach to modeling knowledge and evaluating students. Based upon the model of a closed-loop feedback controller it considers education as a system with an instructor determining the set of knowledge he or she wishes to impart to students, the instruction method as a transfer function, and evaluation methods serving as sensors to provide feedback determining the subset of the information students have learned. This method uses comprehensive concept maps to depict all of the concepts and relationships an educator intends to cover and student maps to depict the subset of knowledge that students have mastered. Concept inventories are used as an assessment tool to determine, at the conceptual level, what students have learned. Each question in the concept inventory is coupled with one or more components of a comprehensive concept map and based upon the answers students give to concept inventory questions those components may or may not appear in a student's knowledge map. The level of knowledge a student demonstrates of each concept and relationship is presented in his or her student map using a color scheme tied to the levels of learning in Bloom's taxonomy. Topological principles are used to establish metrics to quantify the distance between two students' knowledge maps and the distance between a student's knowledge map and the corresponding comprehensive concept map. A method is also developed for forming aggregate maps representative of the knowledge of a group of students. Aggregate maps can be formed for entire classes of students or based upon various demographics including race and gender. XML schemas have been used throughout this research to encapsulate the information in both comprehensive maps and student maps and to store correlations between concept inventory questions and corresponding comprehensive map components. Three software packages have been developed to store concept inventories into an XML Schema, to process student responses to concept inventory questions and generate student maps as a result, and to generate aggregate maps. The methods presented herein have been applied to two learning units that are part of two freshman engineering courses at Virginia Tech. Example student maps and aggregate maps are included for these course units. / Ph. D.

In construction projects, effective communication and categorization are vital. CoClass and the Reference DesignationSystem (RDS) provide clear frameworks to facilitate this. CoClass is a classification system created to uniformlydescribe construction systems, aiming to avoid misunderstandings and ensure precise representation. RDS is aninternational naming convention for labelling systems and their elements. Reference Designation (RD), the outcomeof RDS, is a unique identifier that is both human and machine readable. To access or reuse this data in the future, itcan be published on the web. Despite the availability of modern classification systems for years, many companies stickto their old classification systems due to the significant time and cost required for upgrading. Therefore, this studyaims to explore the automation of RD generation in construction projects utilizing CoClass and RDS. Additionally, itseeks to enhance data accessibility and integration by generating URIs for RDs using ontology. The objective is todemonstrate the potential for cost and time savings through automation. A case study investigating six buildingcomponents within an office space, extracted from a BIM model, is carried out. Leveraging IfcOpenShell and Dynamoscripts, CoClass parameters are added to BIM model and used to automate RDs. The BIM data, structured as aknowledge graph, which then supported the development of ontology. The study results demonstrate successful partialautomation of RDs and RD based URIs, showcasing the potential for efficient data representation and exploration inSemantic Web applications. The study concludes with recommendations for future research and the importance ofAutomating RDs within the CoClass Framework.

In this thesis, we present a framework for managing changes in service oriented enterprises (SOEs). A service oriented enterprise outsources and composes its functionality from third-party Web service providers. We focus on changes initiated or triggered by these member Web services. We present a taxonomy of changes that occur in service oriented enterprises. We use a combination of several types of Petri nets to model the triggering changes and ensuing reactive changes. The techniques presented in our thesis are implemented in WebBIS, a prototype for composing and managing e-business Web services. Finally, we conduct an extensive simulation study to prove the feasibility of the proposed techniques. / Master of Science

Yes / The use of Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) in healthcare has the potential of minimizing medical errors, reducing healthcare cost and improving collaboration between healthcare systems which can dramatically improve the healthcare service quality. However interoperability within different healthcare systems (clinics/hospitals/pharmacies) remains an issue of further research due to a lack of collaboration and exchange of healthcare information. To solve this problem, cross healthcare system collaboration is required. This paper proposes a conceptual semantic based healthcare collaboration framework based on Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure that is able to offer a secure cross system information and knowledge exchange between different healthcare systems seamlessly that is readable by both machines and humans. In the proposed framework, an intelligent semantic gateway is introduced where a web application with restful Application Programming Interface (API) is used to expose the healthcare information of each system for collaboration. A case study that exposed the patient's data between two different healthcare systems was practically demonstrated where a pharmacist can access the patient's electronic prescription from the clinic. / British Council Institutional Links grant under the BEIS-managed Newton Fund.

Ambientes Pervasivos são ambientes povoados por diversos dispositivos (sensores, atuadores, etc.) e aplicações de software (locais ou distribuídas) incorporadas nestes ambientes físicos de forma transparente para o usuário. Ambientes deste tipo devem ser capazes de interagir e satisfazer as requisições do usuário de forma autônoma e transparente. Nesse sentido, um dos maiores desafios de pesquisa em ambientes pervasivos é a de estabelecer mecanismos automáticos para compor, de forma dinâmica, funcionalidades que satisfaçam as requisições dos usuários. Nesse sentido, nós partimos da hipótese que mecanismos automáticos de interação entre ambientes e usuários podem ser abordados como um problema de composição automática de serviços em ambientes pervasivos. Portanto, nossa proposta é desenvolver um modelo referência, a partir do qual podem ser implementados sistemas que permitam ao ambiente pervasivo interagir com o usuário de forma natural, automática e dinâmica. Desta forma, o sistema de composição de serviços gerencia e automatiza o processo de resolução de requisições feitas pelo usuário (de forma implícita e/ou explicita) através das funcionalidades (serviços) disponíveis no ambiente ou através de novas funcionalidades criadas pelo processo de composição. Para tal fim, este trabalho apresenta um Modelo de Referência que permita projetar, implementar e avaliar sistemas de composição de serviços que gerenciem e automatizem o processo de interação em diversos tipos de ambientes pervasivos. Nossa proposta traz vantagens como: o baixo acoplamento e a interoperabilidade, isto porque é possível selecionar, integrar e reutilizar de forma eficiente e efetiva serviços heterogêneos provenientes de diversos tipos de dispositivos e/ou aplicações. Além disso, o modelo ontológico WSMO (Web Services Modelling Ontology) nos permite descrever semanticamente as capacidades dos serviços como também as informações contextuais presentes no ambiente, o que torna nosso sistema mais perto de um ambiente pervasivo real como o idealizado por Mark Weiser. / Pervasive environments are populated by several devices (sensors, actuators, etc.) and software applications (local or distributed) incorporated these physical environments transparently to the user. Environments of this type should be able to interact and process user requests autonomously and transparently. In this sense, one of the biggest research challenges in pervasive environments is to establish automatic mechanisms to compose dynamically, features that meet the user requirements. In this sense, we set the hypothesis that automatic mechanisms of interaction between users and environments can be addressed as a problem of automatic composition of services in pervasive environments. Therefore, our proposal is to develop a reference model, from which systems can be implemented to enable the pervasive environment interact with the user in a natural, automatic and dynamic. Thus, the system service composition management and automates the process of resolving requests made by the user (implicitly and / or explicitly) through the functionality (services) available in the environment or through new features created by the process of composition. To this end, this paper presents a Reference Model that allows to design, implement and evaluate systems of composition of services that manage and automate the interaction process in different types of pervasive environments. Our proposal brings benefits such as loose coupling and interoperability, because it is possible to select, integrate and reuse in an efficient and effective heterogeneous services from different types of devices and / or applications. Furthermore, the ontological model WSMO (Web Services Modeling Ontology) allows us to semantically describe the capabilities of the services as well as contextual information in the environment, which makes our system closer to a real pervasive environment as conceived by Mark Weiser.

Ambientes Pervasivos são ambientes povoados por diversos dispositivos (sensores, atuadores, etc.) e aplicações de software (locais ou distribuídas) incorporadas nestes ambientes físicos de forma transparente para o usuário. Ambientes deste tipo devem ser capazes de interagir e satisfazer as requisições do usuário de forma autônoma e transparente. Nesse sentido, um dos maiores desafios de pesquisa em ambientes pervasivos é a de estabelecer mecanismos automáticos para compor, de forma dinâmica, funcionalidades que satisfaçam as requisições dos usuários. Nesse sentido, nós partimos da hipótese que mecanismos automáticos de interação entre ambientes e usuários podem ser abordados como um problema de composição automática de serviços em ambientes pervasivos. Portanto, nossa proposta é desenvolver um modelo referência, a partir do qual podem ser implementados sistemas que permitam ao ambiente pervasivo interagir com o usuário de forma natural, automática e dinâmica. Desta forma, o sistema de composição de serviços gerencia e automatiza o processo de resolução de requisições feitas pelo usuário (de forma implícita e/ou explicita) através das funcionalidades (serviços) disponíveis no ambiente ou através de novas funcionalidades criadas pelo processo de composição. Para tal fim, este trabalho apresenta um Modelo de Referência que permita projetar, implementar e avaliar sistemas de composição de serviços que gerenciem e automatizem o processo de interação em diversos tipos de ambientes pervasivos. Nossa proposta traz vantagens como: o baixo acoplamento e a interoperabilidade, isto porque é possível selecionar, integrar e reutilizar de forma eficiente e efetiva serviços heterogêneos provenientes de diversos tipos de dispositivos e/ou aplicações. Além disso, o modelo ontológico WSMO (Web Services Modelling Ontology) nos permite descrever semanticamente as capacidades dos serviços como também as informações contextuais presentes no ambiente, o que torna nosso sistema mais perto de um ambiente pervasivo real como o idealizado por Mark Weiser. / Pervasive environments are populated by several devices (sensors, actuators, etc.) and software applications (local or distributed) incorporated these physical environments transparently to the user. Environments of this type should be able to interact and process user requests autonomously and transparently. In this sense, one of the biggest research challenges in pervasive environments is to establish automatic mechanisms to compose dynamically, features that meet the user requirements. In this sense, we set the hypothesis that automatic mechanisms of interaction between users and environments can be addressed as a problem of automatic composition of services in pervasive environments. Therefore, our proposal is to develop a reference model, from which systems can be implemented to enable the pervasive environment interact with the user in a natural, automatic and dynamic. Thus, the system service composition management and automates the process of resolving requests made by the user (implicitly and / or explicitly) through the functionality (services) available in the environment or through new features created by the process of composition. To this end, this paper presents a Reference Model that allows to design, implement and evaluate systems of composition of services that manage and automate the interaction process in different types of pervasive environments. Our proposal brings benefits such as loose coupling and interoperability, because it is possible to select, integrate and reuse in an efficient and effective heterogeneous services from different types of devices and / or applications. Furthermore, the ontological model WSMO (Web Services Modeling Ontology) allows us to semantically describe the capabilities of the services as well as contextual information in the environment, which makes our system closer to a real pervasive environment as conceived by Mark Weiser.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano Gonzaga Leme.pdf: 2147873 bytes, checksum: 2282265d0f8e50945a1107e7cd36096b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-04-27 / This work introduces an approach which main purpose is to ask and present possible ways so that the web site s content will be appropriately offered related to Semantic Web and Search Engines. To achieve this purpose many researches were made and used the author s experience in this area. Therefore many concepts and technologies were combined and used, such as: metadata, ontologies, semantic web services and search engine optimization. Metadata allow qualifying informations appropriately, ontologies are used to improve domain s analysis problem and to obtain software components with semantic descriptions, which may be reused in a great variety of applications. Semantic web services may be used as software components spread through the Internet to perform applications complex tasks. Starting asking what should be published in a web site, or even better, how should be a web site s content the work exposes knowledges and technologies to answer the question: how to offer appropriated content? After exposing the associated concepts and showing possible solutions a conclusion is achieved with questions and possible researches which will allow appropriated content sites development with Semantic Web and its possible positive collateral effects, granting improvement in both: knowledge utilization and available informations in the web / Esta dissertação apresenta uma abordagem que tem como objetivo principal questionar e apresentar possíveis caminhos para que o conteúdo de um web site seja apropriadamente oferecido em termos de Web Semântica e Mecanismos de Busca. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram efetuadas pesquisas e utilizada a experiência do autor. Desse modo foram combinados os conceitos e as tecnologias envolvidas em relação a metadados, ontologias, serviços web semânticos e otimização de mecanismos de busca. Os metadados permitem qualificar informações apropriadamente, as ontologias são empregadas para aprimorar a análise do domínio do problema e para obter componentes de software com descrições semânticas, os quais podem ser reutilizados numa grande variedade de aplicações. Os serviços web semânticos são utilizados como componentes de software distribuídos pela Internet e podem realizar tarefas complexas de aplicações. Partindo do questionamento do que publicar em um web site, ou melhor, como deve ser o conteúdo de um web site - foram expostos conhecimentos e tecnologias que delineiam a questão: como oferecer conteúdo apropriado? Após a exposição dos conceitos associados e da apresentação de possíveis soluções concluímos com questionamentos e indicativos de possíveis pesquisas que muito contribuirão ao desenvolvimento de sites com conteúdo apropriado com a Web Semântica e seus possíveis efeitos colaterais positivos, propiciando a melhor utilização do conhecimento e das informações disponibilizadas na web

En esta tesis se ha desarrollado un marco de trabajo que hace uso de las tecnologías de agentes y de Servicios Web Semánticos para la elaboración de aplicaciones que puedan tratar con el dinamismo de la Web, al tiempo que se pueden beneficiar de características como la autonomía, el aprendizaje y el razonamiento. Éste es el punto en que cobra relevancia la Ingeniería Ontológica. Las ontologías son los componentes que permiten que la comunicación entre agentes y Servicios Web, situados a distintos niveles de abstracción, se produzca de forma fluida y sin interpretaciones erróneas. La arquitectura del marco de trabajo desarrollado consta, fundamentalmente, de un entorno multi-agente, un conjunto de bases de conocimiento y diversas interfaces que permiten al sistema comunicarse, de forma efectiva, con las entidades externas identificadas, a saber, Servicios Web y proveedores de servicios, entidades (usuarios) consumidores de servicios, y desarrolladores. / In this thesis, a knowledge-based Semantic Web Services framework that successfully integrates Intelligent Agents and Semantic Web Services technologies has been developed. For achieving this combination, the framework takes an ontology-centred approach. Ontologies are the facilitating technology that enables a seamlessly communication between agents and services.

Software development is a complex task. Executable applications comprise a mutlitude of diverse components that are developed with various frameworks, libraries, or communication platforms. The technical complexity in development retains resources, hampers efficient problem solving, and thus increases the overall cost of software production. Another significant challenge in market-driven software engineering is the variety of customer needs. It necessitates a maximum of flexibility in software implementations to facilitate the deployment of different products that are based on one single core. To reduce technical complexity, the paradigm of Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) facilitates the abstract specification of software based on modeling languages. Corresponding models are used to generate actual programming code without the need for creating manually written, error-prone assets. Modeling languages that are tailored towards a particular domain are called domain-specific languages (DSLs). Domain-specific modeling (DSM) approximates technical solutions with intentional problems and fosters the unfolding of specialized expertise. To cope with feature diversity in applications, the Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) community provides means for the management of variability in software products, such as feature models and appropriate tools for mapping features to implementation assets. Model-driven development, domain-specific modeling, and the dedicated management of variability in SPLE are vital for the success of software enterprises. Yet, these paradigms exist in isolation and need to be integrated in order to exhaust the advantages of every single approach. In this thesis, we propose a way to do so. We introduce the paradigm of Multi-Domain Engineering (MDE) which means model-driven development with multiple domain-specific languages in variability-intensive scenarios. MDE strongly emphasize the advantages of MDSD with multiple DSLs as a neccessity for efficiency in software development and treats the paradigm of SPLE as indispensable means to achieve a maximum degree of reuse and flexibility. We present HybridMDSD as our solution approach to implement the MDE paradigm. The core idea of HybidMDSD is to capture the semantics of particular DSLs based on properly defined semantics for software models contained in a central upper ontology. Then, the resulting semantic foundation can be used to establish references between arbitrary domain-specific models (DSMs) and sophisticated instance level reasoning ensures integrity and allows to handle partiucular change adaptation scenarios. Moreover, we present an approach to automatically generate composition code that integrates generated assets from separate DSLs. All necessary development tasks are arranged in a comprehensive development process. Finally, we validate the introduced approach with a profound prototypical implementation and an industrial-scale case study. / Softwareentwicklung ist komplex: ausführbare Anwendungen beinhalten und vereinen eine Vielzahl an Komponenten, die mit unterschiedlichen Frameworks, Bibliotheken oder Kommunikationsplattformen entwickelt werden. Die technische Komplexität in der Entwicklung bindet Ressourcen, verhindert effiziente Problemlösung und führt zu insgesamt hohen Kosten bei der Produktion von Software. Zusätzliche Herausforderungen entstehen durch die Vielfalt und Unterschiedlichkeit an Kundenwünschen, die der Entwicklung ein hohes Maß an Flexibilität in Software-Implementierungen abverlangen und die Auslieferung verschiedener Produkte auf Grundlage einer Basis-Implementierung nötig machen. Zur Reduktion der technischen Komplexität bietet sich das Paradigma der modellgetriebenen Softwareentwicklung (MDSD) an. Software-Spezifikationen in Form abstrakter Modelle werden hier verwendet um Programmcode zu generieren, was die fehleranfällige, manuelle Programmierung ähnlicher Komponenten überflüssig macht. Modellierungssprachen, die auf eine bestimmte Problemdomäne zugeschnitten sind, nennt man domänenspezifische Sprachen (DSLs). Domänenspezifische Modellierung (DSM) vereint technische Lösungen mit intentionalen Problemen und ermöglicht die Entfaltung spezialisierter Expertise. Um der Funktionsvielfalt in Software Herr zu werden, bietet der Forschungszweig der Softwareproduktlinienentwicklung (SPLE) verschiedene Mittel zur Verwaltung von Variabilität in Software-Produkten an. Hierzu zählen Feature-Modelle sowie passende Werkzeuge, um Features auf Implementierungsbestandteile abzubilden. Modellgetriebene Entwicklung, domänenspezifische Modellierung und eine spezielle Handhabung von Variabilität in Softwareproduktlinien sind von entscheidender Bedeutung für den Erfolg von Softwarefirmen. Zur Zeit bestehen diese Paradigmen losgelöst voneinander und müssen integriert werden, damit die Vorteile jedes einzelnen für die Gesamtheit der Softwareentwicklung entfaltet werden können. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Ansatz vorgestellt, der dies ermöglicht. Es wird das Multi-Domain Engineering Paradigma (MDE) eingeführt, welches die modellgetriebene Softwareentwicklung mit mehreren domänenspezifischen Sprachen in variabilitätszentrierten Szenarien beschreibt. MDE stellt die Vorteile modellgetriebener Entwicklung mit mehreren DSLs als eine Notwendigkeit für Effizienz in der Entwicklung heraus und betrachtet das SPLE-Paradigma als unabdingbares Mittel um ein Maximum an Wiederverwendbarkeit und Flexibilität zu erzielen. In der Arbeit wird ein Ansatz zur Implementierung des MDE-Paradigmas, mit dem Namen HybridMDSD, vorgestellt.