Semantic Web and Beyond – serie

Current middleware solutions, e.g., application servers and Web services, are very complex software products that are hard to tame because of intricacies of distributed systems. Their functionalities have mostly been developed and managed with the help of administration tools and corresponding configuration files, recently in XML. Though this constitutes flexibility for developing and administrating a distributed application, the conceptual model underlying the different configurations is only implicit.To remedy such problems, Semantic Management of Middleware contributes an ontology-based approach to support the development and administration of middleware-based applications. The ontology is an explicit conceptual model with formal logic-based semantics. Its descriptions may therefore be queried, may foresight required actions, or may be checked to avoid inconsistent system configurations.This book builds a rigorous approach towards giving the declarative descriptions of components and services a well-defined meaning by specifying ontological foundations and by showing how such foundations may be realized in practical, up-and-running systems.

Canadian Semantic Web is an edited volume based on the first Canadian Web Working Symposium, June 2006, in Quebec, Canada. This volume includes but is not limited to the following popular topics: "Trust, Privacy, Security on the Semantic Web," "Semantic Grid and Semantic Grid Services" and "Semantic Web Mining."

Semantics, Web services, and Web processes promise better re-use, universal interoperability and integration. Semantics has been recognized as the primary tool to address the challenges of a broad spectrum of heterogeneity and for improving automation through machine understandable descriptions.Semantic Web Services, Processes and Applications brings contributions from researchers who study, explore and understand the semantic enabling of all phases of semantic Web processes. This encompasses design, annotation, discovery, choreography and composition. Also this book presents fundamental capabilities and techniques associated with ontological modeling or services, annotation, matching and mapping, and reasoning. This is complemented by discussion of applications in e-Government and bioinformatics.Special bulk rates are available for course adoption through Publishing Editor.

A large number of information systems use many different individual schemas to represent data. Semantically linking these schemas is a necessary precondition to establish interoperability between agents and services. Consequently, ontology alignment and mapping for data integration has become central to building a world-wide semantic web.Ontology Alignment: Bridging the Semantic Gap introduces novel methods and approaches for semantic integration. In addition to developing new methods for ontology alignment, the author provides extensive explanations of up-to-date case studies. The topic of this book, coupled with the application-focused methodology, will appeal to professionals from a number of different domains.Designed for practitioners and researchers in industry, Ontology Alignment: Bridging the Semantic Web Gap is also suitable for advanced-level students in computer science and electrical engineering.

Semantic Web: Real-World Applications from Industry offers a glimpse into the opening door of semantic technologies by means of concentrated examples of semantic applications in real business environments.  For quite a while, there has been evidence from academic research and early industrial prototypes that semantic technology can help humans and machines substantially in accessing and using the unprecedented, and exponentially growing, amount of information that the World Wide Web provides. Now semantic technology is moving from academic and industrial research into real products and applications.  This book provides a series of case studies which demonstrate how real benefits can be derived from the adoption of semantic technology in popular business domains, such as telecommunication, B2B integration, healthcare, education, and others.Semantic Web: Real-World Applications from Industry summarizes state-of-the art expertise and practical experiences from outstanding technology showcases. This volume was written as a joint effort of leading experts in the field of semantic technology from various backgrounds and countries, including industry, academia, and government agencies. It combines a detailed description of the challenges and technical solutions with a discussion of the actual results and a wealth of lessons learned, which will be invaluable for future investments into semantic technology.Semantic Web: Real-World Applications from Industry was designed for industry professionals and researchers interested in the current state and future of semantic technology. This book is also suitable as a secondary advanced-level text or reference for students in computer science.Foreword by Michael L. Brodie, Chief Scientist, Verizon Communications, Cambridge, USA

Managing ontologies and annotated data throughout their life-cycles is at the core of semantic systems of all kinds.  Ontology Management, an edited volume by senior researchers in the field, provides an up-to-date, concise and easy-to-read reference on this topic.This volume describes relevant tasks, practical and theoretical challenges, limitations and methodologies, plus available software tools. The editors discuss integrating the conceptual and technical dimensions with a business view on using ontologies, by stressing the cost dimension of ontology engineering and by providing guidance on how up-to-date tooling helps to build, maintain, and use ontologies.  Also included is a one-stop reference on all aspects of managing ontological data and best practices on ontology management for a number of application domains.Ontology Management is designed as a reference or secondary text for researchers and advanced-level students studying semantic systems, Semantic Web Services (SWS) and Web Services, information systems, data and knowledge engineering, and the Semantic Web in general.  Practitioners in industry will find this work invaluable as well.

Science is like a tree: contrary to popular belief, both trees and science grow at their edges, not at their core. For science, this means that most of the fruitful and exciting developments are not happening at the core of established ?elds, but are instead happening at the boundaries between such ?elds. This has been particularly true for Computer Science. The most interesting database developments don’t happen inside the Database community, but rather where databases hit Biology. Similarly, the most interesting developments in Ar- ?cial Intelligence in recent years have happened where AI met the Web. Theyoung?eldofSemanticWebresearchhasbeenoneoftheresultsofanumber of different sub?elds of Computer Science being exposed to the challenges of the Web: databases, computational linguistics, knowledge representation, knowled- based systems and service-oriented computing are just some of the sub?elds that are all making contributions to the Semantic Web vision, namely a Web that consists not only of linksbetween web-pagesfull of picturesand text, but of a Semantic Web that consists of links between computer-interpretable data. Such a Semantic Web would make it possible to query and reason over integrated data-sets consisting of separate pieces of information that were never intended to be linked together, but that can nevertheless be fruitfully combined and integrated, sometimes even by a third party who neither wrote nor ownsany of the original piecesof data (just as is possible with web-pages on the current Web).

Service-Oriented Computing is one of the most promising software engineering trends for future distributed systems. Currently there are many different approaches to semantic web service descriptions and many frameworks built around them. Yet a common understanding, evaluation scheme, and test bed to compare and classify these frameworks in terms of their abilities and shortcomings, is still missing.Semantic Web Services Challenge is an edited volume that develops this common understanding of the various technologies intended to facilitate the automation of mediation, choreography and discovery for Web Services using semantic annotations.Semantic Web Services Challenge is designed for a professional audience composed of practitioners and researchers in industry. Professionals can use this book to evaluate SWS technology for their potential practical use. The book is also suitable for advanced-level students in computer science.

Current middleware solutions, e.g., application servers and Web services, are very complex software products that are hard to tame because of intricacies of distributed systems. Their functionalities have mostly been developed and managed with the help of administration tools and corresponding configuration files, recently in XML. Though this constitutes flexibility for developing and administrating a distributed application, the conceptual model underlying the different configurations is only implicit.To remedy such problems, Semantic Management of Middleware contributes an ontology-based approach to support the development and administration of middleware-based applications. The ontology is an explicit conceptual model with formal logic-based semantics. Its descriptions may therefore be queried, may foresight required actions, or may be checked to avoid inconsistent system configurations.This book builds a rigorous approach towards giving the declarative descriptions of components and services a well-defined meaning by specifying ontological foundations and by showing how such foundations may be realized in practical, up-and-running systems.

Canadian Semantic Web is an edited volume based on the first Canadian Web Working Symposium, June 2006, in Quebec, Canada. This volume includes but is not limited to the following popular topics: "Trust, Privacy, Security on the Semantic Web," "Semantic Grid and Semantic Grid Services" and "Semantic Web Mining."

Semantics, Web services, and Web processes promise better re-use, universal interoperability and integration. Semantics has been recognized as the primary tool to address the challenges of a broad spectrum of heterogeneity and for improving automation through machine understandable descriptions.Semantic Web Services, Processes and Applications brings contributions from researchers who study, explore and understand the semantic enabling of all phases of semantic Web processes. This encompasses design, annotation, discovery, choreography and composition. Also this book presents fundamental capabilities and techniques associated with ontological modeling or services, annotation, matching and mapping, and reasoning. This is complemented by discussion of applications in e-Government and bioinformatics.Special bulk rates are available for course adoption through Publishing Editor.

A large number of information systems use many different individual schemas to represent data. Semantically linking these schemas is a necessary precondition to establish interoperability between agents and services. Consequently, ontology alignment and mapping for data integration has become central to building a world-wide semantic web.Ontology Alignment: Bridging the Semantic Gap introduces novel methods and approaches for semantic integration. In addition to developing new methods for ontology alignment, the author provides extensive explanations of up-to-date case studies. The topic of this book, coupled with the application-focused methodology, will appeal to professionals from a number of different domains.Designed for practitioners and researchers in industry, Ontology Alignment: Bridging the Semantic Web Gap is also suitable for advanced-level students in computer science and electrical engineering.

Semantic Web: Real-World Applications from Industry offers a glimpse into the opening door of semantic technologies by means of concentrated examples of semantic applications in real business environments.  For quite a while, there has been evidence from academic research and early industrial prototypes that semantic technology can help humans and machines substantially in accessing and using the unprecedented, and exponentially growing, amount of information that the World Wide Web provides. Now semantic technology is moving from academic and industrial research into real products and applications.  This book provides a series of case studies which demonstrate how real benefits can be derived from the adoption of semantic technology in popular business domains, such as telecommunication, B2B integration, healthcare, education, and others.Semantic Web: Real-World Applications from Industry summarizes state-of-the art expertise and practical experiences from outstanding technology showcases. This volume was written as a joint effort of leading experts in the field of semantic technology from various backgrounds and countries, including industry, academia, and government agencies. It combines a detailed description of the challenges and technical solutions with a discussion of the actual results and a wealth of lessons learned, which will be invaluable for future investments into semantic technology.Semantic Web: Real-World Applications from Industry was designed for industry professionals and researchers interested in the current state and future of semantic technology. This book is also suitable as a secondary advanced-level text or reference for students in computer science.Foreword by Michael L. Brodie, Chief Scientist, Verizon Communications, Cambridge, USA

Managing ontologies and annotated data throughout their life-cycles is at the core of semantic systems of all kinds.  Ontology Management, an edited volume by senior researchers in the field, provides an up-to-date, concise and easy-to-read reference on this topic.This volume describes relevant tasks, practical and theoretical challenges, limitations and methodologies, plus available software tools. The editors discuss integrating the conceptual and technical dimensions with a business view on using ontologies, by stressing the cost dimension of ontology engineering and by providing guidance on how up-to-date tooling helps to build, maintain, and use ontologies.  Also included is a one-stop reference on all aspects of managing ontological data and best practices on ontology management for a number of application domains.Ontology Management is designed as a reference or secondary text for researchers and advanced-level students studying semantic systems, Semantic Web Services (SWS) and Web Services, information systems, data and knowledge engineering, and the Semantic Web in general.  Practitioners in industry will find this work invaluable as well.

Science is like a tree: contrary to popular belief, both trees and science grow at their edges, not at their core. For science, this means that most of the fruitful and exciting developments are not happening at the core of established ?elds, but are instead happening at the boundaries between such ?elds. This has been particularly true for Computer Science. The most interesting database developments don’t happen inside the Database community, but rather where databases hit Biology. Similarly, the most interesting developments in Ar- ?cial Intelligence in recent years have happened where AI met the Web. Theyoung?eldofSemanticWebresearchhasbeenoneoftheresultsofanumber of different sub?elds of Computer Science being exposed to the challenges of the Web: databases, computational linguistics, knowledge representation, knowled- based systems and service-oriented computing are just some of the sub?elds that are all making contributions to the Semantic Web vision, namely a Web that consists not only of linksbetween web-pagesfull of picturesand text, but of a Semantic Web that consists of links between computer-interpretable data. Such a Semantic Web would make it possible to query and reason over integrated data-sets consisting of separate pieces of information that were never intended to be linked together, but that can nevertheless be fruitfully combined and integrated, sometimes even by a third party who neither wrote nor ownsany of the original piecesof data (just as is possible with web-pages on the current Web).

Service-Oriented Computing is one of the most promising software engineering trends for future distributed systems. Currently there are many different approaches to semantic web service descriptions and many frameworks built around them. Yet a common understanding, evaluation scheme, and test bed to compare and classify these frameworks in terms of their abilities and shortcomings, is still missing.Semantic Web Services Challenge is an edited volume that develops this common understanding of the various technologies intended to facilitate the automation of mediation, choreography and discovery for Web Services using semantic annotations.Semantic Web Services Challenge is designed for a professional audience composed of practitioners and researchers in industry. Professionals can use this book to evaluate SWS technology for their potential practical use. The book is also suitable for advanced-level students in computer science.

Information infrastructures are integrated solutions based on the fusion of information and communication technologies. They are characterized by the large amount of data that must be managed accordingly. An information infrastructure requires an efficient and effective information retrieval system to provide access to the items stored in the infrastructure. Terminological Ontologies: Design, Management and Practical Applications presents the main problems that affect the discovery systems of information infrastructures to manage terminological models, and introduces a combination of research tools and applications in Semantic Web technologies. This book specifically analyzes the need to create, relate, and integrate the models required for an infrastructure by elaborating on the problem of accessing these models in an efficient manner via interoperable services and components. Terminological Ontologies: Design, Management and Practical Applications is geared toward information management systems and semantic web professionals working as project managers, application developers, government workers and more. Advanced undergraduate and graduate level students, professors and researchers focusing on computer science will also find this book valuable as a secondary text or reference book.

The availability of geographic and geospatial information and services, especially on the open Web has become abundant in the last several years with the proliferation of online maps, geo-coding services, geospatial Web services and geospatially enabled applications. The need for geospatial reasoning has significantly increased in many everyday applications including personal digital assistants, Web search applications, local aware mobile services, specialized systems for emergency response, medical triaging, intelligence analysis and more. Geospatial Semantics and the Semantic Web: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications, an edited volume contributed by world class leaders in this field, provides recent research in the theme of geospatial semantics. This edited volume presents new information systems applications that have potential for high impact and commercialization. Also, special effort was made by the contributors to focus on geospatial ontology development, related standards, geospatial ontology alignment and integration, and algorithmic techniques for geospatial semantics. Case studies and examples will be provided throughout this book as well as possibilities for future research.

Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web provides a unique introduction to identity and reference theories of the World Wide Web, through the academic lens of philosophy of language and data-driven statistical models. The Semantic Web is a natural evolution of the Web, and this book covers the URL-based Web architecture and Semantic Web in detail. It has a robust empirical side which has an impact on industry. Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web discusses how the largest problem facing the Semantic Web is the problem of identity and reference, and how these are the results of a larger general theory of meaning. This book hypothesizes that statistical semantics can solve these problems, illustrated by case studies ranging from a pioneering study of tagging systems to using the Semantic Web to boost the results of commercial search engines. Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web targets practitioners working in the related fields of the semantic web, search engines, information retrieval, philosophers of language and more. Advanced-level students and researchers focusing on computer science will also find this book valuable as a secondary text or reference book.

Information infrastructures are integrated solutions based on the fusion of information and communication technologies. They are characterized by the large amount of data that must be managed accordingly. An information infrastructure requires an efficient and effective information retrieval system to provide access to the items stored in the infrastructure. Terminological Ontologies: Design, Management and Practical Applications presents the main problems that affect the discovery systems of information infrastructures to manage terminological models, and introduces a combination of research tools and applications in Semantic Web technologies. This book specifically analyzes the need to create, relate, and integrate the models required for an infrastructure by elaborating on the problem of accessing these models in an efficient manner via interoperable services and components. Terminological Ontologies: Design, Management and Practical Applications is geared toward information management systems and semantic web professionals working as project managers, application developers, government workers and more. Advanced undergraduate and graduate level students, professors and researchers focusing on computer science will also find this book valuable as a secondary text or reference book.

The availability of geographic and geospatial information and services, especially on the open Web has become abundant in the last several years with the proliferation of online maps, geo-coding services, geospatial Web services and geospatially enabled applications. The need for geospatial reasoning has significantly increased in many everyday applications including personal digital assistants, Web search applications, local aware mobile services, specialized systems for emergency response, medical triaging, intelligence analysis and more. Geospatial Semantics and the Semantic Web: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications, an edited volume contributed by world class leaders in this field, provides recent research in the theme of geospatial semantics. This edited volume presents new information systems applications that have potential for high impact and commercialization. Also, special effort was made by the contributors to focus on geospatial ontology development, related standards, geospatial ontology alignment and integration, and algorithmic techniques for geospatial semantics. Case studies and examples will be provided throughout this book as well as possibilities for future research.