DOI: 10.3897/jucs.147898

Authors: Gustavo Lazarotto Schroeder, Wesllei Felipe Heckler, Rosemary Francisco, Jorge Luis Victória Barbosa

Abstract: Smartphone use has increased globally and has become essential in daily life. Although benefits exist, concerns arise about the negative effects of prolonged hyperconnectivity. The excessive use of smartphones combined with demographic and mental health related risk factors can lead to problematic smartphone use (PSU). PSU is characterized as the compulsive use of smartphones that disrupts an individual’s daily life, work, and relationships. Considering this scenario, the present paper proposes OntoKratos as an ontology designed to detect and prevent PSU. The ontology enables inferences, such as determining the individual’s mental health and PSU state, inferring context information, identifying PSU demographic and emotional risk factors, and suggesting interventions. OntoKratos includes 89 classes, 43 object properties, 35 data properties, and 1,113 axioms. Evaluations performed through a simulated dataset demonstrated the ontology’s effectiveness regarding PSU identification and interventions for PSU behaviors. Ontology’s rules allowed the definition of accurate axioms, improving the correct classification and inference of eight instantiated individuals. This study presents the first ontology for PSU identification and intervention suggestions on PSU behaviors. OntoKratos allows to identify and assist individuals by considering mental health and PSU status, inferring potential PSU risk factors, and providing tailored intervention suggestions to cope with PSU.

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DOI: 10.3897/jucs.128779

Authors: Carlos Goetz, Rodrigo Simon Bavaresco, Wesllei Felipe Heckler, Gustavo Lazarotto Schroeder, Rafael Kunst, Jorge Luis Victória Barbosa

Abstract: Stress is a mental disorder responsible for impacting the industry through psychosomatic illnesses, loss of productivity, and accidents caused by stressful workplaces. Conversely, the literature indicates that fostering mental well-being among workers can boost motivation and performance while alleviating symptoms of stress. The fourth industrial revolution incorporated technologies into work that allowed the automation of processes and control of environments. The fifth revolution introduced the application of research and innovation aimed at a human-centered consciousness, enabling the advancement of mental health through sensors and wearables. Despite advancements in stress classification technologies, there remain opportunities for further research into identifying stress motivators within industrial work environments. In this sense, this paper proposes an ontology to identify stressors considering personal and environmental data, allowing knowledge generation related to work stressors for mitigating the problem. The methodology utilized in this ontology development consisted of seven stages and two evaluation phases. The findings addressed four key questions related to competency as outlined in the model. The results revealed potential stressful scenarios, including the timing of occurrence, shared locations, environmental factors, and identifying groups experiencing moments of stress. This study presents as a scientific contribution the first ontology to address the identification of work-related stressors in the industrial environment.

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DOI: 10.3897/jucs.2020.049

Authors: Gareth Young, Sam Stehle, Burcin Walsh, Egess Tiri

Abstract: irtual reality (VR), as an informative medium, possesses the potential to engage students with immersive, interactive, and informative experiences. When presented in VR, immersive virtual environments (IVEs) can provide three-dimensional visual simulations that can be used to inform students about concepts in specific contexts that would be near impossible to achieve with more traditional teaching methodologies. It is proposed that existing learning frameworks can benefit from exploring the modalities of interaction that are presently afforded via VR from the experiential perspectives of the students. An evaluation is presented that focused on the appraisal of student experiences of immersive technologies as applied in a higher education context, specifically in the use of VR for the exploration of geomorphology theory by physical geography students. This research supports further development of the immersive learning discipline from three different perspectives. First, an empathy mapping method was applied to visualize student experiences and externalize our observed knowledge of student users for creating a shared understanding of their needs and to aid in lesson planning decision making when using VR in the classroom. Second, student experiences were captured using a technology-focused user experience questionnaire to obtain student attitudes immediately post-task. Finally, to assist teachers with the creation of a student-centered lesson plans that incorporate VR in the classroom, eight heuristic guidelines (focus, provocation, stimulation, collaboration, control, digital life, learner skills, multimodal experience) were developed. It is proposed that these findings can be used to provide support for the use of mixed reality and immersive virtual environments in learning that encompass the challenges faced by students and the interdisciplinary education community at large.

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DOI: 10.3897/jucs.2020.030

Authors: Sana Debbech, Simon Collart-Dutilleul, Philippe Bon

Abstract: Dysfunctional analysis is an essential and demanding task in the early development stages of safety-critical systems (SCSs). Nevertheless, current practices present several drawbacks. Generally, a common dysfunctional analysis conceptualization is missing and it is dependent on safety analysis techniques. Moreover, some safety analysis methods require well-known system behaviors expressed by dynamic models such as sequence diagrams and finite automata. However, the dynamic character of these models increases their susceptibility to changes and then they are not obtainable in the early design stages. Since dysfunctional analysis highly relies on the experience of safety analysts and the feedback (REX) obtained from previous systems development, there is a need to formalize this knowledge domain in a structured way to ensure its future reuse. Furthermore, safety measures derived from this dysfunctional analysis approach must be strongly linked to a goal-oriented perspective and adapted to a specific context. For this purpose, this paper presents a real-world semantics interpretation and conceptualization of dysfunctional analysis related concepts based on the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and well-known standards to avoid ambiguities. The proposed Dysfunctional Analysis Ontology (DAO) aims to provide a systematization of the goal-oriented dysfunctional analysis through a terminological clarification in order to prevent hazards in the first design phases. Then, a DAO formalization is proposed using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Finally, the DAO pattern is applied to two different real critical scenarios from the railway domain in order to illustrate and evaluate this ontological approach.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-022-03-0416

Authors: Jarosław Jankowski, Kostas Kolomvatsos, Przemysław Kazienko, Jarosław Wątróbski

Abstract: An important aspect of managing social platforms, online games and virtual worlds is the analysis of user characteristics related to subscriptions and virtual goods purchases. The results of such a process could be adopted in decision support applications that build on top of users' behavior provide efficient strategies for the virtual world's management. One of the research questions in this area is related to the factors affecting purchases and their relation to the activity within social networks as well as the ability to use past data to make reasoning about future behaviors. Complex online systems are hard to analyze when adopting legacy methodologies due to the huge amount of data generated by users' activity and changes in their behavior over time. In this paper, we discuss an analysis of the characteristics of users performing purchases for virtual products. We adopt a Neuro-Fuzzy system which has the ability to process data under uncertainty towards better decisions related to parameterization of the virtual retail system. The proposed Fuzzy Logic (FL) inference model focuses on the analysis of purchases based on the types of past transactions and social activity as inputs. The proposed system results values for specific parameters affecting/depicting users’ behavior like own purchases, gifting and virtual products usage as output. Our results could be adopted for decision support of online platform operators and show the relations between less and more experienced users in terms of frequency and value of purchases, engagement with the use of virtual goods and gifting behaviors. Models based on the social activity with distinguished inbound and outbound social connections show increased interest in virtual goods among users with a higher number of inbound connections as a possible tool for building social position.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-021-06-0856

Authors: Alejandro Zambrano, Carlos Toro, Marcos Nieto, Ricardo Sotaquira, Cesar Sanín, Edward Szczerbicki

Abstract: This paper proposes a service-oriented architecture for video analysis which separates object detection from event recognition. Our aim is to introduce new tools to be considered in the pathway towards Cognitive Vision as a support for classical Computer Vision techniques that have been broadly used by the scientific community. In the article, we particularly focus in solving some of the reported scalability issues found in current Computer Vision approaches by introducing an experience based approximation based on the Set of Experience Knowledge Structure (SOEKS). In our proposal, object detection takes place client-side, while event recognition takes place server-side. In order to implement our approach, we introduce a novel architecture that aims at recognizing events defined by a user using production rules (a part of the SOEKS model) and the detections made by the client using their own algorithms for visual recognition. In order to test our methodology, we present a case study, showing the scalability enhancements provided.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-020-11-1523

Authors: Luis M. Álvarez Sabucedo, Roberto Barreiros, Juan M. Santos Gago, Manuel J. Fernández Iglesias

Abstract: This paper addresses the recommendation of online services provided by public administrations taking into account both the specific characteristics of these services and the perception of other citizens. The solution discussed is based on an enhanced hybrid model that relies on content-based and collaborative strategies aimed to exploit the information shared by other users to validate the quality of the recommendations provided. As a relevant feature, the proposed schema takes advantage of an automatic compensation of the mentioned strategies. To make the most of theses two approaches, the use of semantics is introduced to describe knowledge and to make smart recommendation decisions. To facilitate the task of other researchers and practitioners, details about the actual development and validation of the proposed model are also included in the paper, making it possible its replication in other environmentsEurope is involved in a process of transition to digital terrestrial television that is aimed to replace all analog broadcasting infrastructures into digital ones by year 2012. Besides the substitution of all broadcasting networks scattered around Europe, this process includes the replacement of all household elements related to the reception of terrestrial television emissions, namely television appliances and antenna settings. As in any major change in the every-day life of citizens, public administrations must keep citizen informed and provide convenient support, specially when dealing with the a communication medium designated to be the carriers of services and information. This paper tackles how this situation has been faced in Galicia, a European region with special needs in this area, as shown in the paper. Through a successful use case based on Geographical Information Services and Web2.0 technologies, we illustrate some features not present in related initiatives in other areas.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-019-13-1940

Authors: Olawande Daramola, Guttorm Sindre, Thomas Moser

Abstract: Attaining high quality in security requirements specification requires first-rate professional expertise, which is scarce. In fact, most organisations do not include core security experts in their software team. This scenario motivates the need for adequate tool support for security requirements specification so that the human requirements analyst can be assisted to specify security requirements of acceptable quality with minimum effort. This paper presents a tool-based semantic framework that uses ontology and requirements boilerplates to facilitate the formulation and specification of security requirements. A two-phased evaluation of the semantic framework suggests that it is usable, leads to reduction of effort, aids the quick discovery of hidden security threats, and improves the quality of security requirements.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-019-13-1914

Authors: Carlos García-Moreno, Yolanda Hernández-González, Miguel Rodríguez-García, José Miñarro-Giménez, Rafael Valencia-García, Angela Almela

Abstract: Innovation is one of the keys to success in business and industry world, especially within the current economic context. R&D projects are a building-block in the innovation process, hence the importance of managing them efficiently. Ontologies and semantic technologies have proven highly effective at this task. Within this context, the present study explores the use of ontologies to model R&D related data and the application of semantic technologies to the building of an enhanced management system. Findings confirm the success of the system proposed, and reveal that it may bring considerable benefits to project management, such as the definition of a completely explicit information model and improved management capabilities.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-019-11-1543

Authors: Stefan Dietze, Eleni Kaldoudi, Nikolas Dovrolis, Daniela Giordano, Concetto Spampinato, Maurice Hendrix, Aristidis Protopsaltis, Davide Taibi, Hong Yu

Abstract: Research in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) throughout the last decade has largely focused on sharing and reusing educational resources and data. This effort has led to a fragmented landscape of competing metadata schemas, such as IEEE LOM or ADL SCORM, and interface mechanisms, such as OAI-PMH, SQI and REST-ful services in general. More recently, semantic technologies were taken into account to improve interoperability. However, so far Web-scale integration of resources is not facilitated, mainly due to the lack of take-up of shared principles, datasets and schemas. On the other hand, the Linked Data approach has emerged as the de facto standard for sharing data on the Web and is fundamentally based on established W3C standards. This paper presents results of the European Commission-funded project mEducator, which exploits Linked Data principles for (1) semantic integration and (2) social interconnecting of educational data, resources and actors. We describe a general approach to exploit the wealth of already existing educational data on the Web by allowing its exposure as Linked Data and by taking into account automated enrichment and interlinking techniques to provide a rich and well-interlinked graph for the educational domain. Additionally, the paper presents an evaluation of our work with respect to a set of socio-semantic dimensions. Experimental results demonstrate improved interoperability and retrievability of the resulting resource descriptions as part of an interlinked resource graph.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-019-09-1315

Authors: María Martinez-Villaseñor, Miguel González-Mendoza

Abstract: A major challenge for creating personalized diet and activity applications is to capture static, semi-static and dynamic information about a person in a user-friendly way. Sharing and reusing information between heterogeneous sources like social networking applications, personal health records, specialized applications for diet and exercise monitoring, and personal devices with attached sensors can achieve a better understanding of the user. Gathering distributed user information from heterogeneous sources and making sense of it to enable user model interoperability entails handling the semantic heterogeneity of the user models. In this paper, we enhance the process of concept alignment to automatically determine semantic mapping relations to enable interoperability between heterogeneous health and fitting applications. We add an internal structure similarity measure to increase the quality of generated mappings of our previous work. We show that the addition of an internal structure analysis of source data in the process of concept alignment improves the efficiency and effectiveness of measuring results. Constrain and data type verification done in the internal structure analysis proved to be useful when dealing with common conflicts between concepts.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-019-03-0353

Authors: Angels Rius, Jordi Conesa, Elena Garcia-Barriocanal, Miguel-Ángel Sicilia

Abstract: Beyond the kind of processes dealt with the IMS LD specification, there are other kinds of processes, which are repeated periodically in learning environments that have not already been described yet due to the lack of mechanisms to describe them effectively. Inspired by the standard specification of language processes in the business area and taking into account the patterns philosophy used in the software engineering field, we propose an open framework to formally describe generic processes that usually occurs in the learning environments as patterns of educational settings. The main contribution of this paper is an extensible ontology-based framework to specify processes in learning environments. This framework has been created with the aim of improving the reusability of its formal specifications independently of the educational institutions where the processes occur and the learning platforms that support such processes. As a result of this work we have created a graphical notation for specifying such kind of processes easily and a CASE tool to facilitate its representation and the population of the ontological framework. In a future this framework could be extended to take more advantages: adapting the specifications of patterns to different educational institutions, using an implementation profile to achieve implementation descriptions or other standards to provide other output formats.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-019-02-0254

Authors: Fabiane Barreto Vavassori Benitti, Rodrigo Cezario da Silva

Abstract: The benefits of reusing artifacts in the software development process are well-known in the software engineering community, and the earlier in the system development life-cycle reuse is attempted, the more benefit can be expected. Thus, we highlight the reuse of requirement specifications, leading to greater reuse of other artifacts such as models, code and tests. This paper presents an approach to the requirements reuse, supported by a tool that gives suggestions for reuse from requirement patterns, a patterns catalog and traceability between requirements. The efficiency and effectiveness of the approach were evaluated using a quasi-experiment in a university. We conducted a quantitative evaluation of the approach, and an assessment of participants' perceptions regarding the use of the approach and the computational tool. Finally, we performed a qualitative assessment using the GQM method, from the point of view of experts in the area of requirements engineering, in order to obtain more indicators of the feasibility of applying the approach in companies. The results of the quasi-experiment indicate that the approach presented makes the activities of requirement elicitation and specification about 40% more efficient and effective in terms of the way they are conducted, without the support of the approach. Regarding the perceptions on the use, the experimental group positively evaluated the proposed approach and the developed tool. Based on the evaluation by the GQM method, indicators were obtained that the approach assists in activities of requirement elicitation and specification, from the point of view of experts.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-018-19-2706

Authors: Anuradha Mathrani, David Parsons, Sanjay Mathrani

Abstract: Offshore software development (OSD) is a leading business sector in the global IT marketplace, and vendors in different countries are opening software development centres to take advantage of new business opportunities. However, software development is both a technical and a social process in which various software modules are integrated, requiring ongoing interaction and synchronisation of activities between distributed stakeholders. Knowledge management (KM) strategies are applied to create knowledge consistent with client requirements, project specific features and chosen design methodologies. Building on existing KM theories with empirical evidence from ten case studies in the Asia Pacific region, within two country contexts (New Zealand and India), this research reveals the KM initiatives for enabling knowledge transfer in the OSD process at the operational, design and strategic level. The paper offers insights on how software vendors build organisational knowledge repositories as they streamline distributed tasks in different country contexts. Country-specific contexts reveal that New Zealand vendors are engaged more in project and product management and have further outsourced software development tasks to other low cost countries. The Indian vendors are involved in software construction, development of technical specialist skills and use of more formal processes. These findings emphasise implications of various sociological, cultural and technical perspectives of KM initiatives in OSD.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-017-08-1135

Authors: Yue-Shan Chang, Chao-Tung Yang, Yu-Cheng Luo

Abstract: Retrieving information or discovering knowledge from a well organized data center in general is requested to be familiar with its schema, structure, and architecture, which against the inherent concept and characteristics of cloud environment. An effective approach to retrieve desired information or to extract useful knowledge is an important issue in the emerging information/knowledge cloud. In this paper, we propose an ontology-based agent generation framework for information retrieval in a flexible, transparent, and easy way on cloud environment. While user submitting a flat-text based request for retrieving information on a cloud environment, the request will be automatically deduced by a Reasoning Agent (RA) based on predefined ontology and reasoning rule, and then be translated to a Mobile Information Retrieving Agent Description File (MIRADF) that is formatted in a proposed Mobile Agent Description Language (MADF). A generating agent, named MIRA-GA, is also implemented to generate a MIRA according to the MIRADF. We also design and implement a prototype to integrate these agents and show an interesting example to demonstrate the feasibility of the architecture.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-017-07-1089

Authors: Valentina Janev, Sanja Vraneš

Abstract: Semantic-based technologies have been steadily increasing their relevance in recent years in both the research world and business world. Considering this, the present article discusses the process of design and implementation of a competency management system in information and communication technologies domain utilizing the latest Semantic Web tools and technologies including D2RQ server, TopBraid Composer, OWL 2, SPARQL, SPARQL Rules and common human resources related public vocabularies. In particular, the paper discusses the process of building individual and enterprise competence models in a form of ontology database, as well as different ways of meaningful search and retrieval of expertise data on the Semantic Web. The ontological knowledge base aims at storing the extracted and integrated competences from structured, as well as unstructured sources. By using the illustrative case study of deployment of such a system in the Human Resources sector at the Mihajlo Pupin Institute, this paper shows an example of new approaches to data integration and information management. The proposed approach extends the functionalities of existing enterprise information systems and offers possibilities for development of future Internet services. This allows organizations to express their core competences and talents in a standardized, machine processable and understandable format, and hence, facilitates their integration in the European Research Area and beyond.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-016-19-2756

Authors: Joshua Scotton, Sabine Moebs, Jennifer Mcmanis, Alexandra Cristea

Abstract: Personalization is desirable, but writing the adaptation behaviour description to go with it is taxing. Even more challenging is the application of multiple adaptation strategies over the same static content. This paper focuses on recent work on strategy modularisation and merger development in the authoring process of adaptive hypermedia. The reason for the modularisation of strategies is to break a complex adaptation decision into a number of simpler ones, which may be reused more easily and applied in different orders. The rationale for strategy merger is to be able to apply multiple adaptation strategies over the same content — a challenge which is not yet fully addressed in current adaptive hypermedia systems. To demonstrate the proposed method we present an example case study and sample strategies written in the LAG adaptation language. The case study is based on a recently proposed model for Quality of Experience in e-learning. This model exposes the complex interaction between a number of factors affecting QoE and hence presents a good candidate for the application of a strategy merger, as well as modularisation. We have then evaluated this approach via structured questionnaires used with a number of design experts of hypermedia content creation, especially in the domain of education. This allows us to draw generic conclusions for both our own further research, as well as for the community at large, interested in the area of reuse and modularisation of adaptation.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-016-16-2214

Authors: Hermann Stern, Rene Kaiser, Philip Hofmair, Peter Kraker, Peter Kraker, Stefanie Lindstaedt, Peter Scheir

Abstract: One of the success factors of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is to provide the appropriate content to the users, both suitable for the topics they are currently working on, and their experience level in these topics. Our main contributions in this paper are (i) overcoming the problem of sparse content annotation by using a network based recommendation approach called Associative Network, which exploits the user context as input; (ii) using snippets for not only highlighting relevant parts of documents, but also serving as a basic concept enabling the WIL system to handle text-based and audiovisual content the same way; and (iii) using the Web Tool for Ontology Evaluation (WTE) toolkit for finding the best default semantic similarity measure of the Associative Network for new domains. The approach presented is employed in the software platform APOSDLE, which is designed to enable knowledge workers to learn at work.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-016-03-0479

Authors: Gerardo Matturro, Andrés Silva

Abstract: During software development projects there is always a particular working "product" that is generated but rarely managed: the knowledge and experience that team members acquire. This knowledge and experience, if conveniently managed, can be reused in future software projects and be the basis for process improvement initiatives. In this paper we present a model for managing the knowledge and experience team members acquire during software development projects in a non-disruptive way, by integrating its management into daily project activities. The purpose of the model is to identify and capture this knowledge and experience in order to derive lessons learned and proposals for best practices that enable an organization to preserve them for future use, and support software process improvement activities. The main contribution of the model is that it enables an organization to consider knowledge and experience management activities as an integral part of its software projects, instead of being considered, as it was until now, as a follow-up activity that is (infrequently) carried out after the end of the projects.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-015-17-3201

Authors: Ismael Navas-Delgado, Jose Aldana-Montes

Abstract: This paper describes the main elements of a functional platform for building Semantic Web Applications, the Semantic Directory (additional information can be found at http://khaos.uma.es/SD-Core). A Semantic Directory provides a resource directory, in which web resources are registered and their semantics published. Using the Semantic Directories we provide a solution for publishing the semantics of resources, and interoperating them with some other applications in the same or different domains. The main idea behind this proposal is to help developers build Semantic Web applications by providing them with functional components for this task. This paper also describes some applications that have been developed using an SD-Core extension: SD-Data. Then, we describe the instantiation of the Khaos Ontology-based Mediation Framework (KOMF) in the Systems Biology domain. This framework provides an architecture that enables the research on the development of ontology-based mediators. Thus, an ontology-based mediator has been produced that has demonstrated its utility in two applications developed in the Amine System Project using the SD-Data for registering semantics: AMMO-Prot and SBMM Assistant. The use of ontologies is limited in the current version of the mediator, but its development as a framework enables the implementation of improvements based on the use of reasoning.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-015-09-1812

Authors: Sergio Ochoa, José Pino, Fabián Poblete

Abstract: The Software Engineering community has been trying to get fast and accurate software estimations for many years. Most of the proposed methods require historical information and/or experts’ judgment. Because of that, the current methods are not suitable for novice developers or persons who do not know the company development capability. In order to help overcome such need, this paper proposes a software estimation method named CEBON (Collaborative Estimation Based On Negotiation). The method is applicable to small/medium-size projects (1-6 months). It focuses on supporting estimation of Web information systems in scenarios where historical data is not available. The CEBON method has been used to estimate eight real projects. The obtained results were compared with the real projects execution, which were carried out by novice developers in Chile. The comparison indicates the method is able to deliver quite accurate results. In addition, a survey applied to the involved developers shows they feel comfortable using the estimation method. The article also describes a collaborative software application supporting the CEBON process and a preliminary evaluation of both the estimation method and the supporting tool.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-015-08-1722

Authors: Steffen Lohmann, Jörg Niesenhaus, Philipp Heim, Jürgen Ziegler

Abstract: Due to an increasing professionalization, specialization, and globalization in the development of interactive entertainment new demands for comprehensive knowledge management support emerge. This article aims at sensitizing and systematizing the needs and potentials for continuous knowledge flow and community engagement in this application area. It starts with an analysis of typical development activities and involved parties that could benefit from a continuous knowledge management support. Then, a general framework architecture and implementation examples are presented that provide different levels of knowledge management support for interactive entertainment development.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-014-17-2799

Authors: Maurice Hendrix, Alexandra Cristea

Abstract: At present a large amount of research exists into the design and implementation of adaptive systems. However, not many target the complex task of authoring in such systems, or their evaluation. In order to tackle these problems, we have looked into the causes of the complexity. Manual annotation has proven to be a bottleneck for authoring of adaptive hypermedia. One such solution is the reuse of automatically generated metadata. In our previous work we have proposed the integration of the generic Adaptive Hypermedia authoring environment, MOT (My Online Teacher), and a semantic desktop environment, indexed by Beagle++. A prototype, Sesame2MOT Enricher v1, was built based upon this integration approach and evaluated. After the initial evaluations, a web-based prototype was built (web-based Sesame2MOT Enricher v2 application) and integrated in MOT v2, conforming with the findings of the first set of evaluations. This new prototype underwent another evaluation. This paper thus does a synthesis of the approach in general, the initial prototype, with its first evaluations, the improved prototype and the first results from the most recent evaluation round, following the next implementation cycle of the spiral model [Boehm, 88].

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-12-1805

Authors: Oscar Corcho, Asunción Gómez-Pérez

Abstract: Implementing ontology translation systems is a complex task that requires taking many types of translation decisions, which are usually hidden inside their source code. In order to ease building, maintaining and understanding ontology translation systems, we propose ODEDialect, a set of languages to express translation decisions declaratively and at different layers: lexical, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. This paper describes the three languages that comprise ODEDialect: ODELex, which allows expressing transformations in the lexical layer; ODESyntax, which allows expressing transformations in the syntax layer; and ODESem, which allows expressing transformations in the semantic and pragmatic layers.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-09-1287

Authors: José Troyano, Fernando Enríquez, Fermín Cruz, José Cañete-Valdeón, F. Ortega

Abstract: In this paper we present an experience in the extraction of named entities from Spanish texts using stacking. Named Entity Extraction (NEE) is a subtask of Information Extraction that involves the identification of groups of words that make up the name of an entity, and the classification of these names into a set of predefined categories. Our approach is corpus-based, we use a re-trainable tagger generator to obtain a named entity extractor from a set of tagged examples. The main contribution of our work is that we obtain the systems needed in a stacking scheme without making use of any additional training material or tagger generators. Instead of it, we have generated the variability needed in stacking by applying corpus transformation to the original training corpus. Once we have several versions of the training corpus we generate several extractors and combine them by means of a machine learning algorithm. Experiments show that the combination of corpus transformation and stacking improve the performance of the tagger generator in this kind of natural language processing applications. The best of our experiments achieves an improvement of more than six percentual points respect to the predefined baseline.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-09-1234

Authors: Muhammad Afzal, Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer, Hermann Maurer

Abstract: We are approaching an era where research materials will be stored more and more as digital resources on the World Wide Web. This of course will enable easier access to online publications. As the number of electronic publications expands, it will, however, become a challenge for individuals to find related or relevant papers. Related papers could be papers written by the same team of authors or by one of the authors, or even papers that deal with the same topic but were written by other authors. This, of course, raises the issue of linking to papers forward in time, or as we call it "links into the future". To be concrete, while reading a paper written in the year 1980, it would be nice to know if the same author has written another related paper in 1990’s or if the same author has written a paper earlier, all this without making an explicit search. Based on the ascertained interest of a person reading a particular paper from a digital repository, an auto-suggestion facility could be useful to indicate papers in the same area, category and subject that might potentially be of interest to the reader. One is typically interested in finding related papers by the same author or by one of the authors of a paper. This feature can be implemented in two ways. The first is by creating links from this paper to all the relevant papers and updating it periodically for new papers appearing on the World Wide Web. Another way is by going through the references of all papers appearing on the WWW. Based on the references, one can create mutual links to the papers that are referred to.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-09-1138

Authors: Poulia Adamopoulou, Evangelos Sakkopoulos, Athanasios Tsakalidis, Miltiadis Lytras

Abstract: The Semantic Web vision is among others to allow automatic identification and selection of Web documents and services to meet the requirements of users. In this work we provide a novel solution that supports organizational knowledge flow utilizing non-functional qualitative criteria for web service consumption. A knowledge management web service selection mediator is presented based on the Web Services resource framework (WSRF). It enhances organizational best practices and promotes reusability of successful services during the process of online Web Service selection. Apart from meeting functionality requirements, the mediator utilizes previous domain knowledge to base its decision upon Quality of Web Service (QoWS) ontology knowledge. The proposed solution is open and able to host a number of different selection policies and business logic implementations. We present and experimentally evaluate and compare four such selection policies. The design of the proposed mechanism is analyzed and implementation details are discussed. Evaluation results have shown that the solution is able to satisfy cases and scenarios that have been derived while studying and working on web services selection business processes for different enterprises.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-07-1033

Authors: Raquel Morales, Patrick Carmichael

Abstract: The 'Reusable Learning Objects' Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (RLO-CETL) is a five-year project (2005-2010) involving staff from three universities (London Metropolitan, Cambridge University and the University of Nottingham) in a collaborative programme of development, deployment and evaluation of a range of multimedia learning objects that can be stored in repositories, accessed over the Web, and integrated into course delivery. One of the goals of the RLO-CETL is to provide sustainable and reproducible processes that will allow sector-wide collaboration, so as part of the internal formative evaluation of the RLO-CETL, we are concerned to analyse its character, boundaries and evolution, and how this develops in relation to individual and institutional contexts, priorities, structures. In this paper, we present some of the results of 'mapping' tasks in which twenty-eight participants (who included lecturers, tutors, students, multimedia developers, administrators, evaluators and managers) represented and talked about the networks of people with whom they communicated. There are aspects of the maps that indicate how the network of the RLO-CETL interacts and overlaps with institutional and individual networks.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-07-0991

Authors: Davinia Hernández-Leo, Andreas Harrer, Juan Dodero, Juan Asensio-Pérez, Daniel Burgos

Abstract: IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) is an interoperable and standardized language that enables the computational representation of Units of Learning (UoLs). However, its adoption and extensive use in real practice largely depends on the extent to which teachers can design and author their own UoLs according to the requirements of their educational situations. Many of the proposed design processes for facilitating the creation of UoLs are based on the reuse of complete or non-complete learning design solutions at different levels of granularity. This paper introduces a comparison framework that conceptually analyzes and classifies reusable learning design solutions and processes that drive the creation of ready-to-run UoLs. The framework provides a comprehensible representation of such processes and units of reuse over two dimensions, namely granularity and completeness. It also offers a frame for discussing issues, such as the proper level of reuse, of existing and forthcoming proposals. Finally, it opens the path to other strands for future research such as providing language independence of learning designs or proposing approaches for the selection of the reusable solutions.

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DOI: 10.3217/jucs-013-04-0531

Authors: Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer

Abstract: The WWW is currently experiencing a revolutionary growth due to its increasing participative community software applications. This paper highlights an emerging application development paradigm on the WWW, called mashup. As blogs have enabled anyone to become a publisher, mashups stimulate web development by allowing anyone to combine existing data to develop web applications. Current applications of mashups include tracking of events such as crime, hurricanes, earthquakes, meta-search integration of data and media feeds, interactive games, and as an organizer for web resources. The implications of this emerging web integration and structuring paradigm remains yet to be explored fully. This paper describes mashups from a number of angles, highlighting current developments while providing sufficient illustrations to indicate its potential implications. It also highlights the role of mashups in complementing and enhancing digital journals by providing insights into the quality academic content, extent of coverage, and the enabling of expanded services. We present pioneering initiatives for the Journal of Universal Computer Science in our efforts to harness the collective intelligence of a collaborative scholarly network.

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