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In data engineering, view formalisms are used to provide flexibility to users and user applications by allowing them to extract and elaborate data from the stored data sources. Conversely, since the introduction of EXtensible Markup Language (XML), it is fast emerging as the dominant standard for storing, describing, and interchanging data among various web and heterogeneous data sources. In combination with XML Schema, XML provides rich facilities for defining and constraining user‐defined data semantics and properties, a feature that is unique to XML. In this context, it is interesting to investigate traditional database features, such as view models and view design techniques for XML. However, traditional view formalisms are strongly coupled to the data language and its syntax, thus it proves to be a difficult task to support views in the case of semi‐structured data models. Therefore, in this paper we propose a Layered View Model (LVM) for XML with conceptual and schemata extensions. Here our work is three‐fold; first we propose an approach to separate the implementation and conceptual aspects of the views that provides a clear separation of concerns, thus, allowing analysis and design of views to be separated from their implementation. Secondly, we define representations to express and construct these views at the conceptual level. Thirdly, we define a view transformation methodology for XML views in the LVM, which carries out automated transformation to a view schema and a view query expression in an appropriate query language. Also, to validate and apply the LVM concepts, methods and transformations developed, we propose a viewdriven application development framework with the flexibility to develop web and database applications for XML, at varying levels of abstraction.

In the last two decades, a proliferation of business process management (BPM) modeling languages, standards and software systems has given rise to much confusion and obstacles to adoption. Since new BPM languages and notation terminologies were not well defined, duplicate features are common. This paper seeks to make sense of the myriad BPM standards, organising them in a classification framework, and to identify key industry trends.

An extensive literature review is conducted and relevant BPM notations, languages and standards are referenced against the proposed BPM Standards Classification Framework, which lists each standard's distinct features, strengths and weaknesses.

The paper is unaware of any classification of BPM languages. An attempt is made to classify BPM languages, standards and notations into four main groups: execution, interchange, graphical, and diagnosis standards. At the present time, there is a lack of established diagnosis standards. It is hoped that such a classification facilitates the meaningful adoption of BPM languages, standards and notations.

The paper differentiates BPM standards, thereby resolving common misconceptions; establishes the need for diagnosis standards; identifies the strengths and limitations of current standards; and highlights current knowledge gaps and future trends. Researchers and practitioners may wish to position their work around this review.

Currently, to the best of one's knowledge, such an overview and such an analysis of BPM standards have not so far been undertaken.

A web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine‐to‐machine or application‐to‐application interactions over networks. Descriptions enable web services to be discovered, used by other web services, and composed into new web services. Web service composition is a mechanism for creating new web services by reusing existing ones. In order to compose a web service, the right primitive services have to be discovered. A matchmaking technique enables discovering these services. Web services have functional, non‐functional, behavioral, and semantic characteristics. These four aspects of web services provide different key information about the service; therefore they have to be considered for description, matching, and composition. The purpose of this paper is to propose a formal description framework and a formal matchmaking technique that allows describing and discovering web services by considering their four characteristics.

In this paper, the description framework combines two existing languages for functional, semantic, and behavioral description, along with a simple and new language for non‐functional description.

A case study is used to illustrate the description framework and the matchmaking technique. The implementation and performance evaluation of the matchmaking technique is presented. The framework formalizes and integrates the languages in a common semantic domain in order to match and manipulate the different aspects together and formally. Isabelle is used by the matchmaking technique for discovering the partially and fully matched services.

The contribution of this paper lies in the new description framework and the new matchmaking technique.

XML Schema is used to define schema of XML documents that have become standards for data exchange in various Web-based information applications. The main problem of XML Schema is that it emphasizes syntax and format rather than semantics and knowledge representation. Hence, even though having the advantage of describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML documents, XML Schema lacks the computer-interpretability to support knowledge representation for existing information systems. The purpose of this study is to propose role-mapping annotations for XML Schema (RMAXS) to integrate Semantic Web with XML Schema, which allows the facilitation interoperability between adjoining layers of the Semantic Web stack.

The XML, XML Schema, ontology, and rule can be completely integrated into a multi-layered intelligent framework (MIF) for XML-based applications in the current web environment. This work presents a semantic-role-mapping intelligent system, called SRMIS, based on the MIF. SRMIS consists of XML-based document repository, search engine, inference engine and transformation engine, which provides different approaches to present the various metadata and knowledge representations.

The traditional Semantic Web stack has three gaps between adjoining layers. The first gap, between the XML and XML Schema layers can be bridged with an XMLSchema-instance mechanism. The third gap, between the ontology and rule layers can be connected by building rules on top of ontologies. This study proposes RMAXS to couple the second gap, between the XML schema and ontology layers. The proposed multi-layered intelligent framework (MIF) adopts these coupling technologies to facilitate interoperability between adjoining layers. Therefore, the XML, XML Schema, ontology, and rule can be completely integrated into the MIF for intelligent applications in the web environment.

To demonstrate the SRMIS applications, this work implements a prototype that helps researchers to find interested papers.

This work presents a semantic-role-mapping intelligent system, called SRMIS, based on the MIF. SRMIS consists of XML-based document repository, search engine, inference engine and transformation engine, which provides different approaches to present the various metadata and knowledge representations. The proposed SRMIS can be applied in various application domains.

Nowadays, the use of WCMS (web content management systems) is widespread. The conversion of this infrastructure into its semantic equivalent (semantic WCMS) is a critical issue, as this enables the benefits of the semantic web to be extended. The purpose of this paper is to present a FLERSA (Flexible Range Semantic Annotation) for flexible range semantic annotation.

A FLERSA is presented as a user‐centred annotation tool for Web content expressed in natural language. The tool has been built in order to illustrate how a WCMS called Joomla! can be converted into its semantic equivalent.

The development of the tool shows that it is possible to build a semantic WCMS through a combination of semantic components and other resources such as ontologies and emergence technologies, including XML, RDF, RDFa and OWL.

The paper provides a starting‐point for further research in which the principles and techniques of the FLERSA tool can be applied to any WCMS.

The tool allows both manual and automatic semantic annotations, as well as providing enhanced search capabilities. For manual annotation, a new flexible range markup technique is used, based on the RDFa standard, to support the evolution of annotated Web documents more effectively than XPointer. For automatic annotation, a hybrid approach based on machine learning techniques (Vector‐Space Model + n‐grams) is used to determine the concepts that the content of a Web document deals with (from an ontology which provides a taxonomy), based on previous annotations that are used as a training corpus.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the advantages of semantics‐aware representation formalisms in the integration of digital rights management (DRM) infrastructures grounded on heterogeneous formats.

After discussing the notion of semantics‐aware IPR and its relationship with Semantic Web‐style metadata, we exemplify the advantages of adopting it by providing two different use cases. XML‐based DRMLs are mapped with a shared ontology‐based representation in such a way that dependencies between elements can be drawn.

Individual formalisms may take advantage of a semantics‐aware infrastructure to check consistency of DRM policies according to dependencies not explicit in the specification language. On the other hand, distinct formalisms can be integrated with each other according to fine‐grained translation mechanisms.

Inference procedures can pre‐process this knowledge base and derive implicit knowledge that can be used by programming logic in the actual enforcement of DRM policies.

This paper presents a systematic XML Schema design approach which conceptually captures semantics of the problem domain at conceptual level and represents such semantics in XML Schema at schema level. At the conceptual level, objects, their inter‐relationships and constraints are semantically powered by object‐oriented models. At the schema level, these conceptual semantics are comprehensively represented in textbased representation of XML Schema using various schema components and design styles, each of which offers different quality characteristics. Two primary design styles in use are nesting and linking. The nesting design styles are developed based on the choice of schema components and their definition/declaration scopes (global vs. local), whereas the linking design styles use referencing facilities provided by XML Schema and other XML technologies such as XLink and XPointer. With an in‐depth analysis of outstanding problems of existing approaches, the proposed design approach is motivated to help improve the quality and robustness of the XML documents in large‐scale XML‐based applications.

From the quiet new born days of early 1990s, the World Wide Web has had an exponential growth in the last decade or so. From the original goal of sharing research resources, Web today portrays a virtual world spanning from research to entertainment and e‐commerce. This growth has necessitated substantial changes in the Web model. From the purely syntactic and relatively static framework of HTML, we have moved through DHTML and XML incorporating dynamicity and extensibility, and are now en route semantic frameworks starting with RDF. These allow Web documents to be comprehensible to machines (and not just to humans) allowing software agents to access and process such information on the Web. This leads us to semantic Web, and thus to a generation of Web applications based on Web services, adaptive content delivery, etc. Spinning the Semantic Web is based on papers presented in a seminar in Germany in 2000, and sketches the vario elements of semantic Web, the issues in realising it as well as some visions of the future. The stimulating forward to the book by Tim Berners‐Lee, recently Knighted and widely regarded as the father of the Web, portrays his vision of semantic Web. The chapters explore specific issues such as ontologies, schema languages, annotations, applications, etc. The chapters are largely unorganised and presented without any cross‐linking and most chapters use a fair amount of domain jargon. The book will be of value to those seriously interested in the field.

The advent of web services and the semantic web have opened up opportunities for a new generation of interoperable systems on the web. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of semantics in design and construction, and how this has long been recognised and addressed to varying extents by researchers.

There is now the potential for designs to be developed through a system of collaborating design services and for input by the construction team members. The potential also extends to the construction phase where the designers can provide more timely responses to problems encountered in the field. Within this environment, there is the need for effective mechanisms for design and construction information management, in addition to an ontology that facilitates the sharing of design and construction information and the underlying semantics. This paper explores these trends in collaborative design and construction, and presents an ontology‐based approach to project information management in a semantic web environment.

The findings include a framework for semantic web‐based information management (SWIMS), which provides for effective collaborative information management. Examples, based on design and construction information, are presented to illustrate the key concepts.

This paper presents an innovative approach to overcoming the limitations of conventional information management approaches in construction. The proposed approach is expected to enhance collaboration, and avoid information loss, overload and misunderstanding,

The purpose of this paper is to propose a graph-based representation approach for evolutionary knowledge under the big data circumstance, aiming to gradually build conceptual models from data.

A semantic data model named meaning graph (MGraph) is introduced to represent knowledge concepts to organize the knowledge instances in a graph-based knowledge base. MGraph uses directed acyclic graph–like types as concept schemas to specify the structural features of knowledge with intention variety. It also proposes several specialization mechanisms to enable knowledge evolution. Based on MGraph, a paradigm is introduced to model the evolutionary concept schemas, and a scenario on video semantics modeling is introduced in detail.

MGraph is fit for the evolution features of representing knowledge from big data and lays the foundation for building a knowledge base under the big data circumstance.

The representation approach based on MGraph can effectively and coherently address the major issues of evolutionary knowledge from big data. The new approach is promising in building a big knowledge base.