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This paper aims to offer a comprehensive examination of the various solutions currently accessible for addressing the challenge of semantic interoperability in cyber physical systems (CPS). CPS is a new generation of systems composed of physical assets with computation capabilities, connected with software systems in a network, exchanging data collected from the physical asset, models (physics-based, data-driven, . . .) and services (reconfiguration, monitoring, . . .). The physical asset and its software system are connected, and they exchange data to be interpreted in a certain context. The heterogeneous nature of the collected data together with different types of models rise interoperability problems. Modeling the digital space of the CPS and integrating information models that support cyber physical interoperability together are required.

This paper aims to identify the most relevant points in the development of semantic models and machine learning solutions to the interoperability problem, and how these solutions are implemented in CPS. The research analyzes recent papers related to the topic of semantic interoperability in Industry 4.0 (I4.0) systems.

Semantic models are key enabler technologies that provide a common understanding of data, and they can be used to solve interoperability problems in Industry by using a common vocabulary when defining these models.

This paper provides an overview of the different available solutions to the semantic interoperability problem in CPS.

This paper seeks to develop a specified typology of various levels of semantic interoperability, designed to provide semantically expressive and functional means to interconnect typologically different sub‐systems in an international comprehensive knowledge organization system, supporting advanced information retrieval and exploration strategies.

Taking the analysis of rudimentary forms of a functional interoperability based on simple pattern matching as a starting‐point, more refined strategies to provide semantic interoperability, which is actually reaching the conceptual and even thematic level, are being developed. The paper also examines the potential benefits and perspectives of the selective transfer of modelling strategies from the field of semantic technologies for the refinement of relational structures of inter‐system and inter‐concept relations as a requirement for expressive and functional indexing languages supporting advanced types of semantic interoperability.

As the principles and strategies of advanced information retrieval systems largely depend on semantic information, new concepts and strategies to achieve semantic interoperability have to be developed.

The approach has been developed in the functional and structural context of an international comprehensive system integrating several heterogeneous knowledge organization systems and indexing languages by interconnecting them to a central conceptual structure operating as a spine in an overall system designed to support retrieval and exploration of bibliographic records representing complex conceptual entities.

Research and development aimed at providing technical and structural interoperability has to be complemented by a thorough and precise reflection and definition of various degrees and types of interoperability on the semantic level as well. The approach specifies these levels and reflects the implications and their potential for advanced strategies of retrieval and exploration.

With the aim of developing a conceptual framework which aims to facilitate semantic metadata interoperability, this paper explores overarching conceptual issues on how traditional library information organisation schemes such as online public access catalogues (OPACs), taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies on the one hand versus Web 2.0 technologies such as social tagging (folksonomies) can be harnessed to provide users with satisfying experiences.

This paper reviews works in relation to current metadata creation, utilisation and interoperability approaches, focusing on how a social constructivist philosophical perspective can be employed to underpin metadata decisions in digital libraries. Articles are retrieved from databases such as EBSCO host and Emerald and online magazines such as D‐Lib and Ariadne. Books, news articles and blog posts that are deemed relevant are also used to support the arguments put forward in this paper.

Current metadata approaches are deeply authoritative and metadata deployments in digital libraries tend to favour an objectivist approach with focus on metadata simplicity. It is argued that unless information objects are enriched with metadata generated through a collaborative and user‐driven approach, achieving semantic metadata interoperability in digital libraries will remain difficult.

In this paper, it is indicated that the number of metadata elements (fields) constituting a standard has a direct bearing on metadata richness, which in turn directly affects semantic interoperability. It is expected that this paper will contribute towards a better understanding of harnessing user‐driven metadata.

As suggested in this paper, a conceptual metadata framework underpinned by a social constructivist approach substantially contributes to semantic interoperability in digital libraries.

Information from Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) is stored in different formats, in platforms that are not compatible, or even in independent networks. It would be helpful to have a well-defined methodology to allow for management data processing from a single site, so as to take advantage of the capacity to link disperse data found in different systems, platforms, sources and/or formats. Based on functionalities and materials of the VLIR project, the purpose of this paper is to present a model that provides for interoperability by means of semantic alignment techniques and metadata crosswalks, and facilitates the fusion of information stored in diverse sources.

After reviewing the state of the art regarding the diverse mechanisms for achieving semantic interoperability, the paper analyzes the following: the specific coverage of the data sets (type of data, thematic coverage and geographic coverage); the technical specifications needed to retrieve and analyze a distribution of the data set (format, protocol, etc.); the conditions of re-utilization (copyright and licenses); and the “dimensions” included in the data set as well as the semantics of these dimensions (the syntax and the taxonomies of reference). The semantic interoperability framework here presented implements semantic alignment and metadata crosswalk to convert information from three different systems (ABCD, Moodle and DSpace) to integrate all the databases in a single RDF file.

The paper also includes an evaluation based on the comparison – by means of calculations of recall and precision – of the proposed model and identical consultations made on Open Archives Initiative and SQL, in order to estimate its efficiency. The results have been satisfactory enough, due to the fact that the semantic interoperability facilitates the exact retrieval of information.

The proposed model enhances management of the syntactic and semantic interoperability of the CRIS system designed. In a real setting of use it achieves very positive results.

A huge amount of diverse data is generated in the Internet of Things (IoT) because of heterogeneous devices like sensors, actuators, gateways and many more. Due to assorted nature of devices, interoperability remains a major challenge for IoT system developers. The purpose of this study is to use mapping techniques for converting relational database (RDB) to resource directory framework (RDF) for the development of ontology. Ontology helps in achieving semantic interoperability in application areas of IoT which results in shared/common understanding of the heterogeneous data generated by the diverse devices used in health-care domain.

To overcome the issue of semantic interoperability in healthcare domain, the authors developed an ontology for patients having cardio vascular diseases. Patients located at any place around the world can be diagnosed by Heart Experts located at another place by using this approach. This mechanism deals with the mapping of heterogeneous data into the RDF format in an integrated and interoperable manner. This approach is used to integrate the diverse data of heart patients needed for diagnosis with respect to cardio vascular diseases. This approach is also applicable in other fields where IoT is mostly used.

Experimental results showed that the RDF works better than the relational database for semantic interoperability in the IoT. This concept-based approach is better than key-based approach and reduces the computation time and storage of the data.

The proposed approach helps in overcoming the demerits of relational database like standardization, expressivity, provenance and supports SPARQL. Therefore, it helps to overcome the heterogeneity, thereby enabling the semantic interoperability in IoT.

In e-government domain, an efficient semantic interoperability of services is a big challenge. In this context, semantic technologies play a fundamental role in numerous e-government programs. Indeed, these technologies enable enriching the public service description provided by different public administrations with additional semantic information, which allows automatic services processing and information exchange between involved members in comprehensive and interpretable manner, thus facilitating service integration and cooperation. The most frequently used technologies in this area are semantic web services (SWS) technology and ontology. Thus, for modelling efficiently public services, the authors have exploring, studying and analyzing some of e-government researches and projects that applied semantic technologies.

In this paper, the authors address how semantic technologies transform the e-government domain through exploring and studying the use of SWS and ontology in numerous researches and projects applying these technologies in this area. Then, the authors have compared them through a set of criteria defined according to e-government requirements such as the SWS modelling approach for describing semantically public services, ontologies for representing governmental specific features (e.g. regulation and organizational structures) and developed portal for supporting user ' s perspectives. Based on this study, the authors have identified the appropriate standards, frameworks, and models for developing the framework.

The authors have developed a framework for public services which enhances existing approaches with additional aspects. Thus, the approach comparing to other works improves the service ontology with a cognitive semantic approach to support the multiple usage contexts and situations of services. This semantic is developed in form of a Sit/Ctx ontology developed based on CSs model represented through conceptual graphs theory. The authors have used this model besides OWL-S, improving thus the level of automation of discovery and composition process of public services, which become more efficient with taken into consideration their interrelations and situations.

The approach comparing to other works improves the service ontology with a cognitive semantic approach to support the multiple usage contexts and situations of public services, providing thus the end-users (people and enterprises) a better orientation in discovery process.

Building information modelling (BIM) has transformed the traditional practices of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. BIM creates a collaborative digital representation of built environment data. Competitive advantage can be achieved with collaborative project delivery and rich information modelling. Despite the abundant benefits, BIM’s adoption in the AEC is susceptible to confrontation. A substantial impediment to BIM adoption often cited is data interoperability. Other facets of interoperability got limited attention. Other academic areas, including information systems, discuss the interoperability construct ahead of data interoperability. These interoperability factors have yet to be surveyed in the AEC industry. This study aims to investigate the effect of interoperability factors on BIM adoption and develop a comprehensive BIM adoption model.

The theoretical foundations of the proposed model are based on the European interoperability framework (EIF) and technology, organization, environment framework (TOE). Quantitative data collection from construction firms is gathered. The model has been thoroughly examined and validated using partial least squares structural equation modelling in SmartPLS software.

The study’s findings indicate that relative advantage, top management support, government support, organizational readiness and regulation support are determinants of BIM adoption. Financial constraints, complexity, lack of technical interoperability, semantic interoperability, organizational interoperability and uncertainty are barriers to BIM adoption. However, compatibility, competitive pressure and legal interoperability do not affect BIM adoption.

Finally, this study provides recommendations containing the essential technological, organizational, environmental and interoperability factors that AEC stakeholders can address to enhance BIM adoption.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first studies to combine TOE and EIF in a single research model. This research provides empirical evidence for using the proposed model as a guide to promoting BIM adoption. As a result, the highlighted determinants can assist organizations in developing and executing successful policies that support BIM adoption in the AEC industry.

The purpose of this paper is to present such an analytical framework for analyzing Government Interoperability Frameworks (GIFs) and to do a comparative analysis of a set of GIFs using the analytical framework. Based on the comparative analysis, the paper presents a set of recommendations useful for new GIF initiatives.

Drawing on literature and personal knowledge and experience, an analytical framework is proposed for qualitative comparison of GIFs. The analytical framework is based on three core areas of interoperability frameworks – context, content, and process. A total of 21 GIFs are analyzed and evaluated against the framework. The primary sources of information for the study are the interoperability framework documents. In some cases, published articles, brochures, etc. are used as additional sources of information.

The comparative analysis shows that the analytical framework adequately covers all the features of the GIFs. Comparative analysis also shows that most of the GIFs concentrate mainly on technical and syntactical aspects only. Organizational and semantic issues are covered only by a handful of GIFs. At the policy level, most common interoperability policies are found to be: the universal adoption of common specifications used on the internet and world wide web, use of XML for data integration and data management, and use of open standards for all public sector information systems. Regarding management of GIF, it is found that German, Greek and New Zealand GIFs document the process of standards life cycle management in a much better way, whereas UK e‐GIFs' coverage of management and compliance mechanism of GIF is excellent. Overall, it is found that the UK e‐GIF is one of the most mature and exhaustive on all counts. German – Standards und Architekturen f¨r eGovernment‐Anwendungen on the other hand is found to be a unique effort. It incorporates features of both an enterprise architecture and those of an interoperability framework.

The contribution of the study is substantial for academia and practitioners. For academics, this framework can be used in future research as a tool to benchmark and grade GIFs. The practitioners, on the other hand, can use the study, to identify various essential features of a GIF which can be very useful for new GIF initiatives. The six‐layered e‐government technical architecture discussed here can be used to check the current status of technical interoperability in an organization and to identify gaps in the technology coverage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Records in Contexts proposal of a conceptual model (RiC-CM) from the International Council on Archives’ (ICA) archival description and to propose an OWL ontology for its implementation in the semantic web.

The various elements of the model are studied and are related to earlier norms in order to understand their structure and the modeling of the ontology.

The analysis reveals the integrating nature of RiC-CM and the possibilities it offers for greater interoperability of data from archival descriptions. Two versions of an OWL ontology were developed to represent the conceptual model. The first makes a direct transposition of the conceptual model; the second optimizes the properties and relations in order to simplify the use and maintenance of the ontology.

The proposed ontology will follow the considerations of the final version of the ICA’s RiC-CM.

The analysis affords an understanding of the role of RiC-CM in publishing online archival data sets, while the ontology is an initial approach to the semantic web technologies involved.

This paper offers an overview of Records in Contexts with respect to the advantages in the field of semantic interoperability, and supposes the first proposal of an ontology based on the conceptual model.

Detail research undertaken to determine the key differences in the performance of certain centralised (physical) and distributed (virtual) bibliographic catalogue services, and to suggest strategies for improving interoperability and performance in, and between, physical and virtual models.

Methodically defined searches of a centralised catalogue service and selected distributed catalogues were conducted using the Z39.50 information retrieval protocol, allowing search types to be semantically defined. The methodology also entailed the use of two workshops comprising systems librarians and cataloguers to inform suggested strategies for improving performance and interoperability within both environments.

Technical interoperability was permitted easily between centralised and distributed models, however, the various individual configurations permitted only limited semantic interoperability. Significant prescription in cataloguing and indexing guidelines, greater participation in the program for collaborative cataloguing, consideration of future functional requirements for bibliographic records migration, and greater disclosure to end users are some of the suggested strategies to improve performance and semantic interoperability.

This paper not only informs the library and information science research community and union catalogue administrators, but also has numerous practical implications for those establishing distributed systems based on Z39.50 and search/retrieve web services as well as those establishing centralised systems.

The paper moves the discussion of Z39.50‐based systems away from anecdotal evidence and provides recommendations based on testing, and is intimately informed by the UK cataloguing and systems librarian community.