An autonomic ontology-based approach to manage information in home-based scenarios: From theory to practice

Abstract

Data integration is a key challenge in scenarios where different sources of information form part of a common service, as is the case in home-based scenarios. Moreover, an integrated management procedure is deemed necessary in order to unify the ways of accessing, controlling, evaluating and transferring information remotely. In this paper, a combination of the autonomic computing paradigm with ontologies is proposed to meet this challenge. The potential solution has been studied from both theoretical and practical points of view. First, an ontology model driven approach based on the autonomic computing paradigm (MAPE: monitor, analyze, plan and execute) has been proposed as a reference knowledge framework to unify both managed data and management procedures. Secondly, the proposed knowledge model has been applied to the management of technical information in home-based telemonitoring scenarios. An agent to perform the management tasks described in the ontology has been implemented and has been successfully evaluated in terms of its application to the definition of different actions within a telemonitoring scenario. The solution presented in this work offers a generic solution for the integration of data and its management procedure in home-based scenarios.