Interoperable Platform Research Articles

INFELT STEP: An integrated and interoperable platform for collaborative CAD/CAPP/CAM/CNC machining systems based on STEP standard

Integrated product development is comprised of CAD, process planning and CNC code generation based on an integrated data structure. To make various CAD/CAM software solutions with different internal product data structures interoperable, it is necessary to realise reliable and robust information exchange capability in a manufacturing environment. To enable interoperability amongst integrated product development processes, management of collaboration of diverse CAD/CAM software packages is of outmost importance. In this article, the fundamental requirements for achieving interoperability and collaboration management in an integrated, enterprise-wide, product development process environment are discussed. Based on these requirements, the present prominent integrated, interoperable and collaborative CAD/CAM information system platforms are comparatively reviewed. There are two main paradigms for development of such platforms – viz. neutral-file based and procedure based. The merits and limitations of each paradigm are discussed. To overcome the limitations of the current present platforms, a three-layered integrated and interoperable platform, named INFELT STEP, for collaborative and interoperable product design/development using different and diverse CAD/CAPP/CAM/CNC software is proposed. This platform conjugates the capabilities of both main paradigms to eliminate their limitations. The layered structure of INFELT STEP caters for the requirements of an integrated, interoperable and collaborative computer-based manufacturing and supports the entire range of software packages in the CAD/CAPP/CAM product development chain. In this platform, each software package can send product data based on its own internal data structures to other packages that are linked to and communicate with this platform. Different layers of INFELT STEP convert software packages' processed data to its structured data models, which are based on the STEP standard-and then store them in its database. Conversely, INFELT STEP layers can retrieve structured data stored in its database and convert them to the format acceptable by a specific CAD/CAM/CAPP software package that is cooperating in a production workflow. This proposed platform manages the collaboration of CAD/CAM software packages, maintains the integration of CAD/CAM/CNC operations based on STEP data models, and also enables interoperability of such packages with different local data structures. The capabilities of INFELT STEP are demonstrated by using it in a prototype implementation.

A semantic enriched data model for sensor network interoperability

One of the main open issues in the development of applications for sensor network management is the definition of interoperability mechanisms among the several monitoring systems and heterogeneous data. Interesting researches related to integration techniques have taken place, they are primary based on the adoption of sharing data mechanisms. In the last years, the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach has become predominant in many sensor network projects as it enables the cooperation and interoperability of different sensor platforms at an higher level of abstraction. In this paper we propose a novel architecture for the interoperability of sensor networks, which is based on web services technologies and on a common data model enriched with semantic concepts and annotations. The proposed architecture allows the development of complex decision support system applications by integration of heterogeneous data, accessible through services, according to standard data format and standard protocols.

Keeping the Internet’s Promise: Universal, Open and Safe

Looking back on 2009, it is clear that telecommunications policy worldwide is in a potentially valuable and far-reaching period of change, as governments consider the most effective role they can play in spreading broadband technologies and connecting their citizens to the Internet. Approaches to connectivity vary across developed and developing economies. Singapore has developed a plan for a heavily regulated next generation network that will be divided into at least four tiers. Australia is weighing the feasibility of a governmentfinanced fiber-to-the-premises network, which aspires to connect 90 per cent of its homes and businesses, but would require an investment of US$34 billion. The United Kingdom’s ‘Digital Britain’ report, released in June 2009, seeks universal broadband access by 2012 and also recommends a tax on phone lines to pay for extending advanced networks to areas that are unlikely to receive commercial service. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission has embarked on an expansive process to develop a National Broadband Plan to be delivered to Congress in March 2010. Despite the different paths these countries may choose to meet their own particular market facts, they are all seeking to strengthen their citizens’ national and international sense of community by delivering next generation Internet connectivity to all. Importantly, the goal of connectivity extends beyond national borders. As the Internet Governance Forum has noted, it is vital that governments and nongovernmental groups consider ‘ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world’ (http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/index.php/aboutigf). The international community recognizes, among developing and developed economies alike, the profound importance of inclusiveness through connectivity to the Internet and high-speed deployment. In this way, broadband serves as a great unifier, an agent of inclusiveness that brings Internet users from all corners of the world into a single online community that can widely deliver new opportunities. The global inclusiveness brought by broadband connectivity is essential for achieving broad societal goals by helping to build stronger economies, facilitate more efficient use of resources to foster environmental sustainability, deliver better health care and empower individuals with a greater ability to communicate, exchange information and access educational resources. In addition to connectivity and inclusiveness, policy must seek to ensure that users have a quality experience when online. Users will benefit if policy makers take a holistic approach to broadband policy. Just as each component of a network has an effect on other pieces, every decision that governments make about broadband and the Internet will shape the broader digital society that is now emerging around the world. An Internet that truly works for everybody must be universal, open, respect individual privacy and be safe for all users. By universal, I mean that broadband service must be available and affordable to consumers everywhere. When all are connected, all can share the benefits made possible by this unique ‘many-to-many’ platform that we call the Internet. Openness means an Internet ecosystem that enables users to exchange ideas and communicate freely; connect to the lawful applications and content of their choice; and select the service and equipment packages that best meet their needs. It also means that content providers, network operators, search engines, websites and other Internet participants promote interoperable platforms and technologies in order to innovate with new products, ideas and business models that provide more choices to consumers. Providing a safe experience and protecting users’ privacy and personal data must also be high priorities. Sadly, the Internet’s benefits can be placed at risk by cybercrime, phishing, viruses, spamming and other harmful behavior. Because global networks are linked and freely cross national borders, fighting these online threats requires the same level of international cooperation that is needed to fight First, focus on broad goals. Do not gear policy toward specific technologies.

Coexistence and interworking between UMTS and UWB: a performance evaluation of a UMTS/UWB interoperability platform

Ultra wideband (UWB) radio technology is nowadays one of the most promising technologies for medium-short range communications. It has a wide range of applications including high data rate systems and low data rate systems with location and tracking. The interoperation of UWB with Wide Area Networks (WAN) technologies is very interesting in order to extend the scope of UWB applications, but harmless coexistence between them must be assured. Extensive research is being focused to the development of efficient mitigation techniques and the collaboration between both radio services is an interesting solution when UWB is collocated in the same device with other radio technology. In this paper a UMTS/UWB interworking platform is presented, which allows remote monitoring of a UWB body area network for medical applications. The coexistence between UMTS and UWB is evaluated and cooperative mitigation techniques are proposed and implemented in the platform.

E-Learning Management System Using Service Oriented Architecture

Problem statement: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) defines how to integrate widely disparate applications for a world that is Web based and uses multiple implementation platforms. Using (SOA) one can build durable e-learning contents, regardless of changes or evolutions in technology. This means that new content should be added to existing content without costly redesign, reconfiguration, or recoding. Approach: In this study an e-Learning management system with Web services oriented framework was proposed. The system will be an open source application with client-scripting facility. It also supports the cross browser and it is fully integrated with different databases; MS SQL Server, MS Access, Oracle and LDAP. Results: The key values of Interoperability, durability, compatibility, manageability, dynamic reusability and accessibility in the proposed architecture enhance the future e-Learning systems to communicate more efficiently and share data more easily. Conclusion/Recommendations: Web services architecture will provide a standard based platform for Service-Oriented Computing. It defines itself as a set of specifications that support an open XML-based platform for description, discovery, and interoperability of distributed, heterogeneous applications as services.

Semantic Interoperability in Czech Healthcare Environment Supported by HL7 Version 3

The data interchange in the Czech healthcare environment is mostly based on national standards. This paper describes a utilization of international standards and nomenclatures for building a pilot semantic interoperability platform (SIP) that would serve to exchange information among electronic health record systems (EHR-Ss) in Czech healthcare. The work was performed by the national research project of the "Information Society" program. At the beginning of the project a set of requirements the SIP should meet was formulated. Several communication standards (openEHR, HL7 v3, DICOM) were analyzed and HL7 v3 was selected to exchange health records in our solution. Two systems were included in our pilot environment: WinMedicalc 2000 and ADAMEKj EHR. HL7-based local information models were created to describe the information content of both systems. The concepts from our original information models were mapped to coding systems supported by HL7 (LOINC, SNOMED CT and ICD-10) and the data exchange via HL7 v3 messages was implemented and tested by querying patient administration data. As a gateway between local EHR systems and the HL7 message-based infrastructure, a configurable HL7 Broker was developed. A nationwide implementation of a full-scale SIP based on HL7 v3 would include adopting and translating appropriate international coding systems and nomenclatures, and developing implementation guidelines facilitating the migration from national standards to international ones. Our pilot study showed that our approach is feasible but it would demand a huge effort to fully integrate the Czech healthcare system into the European e-health context.

Unified framework for development, deployment and testing of image analysis algorithms

Developing both graphical and command-line user interfaces for image analysis algorithms requires considerable effort. Generally developers provide limited to very rudimentary user interface controls to their users. These image analysis algorithms can only meet their potential if they can be used easily and frequently by their intended users. Deployment of a large suite of such algorithms on multiple platforms requires that the software be stable and appropriately tested.We present a novel framework that allows for rapid development of image analysis algorithms along with graphical user interface controls. Additionally, our framework allows for simplified nightly testing of the algorithms to ensure stability and cross platform interoperability. It allows for development of complex algorithms by creating a custom pipeline where the output of an algorithm can serve as an input for another algorithm. All of the functionality is encapsulation into the object requiring no separate source code for user interfaces, testing or deployment. This makes our framework ideal for developing novel, stable and easy-to-use algorithms for computer assisted interventions (CAI). The framework has been deployed at the Magnetic Resonance Research Center at Yale University and has been released for public use.

Platform Standards, Collusion and Quality Incentives

This paper examines how quality incentives are related to the interoperability of competing platforms. Platforms choose whether to operate standardised or exclusively, prior to quality and subsequent price competition. We find that platforms choose a common standard if they can coordinate their quality provision. The actual investment then depends on the cost of quality provision: If rather high, platforms refrain from investment; if rather low, platforms maintain vertically differentiated platforms. The latter case is socially more desirable than exclusivity where platforms do not invest. Nevertheless, quality competition of standardised platforms induces the highest investment and maximum welfare.

A low-power baseband modem architecture for a mobile RFID reader

Currently the RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) systems become used in many areas, especially for delivery, manufacturing, and maintenance of goods. For example, a tag reader or a tag interrogator communicates with tags attached on goods, reads their identification codes, and accesses their related database through a network infrastructure. This approach makes it easy to maintain goods very efficiently in large-scale markets, delivery systems, and so on. There are many research activities in RFID systems for industrial applications, but there is few on mobile and portable devices such as cellular phones and PDAs. This paper presents an architecture overview of a multi-protocol RFID reader on mobile devices with detailed description of hardware implementation. We have considered several design parameters, such as low power consumption, cost effectiveness and flexibility. Also, since our architecture supports WIPI (Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability), any WIPI application can use our RFID reader's functionalities to query tags' information from Internet through HAL interfaces. We prototyped our system on the ARM-based Excalibur FPGA with iPAQ PDA, and also a chip with 0.18~um technology for verification of our architecture.

Semantic Interoperability in Czech Healthcare Environment Supported by HL7 Version 3

Objectives: The data interchange in the Czech healthcare environment is mostly based on national standards. This paper describes a utilization of international standards and nomenclatures for building a pilot semantic interoperability platform (SIP) that would serve to exchange information among electronic health record systems (EHR-Ss) in Czech healthcare. The work was performed by the national research project of the „Information Society program. Methods: At the beginning of the project a set of requirements the SIP should meet was formulated. Several communication standards (openEHR, HL7 v3, DICOM) were analyzed and HL7 v3 was selected to exchange health records in our solution. Two systems were included in our pilot environment: WinMedicalc 2000 and ADAMEKj EHR. Results: HL7-based local information models were created to describe the information content of both systems. The concepts from our original information models were mapped to coding systems supported by HL7 (LOINC, SNOMED CT and ICD-10) and the data exchange via HL7 v3 messages was implemented and tested by querying patient administration data. As a gateway between local EHR systems and the HL7 message- based infrastructure, a configurable HL7 Broker was developed. Conclusions: Anationwide implementation of a full-scale SIP based on HL7 v3 would include adopting and translating appropriate international coding systems and nomenclatures, and developing implementation guidelines facilitating the migration from national standards to international ones. Our pilot study showed that our approach is feasible but it would demand a huge effort to fully integrate the Czech healthcare system into the European e-health context.

The political economy of standards setting by newcomers: China's WAPI and South Korea's WIPI

In 2004, China attempted to set its national standard for mobile security (wireless LAN authentication and privacy infrastructure (WAPI)) which was to be used for wireless LAN. In 2005, Korea implemented a national standard for the mobile Internet platform (wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI)). This paper examines and compares the two cases in terms of the role of government, characteristics of each standard and the process of standards setting. Despite some similarities of ‘aiming for a de jure national standard’, ‘government-initiated’ and ‘anticipatory’, the outcomes of the two efforts are different. WIPI was ratified in Korea, while WAPI was indefinitely postponed as the national standard and failed to be ratified as an international standard. It is contended here that the different outcomes are attributed to differences in the openness of the standards and of institutional processes of standardization, combined with the government role and the timing of market entry. In the cause of national security, China adhered to the original goal of WAPI; in the WIPI case, compromises were made to satisfy to some extent the various demands from many stakeholders despite the original goal being undermined. The findings from this comparison reinforce findings by previous studies on open standard and open standardization processes. This paper makes a unique contribution in that it first examines the international standards-setting attempts by newcomers, China and Korea, in the race for international standards. They used to be standard adopters but now want to become standard setters. Given the narrowing gap of technological capabilities at the global level and the huge size of markets in countries like China, these standards challenges from newcomers are not one-off episodes, but will happen repeatedly in the future. Further research is required in this area.

Identity management

This paper introduces identity management concepts and discusses various issues associated with their implementation. It will try to highlight technical, legal, and social aspects that must been foreseen when defining the numerous processes that an identity management infrastructure must support. Grid interoperability as well as cross platform interoperability is addressed on the technical aspect, followed by a short discussion on social consequences on user's privacy when completed traceability is enforced. The paper will finally give some examples on how identity management has been implemented at CERN.

NightHawk Teleradiology Services: A Template for Pathology?

NightHawk Teleradiology Services: A Template for Pathology?

SAPHIRE: intelligent healthcare monitoring based on semantic interoperability platform: pilot applications

As a response to the challenge of providing high-quality healthcare services with reasonable costs while the elderly population and the associated chronic diseases increase, SAPHIRE architecture provides an intelligent healthcare monitoring architecture. The monitoring of patients is achieved through a clinical decision support system based on clinical guidelines. SAPHIRE provides the necessary interoperability layers to access the patient's vital signs from wireless medical sensors and the electronic healthcare records of the patient in order to exploit them in the decision process seamlessly. This architecture is presented through two pilot applications: one for the bedside monitoring of cardiac patients at hospitals, and the other for homecare monitoring of the cardiac patients rehabilitated after a revascularisation therapy.

Experiences with an Interoperable Data Acquisition Platform for Multi-centric Research Networks Based on HL7 CDA

Today's increasing specialization of medicine necessitates the integration of telematic platforms for cross-institutional cooperation. In order to leverage the strengths of each cooperating institution a centralized unified storage using shared electronic patient records (EPRs) as well as secured remote data entry capabilities for supporting collaborative clinical research and care is essential. The objective of this project was to develop and introduce into routine use such a shared remote data entry (RDE) platform for the German multicentric Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) network. An existing telematic application was extended by a remote data entry (RDE) module enabling the storage of structured data and pedigrees. HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) was chosen as a suitable standardized storage format that provides flexibility and future interoperability. Flexible data entry forms adaptable to distinct medical domains were implemented using XML-based technologies. A flexible and comprehensive EPR/RDE platform was successfully implemented in the German EB network. A set of specific data entry forms was created to fully cover the network's documentation needs. The platform has been in productive use since 2005. Standardized documentation by using HL7 CDA to store the medical research data as an EPR can contribute to high interoperability and an easier integration of heterogeneous health care information systems. Existing XML technologies offer a high degree of flexibility and adaptability to distinct medical domains. The ongoing development of standards (e.g. HL7 CDA R2) and interfaces (CDA/CDISC bridge) could further improve semantic and syntactic interoperability.

End-to-end privacy control in service outsourcing of human intensive processes: A multi-layered Web service integration approach

With the recent adoption of service outsourcing, there have been increasing general demands and concerns for privacy control, in addition to basic requirement of integration. The traditional practice of a bulk transmission of the customers' information to an external service provider is no longer adequate, especially in the finance and healthcare sectors. From our consultancy experience, application-to-application privacy protection technologies at the middleware layer alone are also inadequate to solve this problem, particularly when human service providers are heavily involved in the outsourced process. Therefore, we propose a layered architecture and a development methodology for enforcing end-to-end privacy control policies of enterprises over the export of personal information. We illustrate how Web services, augmented with updated privacy facilities such as Service Level Agreement (SLA), Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P), and the P3P Preference Exchange Language (APPEL), can provide a suitable interoperation platform for service outsourcing. We further develop a conceptual model and an interaction protocol to send only the required part of a customer's record at a time. We illustrate our approach for end-to-end privacy control in service outsourcing with a tele-marketing case study and show how the software of the outsourced call center can be integrated effectively with the Web services of a bank to protect privacy.

Development of a T-DMB extended WIPI platform for interactive mobile broadcasting services

In this paper, we present the architecture of the interactive terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) system using the code division multiple access (CDMA) network for the new interactive broadcasting services. We also propose the novel structure of the novel platform based on wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI), which is the standard specifications for the mobile platform in Korea, to co-operate broadcasting and telecommunication. The proposed extended WIPI platform is implemented as an emulator on PC, and an integrated browser which shows multimedia broadcasting data including AV contents and interactive data returned through the telecommunication network, is developed to carry on with it. And then to verify the proposed platform and the interactive mobile broadcasting services, we implemented the integrated receiver as well as the data broadcasting server and the return channel server. Users can get interactive services or more information about broadcasting contents through CDMA network by using the proposed platform. This shows a possibility of new interactive services in digital broadcasting by using mobility of T-DMB and CDMA

Gbrowse Moby: a Web-based browser for BioMoby Services

BackgroundThe BioMoby project aims to identify and deploy standards and conventions that aid in the discovery, execution, and pipelining of distributed bioinformatics Web Services. As of August, 2006, approximately 680 bioinformatics resources were available through the BioMoby interoperability platform. There are a variety of clients that can interact with BioMoby-style services. Here we describe a Web-based browser-style client – Gbrowse Moby – that allows users to discover and "surf" from one bioinformatics service to the next using a semantically-aided browsing interface.ResultsGbrowse Moby is a low-throughput, exploratory tool specifically aimed at non-informaticians. It provides a straightforward, minimal interface that enables a researcher to query the BioMoby Central web service registry for data retrieval or analytical tools of interest, and then select and execute their chosen tool with a single mouse-click. The data is preserved at each step, thus allowing the researcher to manually "click" the data from one service to the next, with the Gbrowse Moby application managing all data formatting and interface interpretation on their behalf. The path of manual exploration is preserved and can be downloaded for import into automated, high-throughput tools such as Taverna. Gbrowse Moby also includes a robust data rendering system to ensure that all new data-types that appear in the BioMoby registry can be properly displayed in the Web interface.ConclusionGbrowse Moby is a robust, yet facile entry point for both newcomers to the BioMoby interoperability project who wish to manually explore what is known about their data of interest, as well as experienced users who wish to observe the functionality of their analytical workflows prior to running them in a high-throughput environment.

선호도 전이 확률을 이용한 멀티미디어 컨텐츠 추천 시스템

최근에 서비스되기 시작한 디지털 멀티미디어 방송은 다양한 종류의 수많은 컨텐츠를 제공하기 때문에 고객은 때로 자신이 선호하는 컨텐츠를 찾는데 많은 시간을 소비한다. 심지어는 선호 컨텐츠를 찾는 동안 이미 방송이 끝날 수도 있다. 이와 같은 문제를 해결하기 위해서는 고객이 필요로 하는 최소 정보만을 추천하기 위한 방법이 필요하다. 본 논문에서는 고객이 시청한 컨텐츠 선호도 전이 확률을 이용하여 고객이 선호하는 컨텐츠를 미리 예측하여 추천하기 위한 알고리즘과 시스템을 제안한다. 제안하는 시스템은 클라이언트 관리자 에이전트, 모니터링 에이전트, 러닝 에이전트, 그리고 추천 에이전트 모듈로 구성된다. 클라이언트 관리자 에이전트는 다른 모듈과 상호 작용을 하면서 조정자 역할을 한다. 모니터링 에이전트는 컨텐츠에 대한 고객의 선호도를 분석하기 위해 고객이 이용했던 usage history 데이터를 수집하기 위한 에이전트이다. 러닝 에이전트는 고객으로부터 수집된 usage history 데이터를 정제하여 시간 변화에 따른 상태 전이 행렬로 모델링하기 위한 에이전트이다. 추천 에이전트는 고객의 상태 전이 행렬로 구성된 모델링 데이터에 본 논문에서 제안하는 선호도 전이 확률 모델을 이용하여 고객이 바로 다음에 선호하게 될 컨텐츠를 추천하기 위한 에이전트이다. 추천 에이전트 모듈에서 컨텐츠에 대한 고객의 선호도 전이 확률을 이용하는 추천 알고리즘을 제안한다. 제안하는 추천 시스템은 무선 인터넷 표준 플랫폼인 WIPI(Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability) 플랫폼에서 프로토타입 시스템을 설계, 구현하였으며, 실험결과 제안된 선호도 전이 확률 모델의 추천 정확도가 전형적인 방법에 비해 효과적임을 보인다. Recently Digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) has been available as a commercial service. The users sometimes have difficulty in finding their preferred multimedia contents and need to spend a lot of searching time finding them. They are even very likely to miss their preferred contents while searching for them. In order to solve the problem, we need a method for recommendation users preferred only minimum information. We propose an algorithm and a system for recommending users' preferred contents using preference transition probability from user's usage history. The system includes four agents: a client manager agent, a monitoring agent, a learning agent, and a recommendation agent. The client manager agent interacts and coordinates with the other modules, the monitoring agent gathers usage data for analyzing the user's preference of the contents, the learning agent cleans the gathered usage data and modeling with state transition matrix over time, and the recommendation agent recommends the user's preferred contents by analyzing the cleaned usage data. In the recommendation agent, we developed the recommendation algorithm using a user's preference transition probability for the contents. The prototype of the proposed system is designed and implemented on the WIPI(Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability). The experimental results show that the recommendation algorithm using a user's preference transition probability can provide better performances than a conventional method.

A channel recommendation system in mobile environment

Digital multimedia broadcasting service has been at the center of developing issues in mobile environment. In contrast to traditional multimedia broadcasting systems, mobile devices have limit of information handling capacity. In order to solve the problem, this paper presents a personalized channel recommendation system at client side in mobile environment. The system includes four modules: client manager agent, monitoring agent, data preparation agent and recommendation agent. Within the recommendation agent, we develop a recommendation algorithm using users' preference transitions for the channels. Also, we design and implement the prototype system on the wireless Internet platform for interoperability. In the experiment, we compare the proposed algorithm with a conventional method. The experimental results show that the proposed recommendation system can provide better performance than the conventional method.