Web Service Modeling Ontology Research Articles

A unified algorithm to automatic semantic composition using multilevel workflow orchestration

As a result of state-of-the-art development in service oriented architecture, we need a composition framework and comprehensive algorithm to discover and compose the web services from different environments. In this paper, we present a unified semantic-oriented framework with corresponding algorithm for automatic web service composition that integrates the comprehensive process of modified multistage composition and rigor of web semantics. Our proposed unified algorithm introduces the novel features through modified five stage composition such as transformation of non-functional properties of user requirements to all stages, optimization and semantic validation of abstract workflows using workflow automata, annotating WSDL files with additional ontologies using ontology based service repository, adopting dynamic change of user requirements for discovering candidate services, and selecting most optimal services for concrete composition using non-functional properties are effectively represented. Feasible composition solution obtained for user complex requirements through semantic web service discovery mechanism for discovering and selecting the most suitable service candidates. Furthermore, our unified algorithm can provide a composition solution through wider acceptance of semantics-oriented documents such as web ontology language for services and web service modeling ontology. We evaluate the proposed unified algorithm for automatic generation of composition using our motivating scenario, namely, home loan approval inference process. We also evaluate algorithm for automated and dynamic composition on service repositories of various sizes in increasing the levels of nesting and present the performance results.

An Improved Abstract State Machine Based Choreography Specification and Execution Algorithm for Semantic Web Services

We identify significant weaknesses in the original Abstract State Machine (ASM) based choreography algorithm of Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO), which make it impractical for use in semantic web service choreography engines. We present an improved algorithm which rectifies the weaknesses of the original algorithm, as well as a practical, fully functional choreography engine implementation in Flora-2 based on the improved algorithm. Our improvements to the choreography algorithm include (i) the linking of the initial state of the ASM to the precondition of the goal, (ii) the introduction of the concept of a final state in the execution of the ASM and its linking to the postcondition of the goal, and (iii) modification to the execution of the ASM so that it stops when the final state condition is satisfied by the current configuration of the machine. Our choreography engine takes as input semantic web service specifications written in the Flora-2 dialect of F-logic. Furthermore, we prove the equivalence of ASMs (evolving algebras) and evolving ontologies in the sense that one can simulate the other, a first in literature. Finally, we present a visual editor which facilitates the design and deployment of our F-logic based web service and goal specifications.

Measuring business entities in multi-ontologies

One of the most important tasks for business entity is to make its service available for users' requests through the web. The semantic description of business entity needs to be developed to enhance the matching process between users' requests and the best advertised services. The modern business entities typically have semantic relations represented in multi-inheritance ontologies. This paper argues that the relation between business entities in multi-ontologies can be measured to provide better matching results based on the similarity between the requested and advertised business entities within all ontologies. We propose a business entity distance measure that represents a quantitative result. During the evaluation, a matching engine was developed based on web service modelling ontology technologies and validated by using business scenarios. We established that business entity distance measure is suitable for finding various degrees of matching between requested and advertised business entities.

Goal-based testing of semantic web services

Context: Recent years have witnessed growing interests in semantic web and its related technologies. While various frameworks have been proposed for designing semantic web services (SWS), few of them aim at testing.Objective: This paper investigates into the technologies for automatically deriving test cases from semantic web service descriptions based on the Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO) framework.Method: WSMO goal specifications were translated into B abstract machines. Test cases were generated via model checking with calculated trap properties from coverage criteria. Furthermore, we employed mutation analysis to evaluate the test suite. In this approach, the model-based test case generation and code-based evaluation techniques are independent of each other, which provides much more accurate measures of the testing results.Results: We applied our approach to a real-world case study of the Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS). The experimental results have validated the effectiveness of the proposed solution.Conclusion: It is concluded that our approach is capable of automatically generating an effective set of test cases from the WSMO goal descriptions for SWS testing. The quality of test cases was measured in terms of their abilities to discover the injected faults at the code level. We implemented a tool to automate the steps for the mutation-based evaluation.

Semantics, knowledge and grids

Summary Semantics, knowledge and grids represent three streams of studying humans and cyberspace that humans create and interact. Relevant research concerns all areas of computing, especially web semantics, artificial intelligence, and advanced computing infrastructures. This special issue selected eight papers reporting relevant research and applications from the 9th International Conference on Semantics, Knowledge and Grids. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A survey of Semantic Web Services formalisms

SummaryThe field of Semantic Web Services (SWS) has been recognized as one of the most promising areas of emergent research within the Semantic Web initiative, exhibiting an extensive commercial potential and attracting significant attention from both industry and the research community. Currently, there exist several different frameworks and languages for formally describing a Web Service: Web Ontology Language for Services (OWL‐S), Web Service Modelling Ontology (WSMO) and Semantic Annotations for the Web Services Description Language (SAWSDL) are the most important approaches. To the inexperienced user, choosing the appropriate platform for a specific SWS application may prove to be challenging, given a lack of clear separation between the ideas promoted by the associated research communities. In this paper, we systematically compare OWL‐S, WSMO and SAWSDL from various standpoints, namely, that of the service requester and provider as well as the broker‐based view. The comparison is meant to help users to better understand the strengths and limitations of these different approaches to formalizing SWS, and to choose the most suitable solution for a given application. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Integration of business process modeling and Web services: a survey

A significant challenge in business process automation involves bridging the gap between business process representations and Web service technologies that implement business activities. We are interested in business process representations such as Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Event-Driven Process Chains (EPCs). Web service technologies include protocols such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), architectures such as REpresentational State Transfer (RESTful), or semantic description languages and formalisms such as Web Ontology Language for Services (OWL-S) and Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO). This paper reviews previous work on the integration of business process representations and Web service technologies. It provides a perspective on the field by summarizing, organizing, and classifying the proposed approaches. Consequently, this study has identified opportunities for future research in the field, including the need for a generic transformation approach among arbitrary models, the need to represent mappings in a formalized way, and the necessity of a common execution framework.

Automatic composition of WSMO based geospatial semantic web services using artificial intelligence planning

Geospatial web services are widely utilised to disseminate spatial data and processing capability over the internet. Combining geospatial web services and generating composite web services out of atomic services can provide users with a higher level of functionality. This paper presents a solution for the automatic composition of geospatial web services. The solution relies on semantic web services technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning techniques to generate composite geospatial web services. Web Service Modelling Ontology (WSMO) is selected as the underlying semantic web service framework. A neoclassical planning algorithm called Graphplan is used as the AI planner. The applicability of the proposed solution for composing web services is illustrated in a case study. The result shows that the proposed approach is well suited for the automatic composition of web services. The future requirements for adaptation of the approach in real world problems are broadly described.

Service composition optimization approach based on affection ant colony algorithm

In the service computing mode,affection behaviour was employed to improve the efficiency of service composition.Firstly,an affection space was built to meet behaviour demands,and cognition was defined to reason state change of affection.In the change processing,mapping was done between affection and cognition,and emotion decay and emotion update were defined to maintain the stability of affective change.Secondly,affective mechanism was put into ant colony algorithm,which formed an affection ant colony algorithm,and the algorithm was applied to Web Service Modeling Ontology(WSMO) service composition.Finally,the paper adopted a Virtual Travel Agency(VTA) example under WSMO to show this approach was effective and feasible.

Using the Semantic Web Services to Build a Virtual Medical Analysis Laboratory

In medical analysis field, patients often must visit a multitude of laboratories related web sites in order to check availability, booking, prices, result duration, and find the nearest laboratory. Thus, these varieties of reasons to visit the web sites make limitations on the usability of them. However, to overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a Virtual Medical Analysis Laboratory (VMAL) prototype system which will be based on applying the Semantic Web Services (SWSs) for scheduling outpatient tests in order to discover the suitable laboratory. Furthermore, the proposed prototype will also be based on the Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO)

A formal model of the Semantic Web Service Ontology (WSMO)

Semantic Web Service, one of the most significant research areas within the Semantic Web vision, has attracted increasing attention from both the research community and industry. The Web Service Modelling Ontology (WSMO) has been proposed as an enabling framework for the total/partial automation of the tasks (e.g., discovery, selection, composition, mediation, execution, monitoring, etc.) involved in both intra- and inter-enterprise integration of Web services. To support the standardisation and tool support of WSMO, a formal model of the language is highly desirable. As several variants of WSMO have been proposed by the WSMO community, which are still under development, the syntax and semantics of WSMO should be formally defined to facilitate easy reuse and future development. In this paper, we present a formal Object-Z formal model of WSMO, where different aspects of the language have been precisely defined within one unified framework. This model not only provides a formal unambiguous model which can be used to develop tools and facilitate future development, but as demonstrated in this paper, can be used to identify and eliminate errors present in existing documentation.

WSMO and WSMX Support to the Semantic Web Services Technology

This paper tests the ability of the Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO) and the Web Service Modeling eXecution environment (WSMX) to support the Semantic Web Services technology, and automate the process of web service discovery, selection and invocation. First, it introduced web services and their limitations that were overcome in the vision of the Semantic Web Services technology. Then a Semantic Web Service (SWS) was built on top of WSMO to access the publications of the German University in Cairo (GUC), and was registered to WSMX. To test the validity to the claim, a service request to access the publications of the GUC was sent to WSMX and the process followed by WSMX was investigated. Furthermore, the discussion added a suggestion that would enhance the transparency between the Semantic Web and WSMO-WSMX initiatives.

Security conscious AI‐planning‐based composition of semantic web services

PurposeAutomated composition of semantic web services has become one of the recent critical issues in today's web environment. Despite the importance of artificial intelligence (AI)‐planning techniques for web service composition, previous works in that area do not address security issues, which is the focus of this paper. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to achieve security conscious composition of semantic web services.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed approach called security conscious composition of semantic web services (SCAIMO) is based on the prior work, i.e. AIMO. The AIMO is an effective approach for web service discovery and composition based on AI‐planning, web service modeling ontology (WSMO), and description logic (DL). In this paper, definitions of secure matchmaking and web service composition are formalized based on DLs. Moreover, security capabilities and constraint types in the proposed SCAIMO framework are presented.FindingsThis paper proposes a secure task matchmaker which is responsible for matching security conscious tasks with operators and methods based on WSMO and DL to support the proposed SCAIMO framework. In addition, the paper implements and evaluates the SCAIMO using a test case and the result shows that the approach can provide an applicable solution.Originality/valueThe key contribution of this paper encompasses the new framework to support security capabilities and constraints during composition of semantic web services as well as the new secure task matchmaker.

Toward UML-Compliant Semantic Web Services Development

The emerging Semantic Web and, in particular, Semantic Web services (SWS), demands the inclusion of new components in applications involving this technology. Therefore, Web development methodologies must be tailored to support the systematic development of such new components. In previous works we presented a UML profile, which extends the SOD-M method for service oriented Web Information System development of the MIDAS model-driven framework, to address the development of Semantic Web Services using WSMO (Web Service Modeling Ontology). The UML profile allows for the modeling of the new elements required by WSMO Web Services. This article focuses on studying the possibility of improving the proposed UML profile, including the OCL (Object Constraint Language), for the representation of WSMO logical axioms through three case studies. This would allow developers, whose knowledge does not extend beyond UML, to develop applications that use Semantic Web services.

Semantic Web service discovery framework based on WSMO-QoS

Currently, OWL-S and Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO) are two popular frameworks that are used to describe semantic Web service. However, since they mainly focus on the description of the functional part, it is difficult for them to select the best service with little consideration of Quality of Service (QoS). To solve this problem, the WSMO specification was extended and an ontology-based meta-model of QoS called WSMO-QoS was presented. Furthermore, a QoS-based discovery framework for semantic Web service was proposed, which supported service discovery from three levels: basic description, Input-Output-Precondition-Effects (IOPE) and QoS. The experimental results validate the effectiveness of the framework.

Automatic composition of Learning Grid Portlets: a comparison of syntactic and semantic approaches

Due to their potential advantages, the use of Grid technologies towards the development of collaborative and personalised learning frameworks has been considerably increased. These learning frameworks can be constructed based on distributed learning services and resources. A problem still unsolved is how to use and integrate low-level learning services to compose more complex high-level learning services or tools. In that sense, on the one hand, Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) is an orchestration language that, based on a syntactic representation of the characteristics of a learning service, can carry out the composition of a new learning service; on the other hand, Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO) is a language that can be used to represent the functional characteristics of a learning service semantically. This paper presents the benefits and limitations of the processes of composing learning portals based on Grid learning services using BPEL and WSMO.

Solving Semantic Interoperability Conflicts in Cross-Border E-Government Services

Interoperability is one of the most challenging problems in modern cross-organizational information systems, which rely on heterogeneous information and process models. Interoperability becomes very important for e-Government information systems that support cross-organizational communication especially in a cross-border setting. The main goal in this context is to seamlessly provide integrated services to the user (citizen). In this paper we focus on Pan European e-Services and issues related with their integration. Our analysis uses basic concepts of the generic public service model of the Governance Enterprise Architecture (GEA) and of the Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO), to express the semantic description of the e-services. Based on the above, we present a mediation infrastructure capable of resolving semantic interoperability conflicts at a pan-European level. We provide several examples to illustrate both the need to solve such semantic conflicts and the actual solutions we propose.

Applying OCL to the development of SWS

The advent of the semantic web and, in particular, the coming of Semantic Web Services (SWS) technology, demands the inclusion of new components in applications involving SWS. Therefore, web development methodologies must be tailored to support the systematic development of such new components. In our previous works, we have presented MIDAS-S, which extends the model-driven framework MIDAS to address the development of SWS using Web Service Modelling Ontology (WSMO) as the supporting technology. MIDAS-S defines an UML profile for the modelling of new elements required by WSMO Web Services. This paper deals with the improvement of the proposed UML profile, using Object Constraints Language (OCL) for the representation of WSMO logical axioms. This way the developers' whose knowledge does not extend beyond UML should be able to develop applications that use SWS.

WSMO/X in the context of business processes: improvement recommendations

PurposeService‐oriented architecture (SOA) is an architecture paradigm targeting integration of applications within and across enterprise boundaries. It has gathered research and industry acceptance and has given an enormous impetus to the business process management technology. Web service (WS) technology is one implementation of the SOA paradigm. It enables seamless integration of new and legacy applications through a stack of standardized composable specifications. WS orchestration is facilitated by the Business Process Execution Language which provides a recursive service composition model. While the programming model the WS technology provides is very flexible, a major deficiency is the need to discover services implementing a particular abstract interface, whereas functional similarities of services are disregarded. The Semantic Web Service technologies, like Web Service Modelling Ontology (WSMO) and Web Ontology Language for Services have been developed with the purpose of eliminating these deficiencies by enabling service discovery based on functional and non‐functional properties. The paper aims to focus on these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a list of requirements that business processes impose on SOA applications. It analyzes the support that WSMO/Web Service Model eXecution environment (WSMX) provides to address these requirements and compares it with the support enabled by the WS specification stack.FindingsThe paper identifies major flaws in the WSMO model and its reference implementation with respect to business process support.Originality/valueThe paper recommends possible solutions for eliminating the lack of needed features on behalf of WSMO/WSMX. It presents in detail how to enable asynchronous stateful communication among WSMO WS and partner‐based WS discovery by extending the WSMO model. Additionally, it extends the API of the reference implementation to facilitate the execution of services communicating asynchronously.

Semantically-enabled service oriented architecture : concepts, technology and application

Semantically enabled service-oriented architecture focused on principles of service orientation, semantic modeling, intelligent and automated integration defines grounds for a cutting-edge technology which enables new means to integration of services, more adaptive to changes in business requirements which occur over systems’ lifetime. We define the architecture starting from a global perspective and through Web service modeling ontology as its semantic service model we narrow down to its services, processes and technology we use for the reference implementation. On a B2B integration scenario we demonstrate several aspects of the architecture and further describe the evaluation of the implementation according to a community-agreed standard evaluation methodology for semantic-based systems.