Ontology-based Application Integration introduces UI-level (User Interface Level) application integration and discusses current problems which can be remedied by using ontologies. It shows a novel approach for applying ontologies in system integration. While ontologies have been used for integration of IT systems on the database and on the business logic layer, integration on the user interface layer is a novel field of research. This book also discusses how end users, not only developers, can benefit from semantic technologies. Ontology-based Application Integration presents the development of a software framework including a detailed ontology about user interfaces and interactions. This includes a running case study of a real world integrated emergency management system. The last section of this book discusses useful features that can be built on top of the framework for improving the user experience with future integrated information systems. Ontology-based Application Integration is designed as a reference book for practitioners and researchers who understand and work with the principles of applying semantic web technologies to a software engineering problem. This book will also make an excellent reference or secondary text book for advanced-level students concentrating on computer science.

This book provides essential insights on the adoption of modern software engineering practices at large companies producing software-intensive systems, where hundreds or even thousands of engineers collaborate to deliver on new systems and new versions of already deployed ones. It is based on the findings collected and lessons learned at the Software Center (SC), a unique collaboration between research and industry, with Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg University and Malmö University as academic partners and Ericsson, AB Volvo, Volvo Car Corporation, Saab Electronic Defense Systems, Grundfos, Axis Communications, Jeppesen (Boeing) and Sony Mobile as industrial partners. The 17 chapters present the “Stairway to Heaven” model, which represents the typical evolution path companies move through as they develop and mature their software engineering capabilities. The chapters describe theoretical frameworks, conceptual models and, most importantly, the industrial experiences gained by the partner companies in applying novel software engineering techniques. The book’s structure consists of six parts. Part I describes the model in detail and presents an overview of lessons learned in the collaboration between industry and academia. Part II deals with the first step of the Stairway to Heaven, in which R&D adopts agile work practices. Part III of the book combines the next two phases, i.e., continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), as they are closely intertwined. Part IV is concerned with the highest level, referred to as “R&D as an innovation system,” while Part V addresses a topic that is separate from the Stairway to Heaven and yet critically important in large organizations: organizational performance metrics that capture data, and visualizations of the status of software assets, defects and teams. Lastly, Part VI presents the perspectives of two of the SC partner companies. The book is intended for practitioners and professionals in the software-intensive systems industry, providing concrete models, frameworks and case studies that show the specific challenges that the partner companies encountered, their approaches to overcoming them, and the results. Researchers will gain valuable insights on the problems faced by large software companies, and on how to effectively tackle them in the context of successful cooperation projects.

"This book provides an opportunity for readers to clearly understand the notion of ontology engineering and the practical aspects of this approach in the domains of two interest areas: Knowledge Management Systems and Enterprise Systems"--

The globalization of everyday business and increasing international trade lead to a growing need to improve national and international business collaborations and transactions. This book shows what ontology management can do for process, information and application integration under dynamic e-business conditions. The authors discuss research results and develop novel methods and frameworks. They then apply them to build business use application components deployed as web services.

"This book provides methods that allow for access to corporate and customer data independent of where it resides"--Provided by publisher.

During the last two decades, the idea of Semantic Web has received a great deal of attention. An extensive body of knowledge has emerged to describe technologies that seek to help us create and use aspects of the Semantic Web. Ontology and agent-based technologies are understood to be the two important technologies here. A large number of articles and a number of books exist to describe the use individually of the two technologies and the design of systems that use each of these technologies individually, but little focus has been given on how one can - sign systems that carryout integrated use of the two different technologies. In this book we describe ontology and agent-based systems individually, and highlight advantages of integration of the two different and complementary te- nologies. We also present a methodology that will guide us in the design of the - tegrated ontology-based multi-agent systems and illustrate this methodology on two use cases from the health and software engineering domain. This book is organized as follows: • Chapter I, Current issues and the need for ontologies and agents, describes existing problems associated with uncontrollable information overload and explains how ontologies and agent-based systems can help address these - sues. • Chapter II, Introduction to multi-agent systems, defines agents and their main characteristics and features including mobility, communications and collaboration between different agents. It also presents different types of agents on the basis of classifications done by different authors.

Disparate information, spread over various sources, in various formats, and with incon­sistent semantics is a major obstacle for enterprises to use this information at its full potential. Information Grids should allow for the effective access, extraction and linking of dispersed information. Currently Europe’s coporations spend over 10 Billion € to deal with these problems. This book will demonstrate the applicability of grid technologies to industry. To this end, it gives a detailed insight on how on­tology technology can be used to manage dispersed information assets more efficiently. The book is based on experiences from the COG (Corporate Ontology Grid) project, carried out jointly by three leading industrial players and the Digital Enterprise Research Institute Austria. Through comparisons of this project with alternative technologies and projects, it provides hands-on experience and best practice examples to act as a reference guide for their development. Information Integration with Ontologies: Ontology based Information Integration in an Industrial Setting is ideal for technical experts and computer researchers in the IT-area looking to achieve integration of heterogeneous information and apply ontology technologies and techniques in practice. It will also be of great benefit to technical decision makers seeking infor­mation about ontology technologies and the scientific audience, interested in achievements towards the application of ontologies in an industrial setting.