Ebook: Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases XVIII

In the last decades information modelling and knowledge bases have become hot topics not only in academic communities related to information systems and computer science but also in business areas where information technology is applied.

The 16th European-Japanese Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases EJC 2006 continues the series of events that originally started as a co-operation between Japan and Finland as far back as the late 1980's. Later (1991) the geographical scope of these conferences expanded to cover all of Europe as well as countries outside Europe other than Japan.

The EJC conferences constitute a world-wide research forum for the exchange of scientific results and experiences achieved in computer science and other related disciplines using innovative methods and progressive approaches. In this way a platform has been established drawing together researches as well as practitioners dealing with information modelling and knowledge bases. Thus the main topics of the EJC conferences target the variety of themes in the domain of information modelling, conceptual analysis, design and specification of information systems, ontologies, software engineering, knowledge and process management, data and knowledge bases. We also aim at applying new progressive theories. To this end much attention is being paid also to theoretical disciplines including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, logic, linguistics and analytical philosophy.

In order to achieve the EJC targets, an international programme committee selected 13 full papers, 5 short papers, 2 position papers and 8 poster papers in the course of a rigorous reviewing process including 33 submissions. The selected papers cover many areas of information modelling, namely theory of concepts, database semantics, knowledge representation, software engineering, WWW information management, context-based information retrieval, ontological technology, image databases, temporal and spatial databases, document data management, process management, and many others.

The conference would not have been a success without the effort of many people and organizations.

In the Programme Committee, 27 reputable researchers devoted a good deal of effort to the review process in order to select the best papers and create the EJC 2006 programme. We are very grateful to them. Professors Yasushi Kiyoki and Hannu Kangassalo were acting as co-chairs of the programme committee. The VSB-Technical University Ostrava, Czech Republic, promoted the conference in its capacity as organiser, and professor Marie Duží acted as conference leader. Her team took care of various practical aspects necessary for the smooth running of the conference. Professor Hannu Jaakkola and his team took care both of general organizational things necessary for running the annual conference series and of arranging the conference proceedings in the form of a book to be printed by IOS Press Amsterdam. We gratefully appreciate the efforts of everyone who lent a helping hand.

We are convinced that the conference will prove to be productive and fruitful toward advancing the research and application of information modelling and knowledge bases.

The Editors

Marie Duží, Hannu Jaakkola, Yasushi Kiyoki, Hannu Kangassalo

Agile software development approaches have gained interest by leveraging goals such as small initial investment, incremental development, and rapid feedback. In contrast, application of formal specification methods has typically implied extensive initial investment, relatively fixed requirements on top of which a formalization can be established, and relatively slow feedback due to the effort needed for formal modeling. In this paper, we challenge this view of formal methods, and describe how the agile software development approach can be applied with formal methods. We back the discussion on formal method DisCo, which has been intended as a formalization tool for a programmer rather than for a mathematician. Towards the end of the paper, we also give a small example where agility is demonstrated.

With development of knowledge bases (KB) there appeared expert systems that use KBs to support them in decision making process. Decision Support Systems, that are the subject of the paper, communicate with knowledge bases by populating them with known facts and receiving newly inferred knowledge. However there exist situations when a DSS receives ambiguous response from knowledge base and needs to know what additional information is missing and is required to give a precise response. The paper focuses on a communication between a DSS and a knowledge base especially in the scope of getting the missing information. The special type of inference performed over a Description Logics ontology to solve the problem, the corresponding query and implementation issues are described.

Content and content management have become buzzwords. They are still heavily overloaded, not well understood or defined and heavily misused. Moreover, the user dimension is not yet incorporated. We develop an approach that is based on separation of concern: syntax dimension and content, semantics dimension and concepts, pragmatics dimension and topics, and finally referent or user dimension and memes. This separation of concern may increase the complexity of handling. We show, however, that a sophisticated handling of different kind of data at each dimension and a mapping facility between the dimensions provides a basis for a user-oriented content management system. This separation of concern and the special mapping procedure allows to derive content management systems that satisfy the needs of user communities.

In the present paper we propose a model for a steganography-based digital contents access control system. It is suited for digital content creators who store their digital works in their computers and want to distribute them over the Internet where they make a complete local access control to their works. We have developed a prototype system for Windows and tested its basic performance. It worked well from a technical point of view. The novel point is that the creators don't need to send their works to the content users. They only send keys to extract the digital works out of the image data that the users have downloaded from the creator's home page. We are convinced that this model will serve as a new content distribution scheme for content creators in the Internet age for today and tomorrow.

In this paper, we present an implementation method of a semantic information retrieval system using specialized and general knowledge and its application for the field of International Relations (IR). To realize our system, we apply the Semantic Associative Search Method to the system. The Semantic Associative Search Method makes it possible to compute semantic relationships between words and documents according to a given context dynamically. The important features of our system are distilled to the three points: 1) a user can obtain and analyze IR-related documents by using general words even if the user does not have special knowledge of IR, 2) a user can analyze both time-varying and source-specific semantics of IR-related documents, 3) a user can acquire IR-related information that maintains relevancies to IR expertise. This new semantic retrieval environment for IR field is realized by creating a semantic vector space where document data with metadata of both technical terms and general words can be mapped, and also by applying a learning system to the IR document database, which can adapt retrieval results to individual context and improve accuracy of the database. To verify the feasibility and the practical effectiveness of our system, we performed qualitative and quantitative experiments with the evaluation by IR experts.

Here is presented an algebraic model of emergence of natural language, which defines language as the limit of a communication process in a society of agents. The heterogeneous model consists of semantic algebra Obj created by the set of attributes (elementary perceptions) and syntactic algebra L. Objects are compositional, determined by their attributes and sub-objects. Every agent a maintains its own language L_a⊆L, which is developed in the communication process using a meaning morphism m_a:L_a→Obj, the speech morphism sp_a:Obj→L_a and a naming function n_a:Obj→N_a, where N_a is a set of names (subjective attributes, N_a∩L_a=Ø). The model is investigated using computer modelling (language game). In the communication process agents add new words to their languages (at the beginning all L_a=Ø) and improve their meaning and speech functions using inference and disambiguation of semantics when objects are presented in different contexts. At the first stage of language creation agents use grounded messages (the message's object is included, e.g. pointed at), but on later stages they can also use ungrounded messages. Communication allows errors and several random features. If in the process of sending-receiving messages agents understanding of each other improves, i.e. error rate in recreating message's object decreases, then at the limit they create common language. It is shown, how compositionality (structure) in semantic domain creates elementary compositionality (structured denotations) also in the language. Compositionality of denotations follows from a very simple algorithm of agent's behaviour and does not require any pre-defined word categories or syntactic rules.

This paper analyzes the syntactic and semantic structure of noun phrases in English and Korean, using the time-linear derivations of Database Semantics. In comparison with Predicate Calculus, which handles the semantics of determiners like some and all at the highest level of the logical syntax, Database Semantics takes the alternative approach of specifying their semantics as atomic values in the feature structures representing noun phrases. This not only avoids well-known difficulties of the classical approach, such as unwanted scope ambiguities (Copestake et al. 2001) and problems binding certain variables (Geach 1969, Kamp & Reyle 1993), but also opens the way to concentrate on important linguistic aspects of complex noun phrases, namely agreement in English, and the alternative word orders and the rather free distribution of case markers inside the NP in Korean. Given that the internal structure of Japanese NPs is very similar to that of Korean, we believe that our analysis can be easily extended to include Japanese as well.

Semantic associative search and semantic space integration are promising and significant functions for obtaining appropriate and significant information resources in multimedia database and knowledge base environments. Semantic space creation and integration for semantic associative search are essentially important for realizing advanced semantic associative search environments and synergy effects among different domain fields. This paper presents implementation and application of our semantic associative search and semantic space integration methods to actual medical fields. This implementation realizes a domain-specific semantic associative search and semantic space integration by referring to domain-specific encyclopedias. This paper also shows the feasibility and applicability of the semantic associative search environment with integration of those medical fields. Several experimental results are shown to clarify the feasibility and applicability of the semantic associative search environment in actual medical fields.

Time is the core resource of a project. A project combines human and non-human resources together into a temporary organization that aims to achieve a specified objective. A project has a temporal structure of its own, with related operations and deliverables that also are functions of time. In knowledge-intensive organizations, more and more projects are distributed, document-driven processes with parallel phases and tasks. Change management between parallel phases and tasks with associated documents has become one of the core functions in distributed project management. In our paper, we present a framework for time contexts in distributed project management environments, particularly from a project manager's point of view. In document-driven projects, document life-cycles, the statuses of documents, temporal relations between documents, all define the document logistics of a project and describe the overall temporal structure of a project. We analyze the life-cycles of project documents with related time statuses and temporal relations between different documents. We apply time-sensitive links to illustrate the temporal characteristics of project documents and to construct time-based navigation support through the life-cycles and temporal relations of the project documents in single and simple project environments. Our approach is designed to be applied especially to the analysis phase of document logistics from a time-based project management point of view before an organization selects and implements a commercial or customized distributed project management system. We extend our approach to more complex, multi-project environments. We discuss an ontology of time, and Topic Maps as a means of analyzing, deriving and managing time rule sets separated from project document space. The focus of our approach is on knowledge-intensive organizations, on Web-based document-centric projects and on solutions based on W3C Recommendations.

We consider querying containing several vague concepts of user's preferences (with preference scale [Tscr ] ), which is quite typical in semantic web. These particular preferences need to be combined to get an overall ordering of results. We propose [Tscr ]−[Escr ][Lscr ]^@ – a description logic allowing existential restrictions, crisp roles, [Tscr ] -fuzzy concepts and [Tscr ] -fuzzy combining functions @. We discuss problems of consistency, subsumption and the instance problem. We show some results on polynomial complexity of this problem. We conclude with a sketch of an embedding of [Tscr ]−[Escr ][Lscr ]^@ into a sort of classical [Escr ][Lscr ] logic with concrete domain.

Abstraction is commonly recognized as ubiquitous mechanism in human action. Conceptions about principles, concepts and constructs of abstraction are, however, quite vague and divergent in the literature. This paper proposes an ontology for abstraction, composed of two inter-related parts. The first-order abstraction defines concept things, called primary things, and their abstraction-based relationships. The second-order abstraction, also known as predicate abstraction, involves predicates that characterize primary things. The ontology covers four basic abstraction principles: classification, generalization, composition, and grouping. For each of them, key concepts and structural rules are defined and predicate derivation is discussed. The ontology is also described in meta models in a UML-based ontology representation language. We believe that the abstraction ontology can promote the achievement of a shared understanding of abstraction principles and constructs. Predicate abstraction can also be used as a foundation on which more sound systems of perspectives and viewpoints for database design and information systems development can be built.

In this paper, we present causality computation methods and its application of a semantic associative search. We propose two essential methods for causality search, which are a causality computation method with context dependent dynamics and a causality route search method. The causality computation method with context dependent dynamics makes it possible to retrieve documents describing causal events in the context that specifies each situation of occurrent events. The causality route search method realizes to search respectively set of documents related to each generation of causal events from query events. We define three types of vector for each event data, that is, cause vector, effect vector and cause-effect vector that are characterized respectively with cause, effect and “cause and effect” event data. Applying a set of these vectors, our search method makes it possible to retrieve respectively “the document data describing cause events” and “the document data describing effect events” according to the context specified. Also, for realizing a causality route search, we construct query that represent sequential generations of causal events from a query event. Using the query constructed, we can retrieve documents about each generation of causal events. We have implemented a search system for an aerospace engineering field and clarified the effectiveness and the feasibility of our search method by several experiments.

In this paper, we propose a method of automatic metadata extraction corresponding to impressions of the word's sounds. Generally, a word and a phrase evoke various impressions. The impressions are evoked by not only the semantics of the word but also its sound. Especially, sounds of words are important to understand mutual emotion effectively in our communication. In order to realize search corresponding to the impression of words, it is important that we realize extraction function based on impressions for the sounds of arbitrary words. The correlation relationships between impressions and sounds in Japanese are indicated by this research called “Onso” which means the aspect of sound in Japanese. This method realizes extraction of metadata corresponding to impressions by the sound of the words utilizing the research of “Onso”. We can realize the semantic associative search for impression of the sounds of arbitrary words by applying this method.

Process modeling and workflow applications have become more an more important during last decade. The main reason for this increased interest is the need to provide computer aided system integration of the enterprise based on its business processes. This need requires a technology that enables to integrate modeling, simulation and enactment of processes into one single package. The primary focus of all tools is to describe the way how activities are ordered in time. This kind of partially ordered steps shows how the output of one activity can serve as the input to another one. But there is also another aspect of the business process that has to be involved – where the activities are executed. The spatial aspect of the process enactment represents a new dimension in the process engineering discipline. It is also important to understand that not just process enactment but also the early phases of process specification have to cope with this spatial aspect. The paper is going to discuss how all these above mentioned principles can be integrated together and how the standard approach in process specification might be extended with the spatial dimension to make business process models more natural and understandable.

The project Logic and Artificial Intelligence for Multi-Agent Systems is briefly described and its structure is specified. First we introduce the underlying logical framework—the Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL). Then we provide a description of particular problem areas, viz. knowledge representation including geographical data, languages apt for agents communication, and process management. Finally, future research and trends are specified.

This paper presents an image retrieval method based on visual and semantic similarity computing with a query-context recognition mechanism. The motivation of our work is to solve the problem which can be described as that if only the visual similarity or only the semantic similarity judgment is performed on image retrieval, the retrieval results do not always match the query intentions of users. Our central idea is that similarity computing has to be performed between visual and semantic levels. To understand the relationship between the visual factors and the semantic factors in images, we have performed experimental studies. From our experimental studies, it is found that it is possible to extract semantic factors from the visual factors of images. Furthermore, it is found that users' query intention can be detected from the difference of images in queries. Based on the experimental results, we develop a method to implement both the semantic and visual similarity judgment for image retrieval. In this method, several images are required to be given as the key images in a query for users to indicate their query intentions. Furthermore, an adjusting value is used for users to indicate their query intentions, intending on the visual similarity or the semantic similarity. Both the visual and semantic factors are extracted from the key images and the similarity computation is performed on the extracted factors. The effectiveness of the method is clarified based on our experimental results.

This paper discusses the effects that the increasing use of Internet, web technology and multimedia in information systems, and the computer games industry will have on information systems work. The paper concludes that the look and feel aspect of information systems is becoming ever more important and that we will see an increasing involvement of people with artistic skills in information systems development. We should also be prepared to adjust our educational programs accordingly.

To achieve the goal of effective coalition operations, NATO common-funded C3 (Consultation, Command and Control) systems must be interoperable and be capable of interoperating with those of member and partner nations. In the same way, national and multi-national systems of members and partners must be interoperable to achieve this goal. There are currently several directives which provides framework to support C3 Systems Interoperability to enhance the Alliance's operational effectiveness and improve efficiency of available resources by implementing interoperable and affordable C3 systems that will provide the right information to the right user at the right time.

In the paper we would like to discuss basics of architecture approach for C3 systems development and difficulties which were already tackled during architecture approach application in CAF (Czech Army Forces) and MoD (Ministry of Defence).

Recently, a large number of international academic conferences have been held all over the world, and the number of conferences has been increasing year by year, which makes it difficult for us to overview the whole situation. On the other hand, explosive growth of the Internet makes it possible for us to obtain various information about conferences from the Web. In this paper, we propose a method for giving an overview of relation among conferences, such as clustering conferences and discovering the conference where active discussion is conducted in certain issues, by constructing a research map from conference information obtained from the Web.

Unlike the relative success of general Web search engines detecting important Web pages, it is not yet easy to detect potentially important events/phenomena (other than obvious major newspaper top headlines) happening outside the country from observations of news articles on the Web. Current news index sites or news provider sites such as Google News, BBC, CNN, and Reuters, try to present streams of latest news. We present a new approach to automatic detection of potentially important events/phenomena happening outside the country based on the monitoring of a number of different mostly domestic news sites.

ROC curves are widely used as a tool to evaluate classification models. This paper describes the use of the macro language STATISTICA Visual Basic to construct receiver operating characteristics curves (ROC) for the CART algorithm implemented in the data mining system STATISTICA Data Miner. STATISTICA has an option of ROC curves only for neural networks, therefore the macro presented here is useful for evaluation and comparison the classification models that are built with the CART algorithm. The possibilities of this macro are presented on one data set.

The mobile Internet has been used widely in Japan. If we use a cellular phone with the Q-R (Quick Response) code reader function (a two dimensional code developed by Denso-Wave Corporation) we can very easily access a web-site. However, though the existence of Q-R code reader function in the cellular phone is well known, not many people who use the function. The reason is that the Q-R code is not intuitive because it was developed to be read by machines. Our idea to solve the problem is to combine the Q-R code with a designed particular picture or graphic. We propose a method to produce the designed Q-R code and we develop its production system. This paper describes the proposed method, the production system and evaluation results using some designed Q-R codes produced by the system.

The Multi-Agent System (MAS) technology is one of the possibilities of development of modern, powerful and advanced information systems. In the case of the multi-agent systems, some of standard approaches could be used, however they have to be adjusted or extended. This paper describes the ideas and methods for MAS modeling and developing, based on the internal agent behaviors and process modeling. This paper is concerned with the problems of behavior specification and reconfiguration. Our method is based on the process and logic approaches.

The article describes our experience with a method for an automatic identification of image semantic, which is applied to the coking plant Mittal Steel Ostrava, the Czech Republic. The image retrieval algorithm is based on Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) and involves Singular Value Decomposition of a document matrix. Our case study indicates feasibility of the presented approach as a tool for modelling of human expert behaviour in hard industry environment.