Ebook: Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases XIX

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 17th European-Japanese Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases, EJC 2007, continues the series of events that originally started as a cooperation 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 19 full papers, 8 short papers, 4 position papers and 3 poster papers in the course of a rigorous reviewing process including 34 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, 37 reputable researchers devoted a good deal of effort to the review process in order to select the best papers and create the EJC 2007 programme. We are very grateful to them. Professors Yasushi Kiyoki and Takehiro Tokuda were acting as co-chairs of the programme committee. The Tampere University of Technology in Pori, Finland, promoted the conference in its capacity as organizer: Professor Hannu Jaakkola acted as conference leader and Ms. Ulla Nevanranta as conference secretary. They took care of both the various practical aspects necessary for the smooth running of the conference and for arranging the conference proceedings in the form of a book. The conference is sponsored by the City of Pori, Satakunnan Osuuskauppa, Satakunnan Puhelin, Secgo Software, Nokia, Ulla Tuominen Foundation and Japan Scandinavia Sasakawa Foundation. 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, Hannu Jaakkola, Yasushi Kiyoki, Takahiro Tokuda

Linguistics has always been a field with a great diversity of schools and sub-schools. This has naturally led to the question of whether different grammatical analyses of the same sentence are in fact equivalent or not. With the formalization of grammars as generative rule systems, beginning with the “Chomsky revolution” in the late nineteen fifties, it became possible to answer such questions in those fortunate instances in which the competing analyses were sufficiently formalized.

An early example is the comparison of Context-Free Phrase Structure Grammar (CF-PSG) and Bidirectional Categorial Grammar (BCG), which were shown to be weakly equivalent by Gaifman 1961. More recently, the question arose with respect to the language classes and the complexity hierarchies of Phrase Structure Grammar (PS-grammar) and of Left-Associative Grammar (LA-grammar), which were shown to be orthogonal to each other (TCS'92).

Here we apply the question to the use of feature structures in contemporary schools of Nativism on the one hand, and in Database Semantics (DBS) on the other. The practical purpose is to determine whether or not the grammatical analyses of Nativism based on constituent structure can be used in Database Semantics.

In this paper we discuss two formal models apt for a search and communication in a ‘multi-agent world’, namely TIL and EL^@. Specifying their intersection, we are able to translate and switch between them. Using their union, we extend their functionalities. The main asset of using TIL is a fine-grained rigorous analysis and specification close to natural language. The additional contribution of EL^@ consists in modelling multi-criterion aspects of user preferences. Using a simple example throughout the paper, we illustrate the aspects of a multi-criterion search and communication by their analysis and specification in both the systems. The paper is an introductory study aiming at a universal logical approach to the ‘multi-agent world’, which at the same time opens new research problems and trends.

This paper presents a new semantic space creation method with an adaptive axis adjustment mechanism for media data retrieval. The semantic space is essentially required to search semantically related and appropriate information resources from media databases. In the method, data in the media databases are mapped as vectorized metadata on the semantic space. The distribution of the metadata on the semantic space is the main factor affecting the accuracy of the retrieval results. In the method, an adaptive axis adjustment mechanism is used to rotate and combine the semantic correlated axes on the semantic space, and remove axes from the semantic space. We demonstrated by experiments that when the semantic space is created and adjusted based on the semantic correlated factors, the metadata are appropriately and sharply distributed on the semantic space.

Edutainment web information systems must be adaptable to the user, to the content currently available, to the technical environment of the user, and to the skills, abilities and needs of the learner. This paper provides conceptions that support this kind of adaptivity and sophisticated support.

A formalism for constructing database schemata from simple components is presented in which the components are coupled to one another via communicating views. The emphasis is upon identifying the conditions under which such components can be interconnected in a conflict-free fashion, and a characterization of such, based upon the acyclicity of an underlying hypergraph, is obtained. The work is furthermore oriented towards an understanding of how updates can be supported within the component-based framework, and initial ideas of so-called canonical liftings are presented.

We have created an infant learning environment that has capacity for effective behavioral analysis while providing new views on infant learning, and serves as a basis for creating a corpus of infant behavior. We are gathering behavioral data including but not limited to data in social, spatial and temporal domains, while providing inspiring learning experiences to infants. We have used the corpus for constructing and combining novel models on social interaction and problem solving.

Academic institutions release teaching and examination regulations in order to form the statutory framework of academic programs. Because of the fact that these regulations are worded using legal terminology and are often very complicated, students often do not know how to satisfy these laid down program requirements. This can lead to needlessly long study times. In addition, academic boards have to supply an amount of courses that fits the students' actual demand that is a difficult task because there is often only little information available. Frequent changes of those regulations and the existing of parallel valid different regulations of programs leading to the same degrees may aggravate these problems. In order to be able to offer software support to handle these problems, a computer-understandable representation of academic programs and their examination regulations is needed. In this paper, we present and explain our approach, based upon ontologies. It defines a meta-model that allows such semantic representations. Instantiations of the ontology can be used within a framework, e.g., to implement decision support systems that can help students to decide how they can satisfy the corresponding program requirements, or that can help academic boards to forecast the students' demand on certain courses, or examinations.

We have increasingly more opportunities to use video for our knowledge work, such as monitoring events, reflecting on physical performances, learning subject matter, or analyzing scientific experimental phenomena. In such ill-defined situation, users often create their own browsing styles to explore the videos because the domain knowledge of contents is not useful, and then the users interact with videos according to their browsing style. However, such kind of tacit knowledge, which is acquired through user's experiences, has not been well managed. The goal of our research is to share and reuse tacit knowledge, and then create new knowledge by composing them in video browsing. This paper describes the notion of reusing habitual behavior of video browsing, and presents examples of composing these behaviors to create new video browsing styles.

In a typical scientific research process there is a stage that consists of the following activities: a review of literature, an exploration of existing theories, a review of theoretical background and a definition of the terminology used. The results of these tasks are then presented through some form of conceptualization. Cross-disciplinary research settings introduce several issues when designing these conceptualizations and when sharing and communicating then between the researchers and the stakeholders of the real-world phenomena under study. In this research paper a multidisciplinary conceptualization metamodel and a practical methodology is specified to address these issues. The study demonstrates the preliminary results of utilizing this methodology in the context of an on-going business network integration research project. Additionally, it introduces the prototype of a web-based research environment providing support and an arena for collaboration.

A partition method is designed to achieve the flexibility of semantic models in reflecting changes occurring in real life and the efficiency on object systems. The method of partition has been applied only to the extensional aspects of concepts, i.e. set. In this paper a partition method is applied to the intensional aspects of concepts as well. A particular problem concerning the intensional negation of a concept is solved by defining a restricted intensional negation of a concept, which is important in all practical conceptual design situations all of which are confined in specific restricted part of the universe of discourse. Some further development of partitioning is presented as well.

Here is considered emergence of language in an environment, where agents communicate about issues which are not observable at the moment of communication, e.g. they search food and exits in a labyrinth and communication helps them to achieve their goals (food, exits). In such a situation message's receiver can not observe message's object at the moment when message is received. It is shown, that these non-observable objects can be mapped to observable objects using local environments. Agents do not build representations of the external word, instead of reasoning on representations of the world they access the world directly through perceptions and actions and their perceptions influence their behaviour. Messages from other agents, i.e. emerging language also change their behaviour and increases effectiveness of the whole population. Language is described via two mappings: syntax (i.e. syntactic objects, words) is interpreted in semantics by the meaning mapping; the speech mapping creates for semantic objects their syntactic denotations. Words in agents language gradually become mediated semantic objects, i.e. obtain the same significance (trigger the same actions) as the actual real-word situations which they denote.

In this paper, we discuss the issues and future trends on patentable parameter setting components implemented in multimedia database systems. Multimedia databases in the applications of parameter setting components consist of copyrightable metadata. The data-processing processes are patentable in the forms of parameter setting components. The current techniques in parameter setting components enclose a variety of numerical parametric information which inventors would like to cover as trade secret. We present the conditions of copyrightability on the multimedia databases and the patentability on the parameter setting components with the directions for protecting numerical parametric information as trade secret.

In this contribution a comparison of two approaches for classification of metallography images from the steel plant of Mittal Steel Ostrava plc (Ostrava, Czech Republic) is presented. The aim of the classification is to monitor the process quality in the steel plant. The first classifier represents images by feature vectors extracted using the wavelet transformation, while the feature computation in the second approach is based on the eigen-space analysis. Experiments made for real metallography data indicate feasibility of both methods for automatic image classification in hard industry environment.

In this paper we will consider the usage of knowledge modelling and design with conceptual design and analysis in improving the knowledge description of medical data. There exists many XML and information system (IS) based approaches for producing easy to use, reliable, trustworthy and coherent medical systems and services, like the concepts of HL7. In computer applications web, web services and semantic web based technologies and tools are being used in the business and ecommerce scenarios to produce user-focused, (business) process oriented services in future medical IS. Our case is focused on laboratory exams and their knowledge analysis for predicting and analyzing the usage of various drugs by patients. We show with our case the role of semantic knowledge modelling in coordinating various medical services in a real hospital setting, and hope to extend our work in the future towards semantic web based applications that improve and ease the patient treatments in the IS of the future hospitals.

Currently news sites and news index sites basically provide streams of news with simple classifications or keyword based searching with publication data. When we try to search for news involving a number of potential keywords or unknown keywords, then the task becomes manually tedious or almost impossible. We present automatic methods for constructing news directory systems which contain collections of news index information with flat or hierarchical classification structures. This directory structure enables us to reach the news articles without knowing the keywords exactly. We implemented and evaluated one sample news directory system.

This paper presents an information system architecture for the 7C model for organizational knowledge creation and management. The architecture is derived from the requirements that the 7C model posits. The architecture presented here comprises three layers: the conceptual layer, which discusses fundamental principles of the model, the technology layer, which tackles potential implementation technologies for the environment, and the application layer, which describes possible applications in the environment.

This paper describes development work on children's science learning environments that utilize an inquiry-based learning approach as well as modern technological possibilities. The emphasis in the paper is on the theoretical and pedagogical starting points of inquiry learning and their application to two multimedia learning environments. The modelling of children's exploratory learning in these environments is also described and discussed.

Information processing is often such a large and complex artifact that it goes beyond a human being's capacity to conceive, model and develop it with all of its aspects at a time. For this reason, it is typical for one to focus on some aspects of it in one time and on other aspects in another time, depending on the problem at hand. For recurrent situations it is necessary to have a structured and well-defined set of perspectives which guide selections and shifts of focuses. This paper presents a light-weight perspective ontology which provides a set of well-defined perspectives, established on three dimensions, to conceive issues in information processing in an organized manner. The perspective ontology can be applied on different information processing layers, such as information systems (IS), information systems development (ISD) and method engineering (ME). To demonstrate the applicability of the ontology, it is used to derive a set of IS perspectives with basic IS concepts and constructs. The IS perspectives are then deployed as a framework in a comparative analysis of current perspectives in the IS literature.

Usage of data in various areas and its electronic availability has upgraded the importance of data quality to the highest level. In general, data quality has at least a syntactic and a semantic component. The syntactic component is relatively easily reached, mostly supported by tools, while the semantic component requires further research. In many cases, data is taken from different sources which are distributed among enterprises and vary in levels of quality. Special attention needs to be paid to data upon which critical decisions are met. In the paper we will focus on data quality in connection with conceptual modeling, including reuse of models and/or parts of them and data policy for increasing the quality of data.

We, NICT, recently started a new project for research and development of “knowledge cluster systems” for knowledge sharing, analysis, and delivery among remote knowledge sites. We introduce several key concepts of the knowledge cluster systems. The “Three-site model” for knowledge system architecture defines three roles of remote sites: knowledge capture, knowledge transfer, and knowledge provision, with respect to the lifecycle of knowledge communication. The “global knowledge grid” is as an infrastructure that is suitable for implementing knowledge cluster systems on the basis of the three-site model. The knowledge cluster systems build an evolving network of community knowledge by connecting heterogeneous knowledge bases. The “global risk management system” is being developed as an application of the knowledge cluster systems.

TAP is a general process modeling framework with which we can describe process specifications in terms of tasks, agents and products that are relevant to the concept of processes. However, its formal semantics and pragmatics have not been rigorously studied, i.e. the usage of vocabulary words provided by TAP framework and the pieces of reality which TAP framework captures has not been formally considered. In this paper, we clarify the pragmatics of TAP and the world structures of TAP process models by formal approach. We present the semantic structure for TAP process models and introduce a logical language to restrict world structures of TAP. A formal ontology for business process model TAP is the characterization described as a set of axioms in our logical language.

The advances in the educational field and the high complexity of student modelling has provoked it to be one of the more investigated aspects in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). The Student Models (SM) should not only represent the student's knowledge, in a wide sense, but rather they should be, insofar as it is possible, a snapshot of the student's reasoning process. In this article, a new approach to student's modelling is proposed that benefits of the Ontological Engineering advantages, so widely used at the present time, to advance in the pursue of a more granular and complete knowledge representation. The goal is to define an ontological basis for SMs characterized by a high flexibility for its integration in varied ITSs, a good adaptability to the student's features, as well as to favor a rich diagnostic process with nonmonotonic reasoning capacities, allowing the treatment of the contradictions raised during the student's reasoning and diagnosis.

This paper demonstrates research activities regarding ontology-based knowledge evaluation in Higher Education. Conceptualization initiatives for educational domain are currently a hot topic and at the same time a challenge. In the paper we demonstrate an adaptive knowledge testing and evaluation system supported by the educational ontology, which helps the students to explore missing knowledge areas and guide them to the material which has to be further studied. The system is the outcome of fourteen higher institutes in Hungary, so we have gathered several experiences during the system test (which was organized and performed by the participating higher institutes and their students), which we highlight in the article. Current phase of the research concentrated to the curricula of the Business Informatics program, as a test environment. We outline our further improvement and refinement also.

Cross-cultural research projects are becoming a norm in our global world. More and more projects are being executed using teams from eastern and western cultures. Cultural competence might help project managers to achieve project goals and avoid potential risks in cross-cultural project environments and would also support them to promote creativity and motivation through flexible leadership. In our paper we introduce an idea for constructing an information system, a cross-cultural knowledge space, which could support cross-cultural communication, collaborative learning experiences and time-based project management functions. The case cultures in our project are Finnish and Japanese. The system can be used both in virtual and in physical spaces for example to clarify cultural business etiquette. The core of our system design will be based on cross-cultural ontology, and the system implementation on XML technologies. Our approach is a practical, step-by-step example of constructive research. In our paper we shortly describe Hofstede's dimensions for assessing cultures as one example of a larger framework for our study. We also discuss the concept of time in cultural context.