The Semantic Web should enable greater access not only to content but also to services on the Web. Users and software agents should be able to discover, invoke, compose, and monitor Web resources offering particular services and having particular properties. As part of the DARPA Agent Markup Language program, we have begun to develop an ontology of services, called DAML-S, that will make these functionalities possible. In this paper we describe the overall structure of the ontology, the service profile for advertising services, and the process model for the detailed description of the operation of services. We also compare DAML-S with several industry efforts to define standards for characterizing services on the Web.

/pdf/daml-s-semantic-markup-for-web-services-2bz2kpfwet.pdf

DAML-S: semantic markup for web services

The paradigmatic shift from a Web of manual interactions to a Web of programmatic interactions driven by Web services is creating unprecedented opportunities for the formation of online business-to-business (B2B) collaborations. In particular, the creation of value-added services by composition of existing ones is gaining a significant momentum. Since many available Web services provide overlapping or identical functionality, albeit with different quality of service (QoS), a choice needs to be made to determine which services are to participate in a given composite service. This paper presents a middleware platform which addresses the issue of selecting Web services for the purpose of their composition in a way that maximizes user satisfaction expressed as utility functions over QoS attributes, while satisfying the constraints set by the user and by the structure of the composite service. Two selection approaches are described and compared: one based on local (task-level) selection of services and the other based on global allocation of tasks to services using integer programming.

/pdf/qos-aware-middleware-for-web-services-composition-x57gs4mhme.pdf

QoS-aware middleware for Web services composition

The Web is moving from being a collection of pages toward a collection of services that interoperate through the Internet. The first step toward this interoperation is the location of other services that can help toward the solution of a problem. In this paper we claim that location of web services should be based on the semantic match between a declarative description of the service being sought, and a description of the service being offered. Furthermore, we claim that this match is outside the representation capabilities of registries such as UDDI and languages such as WSDL.We propose a solution based on DAML-S, a DAML-based language for service description, and we show how service capabilities are presented in the Profile section of a DAML-S description and how a semantic match between advertisements and requests is performed.

https://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~pyolum/cmpe596/papers/matchmaking.pdf

Semantic Matching of Web Services Capabilities

JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) is a software framework to make easy the development of multi-agent applications in compliance with the FIPA specifications. JADE can then be considered a middle-ware that implements an efficient agent platform and supports the development of multi agent systems. JADE agent platform tries to keep high the performance of a distributed agent system implemented with the Java language. In particular, its communication architecture tries to offer flexible and efficient messaging, transparently choosing the best transport available and leveraging state-of-the-art distributed object technology embedded within Java runtime environment. JADE uses an agent model and Java implementation that allow good runtime efficiency, software reuse, agent mobility and the realization of different agent architectures.

Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) is an emerging approach that addresses the requirements of loosely coupled, standards-based, and protocol- independent distributed computing. Typically business operations running in an SOA comprise a number of invocations of these different components, often in an event-driven or asynchronous fashion that reflects the underlying business process needs. To build an SOA a highly distributable communications and integration backbone is required. This functionality is provided by the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) that is an integration platform that utilizes Web services standards to support a wide variety of communications patterns over multiple transport protocols and deliver value-added capabilities for SOA applications. This paper reviews technologies and approaches that unify the principles and concepts of SOA with those of event-based programing. The paper also focuses on the ESB and describes a range of functions that are designed to offer a manageable, standards-based SOA backbone that extends middleware functionality throughout by connecting heterogeneous components and systems and offers integration services. Finally, the paper proposes an approach to extend the conventional SOA to cater for essential ESB requirements that include capabilities such as service orchestration, "intelligent" routing, provisioning, integrity and security of message as well as service management. The layers in this extended SOA, in short xSOA, are used to classify research issues and current research activities.

/pdf/service-oriented-architectures-approaches-technologies-and-1m0bcwz0fm.pdf

Service oriented architectures: approaches, technologies and research issues

/pdf/using-rules-to-define-the-semantics-of-privacy-policies-4wze3r0x9a.pdf

Using Rules to Define the Semantics of Privacy Policies.

Urban violence in the form of ethnic and religious conflicts/crises and even open warfare have been on the increase in many African cities in the recent years. Observation from literature shows that the role of violent-ethno religious conflicts as a mobilizing agent is among the most important questions of this century as conflicts linked to ethnicity and religion have led to significant destruction life and residential properties. Due to the number of crises in Jos metropolis over the last two decades, there has been a process of residential segregation along religious lines, dividing the city into predominantly Christian and Muslim areas. This research paper, therefore, attempts to examine the impact of violent ethno-religious conflicts on residential property value determination in Jos metropolis of northern Nigeria. Data were collected by interviews, self-administered surveys through questionnaire and direct observation. The stratified random sampling technique was employed in order to generate the data for the research. Simple percentage distribution tables and regression analysis were used to analyze the data for the research. The findings reveal that violent ethno-religious conflicts manifesting as social security (safety) is a function of residential property value determinants in the study area. It has also been established through the findings of this study that the experience in the study area challenges the existing theories of residential property value determinants. The results of the analysis show that there is strong relationship between violent ethno-religious conflicts and people’s choice of where to live and or not to live. This result suggests that policies that encourage social integration, psycho-social healing and psychological transformation could enhance the attainment of peace in the study area. There is also a need on the part of investors and property developers to take security into consideration whenever they want to embark on huge real estate investment to avoid wasting of capital.

Impact of Violent Ethno-Religious Conflicts on Residential Property Value Determination in Jos Metropolis of Northern Nigeria: Regression Analysis Results

Wikidata constraints, albeit useful, are represented and processed in an incomplete, ad hoc fashion. Constraint declarations do not fully express their meaning, and thus do not provide a precise, unambiguous basis for constraint specification, or a logical foundation for constraint-checking implementations. In prior work we have proposed a logical framework for Wikidata as a whole, based on multi-attributed relational structures (MARS) and related logical languages. In this paper we explain how constraints are handled in the proposed framework, and show that nearly all of Wikidata’s existing property constraints can be completely characterized in it, in a natural and economical fashion. We also give characterizations for several proposed property constraints, and show that a variety of non-property constraints can be handled in the same framework. Copyright c ©2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

/pdf/wikidata-constraints-on-mars-er82fcyq9u.pdf

Wikidata Constraints on MARS.

Purpose: The current practice housing policies of Nigeria did not highlight on the affordability of formal low cost houses. Low income earners don’t have sufficient income to buy a calorie of foods and meet basic necessities like clothing, rent, fuel, utilities, transport, communications, medical expenses, education, and on a broader sense, housing. Objectives of this study were (i) to investigate the current practices of housing policies in Bauchi Nigeria; (ii) to evaluate the affordability elements in Bauchi Nigeria, (iii) to study the relationship among the FLCH affordability elements in Bauchi Nigeria . Methodology employed includes descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation. Findings: The study found that there are no laws, sections or guidelines regulating the affairs of formal low cost housing. The design does not reflect user need; it did not conform to their culture, family background and size. No provision for public participation in the policy documents. Formal low cost houses are located at the peripheries of the town outside trekking distances which repel beneficiaries because of the awkward location. Residents have higher number of defendants, lower income and lower qualification. This study found that design, location, participation, highlight on affordability and family issues have prominent impact on affordability and hence be incorporated in policy document. It can therefore be clinch that formal low cost houses in Bauchi, are not affordable. Conclusively, these affordability elements should be upheld to ensure sustainable formal low cost housing affordability policy for the low income groups. The physical and socio-economic elements are the catalyst in the housing provision aspect. These elements can bridge the wide fissure being the basic features, essentials and the fundamentals of a good policy. Keywords: Affordability elements, formal low cost housing, housing policy issues, house ownership

/pdf/physical-and-socio-economic-affordability-elements-that-48hbig1aw7.pdf

David Martin

Papers

Using Rules to Define the Semantics of Privacy Policies.

Impact of Violent Ethno-Religious Conflicts on Residential Property Value Determination in Jos Metropolis of Northern Nigeria: Regression Analysis Results

Wikidata Constraints on MARS.

Physical and Socio Economic Affordability Elements that Regulate formal low cost housing tenure in Bauchi Metropolis

Mycophenolate Mofetil: A Friend or a Foe with PTCy and Tacrolimus Prophylaxis in HLA-Matched donors?