ECEC'2017, 22nd European Collaborative Engineering Conference, May 31-June 2, 2017,Polish Acad.of Sciences,Warsaw,Poland Keynote



 

Keynote Speakers

Collaboration needs Semantic Interoperability


Maria Ganzha
Systems Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences
Warsaw, Poland

Abstract

One of the most obvious statements is: any form of collaboration requires some form of understanding between collaborating parties. Establishing such understanding between humans can be, at least to some extent, achievable. The situation becomes more complex when non-human artifacts enter the mix. In this case, making machines understand each other is a very resource consuming process (especially when the number of distinct collaborating entities increases).

As an example, let us consider the Internet of Things (IoT). Here, lack of interoperability between platforms / systems / applications (artifacts) has been recognized one of key issues that prevents faster development of IoT ecosystems (including Smart Grids / Buildings / Logistics Solutions / Manufacturing, etc.). Acknowledging this problem, the European Commission has funded seven research projects that are to address it. While ability to collaborate can be considered on many levels, in this presentation we will focus our attention on semantic interoperability.

Based on our recent work, we came to the conclusion that we have to assume that: (1) research should focus on joining at least three artifacts (to avoid “one-to-one-platform-simplifications” that can easily “distort judgment”), and (ii) existing artifacts cannot be easily changed (resistance of stakeholders) and / or do not have semantics represented in the OWL language. We also have to assume that, at least for the time being, process of establishing collaborative environment will have to be guided by representatives of stakeholders (we thus omit considerations related to the discovery and inclusion of services “from the WWW”). Therefore, we propose the following approach leading towards establishing semantic interoperability within IoT ecosystems:
(1) Modular ontology (extended vocabulary) consisting of: (a) core vocabulary of the IoT, and (b) domain specific modules has to be developed.
(2) Semantics of each existing artifact has to be extracted and lifted to OWL (providing foundation for semantic translations).
(3) Translators (bidirectional – producer and consumer) between the “local vocabulary” and the “lifted vocabulary” have to be created.

The aim of the presentation will be to provide details of the above described proposal for reaching semantic interoperability in IoT ecosystems. Generalizations concerning use of the proposed approach outside of the IoT will be also discussed.
Research presented in the talk is being supported by EU-H2020-ICT grant INTER-IoT 687283.

Curriculum Vitae

Maria Ganzha is an associate professor in the System Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences. She has an MS and a PhD in Mathematics from the Moscow State University, Russia, and a Doctor of Science from the Polish Academy of Sciences. M. Ganzha has published more than 140 research papers, is on editorial boards of 6 journals and a book series, and was invited to program committees of more than 100 conferences. To reach her, please visit http://pages.mini.pw.edu.pl/~ganzham.