18763107
Building Semantic Mappings from Databases to Ontologies
A recent special issue of AI Magazine (AAAI 2005) was dedicated to the topic of semantic integration -- the problem of sharing data across disparate sources. At the core of the solution lies the discovery the "semantics" of different data sources. Ideally, the semantics of data are captured by a formal ontology of the domain together with a semantic mapping connecting the schema describing the data to the ontology. However, establishing the semantic mapping from a database schema to a formal ontology in terms of formal logic expressions is inherently difficult to automate, so the task was left to humans. In this paper, we report on our study (An, Borgida, & Mylopoulos 2005a; 2005b) of a semi-automatic tool, called MAPONTO, that assists users to discover plausible semantic relationships between a database schema (relational or XML) and an ontology, expressing them as logical formulas/rules.
6610874
Detecting Conflicts of Interest
System vulnerabilities are often caused by the presence of conflicts within the organization where the system-to-be would eventually operate. In particular, conflicts of interest are very harmful since actors can exploit their positions/roles relative to the system for gaining personal advantage. Capturing and resolving such conflicts is a necessary condition for developing secure information systems. In this paper, we show how conflicts of interest can be formally detected during requirements analysis. This allows system designers to investigate the causes for which conflicts may occur in an organization. Thereby, they can better understand the organizational structure and so provide appropriate countermeasures to resolve or at least mitigate them
45301228
Agent-Oriented Software Development
The Tropos project is developing concepts, tools and techniques for building agent-oriented software. This paper presents a quick overview of the project and then focuses on a specific problem: the identification of architectural styles for multi-agent systems (MAS). The proposed styles have been adopted from the literature on organization theory and strategic alliances. The styles are represented in i*, a framework designed to model social and intentional concepts. Each proposed style is evaluated with respect to a set of agent software qualities, such as predictability, adaptability and availability. The use of the styles is illustrated and contrasted with a software architecture for mobile robot reported in the literature.
2428324
ST-tool: a CASE tool for security requirements engineering
Security requirements engineering is emerging as a branch of software engineering, spurred by the realization that security must be dealt with early on during the requirements phase. We propose ST-tool, a CASE tool developed for modeling and analyzing functional and security requirements.
14238197
Data Semantics Revisited
The problem of data semantics is establishing and maintaining the correspondence between a data source and its intended subject matter. We review the long history of the problem in Databases, and contrast it with recent research on the Semantic Web. We then propose two new directions for research on the problem and sketch some open research questions.
661878
Text Mining Through Semi Automatic Semantic Annotation
The Web is the greatest information source in human history. Unfortunately, mining knowledge out of this source is a laborious and error-prone task. Many researchers believe that a solution to the problem can be founded on semantic annotations that need to be inserted in web-based documents and guide information extraction and knowledge mining. In this paper, we further elaborate a tool-supported process for semantic annotation of documents based on techniques and technologies traditionally used in software analysis and reverse engineering for large-scale legacy code bases. The outcomes of the paper include an experimental evaluation framework and empirical results based on two case studies adopted from the Tourism sector. The conclusions suggest that our approach can facilitate the semi-automatic annotation of large document bases.
3507397
A knowledge level software engineering methodology for agent oriented programming
Our goal in this paper is to introduce and motivate a methodology, called \emph{Tropos}, for building agent oriented software systems. Tropos is based on two key ideas. First, the notion of agent and all the related mentalistic notions (for instance: beliefs, goals, actions and plans) are used in all phases of software development, from the early analysis down to the actual implementation. Second, Tropos covers also the very early phases of requirements analysis, thus allowing for a deeper understanding of the environment where the software must operate, and of the kind of interactions that should occur between software and human agents. The methodology is illustrated with the help of a case study.
596050
Building knowledge base management systems

Abstract.Advanced applications in fields such as CAD, software engineering, real-time process control, corporate repositories and digital libraries require the construction, efficient access and management of large, shared knowledge bases. Such knowledge bases cannot be built using existing tools such as expert system shells, because these do not scale up, nor can they be built in terms of existing database technology, because such technology does not support the rich representational structure and inference mechanisms required for knowledge-based systems. This paper proposes a generic architecture for a knowledge base management system intended for such applications. The architecture assumes an object-oriented knowledge representation language with an assertional sublanguage used to express constraints and rules. It also provides for general-purpose deductive inference and special-purpose temporal reasoning. Results reported in the paper address several knowledge base management issues. For storage management, a new method is proposed for generating a logical schema for a given knowledge base. Query processing algorithms are offered for semantic and physical query optimization, along with an enhanced cost model for query cost estimation. On concurrency control, the paper describes a novel concurrency control policy which takes advantage of knowledge base structure and is shown to outperform two-phase locking for highly structured knowledge bases and update-intensive transactions. Finally, algorithms for compilation and efficient processing of constraints and rules during knowledge base operations are described. The paper describes original results, including novel data structures and algorithms, as well as preliminary performance evaluation data. Based on these results, we conclude that knowledge base management systems which can accommodate large knowledge bases are feasible.

3571148
Requirement Engineering Meets Security: A Case Study on Modelling Secure Electronic Transactions by VISA and Mastercard
Computer Security is one of today’s hot topic and the need for conceptual models of security features have brought up a number of proposals ranging from UML extensions to novel conceptual models. What is still missing, however, are models that focus on high-level security requirements, without forcing the modeler to immediately get down to security mechanisms. The modeling process itself should make it clear why encryption, authentication or access control are necessary, and what are the tradeoffs, if they are selected. In this paper we show that the i*/Tropos framework lacks the ability to capture these essential features and needs to be augmented. To motivate our proposal, we build upon a substantial case study – the modeling of the Secure Electronic Transactions e-commerce suites by VISA and MasterCard – to identify missing modeling features. In a nutshell, the key missing concept is the separation of the notion of offering a service (of a handling data, performing a task or fulfilling a goal) and ownership of the very same service. This separation is what makes security essential. The ability of the methodology to model a clear dependency relation between those offering a service (the merchant processing a credit card number), those requesting the service (the bank debiting the payment), and those owning the very same data (the cardholder), make security solutions emerge as a natural consequence of the modeling process.
6657466
Local Relational Model: A Logical Formalization of Database Coordination
We propose a new data model intended for peer-to-peer (P2P) databases. The model assumes that each peer has a (relational) database and exchanges data with other peers (its acquaintances). In this context, one needs a data model that views the space of available data within the P2P network as an open collection of possibly overlapping and inconsistent databases. Accordingly, the paper proposes the Local Relational Model, develops a semantics for coordination formulas. The main result of the paper generalizes Reiter's characterization of a relational database in terms of a first order theory [1], by providing a syntactic characterization of a relational space in terms of a multi-context system. This work extends earlier work by Giunchiglia and Ghidini on Local Model Semantics [2].
35113903
Using semantic networks for data base management
This paper presents a semantic model of data bases. The model assumes the availability of a semantic network storing knowledge about a data base and a set of attributes for the data base. The use of the semantic net in generating a relational schema for the data base, in defining a set of semantic operators and in maintaining the data base consistent is then demonstrated.