Semi-automated schema integration with SASMINT

The emergence of increasing number of collaborating organizations has made clear the need for supporting interoperability infrastructures, enabling sharing and exchange of data among organizations. Schema matching and schema integration are the crucial components of the interoperability infrastructures, and their semi-automation to interrelate or integrate heterogeneous and autonomous databases in collaborative networks is desired. The Semi-Automatic Schema Matching and INTegration (SASMINT) System introduced in this paper identifies and resolves several important syntactic, semantic, and structural conflicts among schemas of relational databases to find their likely matches automatically. Furthermore, after getting the user validation on the matched results, it proposes an integrated schema. SASMINT uses a combination of a variety of metrics and algorithms from the Natural Language Processing and Graph Theory domains for its schema matching. For the schema integration, it utilizes a number of derivation rules defined in the scope of the research work explained in this paper. Furthermore, a derivation language called SASMINT Derivation Markup Language (SDML) is defined for capturing and formulating both the results of matching and the integration that can be further used, for example for federated query processing from independent databases. In summary, the paper focuses on addressing: (1) conflicts among schemas that make automatic schema matching and integration difficult, (2) the main components of the SASMINT approach and system, (3) in-depth exploration of SDML, (4) heuristic rules designed and implemented as part of the schema integration component of the SASMINT system, and (5) experimental evaluation of SASMINT.     

Modeling and management of profiles and competencies in VBEs

Virtual organization Breeding Environments (VBEs) are long-term clusters/associations of autonomous and geographically dispersed organizations in the market and society. The VBE aims to prepare its member organizations and enhance their readiness for potential involvement in opportunity-based Virtual Organizations (VOs). Organizing/management of profiles is a key activity in VBEs. The need for management of profiles is even larger in medium-size and large-size VBEs (e.g. with more then 50 members), where typically the member organizations do not have the chance of getting to know all others directly. Furthermore, uniform structuring/modeling of the mostly textual content of profiles enables their processing by the software that supports variety of VBE functionality. An important element of the profiles in VBEs is the competency. There is no consensus on the definition of competency and the existing literature associate it with a range of tangible characteristics such as resources and products, as well as intangible characteristics such as knowledge and motivation. This paper introduces and details a unified/generic model for VBE profiles and VBE competencies. It further addresses the design of an adaptable, replicable and sustainable Profile and Competency Management System (PCMS), which is being developed supported by the ontology for profiles and competencies. An approach and mechanism for semi-automated derivation/discovery of elements for organization’s profile and competency from on-line text corpora is also introduced.     

A Scalable Web Server Architecture

This paper describes a scalable architecture for Web servers designed to cope with the ongoing increase of the Internet requirements. In the paper, first the drawbacks of the traditional Web server architecture are discussed, and the need for an innovative solution is described. The proposed design addresses two of the parameters that can dramatically impact the performance of Web servers: (1) the need for a powerful data management system to cope with the increase in the complexity of users' requests; and (2) an efficient caching mechanism to reduce the amount of redundant traffic. In this direction, a scalable solution based on distributed database technology to replace the file system is described, and performance test results of the system are provided. This architecture is further extended by a collaborative caching system that builds up an adaptive hierarchy of caches for Web servers, which allows them to keep up with the changes in the traffic generated by the applications they are running. Finally, some improvements to the proposed architecture are addressed.     

Hierarchical Coordination in Virtual Enterprise Infrastructures

The hierarchical coordination infrastructure for Virtual Enterprises developed by the Esprit PRODNET II project is introduced in this paper. Flexibility and easy configurability are the major requirements, specially in the context of small and medium size enterprises, in order to cope with the large diversity of operating scenarios at different virtual enterprises. The proposed novel hierarchical coordination architecture, the implementation approach and some preliminary results are discussed.     

A comprehensive modeling framework for collaborative networked organizations

Collaborative networked organizations (CNOs) are complex entities whose proper understanding, design, implementation, and management require the integration of different modeling perspectives. A large number of modeling tools and theories that have been developed in other disciplines have a potential applicability in this domain. Therefore, an identification of the most promising approaches is made and mapped into four dimensions of an endogenous perspective of collaborative networked organizations: structural, componential, functional, and behavioral. But a comprehensive modeling of such complex dynamic systems requires also an exogenous perspective, the life cycle dimension, and a stratification of models according to the modeling purpose. Thus a comprehensive modeling framework is therefore proposed as a first step towards the elaboration of a reference model for collaborative networks.     

A systematic approach for business service consolidation in virtual organizations

Various forms of partnerships have increasingly emerged among organizations, in both the manufacturing and service industry. In one type of structured partnership, called the Virtual Organization (VO), the member organizations share with each other a part of their capacities and capabilities, so that together they can seize a bigger market share and more opportunities. However, to excel the VO’s potential, the participating organizations must become fully informed about each other’s particular abilities and competencies, as represented by their shared business services (BSs). Our approach proposes the creation of a common shared pool of integrated BSs, and further optimizing it through consolidating similar and related BSs, to reduce the size of this shared pool and enhance its learning curve by the VO partners. To this end, we extend and adapt a Business Process merge technique to make it more suitable to BS consolidation and VO applicability. In this paper, a semiautomated methodology is introduced that creates an optimized, clean (i.e., anomaly-free consolidated model), and valid (i.e., approved by domain experts) set of consolidated BSs in the VO context. Design science principles are applied to this research, and a systematic literature review is also performed. Furthermore, a real case study from the construction industry is conducted to validate the introduced methodology.     

On management of 2nd generation Virtual Organizations Breeding Environments

Nowadays, in a wide variety of sectors from production-based to service-oriented, temporary collaboration among organizations in the so-called Virtual Organizations (VOs), is the trend adopted by most, and in particular by small and medium enterprises. Pre-existence of long-term associations/clusters of active and competitive organizations, the so-called Virtual Organizations Breeding Environments (VBEs), is shown to greatly enhance dynamic creation of VOs. A number of VBEs have been formed world-wide during the last decade, mostly among organizations located in a common region, with common business culture, and primarily focus on specific lines of activities. This paper however addresses the 2nd generation VBEs that are not bound to geographical regions or specific activities. These VBEs shall play an active role in the society/market as competitive entities, and need to effectively support agile configuration and establishment of dynamic VOs. Furthermore, the 2nd generation VBEs require enabling ICT infrastructure and tools, to facilitate their daily management activities as well as supporting the collaboration among their member organizations. The paper introduces a number of models, methodologies and tools designed and developed to support 2nd generation VBEs.     

Collaborative networks: a new scientific discipline

Collaborative networks manifest in a large variety of forms, including virtual organizations, virtual enterprises, dynamic supply chains, professional virtual communities, collaborative virtual laboratories, etc. A large body of empiric knowledge related to collaborative networks is already available, but there is an urgent need to consolidate this knowledge and build the foundations for a more sustainable development of this area. The establishment of a scientific discipline for collaborative networks is a strong instrument in achieving this purpose. In this article the main characteristics of a “discipline” are analyzed in the context of collaborative networks, showing that the pre-conditions necessary for building this new discipline are available.