SIGA3D

The interoperability of Information Systems has been a research topic for over thirty years. While some forms of heterogeneity have been settled by the adoption of standards, some domains, such as the Urban Information Modeling (UIM), require specific research. The UIM combines information from the domain of Building Information Modeling (BIM) with Geographic Information System (GIS) within a collaborative platform. Using this platform, a set of heterogeneous actors takes part in the lifecycle of the urban environment through a 3D digital model. This ambition is faced with several gaps such as resolution of semantic heterogeneity in the lifecycle management system, the resolution of structural heterogeneity between 2D geo-referenced modeling and 3D geometric modeling, or problem solving scalability for real-time 3D display from a remote server for managing a real environment of several million square meters. In this chapter, the authors present the SIGA3D European Project trying to overcome these obstacles into a Web collaborative platform combining BIM and GIS data and processes for Urban Facility Management.

Governmental Service Transformation through Cost Scenarios Simulation

Formal methods for measuring the impact of interoperability on digital public services is emerging as an important research challenge in electronic government. The eGOVSIM model that is described in this chapter aims to provide administrations with a tool to calculate the gains from digitising and making interoperable services for citizens and businesses. The chapter presents existing methods for calculating the cost of services for the administration and the service consumers, such as the Standard Cost Model (SCM) and the Activity Based Costing (ABC). Then it goes on presenting a toolset for analytical cost calculations based on the various process steps and the information needs of each governmental service. The eGOVSIM toolset supports the definition of several service provision scenarios, such as front/back office system interoperability, cross-system or cross-organisational interoperability allowing the calculation of time, effort and cost elements, and relevant gains from the application of each scenario. Application results for two cases / scenarios are also presented, so that the reader can see the applicability and overall value of the approach. Lessons learned and future research directions for service cost estimation are also described.

Towards Supporting Interoperability in e-Invoicing Based on Semantic Web Technologies

Since the use of electronic invoicing in business transactions was approved by the EU back in 2002, its application in Europe has grown considerably. However, despite the existence of standards like EDIFACT or UBL, widespread take up of electronic invoicing has been hindered by the enormous heterogeneity of proprietary solutions. In this chapter, the authors present an approach towards addressing the interoperability problem in electronic invoice exchange, based on ontologies and Semantic Web technologies. The authors propose methods and provide usable tools that leverage the knowledge of users of electronic invoicing systems by empowering them to define correspondences between sample electronic invoice data and a formal model of electronic invoicing represented as networked ontologies. The chapter follows a learn-by-example approach where, based on such correspondences, networked ontologies serve as a semantic hub for large-scale transformation of e-invoice data between heterogeneous e-invoicing formats and models. The approach has been evaluated through the development of a reference implementation and its deployment in the pharmaceutical sector.

Fundamental Building Blocks for Security Interoperability in e-Business

The e-business concept goes beyond traditional electronic enterprise systems that are typically owned and controlled by one company. In e-business systems the data is exchanged in a distributed environment where different components and systems are owned and controlled by different companies. This introduces two main challenges: (1) there is a need for adequate security mechanisms that can protect the data in an end-to-end manner (2) the security mechanisms deployed in e-Business systems must be interoperable to ensure that they work with the security mechanism of others’ systems. This chapter makes an overview of security mechanisms applicable to e-Business, as well as relevant security standards. The chapter also gives an outlook on novel approaches to e-Business security.

Analysis of Interoperability of e-Business Documents

The purpose of this chapter is to provide insight into factors that influence the development of electronic business documents and their exchange. In particular, the chapter addresses the issue of achieving interoperability between partners involved in electronic communications. It gives an overview of problems that occur at each level of interoperability and suggests ways to resolve them in accordance with current trends. The chapter also contains a projection of future developments in the field including the use of ontologies in business documents.

Challenges for Adoption of e-Procurement

In a society well on its way through a digital revolution, a number of new challenges are encountered, and when participating in electronic business, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face specific challenges and issues. In this chapter an analysis of those challenges covering electronic procurement within public and private sectors (B2G, B2B) is provided, including a case study from electronic invoicing. Relevant factors for the use of electronic invoicing for SMEs in Europe are recognized, and requirements for a technical solution are identified. Starting from that, an architecture for the solution is derived. The solution is aligned with the initiatives working on that issue within Europe.

Towards a Healthcare Interoperability Framework Based on Medical Business Artifacts, Social Networks, and Communities of Healthcare Professionals

This chapter looks into the challenges facing healthcare Information Systems interoperability from a technological perspective and how to address some of these challenges using three concepts, namely medical artifacts, social networks, and communities. Medical artifacts represent chunks of information that healthcare practitioners act upon and exchange as part of their daily activities. Social networks reflect interactions occurring between these practitioners when performing joint activities. Finally, communities illustrate pockets of expertise capable of collaborating with respect to pre-defined protocols.

Collaboration-Based Model-Driven Approach for Business Service Composition

The authors of this chapter argue that business processes can be modeled in the same way as collaborative business services, and therefore use an approach developed for such services. They consider business services that are collaborative and crosscutting in nature; several participants may collaborate in a business service to achieve its goal, and a participant may take part in several different business services, playing different roles in each. A framework to support the development and composition of such business services is the main focus of this chapter. The authors use UML collaborations for modeling the structure of roles involved in a business service/process, and activity diagrams for specifying the global behavior performed by the roles. From these models, reusable components realizing the roles can be automatically synthesized, and such components can then be composed together in order to make different systems that meet the requirements of business services.

An Event-Based Middleware for the Management of Choreographed Services

A critical issue in the choreographed services development is the conciliation of interaction protocol mismatches that affect the cooperation among the services to be integrated in the composite service. This chapter attempts to answer such an issue by presenting a mediation framework that supports the development and management of choreographed services by offering a loosely-coupled integration model and a flexible management of protocol mismatches. Such features are obtained by introducing (i) an action-based representation of the functions offered by a Web service; (ii) an explicit management of the state of the choreographed service, which determines the operations to be carried out in order to contribute to the service completion; (iii) an event-driven Web service execution model, which makes it possible to abandon the direct invocation of Web service operations in favour of an autonomous execution of actions, based on the available context information.

Tool Based Integration of Requirements Modeling and Validation into Business Process Modeling

Business process models (BPM) are widely used for specification of software systems, as the basis for model driven software development. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that these BPMs fulfill the requirements they have to comply with. These requirements may originate from various domains. Many may be considered non-functional requirements. They are affecting privacy, security, as well as compliance or economic aspects. In order to avoid error-prone manual checking, automated checking techniques should be applied wherever possible. This requires expressing requirements in a formal manner. The common textual representations for such formal requirements are not well accepted in the modeling domain, since they are settled on a lower level of abstraction, compared to BPMs. In this chapter, the authors present the Business Application Modeler (BAM), which integrates formal requirement specification and automated checking with process modeling. On the one hand BAM supports different notations for process modeling. On the other hand a graphical notation, called G-CTL, for the formal specification of requirements is provided. G-CTL is based on temporal logic, and statements are expressed on the level of abstraction of the graphical process models. Furthermore BAM provides the ability to define selective views on process models. This allows complex domain specific annotations of processes as well as the assignment of responsibilities regarding functional domains. Moreover, BAM integrates into common requirements engineering processes.