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Ontology-driven intelligent service for configuration support in networked organizations

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Abstract

Nowadays, organizations must continually adapt to market and organizational changes to achieve their most important goals. Migration to business services and service-oriented architectures provides a valuable opportunity to attain the organization objectives. This migration causes evolution both in organizational structure and in technology-enabling businesses to dynamically change vendors and services. One of the forms of organizational structures is the form of networked organization. Technologies of business intelligence and Web intelligence effectively support business processes within the networked organizations. While business intelligence focuses on development of services for consumer needs recognition, information search, and evaluation of alternatives; Web intelligence addresses advancement of Web-empowered systems, services, and environments. The paper proposes a technological ontology-driven framework for configuration support as applied to networked organization. The framework integrates concepts of business intelligence and Web intelligence into a collaboration environment of a networked organization on the base of attainment of knowledge logistics purposes. This framework referred to as KSNet is based on the integration of software agent technology and Web services. Knowledge logistics functions of KSNet are complemented by technological functions of knowledge-gathering agents. The services of these agents are implemented with CAPNET, a FIPA compliant agent platform. CAPNET allows consuming services of agents in a service-oriented way. Applicability of the approach is illustrated through a “Binni scenario”-based case study of a portable field hospital configuration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 39, 14th Line, St Petersburg, 199178, Russia

    Alexander Smirnov, Nikolay Shilov & Tatiana Levashova

  2. Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo, Eje Central Cardenas N 152, Col. San Bartolo Atepehuacn Mexico, D.F. 07730, Mexico

    Leonid Sheremetov & Miguel Contreras

Authors
  1. Alexander Smirnov
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  2. Nikolay Shilov
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  3. Tatiana Levashova
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  4. Leonid Sheremetov
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  5. Miguel Contreras
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Smirnov.

Additional information

Alexander Smirnov received his M.E., Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees from St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1979, 1984, and 1994, respectively. He is a Deputy Director for Research and a Head of Computer Aided Integrated Systems Laboratory at St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS). He is a full professor at St. Petersburg State Electrical Engineering University. His current research interests include corporate knowledge management, Web-services, group decision support systems, virtual enterprises, and supply chain management.

Nikolay Shilov received his M.E. from St. Petersburg State Technical University, Russia, in 1998 and his Ph.D. from SPIIRAS, in 2005. He is a senior researcher at the Computer Aided Integrated Systems Laboratory of SPIIRAS. His current research interests include virtual enterprise configuration, supply chain management, knowledge management, ontology engineering and Web-services.

Tatiana Levashova received her M.E. degree from St. Petersburg State Electrical Engineering University, in 1986. She is a lead programmer at Computer Aided Integrated Systems Laboratory of SPIIRAS. Her current research is devoted to knowledge-related problems such as knowledge representation, knowledge management, and ontology management. She has published more than 96 papers in reviewed journals and proceedings of international conferences.

Leonid Sheremetov received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1990 from St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences where he has worked as a research fellow and a senior research fellow from 1982. Now, he is a principal investigator of the Research Program on Applied Mathematics and Computing of the Mexican Petroleum Institute where he leads the Distributed Intelligent Systems Group, and is also a part-time professor of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Centre for Computing Research of the National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico. His current research interests include multiagent systems, semantic WEB, decision support systems, and enterprise information integration. His group developed CAPNET agent platform and has been involved in several projects for the energy industry ranging from petroleum exploration and production to knowledge management, with special focus on industrial exploitation of agent technology. He is also member of Editorial Boards of several journals.

Miguel Contreras obtained his M.S. degree in Computer Science in 2002 from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico. Now, he is a Ph.D. student of the Postgraduate Studies Program at the Mexican Petroleum Institute. He is one of the principal developers of the CAPNET agent platform. His current research interests include multiagent systems, service-oriented architectures, and enterprise information integration.

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Smirnov, A., Shilov, N., Levashova, T. et al. Ontology-driven intelligent service for configuration support in networked organizations. Knowl Inf Syst 12, 229–253 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-007-0067-5

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