| Pseudo-Haptic Feedback: Simulating Haptic Feedback without Haptic Devices | | BIBAK | 1-6 | |
| Anatole Lécuyer | |||
| This paper gives an overview of recent and past research on pseudo-haptic
feedback. Pseudo-haptic feedback is a technique meant to simulate haptic
sensations without using haptic interfaces. Pseudo-haptic feedback uses visual
feedback and properties of human perception to generate some kind of haptic
illusions. The document describes several experiments and applications in which
properties such as stiffness or textures were simulated using a pseudo-haptic
feedback. Keywords: Pseudo-Haptic, Texture, Stiffness, Illusion, Training, Control/Display ratio | |||
| IONS-VIP: a cognitive model for navigating the Web via screen readers | | BIBAK | 7-16 | |
| Ion Juvina | |||
| This paper presents a cognitive perspective on the problem of using the
Internet via screen readers. An empirical study shows similarities and
dissimilarities between using the Internet via screen readers and via the
standard graphical screen. In particular, spatial cognition is an important
determinant of web task performance even in the absence of any visual cues.
Backtracking behavior has a higher cost and impacts performance in a more
negative way when using the Internet via screen readers as compared to the
standard use. Selective reading can be used as an addition to the existing
functionality of screen readers but more research is needed to prove the
utility of such support mechanism. Computational cognitive modeling can be used
in conceiving, testing and implementing cognitively informed support
functionality in screen readers. Keywords: Web navigation, Web accessibility, visually impaired persons, cognitive
modeling | |||
| EngView -- virtual environment for training in industry | | BIBAK | 17-22 | |
| Dorin-Mircea Popovici; Remus Zagan; Petre Petculescu | |||
| By considering the improvement of educational process regarding the student
assistance and motivation for a successful professional integration, the
proposed platform, EngView, extends the real set-up, currently used in students
training in industrial field, by a flexible training virtual environment, that
open the trainees access to experimental data, reduces the educational costs
and increase the educational process quality. The EngView implementation offers
an interactive shared virtual environment, agent-oriented and that uses the
virtual reality technology. Keywords: Virtual reality, education, training | |||
| Dynamic gestures recognition: methods for hand movement detection and recognition | | BIBAK | 23-26 | |
| Delia Mitrea; Sergiu Nedevschi; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| In this paper we present and analyse the existing methods for dynamic hand
gestures characterization and recognition and we also propose our own method
for solving the dynamic hand gestures recognition problem. Another subject of
interest for this paper is the detection of objects in movement, the case of
hand movement being taken in consideration. We describe the methods available
nowadays for dynamic gestures recognition and also our own methods concerning
the characterization and recognition of dynamic hand gestures. For further
development, we propose the improvement of this method by using methods like
the Wavelet Transform and the 3D appearance models for the detection of the
most subtle differences between the gestural trajectories. We propose a
solution that takes into consideration all the important aspects that
characterize each hand posture in the context of a dynamic gesture, which is
also efficient from the speed point of view. Keywords: Natural interaction, dynamic gesture recognition, gestural trajectory,
shape, orientation | |||
| Multimedia Content Adaptation and Personalization | | BIBAK | 27-30 | |
| Adriana Reveiu; Ion Smeureanu | |||
| The multimedia data representation supposes to identify the most important
characteristics for multimedia content representation and for representation of
characteristics needed for multimedia data attributes coding. Multimedia
content adaptation supposes to manipulate multimedia resources in distributed
applications respecting quality specifics parameters, but keeping into account
about the limits imposed by the network broadband width and by the peripheral
devices characteristics. Multimedia data could be delivered in various networks
or could be played using various kinds of peripheral devices, in a format
adequate to the technical condition of each user. Content personalization
supposes to adapt the functionality of services based on the specifics requests
or conditions of each user, based on communication channels size and based on
terminals used for content adaptation or content filtering. The most important
effects are obtained by adaptation of multimedia information because of their
specifics. The paper proposes a solution for computer-users interaction that
assures the adaptation and personalization of multimedia content. Keywords: Multimedia content, multimedia content adaptation, content personalization | |||
| Using the discriminate analysis for speech recognition | | BIBAK | 31-34 | |
| Titus Felix Furtuna; Marian Dardala | |||
| In the newest type of society, I mean Information Society usage of computers
becomes a necessity. Thus, all people have to be able to use it. In this
circumstances the human -- computer interaction has to be accessible for all
users. The classic interaction system is not sufficient for people with
disabilities thus to solve this problem is necessary to create alternative
interfaces. People with visual disabilities require interfaces based on vocal
commands and which present the visual content using vocal signal. The operation
systems besides many others software packages include the software components
for accessibility but the main problem is that the most of all software
products use the vocal interaction using English language. The software
solutions for accessibility based on the vocal signal become useful in order to
realize the social inclusion in the Romanian cultural space. Keywords: Vocal recognition, Bayesian discrimination, vocal signal, words separation,
sample | |||
| Web Navigation Assistant based on Microformats | | BIBAK | 35-42 | |
| Anca-Paula Luca; Sabin-Corneliu Buraga | |||
| The selection of most interesting Web documents with respect to user needs
must be automatically performed in many situations. This type of activity
requires the understanding by the machine of the human defined semantics via
semantic mark-ups (e.g., microformats). The goal of the presented project is to
develop a tool able to understand the user behaviour on the Internet, in a
non-intrusive manner by using actual machine learning approaches and Web
technologies. Keywords: Microformats, user assistant, web interaction | |||
| A new software tool for business process diagram design | | BIBAK | 43-46 | |
| Cristian Dumitru Masalagiu; Vasile Alaiba | |||
| The paper describes an approach to design and analysis of business
processes, using a new software tool. Business analysts can use a simple
specification language (BPMN -- Business Process Modelling Notation) to
describe all types of possible activities within a company's business process
(modular and concurrent). The programs associated to this language (BPD --
Business Process Diagram) will be mapped to another language (BPEL4WS --
Business Process Execution Language for Web Services) and executed. Keywords: Business processes, BPMN, BPD, BPEL4WS, software tools | |||
| Virtual Reality technologies applied in Computer Aided Design | | BIBAK | 47-50 | |
| Florin Gîrbacia | |||
| On current CAD software, most of editing commands are issued with the aid of
2D mouse, keyboard and widgets. Such interactions do not fit in Virtual
Environments (VE). In this paper a multimodal interface based on Virtual
Reality (VR) technologies used as an alternative to the classical interface
that uses 2D display, keyboard and mouse is presented. Users can create and
modify 2D and 3D objects using 6DOF tracking device, voice commands, gestures
and visualize the design status in an immersive CAVE-like system. An evaluation
study was conducted investigating the design process for a sample part which
illustrates the intuitive and natural way of interaction with the CAD model. Keywords: Virtual Reality, Multimodal interaction, CAVE, Computer Aided Design | |||
| Portal value chain creation | | BIBAK | 51-54 | |
| Cristina Niculescu | |||
| The paper presents different portal types with their characteristics,
functions and architectures, the accent being on the knowledge portals. It is
delivered the definition of the value chain and it is exemplified in the case
of portals' development. A portal is a Web application that provides
personalization and content aggregation from different sources and it hosts the
"presentation" level of information systems. Portals can use portlets, as
components for the user interface. The portal classification may be done in
function of user groups, content or functions. The knowledge portals are web
interfaces of the systems that implement knowledge strategies of the
organizations. The tendency is of integration of different portal types. In the
portal value chain, the companies have to rethink the way of perception of
clients and providers. Instead of encouraging companies in information
protection, the procedures of trusting promote forms of sharing information for
the members of the value chain and they can take adequate decisions. Keywords: Knowledge portal, Knowledge Management (KM), portlet, value chain | |||
| Usability Measurements on Graphics Annotation Techniques | | BIBAK | 55-60 | |
| Teodor Stefanut; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| Graphical annotation on the documents provides the user with much more
freedom in the creative expression. The scientific literature reports mainly
graphical annotation on documents of various formats. This paper presents some
experiments on the graphical 2D annotation techniques in the context of
eLearning lessons. It is presented as well a comparative analysis of the
measurements on the mouse and pen based annotation techniques. Keywords: Graphics annotation, graphical user interfaces, interaction techniques,
usability, usability measurement, eLearning | |||
| Web interfaces for people with disabilities | | BIBAK | 61-64 | |
| Ionut Petre; Dragos Marian Smada; Laura Ciocoiu | |||
| One of the main characteristics of the world that we live in is the access
to information and one of the main ways to reach the information is the
Internet. Most Internet sites put accessibility problem on a secondary plan. If
we try to define this concept (accessibility) we could say that accessibility
it's a way to offer access to information for the people with disabilities. For
instance, blind people can't navigate on the Internet like usual people. For
that reason Internet sites have to put at their disposal ways to make their
content known to this people. Accessibility does not refer only at blind people
the web accessibility refers to all people who lost their ability to access the
Internet sites. The web accessibility includes every disability that stops
people with disabilities to access the web sites content like hearing
disability, neurological and cognitive. People that have low speed Internet
connection or with low performance computers can use the web accessibility. Keywords: Accessibility, Adaptability, Adaptable interfaces, Interactive database | |||
| The Romanian adaptation of the Intranet Satisfaction Questionnaire An application into a Romanian bank | | BIBAK | 65-68 | |
| Horia D. Pitariu; Daniela Onaca; Mihaela Popa; Adriana Tarta | |||
| This paper describes the adaptation and validation process of the Intranet
Satisfaction Questionnaire for the Romanian population. This project makes
Romania the 7th country to adapt and test this extremely useful and easy to use
assessment instrument. Data obtained on a 66 bank employees sample indicate
that the adaptation process was successful. The internal consistency for the
Romanian version of the questionnaire demonstrated values very close to the
original version and we also found a good convergent reliability. Divergent
reliability still needs to be investigated further. Final results indicate that
in the banking sector technology characteristics related to the functional
aspects (relevant information, rapid access) will prevail over the others
(communication, help, personalization, self-expression). The functional
characteristics will ensure a high level of satisfaction with the technology in
use. Data also indicate the implication of other organizational variables
related to technology and these will make the subject of our future research in
this area. Keywords: Intranet, Satisfaction, Usability, Organization, Technology | |||
| Aspects regarding the Voice Component of an Integrated System for Mobile Users | | BIBAK | 69-72 | |
| Emil Stanescu; Ileana Stanescu | |||
| In our paper we depict some aspects about voice component of "An integrated
system for mobile user". That system aims at integration of some technologies
which to allow to an mobile user to get information he desires, in concordance
with his profile and context. Voice component enables voice or multimodal
interaction with information server which provides services for mobile user.
From many development approaches of voice component, we prefer one that is
based on the Microsoft Speech Server, because it has support for development,
for integration of telephony, and for testing of software applications. Keywords: VoiceXML, SALT, TAPI, voice server | |||
| Cognitive effects of error messages | | BIBAK | 73-78 | |
| Laurentiu P. Maricutoiu | |||
| The present study is trying to identify the impact error messages have on
user cognitive performance in the immediate task after the error message. In
order to reach our objective, 61 subjects were grouped in four experimental
conditions. The subjects' task was to complete a computerised version of an
intelligence test which, depending on the experimental condition, generated a
error message. The results showed that user cognitive performance is lower in
the task after the error message, when compared with the control group. This
fluctuation seems to be related with the error message type and with user's
tendency to experience anxiety. Keywords: error message, cognitive performance, anxiety | |||
| Collaborative analysis of source code snippets using SVG technologies | | BIBAK | 79-82 | |
| Stefan Ciobaca; Manuela Grindei | |||
| In this paper we present a method to share a source code snippet, with the
purpose of discussing it with others. The method uses the Django platform on
the server-side and AJAX+SVG on the client-side to facilitate the communication
among users. Keywords: SVG, code snippets, syntax highlighting, collaborative editing | |||
| The diversity of the psychological processes and states having a stimulative and regulatory role in computers utilization for visual impairments users | | BIBAK | 83-86 | |
| Verginia Cretu; Adrian Plop; Florin Georgescu | |||
| The paper presents some results gained in objective II.2 "Study to establish
the specific need of the visual impaired PC users" from 111/2005 CEEX Program,
especially those regards to interests and needs of visual impaired PC users
towards assistive technology. The main need of the visual impaired users of
assistive technology is related to creation of an accurate Romanian screen
reader. With the same importance are the conclusions about the motivational
factors, the diversity of processes and psychological states with a stimulative
and regulatory role on these needs for assistive technologies. Keywords: Assistive technology, interests, personal factors, needs, needs of support | |||
| Adaptable Interfaces Application | | BIBAK | 87-90 | |
| Dragos Nicolau; Dragos Catalin Barbu; Laura Ciocoiu | |||
| This paper describes a multimodal interface used within processes of taking
decisions in different fields of activity such as economic, financial and
engineering. The article aims to describe the main interface features which
allow the setting of data and restrictive conditions that are involved in
finding the optimal solution. Interface elements insure the interaction cu
knowledge database as well as memorizing of optimal solution(s). Keywords: Adaptable interface, knowledge base | |||
| Psychological Profile of the Informational Technology User with Visual Impairments | | BIBAK | 91-94 | |
| Mihaela Sterian; George Gojgar; Adrian Plop; Marian Padure; Silviu Ghioc | |||
| The paper present the results that have been obtained further to a study
performed and that had as a main objective a psychological profile for IT users
with visual impairments. The psychological tests, CAS and NPQ, non-verbal
personality questionnaire, were applied to a number of 50 subjects with visual
impairments. The specific fields of interests of the IT users with visual
impairments are in most cases the same but there are differences too. The group
profile can be used as a default psychological profile for all the IT users
with visual impairments. Keywords: User profile, assistive technology, NPQ | |||
| Educational and motivational aspects of the video games | | BIBAK | 95-98 | |
| Dragos Daniel Iordache | |||
| Learning of educational content is often a difficult process which requires
a sustained effort from students for understanding, assimilation and
development of new skills. This paper aims at emphasizing the potential
contribution of the video games to the development of an engaging and immersive
learning environment. In this respect we present several paradigms of the
relation entertainment -- education and a synthesis of the main educational and
conation aspects of the video games. Keywords: Entertainment, motivation, video games | |||
| Flow in human-computer interaction | | BIBAK | 99-102 | |
| Ana Maria Marhan | |||
| Flow is a state of consciousness where people become totally immersed in an
activity, and enjoy it intensely. According to (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), such
an optimal experience can emerge into a variety of activity situations, using
computer technology being included here. In this paper we intend to discus the
concept of flow and the main characteristics of this optimal psychological
state experienced by the computer user. After a review of the research in this
area, some of the main factors facilitating, or blocking the optimal experience
of flow in the context of human interaction with computer technology are
presented and discussed. These factors may support the design of human
interfaces that encourage user learning, exploratory behaviour and positive
affect. Keywords: Flow, task challenge, awareness, control | |||
| Media, multimedia, hypermedia: learning memory overload in e-learning environments | | BIBAK | 103-110 | |
| Alexandru D. Iordan | |||
| The paper presents the main empirically founded theories regarding the
restrictions imposed by the limited capacity of the working memory in the
integration and comprehension of information presented in a multi/hypermedia
context. The working memory represents an important psychological concept which
must be taken into account when the cognitive constraints in the use of
multimedia systems are considered. Research conducted in both instructional and
cognitive psychology domains reach similar conclusions: in order to succeed,
the systems must be adapted to the cognitive limitations of the user and
especially to those of his or hers working memory. Finally, it results that the
working memory, a limited storage system in terms of its capacity and
durability, is a necessary component for any model or theory which tries to
describe and explain how users integrate multiple sources of information. Keywords: multimedia, working memory, e-learning | |||
| Tool support for computer-aided design of operational level tasks | | BIBAK | 111-114 | |
| Costin Pribeanu | |||
| The model-based approach could be seen as a progressive derivation of user
interface components from representations expressing relations between users,
tasks, domain, environment, and technology. The success of this approach
depends on the ability to solve the mapping problem, i.e. establishing and
maintaining of links between models. This paper is presenting a set of mapping
rules between task and domain models and a tool supporting the automate
derivation of task model fragments from the domain model. Keywords: Model-based design, task-based design, computer-aided design tools, design
patterns | |||
| Methodological aspects of distributed cognitive task analysis and evaluation | | BIBAK | 115-122 | |
| Ana Maria Marhan | |||
| The paper presents a heuristic task evaluation method, based on the concept
of distributed cognitive task. The evaluation process involves a decomposition
of the task in its component subtasks, and then studying the properties of the
representational objects manipulated in at each level tasks. A third step
identifies the impact a specific representational object may have on the (sub-)
task performance (either success, or failure). Keywords: Distribute cognitive tasks, heuristic evaluation, deviation analysis | |||
| The culture of colour in user interface design | | BIBAK | 123-128 | |
| Cornelia Melenti; Dorian Gorgan | |||
| The paper presents the results of a study involving a group of human
subjects from the domain of computer science and information technology. The
study especially involves user interface developers and concerns with the
knowledge evaluation on the colours and their meanings. A questionnaire based
on usual known colours and their definitions in different colour dictionaries
has been developed. The measurements are presented graphically as diagrams and
the results are explained in the text as well. The paper presents a
classification of the colour application domains (colour context), and a colour
dictionary in Romanian, correlated with other language colour dictionaries
based on the colour names accepted in HTML and CSS. The paper highlights the
different definitions given by authors in various dictionaries for the same
colour. Keywords: Color dictionary, Web design, color context | |||
| Improvement of a method for computing the rank of recommendations considering users' satisfaction | | BIBAK | 129-132 | |
| Vlad Hosu; Stefan Trausan-Matu | |||
| The paper proposes a method for computing the ranks of recommendations.
These are used for sorting a large collection of images in order to maximize
the satisfaction of users. The paper will prove that a method based on the
PageRank algorithm is better than other methods used now on web sites providing
similar services. Keywords: Collective filtering, image sorting, users' satisfaction, page rank | |||
| User Management Improvements in Moodle | | BIBAK | 133-136 | |
| Elena Bautu; Andrei Bautu | |||
| This paper presents the motivation, the objectives and the activities to be
done in order to improve the user management system in Moodle -- an open-source
Course Management System (CMS). The main purpose of these improvements is to
increase administrators and teachers productivity in situations with large
number of students and highly dynamic sites. This project is among the accepted
projects in the Google Summer of Code 2007 competition under the name "User
Management Improvements". Keywords: Moodle, user management, improvements | |||
| Learner Model -- key element in the e-learning systems personalization | | BIBAK | 137-140 | |
| Ileana Trandafir; Ana-Maria Borozan | |||
| In this article are described some theoretical and practical aspects
regarding the personalization of the services and content provided in an
e-learning environment. The main mechanism for the personalization achievement
is based on: (1) learner model specification, taking into account the
personalization aimed levels, and (2) the correlation, in the design phase, of
the educational content model (learning objects metadata) with the learner
model. This approach is the result of the acquired experience in the frame of
the project "Innovative System for Personalized and User-centred Learning with
Application to Project Management -- SinPers" (http://www.ici.ro/sinpers/) from
the Research of Excellence Program, developed by a consortium composed by the
National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics -- ICI Bucharest
and the Academy of Economical Studies. Keywords: e-learning, personalization, learner model, learning objects, learning
styles | |||
| Course Builder -- an application for creating "related" courses | | BIBAK | 141-144 | |
| Gabriela Pavel; Mihaela Brut | |||
| In this article, we expose a domain-independent course management system --
CourseBuilder --, which enables to correlate a course with other materials
based on the concepts defined inside these. The concepts are organized into an
ontology based on the ACM classification system. The main advantage for
students is the accessibility of materials (belonging to different disciplines
and teachers) which treat a certain concept. By thus, there is provided the
possibility of making correlations between various disciplines. In addition,
the system enables the course creation in the form of Web multimedia
presentations, stored in the XHTML+TIME language format, without asking
programming competences to the users. Keywords: Ontologies, semantical relations, Web applications, e-learning | |||
| Augmented reality for school environments -- preliminary evaluation results regarding the usability evaluation | | BIBAK | 145-150 | |
| Dragos Daniel Iordache; Costin Pribeanu | |||
| Although the technologies based on augmented reality have been significantly
developed, the number of the educational applications is relatively low. Also,
although nowadays there is a significant number of evaluation methods targeting
e-learning applications, very few of them have been adapted for usability
evaluation of educational AR-based systems. (Augmented Reality). This paper is
focusing on some preliminary evaluation results regarding the usability
evaluation of an augmented reality system for school environments developed in
the European project ARiSE (Augmented Reality for School Environments). Keywords: Augmented reality, usability, e-learning | |||
| Visualisation of learners' contributions in chat conversations | | BIBAK | 151-158 | |
| Traian Rebedea; Alexandru Dragan; Catalin Alexandru; Stefan Trausan-Matu | |||
| In this paper, it is presented a novel approach, based on natural language
analysis and on visualisation, used for the assessment of the contributions of
the participants in a instant messaging (chat) conversation. Bakhtin's
dialogistic paradigm provides a polyphonic perspective, based on a multi-voiced
interpretation of chat conversations. Natural language processing using the
WordNet lexical ontology and semantic distances is used for detecting the main
topics in the chat and their threading, and for computing and visualising the
contribution of each participant in the chat conversation. Keywords: Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Natural Language Processing,
Dialogism, Chat Conversations, Ontologies | |||
| System for Managing the Idea Flow in Web Conversations | | BIBAK | 159-164 | |
| Vlad Posea; Stefan Trausan-Matu | |||
| The paper proposes a new collaborative tool for debates. The tool is based
on Toulmin's argumentation's theory and offers a new way to arrange and link
the ideas that appear during an online debate. The tool is implemented using
WebML -- a XML based language for web modelling and WebRatio a CASE tool for
developing data intensive web applications. The paper discusses the existing
collaborative tools, their good and bad parts, and further proposes a way for
improving the collaborative debates. Then it describes the WebML language and
the WebRatio tool and presents the way the actual debate tool was built.
Finally conclusions and further research directions are presented. Keywords: CSCL, argumentation theory | |||
| Polyphony, a knowledge-based chat system for collaborative work | | BIBAK | 165-170 | |
| Alexandru Gartner; Alexandru Rosoiu; Ciprian Onofreiciuc; Stefan Trausan-Matu | |||
| Within this paper we present Polyphony, an advanced chat system, which makes
use of knowledge-based artificial intelligence techniques for supporting
collaborative work. The main differences between Polyphony and other chat
systems will be pointed out while underlining the improvements introduced by
our solution both at the visualization level and at the knowledge level. Keywords: Chat, collaborative work, recommender systems, knowledge, XML databases | |||
| The evaluation of electronic services in public sector | | BIBAK | 171-176 | |
| Alexandru Balog | |||
| This article describes the e-ServEval evaluation system of the on-line
public services quality. It is presented the general context and the
characteristics of the electronic services, the development and maturity levels
of the on-line public services, the approaches concerning the evaluation of the
services. It describes the system architecture, it's components and primary
functions including the technological options and the categories of users. Keywords: Usability, on-line public services, quality evaluation | |||
| A diagnosis orientation system interface in alternative medicine | | BIBAK | 177-180 | |
| Cristina Simona Alecu; Lavinia Nanu | |||
| The paper presents a system developed for diagnosis and treatment assistance
in alternative medicine, based on traditional Chinese methods. The system,
named CompAc (from "Computerized Acupuncture"), is a result of an
interdisciplinary cooperation and is designed for the physician, specialist in
acupuncture. CompAc allows the determination of the type of energetic imbalance
starting from the clinical picture of the patient. The system performs
diagnosis assistance and provides the indication of different variants of
treatment in acupuncture, acupressure, phytotherapy and microsystems. CompAc
can be also a useful tool for medical training. The system interface has been
developed in order to provide two main functions: (1) Consult the information
in the database; (2) Perform diagnosis and treatment assistance. CompAc is used
in some clinics in Romania. The system's value consists in the great amount of
information stored in the database, the flexibility of the correlation between
data and the ease of use. Keywords: Acupuncture, diagnosis assistance, treatment | |||
| Knowledge Management via a Wiki Platform. Aspects regarding User Interaction | | BIBAK | 181-184 | |
| Sabin-Corneliu Buraga; Marta Gîrdea; Sergiu Dumitriu | |||
| The paper presents a wiki-like collaborative system used for knowledge
management. We briefly describe the platform architecture and we illustrate
various aspects regarding the user interaction. Keywords: Collaborative platform, Web interaction, Knowledge management, Social Web | |||
| Customisation and Comparison of the Activity, Service and Request Semantics in Service-oriented Processes | | BIBAK | 185-188 | |
| Alexandra Galatescu; Taisia Greceanu; Cristian Neicu; Doina Enache | |||
| During the generation of a complex process (e.g. business, marketing,
procurement process), for each activity in the process, the most appropriate
service must be discovered, depending on its semantics and on the user's
preferences expressed in his request. Service semantics can be enhanced either
after the service publishing (by the service annotation), or before publishing
(by the service definition based on ontologies). In either situation, usually
there is no explicit criterion for the concept selection (during the annotation
or service definition from scratch) and for the semantic comparison of the
services and requests. This criterion exists only in the designer's mind. The
explicit criterion proposed in this paper for enhancing the service semantics
and for their semantic compatibility with the request is the use of the
activity semantics as conceptual common base for the service definition and
request composition. The paper proposes the use of semantic templates for
activities, for the activity-specific requests and for the services discovered
and invoked for executing the process activities. The goal of the proposal is
the minimization of the unsuccessful service discovery due to the semantic
incompatibilities between services and requests. Keywords: Service-oriented processes, service discovery, semantic templates for
activities, services, requests | |||