A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations

Alun Preece; Stuart Chalmers; Craig McKenzie; Jeff Z. Pan; Peter Gray

doi:10.1145/1151454.1151487

A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations

Alun Preece, Stuart Chalmers, Craig McKenzie, Jeff Z. Pan, Peter Gray

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract / Description of output

In this paper we present a proposal for representing soft constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) within the Semantic Web architecture. The proposal is motivated by the need for a service-providing agent in a virtual organisation to reason about its commitments as soft constraints. The three essential requirements addressed are: (1) the need to have constraints express commitments in terms of Semantic Web services, (2) the need to associate utility values with constraints, to reflect the relative importance of satisfying them, and (3) the need to make statements about which constraints are satisfied and violated by a given solution. The proposal builds upon previous work in defining a Semantic Web Constraint Interchange Format (CIF), which itself builds on the proposed Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). The paper describes an ontology for representing soft CSPs and their solutions, allowing an agent's set of commitments to be expressed as a collection of soft constraints. The ontology is an open interchange format for soft CSPs, allowing commitment to be communicated and exchanged among the members of a virtual organisation.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet
Editors	Bruce Spencer, Mark S. Fox, Weichang Du, Donglei Du, Scott Buffett
Place of Publication	New York, NY, USA
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages	151–161
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Print)	1-59593-392-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/1151454.1151487
Publication status	Published - 13 Aug 2006
Event	The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Commerce - Fredericton, Canada Duration: 13 Aug 2006 → 16 Aug 2006 Conference number: 8

Publication series

Name	ICEC '06
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery

Conference

Conference	The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Commerce
Abbreviated title	ICEC 2006
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Fredericton
Period	13/08/06 → 16/08/06

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

virtual organisations
semantic web
soft constraints

Access to Document

10.1145/1151454.1151487Licence: All Rights Reserved

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1151454.1151487Licence: All Rights Reserved

Cite this

Preece, A., Chalmers, S., McKenzie, C., Pan, J. Z., & Gray, P. (2006). A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations. In B. Spencer, M. S. Fox, W. Du, D. Du, & S. Buffett (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet (pp. 151–161). (ICEC '06). Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/1151454.1151487

Preece, Alun ; Chalmers, Stuart ; McKenzie, Craig et al. / A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet. editor / Bruce Spencer ; Mark S. Fox ; Weichang Du ; Donglei Du ; Scott Buffett. New York, NY, USA : Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2006. pp. 151–161 (ICEC '06).

@inproceedings{f29f8f27faac40cd9cb816cc41ecb05a,

title = "A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations",

abstract = "In this paper we present a proposal for representing soft constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) within the Semantic Web architecture. The proposal is motivated by the need for a service-providing agent in a virtual organisation to reason about its commitments as soft constraints. The three essential requirements addressed are: (1) the need to have constraints express commitments in terms of Semantic Web services, (2) the need to associate utility values with constraints, to reflect the relative importance of satisfying them, and (3) the need to make statements about which constraints are satisfied and violated by a given solution. The proposal builds upon previous work in defining a Semantic Web Constraint Interchange Format (CIF), which itself builds on the proposed Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). The paper describes an ontology for representing soft CSPs and their solutions, allowing an agent's set of commitments to be expressed as a collection of soft constraints. The ontology is an open interchange format for soft CSPs, allowing commitment to be communicated and exchanged among the members of a virtual organisation.",

keywords = "virtual organisations, semantic web, soft constraints",

author = "Alun Preece and Stuart Chalmers and Craig McKenzie and Pan, {Jeff Z.} and Peter Gray",

year = "2006",

month = aug,

day = "13",

doi = "10.1145/1151454.1151487",

language = "English",

isbn = "1-59593-392-1",

series = "ICEC '06",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc",

pages = "151–161",

editor = "Bruce Spencer and Fox, {Mark S.} and Weichang Du and Donglei Du and Scott Buffett",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet",

note = "The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Commerce, ICEC 2006 ; Conference date: 13-08-2006 Through 16-08-2006",

}

Preece, A, Chalmers, S, McKenzie, C, Pan, JZ & Gray, P 2006, A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations. in B Spencer, MS Fox, W Du, D Du & S Buffett (eds), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet. ICEC '06, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, New York, NY, USA, pp. 151–161, The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Commerce, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, 13/08/06. https://doi.org/10.1145/1151454.1151487

A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations. / Preece, Alun; Chalmers, Stuart; McKenzie, Craig et al.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet. ed. / Bruce Spencer; Mark S. Fox; Weichang Du; Donglei Du; Scott Buffett. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2006. p. 151–161 (ICEC '06).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

TY - GEN

T1 - A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations

AU - Preece, Alun

AU - Chalmers, Stuart

AU - McKenzie, Craig

AU - Pan, Jeff Z.

AU - Gray, Peter

N1 - Conference code: 8

PY - 2006/8/13

Y1 - 2006/8/13

N2 - In this paper we present a proposal for representing soft constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) within the Semantic Web architecture. The proposal is motivated by the need for a service-providing agent in a virtual organisation to reason about its commitments as soft constraints. The three essential requirements addressed are: (1) the need to have constraints express commitments in terms of Semantic Web services, (2) the need to associate utility values with constraints, to reflect the relative importance of satisfying them, and (3) the need to make statements about which constraints are satisfied and violated by a given solution. The proposal builds upon previous work in defining a Semantic Web Constraint Interchange Format (CIF), which itself builds on the proposed Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). The paper describes an ontology for representing soft CSPs and their solutions, allowing an agent's set of commitments to be expressed as a collection of soft constraints. The ontology is an open interchange format for soft CSPs, allowing commitment to be communicated and exchanged among the members of a virtual organisation.

AB - In this paper we present a proposal for representing soft constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) within the Semantic Web architecture. The proposal is motivated by the need for a service-providing agent in a virtual organisation to reason about its commitments as soft constraints. The three essential requirements addressed are: (1) the need to have constraints express commitments in terms of Semantic Web services, (2) the need to associate utility values with constraints, to reflect the relative importance of satisfying them, and (3) the need to make statements about which constraints are satisfied and violated by a given solution. The proposal builds upon previous work in defining a Semantic Web Constraint Interchange Format (CIF), which itself builds on the proposed Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). The paper describes an ontology for representing soft CSPs and their solutions, allowing an agent's set of commitments to be expressed as a collection of soft constraints. The ontology is an open interchange format for soft CSPs, allowing commitment to be communicated and exchanged among the members of a virtual organisation.

KW - virtual organisations

KW - semantic web

KW - soft constraints

U2 - 10.1145/1151454.1151487

DO - 10.1145/1151454.1151487

M3 - Conference contribution

SN - 1-59593-392-1

T3 - ICEC '06

SP - 151

EP - 161

BT - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet

A2 - Spencer, Bruce

A2 - Fox, Mark S.

A2 - Du, Weichang

A2 - Du, Donglei

A2 - Buffett, Scott

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc

CY - New York, NY, USA

T2 - The Eighth International Conference on Electronic Commerce

Y2 - 13 August 2006 through 16 August 2006

ER -

Preece A, Chalmers S, McKenzie C, Pan JZ, Gray P. A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations. In Spencer B, Fox MS, Du W, Du D, Buffett S, editors, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New e-Commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. 2006. p. 151–161. (ICEC '06). doi: 10.1145/1151454.1151487

A Semantic Web Approach to Handling Soft Constraints in Virtual Organisations

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Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

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