Within this project we develop tools and services enabling the interoperability of heterogeneous, distributed data sources. By using semantic web technologies we can precisely define the structure and semantics of legacy data sources. Based on these definitions the rules to exchange data between several data sources are created in a semi-automatic way. SEML can process whole data bases or just the parts returned by a particular query. SEML consists of two components: a graphic user interface (SEML Modeller) and a runtime environment for the conversion tasks (SEML Transformation Service).

Within the past five years, the Semantic Web research community has brought to maturity a comprehensive set of foundational technology components, and this both at the conceptual level and in the form of prototypes and software. This includes, among other assets, ontology engineering methodologies, standardized ontology languages, ontology engineering tools, and infrastructure like APIs, repositories, and scalable reasoners, plus a plethora of work for making the Deep Web and computational functionality in the form of Web Services accessible at a semantic level. However, in order for these research achievements to materialize into large scale corporate applications, they must be complemented by prototypes, methods, and best practices which support enterprises in the adoption of Semantic Web technology. In this project, we will develop 1. convincing showcases and proofs-of-concept that demonstrate the technical feasibility in relevant business scenarios; 2. methods to assess the costs and business value of semantic technology; in particular, such that help estimate the costs involved in the development and usage of ontologies, and to quantify the operational and strategic benefits of ontology-based systems; and 3. metrics to evaluate and compare existing ontologies, ontology engineering methodologies, and tools in terms of technical quality and organizational fit. This includes metrics to determine the usability of a particular ontology in a specific business scenario.

Web services promise a new level of service on top of current web. However, in order to employ their full potential, appropriate description means for web services need to be developed. Current technology around UDDI, WSDL, and SOAP provide limited support in mechanizing service recognition, service configuration and combination, service comparison and automated negotiation. Therefore, the main objectives of SWWS are:

• Provide a comprehensive Web Service description framework.
• Define a Web Service discovery framework.
• Provide a scalable Web Service mediation.

In order to evaluate the overall approach, SWWS will provide a Semantic Web based Web Service platform which will service as a basis for three case studies, one in the B2C area and two in the B2B area, that cover a wide range of potential further EBusiness applications.

The FRED system developed by Net Dynamcis is a software platform which integrates agent technology, ontologies, Semantic Web Service technologies, and dynamic process technologies. Such integrated systems are needed for Semantic Web Platforms which represent the next generation of mediator systems. In this project, the existing technologies of the FRED system for automated goal resolution, i.e. how to find a suitable Service (internal or external Web Service) for solving a Goal that has been assigned to an agent, will be extended in terms of dynamics. The major objectives are:

• Specification of a Description Language for Goals and Services
• Implementation of a Reasoning Engine for dynamic automated Goal Resolution
• A framework for extracting web content into the FRED system
• Use case implementations for showcasing

The aim of the project “SWSW: Semantic Web Services Week”, held in the week of 6-10 June 2005 in Innsbruck with local organization by the Digital Enterprise Research Institute DERI, is to provide a forum for interchange and strengthening of the European, especially Austrian position and contributions to future standards in emerging Web technologies. The central event of the SWSW is a Workshop on "Frameworks for Semantics in Web Services” organized by the Semantic Web Services Interest Group of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). This workshop intends to serve as a starting point for future standardization activities on Semantic Web Services. The SWSW provides surrounding events to this workshop in order to better position and strengthen the work and contributions around the Web Service Modeling Ontology WSMO, a comprehensive framework for Semantic Web Services mainly developed at DERI. The project “SWSW: Semantic Web Services Week” funded by the FFG under the FIT-IT programme has officially been scheduled from 01-April-2005 until 30-June- 2005. The project has been comprised of three major milestones (preparation, conduction, post-processing). All activities planned for this project have been accomplished successfully and on time. Besides, we can report several achievements with respect to the positioning and strengthening of European and especially Austrian work around Semantic Web Services within international research and standardization activities.

The vision of SEKT is to develop and exploit the knowledge technologies which underlie Next Generation Knowledge Management. We envision knowledge workplaces where the boundaries between document management, content management, and knowledge management are broken down, and where knowledge management is an effortless part of day to day activities. Appropriate knowledge is automatically delivered to the right people at the right time at the right granularity via a range of user devices. Knowledge workers will be empowered to focus on their core roles and creativity; this is key to European competitiveness. The execution of SEKT is based on the integration of fundamental research, component development and integration driven by real world case studies in the public and private sectors. SEKT will provide new insights on knowledge technologies together with open reference implementations for others to build on.

SemanticGov aims at building the infrastructure (software, models, services, etc) necessary for enabling the offering of semantic web services by public administration (PA). Through this cutting edge infrastructure, SemanticGov will address longstanding challenges faced by public administrations such as achieving interoperability amongst PA agencies both within a country as well as amongst countries, easing the discovery of PA services by its customers, facilitating the execution of complex services often involving multiple PA agencies in interworkflows. More importantly, this infrastructure will exploit SemanticGov as an enabler for total reengineering of PA service provision and propose a paradigm shift of today's modus operandi.

Consumers increasingly buy products through the Internet, but they lack assistance for searching the “right” product. Recommender systems address this problem by asking targeted questions. The success (or failure) of such a recommendation process is defined in terms of conversion rate or click-out rate. It is very difficult to predict improvements for given changes of the recommendation process, however, and manual changes are usually very expensive.   Therefore, SOFAR ("Semantics and Ontologies for Feedback-driven Adapting Recommender Systems") proposes automated adaptations of recommendation processes making use of semantic technology. The approach makes Internet content accessible for searching products.