This paper discusses an efficient solution to contemporary situation assessment problems found in environmental management applications. The targeted problems are inherently complex and require processing of large quantities of heterogeneous information by using rich domain knowledge dispersed through multiple organizations. We assume a collaborative solution based on the Dynamic Process Integration Framework, which supports systematic encapsulation of heterogeneous processing services, including human experts. The encapsulation allows dynamic composition of heterogeneous processing services using advanced self-configuration mechanisms for optimal selection of service providers. Selfconfiguration is based on a framework for development of cooperative multi-issue one-to-many service negotiations. The framework allows the definition of: negotiation protocols, negotiation subjects composed of multiple negotiation issues, properties of negotiation issues, deal spaces, and utility functions of participant stakeholders. We show how this framework can be used for dynamic composition of workflows spanning multiple organizations in a disaster management information system.
This paper introduces a new collaborative approach to construction of large scale service oriented systems supporting distributed reasoning. In particular, we assume systems in which complex situation assessment is carried out through composition of heterogeneous services, each specialized for a particular type of analysis. Different services are composed automatically by using service discovery and negotiation. One of the major challenges in such settings is efficient definition of a large number of different types of services. The presented solution supports efficient definition of services by using a combination of light weight service ontologies, efficient construction procedures and tools. In particular, machine-understandable descriptions of heterogeneous services with well defined syntax and semantics can be created by multiple designers, without complex coordination of collaborative design processes and without any knowledge of formal ontologies.
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