Building BusinessApplications By Integrating HeterogeneousRepositoriesBasedon Ontologies

Noriaki Izumi and Takahira YamaguchiDept.ComputerScience,ShizuokaUniversity

3–5–1JohokuHamamatsuShizuoka432-8011JAPAN�izumi, yamaguti� @shizuoka.ac.jp

Abstract

This reportproposesanintegratedsupportmethod-ology for constructingbusinessmodelsincludingemployingnew business models,transplantingexisting businessactivities to computers,and de-cision makingsupportin employingnew environ-mentof computers.In order to modelenterprisesand businessactivities and to implementthem assoftwareapplications,heterogeneousrepositoriesin differentgranularitiesof businessmodelsarein-tegratedbasedon ontologies.By devisinga frame-work, which picks the main conceptsof reposito-riesup andmakecorrespondenceamongthem,ourframework achieves the unified reuseof existingrepositoriesof businessactivities andsoftwareli-braries. We have implementedthe prototypesys-tem by JAVA andconfirmedthat it supportsus invariousphasesof businessapplicationdevelopmentincluding businessmodel manifestation,detailedbusinessmodeldefinitionandanimplementationofbusinesssoftwareapplications.

1 Intr oductionDueto therapidchangeof businessenvironmentsintroducingthe Internet,it becomesvery importantto achieve the rapidadaptationof thecorporatestructureby employinga varietyof heterogineusreusablecomponetssuchasbusinessmodels,bestpractices,softwarelibraries,andsoon.

Becauseof theabove context, a lot of researchanddevel-opmentprojects,whichconstructbusinessrepositoriesof var-ious conceptsandideasrelating to businessactivities, havebeenactivated.

In the field of MS (ManagementScience),oneof the fa-mousresultsis thee-businessProcessHandbookproject[MITProcessHandbook Project] carried out by MIT. The e-businessProcessHandbookis a substantialcontribution asabusinessrepository, whichcontainsapproximately4,600def-initionsof businessactivities from abstractprocessesto thespecializedoneto thebusinessover the Internet. Its formal-ity, however, is notstrict sincethemostpartof thedefinitionsaredescribedwith naturallanguage.

Fromtheviewpoint of theformality on theprocessspeci-fication,thereis theenterpriseontology[Uscholdet.al.1998]

of Edinburgh University in thefield of artificial intelligence.Its formality is verystrongandit contributesthereuseof busi-nessmodelsneverthelessit covers only so generaland ab-stractconceptsthatit is very hardto constructconcretebusi-nessmodelswith operability.

Ontheotherhand,oneof thedevelopedlibrary for buildingknowledge systemson the concretelevel is the inferencecatalogueof CommonKADS methodology[Schreiberet.al.1999;CommonKADS]. CommonKADS is utilizedfor anal-ysis anddevelopmentof knowledgesystemsandoffers thelanguageandprimitivesto clarify conceptualmodels.In lateyears,specialmethodlibrary REPOSITis proposedfor theimplementationof inferenceprimitivesof CommonKADS,but the methodologyof the applicationconstructioninclud-ing requirementanalysisanddevelopmentis still examined.

Owing to the differenceof purposesamongthoserepos-itories, whenwe try to build the real applicationsbasedonthe existing domain, the integratedsupportare hardly per-formedin the whole processof the constructionandthe re-engineeringof businessapplications.

So, in order to achieve the unified supportof the devel-opment,thecomputingframework, which integratesthedif-ferentsortsof repositories,supportsdynamic,shouldbe de-velopedfor theconstructionof businessmodelsandapplica-tions.

Fromabove-mentionedbackground,weproposethedevel-opmentmethodologyof businessapplicationsbasedon on-tologieswith reusablerepositoriessuchase-businessprocesshandbook,CommonKADS andREPOSIT.

In orderto constructthebusinessmodelsandto implementthembasedon the existing domain,we rebuild the hetero-geneousrepositoriesinto two repositorieson different-grain-levels: the businessspecificationrepositoryon the level ofbusinessactivitiesandthebusinesssoftwarerepositoryonthelevel of softwareapplications.

It is themaincharacteristicof this work thatour proposedframework enablesintegratedsupportof modelingbusinessactivitiesfrom businessdocuments,andconstructingbusinessapplicationfrom businessmodels,by developinga platformto createthe relationshipsdynamicallybetweenthedescrip-tions of the businessspecificationrepositoryand the busi-nesssoftwarerepository. We have implementedthe proto-type systemby JAVA and confirmedthat it supportsus invariousphasesof businessapplicationdevelopmentincluding

Business Model

Business Specification Repository

Process Definitions

Input

Output

Reference

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Implementation Methods

Input

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JAT REPOSIT

Figure1: Overview of DevelopmentSupport

businessmodelmanifestation,detailedbusinessmodeldefini-tion andanimplementationof businesssoftwareapplications.Sinceourworkcanbeappliedto advancedmanagementjudg-menton introducingnew businessmodels,re-engineeringofexisting businessprocesses,andemployingnew environmentfor businesscomputing,we expecttherepercussioneffect onthemanagementactivities astheresultof theinformationin-tegration.

2 Overview of ProposedDevelopmentSupport

In orderto achieve theunifiedtreatmentof modelson differ-ent levelssuchasmakingbusinessmodelsclear, implement-ing thedetailedmodels,building softwareapplicationsandsoon, our researchaimsat theestablishmentof integratedsup-port from theanalysislevel to theimplementationlevel. Ourstandpointof the integrationandthe reuseof heterogeneousrepositoriesis to obtainthekey structureof eachrepositories,which correspondsto nounconcepts,andto relatethemeachotherto bridgethewholestructureof processesandactivitiesincludingverbconcepts.

The key idea to achieve our aim is how to extract theverbandnounconceptsandtheir relationshipasthecommonstructureof informationfrom theheterogeneousrepositories.

Thetargetof developmentsupportis theconstructionof busi-nessapplicationasa businessmodelsobtainedfrom businessdocuments,which containsthe facility suchascommunica-tion with usersthroughnetworkvia E-mail or Web,andthefile systemsharingwith theusersfor customerrelationshipsanddatamanagement.Brief descriptionof businessapplica-tion developmentthroughtherepositoriesintegrationby ourframework is asshown in Figure1.

At first, in orderto pick thekey conceptsup from businessdocuments,we constructthe businessspecificationreposi-tory including ontologiesof nounandverb concepts.Nounconceptsare extractedfrom the e-businessProcessHand-book and classifiedinto the businessobject ontology ac-cordingto WordNet[Fellbaum1998] as the generalconceptontology provided by PrincetonUniversity. Verb conceptsof e-businessProcessHandbookareclassifiedby usingco-occurrenceinformationof nounconcepts.By makingrefer-enceto the history databaseof the correspondencebetweenwords of documentsand ontologiesof nounsand verbs, abusinessmodel is constructedby the businessspecificationrepository.

Next, as a repositoryfor transplantationof the businessmodelto abusinesssoftwareapplication,weprovidethebusi-nesssoftwarerepositoryincludingmethodlibraries. In orderto correspondactivities of businessmodelsto softwaremod-

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Figure2: ObjectTreeStructureObtained( a partof it)

ules,we constructa library of typical patternsof the input-outputrelationsandthemodulestructureof softwaresystemsbasedon JAT (JAVA AgentTemplate)[Petrie1996] providedby StanfordUniversity. Eachpatternis formalizedasa com-binationof inferenceprimitivesof CommonKADS by intro-ducingasoftwareobjectontologythatprovidestheclassifica-tion of objectswith control anddatastructures.By consult-ing the softwareobjectontologyandREPOSIT[Izumi et.al.1999b] provided by ShizuokaUniversity asa library of theimplementationpatterns,thebusinessmodel,obtainedon theprevious stage,aresupplementedwith control structuresofsoftwarecodes. According to the frequency andhistory ofcorrespondingamongthreelibrariesof JAT, CommonKADSandREPOSIT, a detailedmodelof the softwareapplicationareobtainedbasedon thesoftwareobjectontology.

3 Construction of BusinessModelsIn thiswork, we employthee-businessProcessHandbookofMIT, calledProcessHandbookfor short,asa library classi-fying businessactivities. In order to constructthe business

specificationrepositoryby extracting the requiredinforma-tion, WordNet is alsoemployedasa generallexical reposi-tory. First, the businessspecificationrepositoryis providedasa key structurebridging thebusinessdocumentsandPro-cessHandbook.Then,thewrapperframework is constructedasanextract methodof requiredactivities from a repositoryof ProcessHandbook.

3.1 Building BusinessObject Ontology

Whentheabstractiondegreeof abusinessplanis high,averbconceptof anactivity in thebusinessplanis oftenvagueforspecificationmakersdueto the differenceof viewpointsonthedefinitions. In contrast,a nounconceptof theactivity iscomparatively clearandappearsregularly in the document.In orderto classifythenounconceptsextractedfrom ProcessHandbook,we employ the WordNet as a generalontologythat containsover 17,000concepts.However, if we utilizeWordNetasit is, the numberof candidateexplodesbecauseof thevarietyof theword’smeaningandtheambiguityof theword in thedocument.

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Figure3: BusinessObjectOntology( a partof it)

So,in orderto classifythenounconceptsappearingin Pro-cessHandbook,wechoosethemajorconceptswith respecttothedegreeof abstractionandfrequency by usingWordNetinthefollowing way.

First, nounconceptsconsistingProcessHandbookareex-tractedandrearrangedinto a similarstructureto theactivitiesof ProcessHandbook.Then,the frequency of eachword iscountedandsumupwith respectto theinheritedstructure.Astructuredtreeof thewordswith theattribute of appearancefrequency is obtainedas shown in Figure 2. In the figure,the numberof appearanceis given in the fractionalexpres-sion wherethe numeratorcorrespondsthe frequency of ap-pearanceasit is andthedenominatormeanstheinheritedfre-quency of sub-concepts.The additionexpressionis a trace,which indicatedtheword,appearsin thedifferentpositionofthetreestructure.

As thecriteria to selecta majornounconcept,we pick theconceptswith themorefrequency up andrebuilt into anup-per ontology. Accordingto the WordNet’s structure,we re-peatthe sameway describedabove anddefinethesubstruc-ture of conceptsobtainedabove as an upperontology, pro-vided that the priority of the meaningis given to businessdomainover therelationof WordNet.Furthermore,whenwefix the top ontologyfor constructingbusinessdomainontol-ogy, conceptdrift, thatis akind of semanticshift onaspecificdomain,oftenoccursandcausesinefficiency on building on-tologies. Dueto reducethecostof construction,we employthe methodologyfor resolvingthe conceptdrift [Yamaguchi1999]. Figure 3 shows the structureof the businessobject

ontologyobtained.

3.2 Determining BusinessActivities

Whenobtainingthedefinition of thebusinessactivity corre-spondingto a businessdocument,it is difficult to utilize thehierarchicalstructureof theprocesshandbookbecauseof thegapbetweenwordsof actualdocumentsandprocesshand-book. On this account,we constructthebusinessobjecton-tology, asa top ontology, which bridgesthevarietyof wordsin documentsandnounsin ProcessHandbook. In order toidentify businessactivities from a sentencegiven by a user,we deviseanextractionmechanismasa wrapperfor ProcessHandbookbasedon thebusinessobjectontology.

Thewrappertool is composedof thedatabasesof the fol-lowing information. First, the co-occurrenceinformationofnounconceptsin the definition of a businessactivity is ob-tainedandclassifiedwith respectto thestructureof thebusi-nessobjectontology. Then,theinformationis madeaccessi-ble asthe databaseof the co-occurrence.At the sametime,the frequency information is alsoavailablein collectingtheco-occurrenceone. By usingboth of the co-occurrenceandfrequency information,thewrappertool helpusto searchthedefinitionof activities in thespaceof ProcessHandbook.Theproto-typing tool is shown in Figure3.

Figure4: TheWrapperTool

4 Building BusinessApplications

4.1 Building Software Object Ontology for Reuseof Libraries

In thesamewayof thebusinessobjectontology, thesoftwareobjectontology(Figure5) is constructedasa domaininde-pendentontologyfrom thelibrariesintendedto employ. Thesoftwareobjectontologygiveswordsfor expandingdomainontologiessuchasbuilding aset,picking upanatomof aset,indicatinga calculationstage,datastructuresfor implemen-tationdetailsandsoon.

On the purposeof the developing businessapplicationsfrom the businessmodel obtainedabove, a detaileddefini-tion of eachactivity of the model is required. In order togive theactivities theoperationalinformationthatis usedforapplicationdevelopment,we preparethelibrary of theappli-cationtemplate,which definesthestructureof thepartof ap-plicationin thefashionof theknowledgesystemdevelopmentwith respectto thesoftwareobjectontology. By constructingthe businesssoftwarerepositorywith the reusabletemplateof REPOSIT, CommonKADS, JAT andhistoricaldatabases,thebusinessapplicationis obtained.

4.2 Model RefinementBasedon ApplicationTemplates

We considerthe structureof businessapplicationsbasedonthe agentarchitectureto be composedby the inferenceen-gine to attaina task,thesensorto get the informationof theoutsideandtheeffector to carryout their task.Thesensorischaracterizedby thefollowing threefunctions:

(1) the function thataccessesthe insideandtheoutsidere-sourcesof theagent,

(2) thefunctionthatexaminestheplaceandthecontentsofresources,

(3) a functionto acquirea messagefrom theuserandto in-terpretthemessage.

Theeffector is definedby two of thenext:

(a) the functionto form andmodify the insideandtheout-sideresourcesof theagent,

(b) a functionto makeandto sendamessageto theuser.

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Figure5: Standarddatahierarchy

The framework of the combinationwith the above func-tionsandtheinferenceengineis organizedasagenttemplatesby referringto JAT (JAVA Agent Template)of the StanfordUniversity. Furthermore,detailedtemplates,correspondingto eight typesof communicationmodelsgiven by CommonKADS, areformedasinteractiontemplateswith theuserandresources(Figure6).

4.3 Building ReusableTemplatesforImplementation of Applications

From the importanceof a unified languagefor the reflec-tion of the changeon a businessmodel,we rebuild andex-tendinferenceprimitivesof CommonKADS into “REPOSIT(REusable Pieces Of Specification-ImplementationTem-plates)”which combinesdeclarative semanticsemployedinCommonKADS and proceduralsemanticslike Prolog. Aunit of a descriptionin REPOSIT, definedasa relationshipamonginput, output and referenceknowledge, is called a“unit function”. A set of unit functions is rebuilt into themethodontology by abstractingknowledgetypes of input,outputandreference.

Furthermore,patternsof a combinationof unit functions,which appearfrequently in the developmentprocess,aregathered,sorted out and constructedas a method librarybasedon thefollowing standpoint:

(1) providing refinementpolicies,

Figure6: Primitivesof ApplicationTemplates

(2) standardizinga way of the knowledge(data) manage-ment,

(3) classifying the adding patternsof control structuresgivento specifications.

In orderto keepa correspondencebetweendescriptionsofspecificationsandimplementations,REPOSITsupportsstep-by-stepoperationalizationof anabstractdescriptioninto ade-tailed implementationmodel,as the following way (Figure7):

a. selectinga patternof the methodlibrary accordingto atasktypeof a knowledgesystem,

b. concretingknowledge type of input, output and refer-enceby usingthe softwareobjectontologyandtheob-tainedbusinessmodelastherequirementspecification,

c. addingacontrolstructureto thedescriptionwith theob-tainedinformationof knowledgetype,

d. selectinga patternfor eachunit functionof thedescrip-tion andcontinuingtheabove process.

Finally, we’ve provide 22 methodson theabstract-patternlevel, 92 methodsincludingprolog-build-in functionson theprogram-codelevel, and69 methodson themiddle-level.

4.4 Experimental StudyIn order to considerthe validnessandusability of proposedframework, we’ve implementedthe above mechanismbyJAVA into theproto-typingtool andappliedit into casestud-ies of constructingbusinessapplicationsfrom descriptiondocuments.

In eachcasestudy, somepatenttexts obtainedfrom theInternetare usedas a businessdocument. We have com-paredbetweenthemodelsof casestudiesprovidedby ProcessHandbookandtheonesbuilt by theproto-typetool (Figure7).

Roughlyspeakingabouttheresult,approximately70% ac-tivities of eachcasestudymodelaredeterminedfrom patenttexts, and,eachimplementationhasbeencompletedaround18 hoursafter receiving thepatenttext of claimsanddetailsasspecifications.

The above meansthat the cost of the applicationdevel-opmenthasbeenreducedmorethan50% ascomparedwithby hand,that reuseof thesystemhasbeenperformedabout

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Figure7: Overview of a DevelopmentProcess

Figure8: Executionof SupportingTool

thecommonstructureof businessapplications,andthatmainbusinessstructurecould be reusedif we have stackedandopensomeexperienceto the public at our library. Now, weareanalyzingandinvestigatingaboutthedeeperexperimen-tal studiesonthedevelopmentonheterogeneoussystemsandtheresultwill beopenuntil theconference.

5 DiscussionsThe above result of the experimentalstudy meansthat thecostof the applicationdevelopmenthasbeenreducedmorethan50%ascomparedwith by hand,thatreuseof thesystemhasbeenperformedaboutthecommonstructureof businessapplications,andthatmainbusinessstructurecouldbereusedif we have stackedandopensomeexperienceto thepublicatour library. Now, we areanalyzingandinvestigatingaboutthe deeperexperimentalstudieson the developmenton het-erogeneoussystems.

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Figure9: An Overview of INDIES

As comparisonwith relatedwork, there are three mainfieldsof researchareas:clarifying specifications,building anapplicationandreusingexisting libraries.

First,asdiscussedin Introduction,numbersof work onan-alyzing businessspecificationhasbeendoneby MIT, Edin-burgh University andso on. Their work arevery significantasafundamentalresearch,however, mostof themarearoundabstractandgeneralframework. Recently, ProcessHandbookis revisedinto e-BusinessProcessHandbookandprovidesahundredof specificationascasestudies. But mostof themarejustdefinedby naturallanguagetext. So,ourwork canberegardedastheintegratedwork to utilize therelatedwork.

Second,a lot of worksarecarriedout on building applica-tionsIncludingsoftwareengineeringfield[Code,et.al. 1997;?], but they usethedifferenttypeof tool andlanguagesonthedifferentphasesof development.So,modelsandlanguagesshouldbeunifiedinto on framework aswe proposed.

Our framework is basedon a standpointthat it is difficultto automatethewholebusiness,but possibleto do many partof it. Recently, a few of the researchersconsiderthemodel-ing methodologyof thewholeenterprisestructureasamulti-agentsystem[Kendall1999]. It is worth payingattentionbutstill remainon theabstractstructuresof definingagentroles.

Finally, a lot of projectsconcentrateon reusinglibraries,ontologiesandapplicationsandprovide a numberof repos-itories. One of our previous works is on interoperationofthe heterogeneousexpert systems[Izumi et.al. 1999a]. Be-causeeachexpert systemis modeledby its own vocabulary,it needsa conversion facility so that it can understandthemessagessentfrom otherexpert systems. In the work, weemployaspecification-sharing(SS)-basedcooperation,calledassistedcoordination[Genesereth1994]. Thesharedspecifi-cationcomesfrom REPOSITlibrary which servesasa com-mon structureof noun and verb conceptsnamedthe com-mon domainontology and the commontask ontology. Asthe methodsof modeling,operationalizing,cooperatingandcommunicating(wrapping)distributedexpert systemscomeup, we put themtogetherinto an interoperationenvironmentfor distributedexpertsystemsINDIES(Fig. 9).

In our previouswork, a numberof significantlessonsob-tainedin exchangingthemessagesamongtheheterogeneousexpert systems.However the way to constructthe commonontologiesis still remainasthefuturework. Ourcurrentworkcanbe regardedas a new approachto reuseheterogeneousrepositoriesbasedon ontologies.

6 Conclusion

As conclusion,the computingenvironment,which supportsdynamic constructionof businessmodelsand applicationsfrom businessdocument,shouldbe developedfor the pur-poseto perform the re-engineeringbusinessprocessesac-cording to the changesof businesssituations. From stand-pointthattheheterogeneousrepositoriesshouldbeintegratedto achievetheunifiedsupportof theapplicationdevelopment,we have proposedthe framework of theextractionof the re-quiredinformationbasedon ontologieswith reusablereposi-toriessuchase-businessprocesshandbook,CommonKADSandREPOSIT. In orderto constructthebusinessmodelsandto implementthemastheactualbusinessincludingsoftwareapplications,we develop two repositorieson different-grain-levels: the businessspecificationrepositoryon the level ofbusinessactivitiesandthebusinesssoftwarerepositoryonthelevel of softwareapplications.

We have implementedthe prototypesystemby JAVA andconfirmedthat it supportsus in variousphasesof businessapplicationdevelopmentincluding businessmodelmanifes-tation, detailedbusinessmodeldefinition andan implemen-tationof businesssoftwareapplications.Furthermore,wearere-organizingourproductin orderto openit to thepublic.

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