This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University.

methodology for e-Service discovery

Abstract: An ontology-based knowledge sharing system OntoShare and its evaluation as part of a case study is described. RDF(S) is are used to specify and populate an ontology, based on information shared between users in virtual communities. We begin by discussing the advantages that use

Accepted for the Council:

This Dissertation is dedicated to my father and mother--A. Baqui Khan, and Lutfe Ara Begum, who helped me grow into the person I am today and who have been "with me " in every sense in all phases of this Ph.D. journey. ii Acknowledgements All praises to almighty God, most gracious and most merciful, who allowed me to write this dissertation. He made me fortunate enough to be associated with so many competent and intellectually stimulating individuals who have guided me at every stage of my Ph.D. First, and foremost, I would like to thank Dennis McLeod, my research advisor and "mentor, " for his excellent guidance and encouragement throughout my research, and for his friendship during my years as a graduate student. His high standards of scholarship and intellectual integrity, as well as his openness and flexibility, contributed substantially to the understanding of the complex intersection of information retrieval, databases, and artificial intelligence which is presented in this dissertation. I was extremely fortunate to work under his supervision for my Ph.D.

Ontologies currently are a hot topic in the areas of knowledge management and enterprise application integration. In this thesis, we investigate how ontologies can also be used as an infrastructure for developing applications that intelligently support a user with various tasks. Based on recent

Abstract not found

Esta tese propõe o desenvolvimento de serviços baseados em ontologias para promover a interoperabilidade entre agentes heterogéneos pertencentes a sistemas multiagente (SMA) dedicados ao comércio electrónico entre empresas (B2B) 1. Estes serviços destinam-se a integrar uma Instituição Electrónica

extraction from multimedia data: an

the coverage and effectiveness of component composition compared with existing techniques. We also discuss a specific application domain that can be used as a testbed for the use of ontology-based techniques to achieve dynamic reconfiguration performed at run-time without direct human interaction.