A Semantic Framework for Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

In any scientic domain, the full set of data and programs has reached an-ome status, i.e. it has grown massively. The original article on the Semantic Web describes the evolution of a Web of actionable information, i.e. information derived from data through a semantic theory for interpreting the symbols. In a Semantic Web, methodologies are studied for describing, managing and analyzing both resources (domain knowledge) and applications (operational knowledge) - without any restriction on what and where they are respectively suitable and available in the Web - as well as for realizing automatic and semantic-driven work ows of Web applications elaborating Web resources. This thesis attempts to provide a synthesis among Semantic Web technologies, Ontology Research, Knowledge and Work ow Management. Such a synthesis is represented by Resourceome, a Web-based framework consisting of two components which strictly interact with each other: an ontology-based and domain-independent knowledge manager system (Resourceome KMS) - relying on a knowledge model where resource and operational knowledge are contextualized in any domain - and a semantic-driven work ow editor, manager and agent-based execution system (Resourceome WMS). The Resourceome KMS and the Resourceome WMS are exploited in order to realize semantic-driven formulations of work ows, where activities are semantically linked to any involved resource. In the whole, combining the use of domain ontologies and work ow techniques, Resourceome provides a exible domain and operational knowledge organization, a powerful engine for semantic-driven work ow composition, and a distributed, automatic and transparent environment for work ow execution.