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Tech Report kmi-93-02 Abstract


The Emerging VITAL Workbench
Techreport ID: kmi-93-02
Date: 1993
Author(s): John Domingue, Enrico Motta and Stuart Watt
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VITAL is a research and development project which aims to provide methodological and software support for developing large, embedded KBS applications. VITAL is novel in that its ambition is to develop a methodology-based workbench covering the whole KBS life-cycle, from requirements specification to implementation, and to integrate and deploy a number of techniques drawn from artificial intelligence, as well as software engineering and human-computer interaction fields of research. In this paper we report on the current state of the VITAL workbench, and in particular we discuss the general design choices we took concerning the overall infrastructure, user interface, data and control integration, and tool management. Moreover, we'll describe in some detail the important role that some advanced software technologies - such as groupware and software visualization - have played in the design and implementation of the workbench.

Publication(s):

This paper appeared in Aussenac, N., Boy, G., Gaines, B., Linster, M., Ganascia, J.-G. & Kodratoff, Y. (eds) Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems 7th European Workshop, EKAW'93 Toulouse and Caylus, France, September, 1993, pp. 320-339, Springer-Verlag.
 
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Future Internet is...


Future Internet
With over a billion users, today's Internet is arguably the most successful human artifact ever created. The Internet's physical infrastructure, software, and content now play an integral part of the lives of everyone on the planet, whether they interact with it directly or not. Now nearing its fifth decade, the Internet has shown remarkable resilience and flexibility in the face of ever increasing numbers of users, data volume, and changing usage patterns, but faces growing challenges in meetings the needs of our knowledge society. Globally, many major initiatives are underway to address the need for more scientific research, physical infrastructure investment, better education, and better utilisation of the Internet. Within Japan, USA and Europe major new initiatives have begun in the area.

To succeed the Future Internet will need to address a number of cross-cutting challenges including:

  • Scalability in the face of peer-to-peer traffic, decentralisation, and increased openness

  • Trust when government, medical, financial, personal data are increasingly trusted to the cloud, and middleware will increasingly use dynamic service selection

  • Interoperability of semantic data and metadata, and of services which will be dynamically orchestrated

  • Pervasive usability for users of mobile devices, different languages, cultures and physical abilities

  • Mobility for users who expect a seamless experience across spaces, devices, and velocities