Next Generation Applications in Healthcare Digital Libraries using Semantic Service Composition and Coordination

Authors
Thorsten Möller, Heiko Schuldt, Andreas Gerber, Matthias Klusch
Type
Journal Article
Date
2006/6
Appears in
Health Informatics Journal (HIJ)
Location
Vienna, Austria
Publisher
SAGE Publications, London
Abstract
Healthcare digital libraries (DLs) increasingly make use of dedicated services to access functionality and/or data. Semantic (Web) services enhance single services and facilitate compound services, thereby supporting advanced applications on top of a DL. The traditional process management approach tends to focus on process definition at build time rather than on actual service events in run time, and toanticipate failures in order to define appropriate strategies. This paper presents a novel approach where service coordination is distributed among a set of agents. A dedicated component plans compound semantic services on demand for a particular application. In failure, the planner is reinvoked to define contingency strategies. Finally, matchmaking is effected at runtime by choosing the appropriate service provider. These combined technologies will provide key support for highly flexible next-generation DL applications. Such technologies are under development within CASCOM.