Mitarbeiter Lehrstuhl/Einrichtung der Fakultät für Informatik und Mathematik
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Precise, content-rich and well-structured document models are required for applications like verifying the consistency of documents. Creating such models for common documents is currently an expensive and error-prone process. In this thesis we present a novel approach to modelling and processing digital documents that uses semantic technologies. In contrast to other modelling approaches, we model the structure of documents as indicated by the content, not as defined by technical attributes like the file format. Additionally, our meta-model can be applied to a wide range of different documents, not just to a small set of documents with a predefined set of features. The models include semantic data and content relationships, which can be further extended with domain knowledge. Our new separation of technical and semantic document models fuels a standardised method for obtaining semantic models. This method is effective, suitable for live processing, and easily transferable to other document types and other domains. As it is makes extensive use of background knowledge, we also present techniques for obtaining such knowledge, and for representing complex forms of knowledge with multiple meta-layers. A flexible technique for obtaining relevant data from our document models completes the approach. This includes the ability to obtain various verification models, suitable for different types of consistency criteria and for different validation formalisms. We conclude this thesis with an evaluation that shows the viability and effectiveness of the proposed approach. We present runtime results for an implementation based on RDF/OWL and the rule language JBoss Drools that are adequate for live processing. We also provide and successfully apply techniques for measuring the quality of both document models and background knowledge.
This thesis addresses some of the algorithmic and numerical challenges associated with the computation of approximate border bases, a generalisation of border bases, in the context of the oil and gas industry. The concept of approximate border bases was introduced by D. Heldt, M. Kreuzer, S. Pokutta and H. Poulisse in "Approximate computation of zero-dimensional polynomial ideals" as an effective mean to derive physically relevant polynomial models from measured data. The main advantages of this approach compared to alternative techniques currently in use in the (hydrocarbon) industry are its power to derive polynomial models without additional a priori knowledge about the underlying physical system and its robustness with respect to noise in the measured input data. The so-called Approximate Vanishing Ideal (AVI) algorithm which can be used to compute approximate border bases and which was also introduced by D. Heldt et al. in the paper mentioned above served as a starting point for the research which is conducted in this thesis. A central aim of this work is to broaden the applicability of the AVI algorithm to additional areas in the oil and gas industry, like seismic imaging and the compact representation of unconventional geological structures. For this purpose several new algorithms are developed, among others the so-called Approximate Buchberger Möller (ABM) algorithm and the Extended-ABM algorithm. The numerical aspects and the runtime of the methods are analysed in detail - based on a solid foundation of the underlying mathematical and algorithmic concepts that are also provided in this thesis. It is shown that the worst case runtime of the ABM algorithm is cubic in the number of input points, which is a significant improvement over the biquadratic worst case runtime of the AVI algorithm. Furthermore, we show that the ABM algorithm allows us to exercise more direct control over the essential properties of the computed approximate border basis than the AVI algorithm. The improved runtime and the additional control turn out to be the key enablers for the new industrial applications that are proposed here. As a conclusion to the work on the computation of approximate border bases, a detailed comparison between the approach in this thesis and some other state of the art algorithms is given. Furthermore, this work also addresses one important shortcoming of approximate border bases, namely that central concepts from exact algebra such as syzygies could so far not be translated to the setting of approximate border bases. One way to mitigate this problem is to construct a "close by" exact border bases for a given approximate one. Here we present and discuss two new algorithmic approaches that allow us to compute such close by exact border bases. In the first one, we establish a link between this task, referred to as the rational recovery problem, and the problem of simultaneously quasi-diagonalising a set of complex matrices. As simultaneous quasi-diagonalisation is not a standard topic in numerical linear algebra there are hardly any off-the-shelf algorithms and implementations available that are both fast and numerically adequate for our purposes. To bridge this gap we introduce and study a new algorithm that is based on a variant of the classical Jacobi eigenvalue algorithm, which also works for non-symmetric matrices. As a second solution of the rational recovery problem, we motivate and discuss how to compute a close by exact border basis via the minimisation of a sum of squares expression, that is formed from the polynomials in the given approximate border basis. Finally, several applications of the newly developed algorithms are presented. Those include production modelling of oil and gas fields, reconstruction of the subsurface velocities for simple subsurface geometries, the compact representation of unconventional oil and gas bodies via algebraic surfaces and the stable numerical approximation of the roots of zero-dimensional polynomial ideals.
Up to a few years ago, the typical operation of a distributed architecture was modelled as the enactment of a collaborative protocol by networked nodes. In this context, all nodes were under the system designer’s control, faithfully executing the programmed behaviour. However, today’s networks are often characterized by a free aggregation of nodes. Thus, the possibility increases that a selfish party operates a node, which may violate the collaborative protocol in order to increase a personal benefit. If such violations differ from the system goals they can even be considered as attack. Current fault-tolerance techniques may weaken the harmful impact to some degree but they cannot necessarily prevent them. Furthermore, the several architectures differ in their fault-tolerance capabilities. This emphasizes the need for a systematic approach to achieve collaboration in distributed systems. In this PhD thesis we consider the problem of attaining a targeted level of collaboration in a distributed architecture deployed over rational selfish-driven nodes, which have interest in deviating from the communication protocol to increase a personal benefit. In order to reach this goal and to cover a broad spectrum of systems, we do not modify the architecture or communication protocol itself. Instead, we add a monitoring logic to inspect a node’s behaviour in terms of the correct interaction with the system. With this approach, the system designer needs to contrast several aspects such as the specific environmental circumstances, the inspection effort or the node’s individual preferences. Furthermore, he should consider the fact that each agent could be aware of the other agents’ preferences and selfishness, and perform strategic choices consequently. The natural frame for modelling such complex, interdependent and possibly interactive decision landscape is Game Theory (GT). In this context, the monitoring setup proposed in this thesis corresponds to a class of GT models known as Inspection Games (IG). Such games were introduced 1962 in their simplest formulation by Dresher in the context of non-proliferation treatises and arm control. They model the general situation where one inspector verifies through inspections the correct behaviour of another party, called inspectee. However, inspections are costly and the inspector’s resources are limited. Hence, a complete surveillance is not possible and an inspector will try to minimize the inspections. Finally, a game strategy combination (violating/inspecting or not) that is considered optimal by the parties represents a Nash equilibrium for the game. In this thesis, the initial IG model is enriched by the possibility of false negatives, i.e. the probability that a violation is not detected during an inspection. Both the initial and the enriched model remain abstract and can thus easily find interdisciplinary application. However, as solution approach in this thesis considering the context of distributed systems, it models the network participants’ strategy choice. As outcome, the IG model enables to calculate system parameters in order to shift the Nash equilibrium to the desired target collaboration. The approach is designed as framework. It can be therefore applied to any architecture considering, any selfish goal and any reliability technique. For sake of concreteness, we will discuss the IG approach by means of the illustrative case of a Publish/Subscribe (pub/sub) architecture. In this way messages over the communication infrastructure will have a specific associated semantics. The Inspection Game approach of this thesis secures the whole collaborative protocol in order to attain a correctly working system up to a specific degree (in the sense of collaboration). This represents a completely new way in terms of reliability mechanisms. Hence, this thesis can be considered as fundamental research. In order to enable a broad application, the generality of this approach is supported by further contributions. This is among others the software library RCourse for practical robustness evaluations of overlay networks and a simulation environment for further research of the abstract IG model. All developments will finally be published as open source software.
Due to the immense advance of widely accessible information systems in industrial applications, science, education and every day use, it becomes more and more difficult for users of those information systems to keep track with new and updated information. An approach to cope with this problem is to go beyond traditional search facilities and instead use the users' profiles to monitor data changes and to actively inform them about these updates - an aspect that has to be explicitly developed and integrated into a variety of information systems. This is traditionally done in an individual way, depending on the application and its platform. In this dissertation, we present a novel approach to model the semantic interrelations that specify which users to inform about which updates, based on the underlying model of the respective information system. For the first time, a meta-model that allows information system designers to tag an arbitrary data model and thus specify the event-handling semantics is presented. A formal specification of how to interpret meta-models to determine the receivers of the events completes the presented concept. For the practical realization of this new concept, model driven architecture (MDA) shows to be an ideal technical means. Using our newly developed UML profile based on data-modelling standards, an implementation of the event-handling specification can automatically be generated for a variety of different target platforms, like e.g. relational databases, using triggers. This meta-approach makes the proposed solution ideal with respect to maintainability and genericity. Our solution significantly reduces the overall development efforts for an event-handling facility. In addition, the enhanced model of the information system can be used to generate an implementation that also fulfils non-functional requirements like high performance and extensibility. The overall framework, consisting of the domain specific language (i.e. the meta-model), formal and technical transformations of how to interpret the enhanced information system model and a cost-based optimizing strategy, constitutes an integrated approach, offering several advantages over traditional implementation techniques: our framework can be applied to new information systems as well as to legacy applications without having to modify existing systems; it offers an extensible, easy-to-use, generic and thus re-usable solution and it can be tailored to and optimized for many use cases, as the practical evaluation presented in this dissertation verifies.
Computerunterstützte Beratungssysteme finden sowohl in der Industrie als auch im akademischen Bereich eine zunehmende Bedeutung. Die Anforderungen an solche Systeme sind hinsichtlich der abbildbaren Strukturen, der Flexibilität der Anfragen und der Vollständigkeit und Korrektheit der Antworten hoch. Dies gilt insbesondere für Planungsprobleme in strukturierten Domänen. Derartige Probleme treten beispielsweise bei der Erstellung von Tests auf der Grundlage einer Menge von Fragen und gewissen Anforderungen an den Test, bei der Konsistenzprüfung von Studienordnungen und bei der computerunterstützten Studienberatung auf. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Framework zur Behandlung eben genannter Probleme präsentiert. Die vorgestellte Lösung bietet durch den modellbasierten Ansatz und die entwickelte anwendungsnahe Modellierungssprache – gerade auch im Vergleich zu existierenden Ansätzen – einen sehr hohen Grad an Abstraktion, Allgemeingültigkeit, Ausdrucksstärke, Flexibilität und Integrierbarkeit. Im Rahmen des entwickelten Modells wird eine geeignete Verzahnung von strukturellen und constraintbasierten Aspekten erreicht. Der hierbei in Syntax und Semantik definierte Constraintbegriff kann darüber hinaus als Formalisierung und Verallgemeinerung von Pfadconstraints bzw. Pfadanfragen in hierarchischen Datenmodellen aufgefasst werden. Für die interne Repräsentation erweist sich ein logikbasierter Ansatz mit Constraints, nämlich Answer Set Programming mit Gewichten, als eine ausgezeichnete Methode bezüglich der Ausdrucksstärke, Mächtigkeit und Adäquatheit. Die Praxistauglichkeit des verfolgten Ansatzes im Hinblick auf Performanz und Skalierbarkeit wird in verschiedenen realen Anwendungsfällen demonstriert.