This document presents a proposed solution for developing semantic web services using UML and Acceleo. It discusses challenges with current semantic web service development including steep learning curves and lack of standardized tools. The proposed solution uses UML models to generate syntactic service descriptions and Acceleo templates to derive semantic descriptions from UML models and ontologies. A use case scenario and demonstration are presented, followed by a discussion of related work and conclusions on the need for simpler and more efficient semantic web service development tools.

1. Exploiting UML and Acceleo for
Developing Semantic Web Services
Jabu. Mtsweni
School of Computing
University of South Africa, Pretoria
mtswejs@unisa.ac.za

2. Presentation Outline
1. INTRODUCTION
2. BACKGROUND
3. PROPOSED SOLUTION
4. USE CASE SCENARIO
5. DEMONSTRATION
6. RELATED WORK
7. CONCLUSION

3. 1. INTRODUCTION
• Semantic Web Services (SWS) = Web Services (WS) +
Semantic Web (SW)
• Ontologies (formal representation of knowledge) plays a key
role in SWS.
• SWS promise a number of benefits:
• Improved representation, sharing, searching,
reasoning, and re-use of data and services on the Web
• Automation of various tasks on the Web, such as service
discovery, selection, execution, and monitoring

4. 2.1 BACKGROUND
 SWS rely on semantic descriptions for automation
 Semantic descriptions describe non-functional and
functional (capability and behaviour) aspects of
services
 Semantic descriptions are normally derived from
ontologies
 Models such as WSMO, OWL-S based on ontology
languages (e.g. WSML and OWL) are available
 Other light-weight approaches, such as WSMO-Lite
and SAWSDL are also available to define ontologies
and descriptions

5. 2.2 BACKGROUND (CHALLENGES)
 Steep learning curve of emerging semantic models
 Complex textual semantic description languages
 Current tools are tightly-coupled to specific
languages
 Lack of support for the development of semantic
services
 Lack of unified semantic service development tools
 Lack of Standardization (e.g. no common standard
for defining semantic descriptions)

6. 3. PROPOSED SOLUTION
• The development process of semantic services
comprises a number of tasks
• service implementation
• syntactic descriptions
• semantic descriptions
• Deployment
• Publication
• Without the necessary tools to support these tasks
the development process of semantic services
could be prolonged

7. 3.2 PROPOSED SOLUTION

8. 3.3 PROPOSED SOLUTION
Extract of the Acceleo Script (UML2WSMO)
1. <%
2. metamodel http://www.eclipse.org/uml2/2.0.0/UML
3. import org.acceleo.modules.uml2.services.Uml2Services
4. import org.acceleo.modules.uml2.services.Common
5. %>
6. <%--This template generate a WSMO domain ontologies--%>
7. <%script type="Class" name="fullFilePath"%>
8. <%if (hasStereotype("WSMO") ){%>
9. wsml/ontologies/<%name.toLowerCase()%>Ontology.wsml
10. <%}%>
11. <%script type="Class" name="ontologies" file="<%fullFilePath%>"%>
12. <%if (hasStereotype("WSMO") ){%>
13. wsmlVariant _http://www.wsmo.org/wsml/wsml-syntax/wsml-flight
14. concept <%name%>
15. nonFunctionalProperties
16. dc#description hasValue "{add description of the concept}"
17. endNonFunctionalProperties
18. <%for (ownedAttribute) {%>
19. <%name%> ofType _<%type.name%>
20. <%}%>
21. <%for (ownedOperation) {%>

9. 4. USE CASE SCENARIO

10. 5. DEMONSTRATIONS

11. 5. RELATED WORK
• There are a number of solutions that have been proposed to
date for facilitating the development of semantic services.
• OWL-S IDE [by Srinivasan, Paolucci, and Sycara ]
• Translates Java code into WSDL
• WSDL to skeletal OWL-S ontologies
• Only Supports OWL-S
• Generation of Semantic descriptions lacks details
needed for automation
• Reverse Engineering [by Bensaber and Malki]
• Follows model-driven approach
• WSDL translated to UML class and activity diagrams
• Diagrams then converted to OWL-S descriptions
• Relies heavily on syntactic descriptions

12. 6. CONCLUSION
 Semantic services are seen as the main building block for the
Next Generation of the Web
 The driving philosophy behind WS & SWS development is
programmer’s productivity.
 Simpler and Efficient tools are then necessary for a facilitating
the implementation of semantic technologies
 The proposed approach is viewed as one possible solution in
dealing with the complexities and restrictions involved in
implementing semantic services
 Further research points to improving the suggested approach
by incorporating software agents; which are relevant for
processing the semantic descriptions in an autonomous,
proactive, and reactive manner on Web

13. Thank you!
Questions – Comments – Suggestions -
Collaborations
Work E-mail: mtswejs@unisa.ac.za
Private E-mail: mtswenij@gmail.com
Twitter: @JabuMTS
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