This chapter discusses scalability problems and solutions to services-based ubiquitous computing applications in real time enterprises. The scalability problems are (1) identifying relevant services for deployment, (2) verifying a composition by a logical rule framework, and (3) enabling the mapping of required services to the “best” available device. We argue that ontologies can help to counter these challenges. Subsequently, we provide a detailed introduction to ontologies. We focus on the ontology languages emerging from the corresponding W3C Semantic Web activity. The W3C recommendations have a high impact on future tools and the interoperability of ontology-based applications. We contrast the pros and cons of ontologies at a general level and demonstrate the benefits and challenges in our concrete smart items middleware.

The THESEUS research program assembled key companies with market power from all types of sectors to jointly develop the innovative products that will enable the knowledge society. There have been carried out six use cases to demonstrate applications based on the developements of the THESEUS Core Technology Cluster. In this article, we will give a short overview of selected results of each use case.

This paper contributes an argumentation line for how technological features of ontologies lead to benefits for enterprise applications. Although many features are also available in precursory or alternative technologies, we claim that combinations of specific features are uniquely provided by ontologies. A careful elicitation of the available features therefore is a prerequisite for the argumentation line. As a second contribution, this paper reports on several challenges that frequently occur when trying to adopt ontologies in existing enterprise settings. These challenges have to be contrasted with the often overstressed benefits in Semantic Web literature. Together with reports for several SAP Research case studies, this paper channels back experiences to the Semantic Web community. As a third contribution, we give several recommendations for future research directions based on the gathered experiences.

The Handbook of Service Description introduces an in-depth overview of service description efforts. The book also highlights the recent Unified Service Description Language (USDL) in detail and discus

The impact of software on human interactions is ever increasing. However, software developers are often unaware of statutory provisions that regulate human interactions. As a consequence, software is increasingly coming into conflict with such provisions. Therefore, this paper contributes an approach for advising the developer in designing software that complies to statutory provisions. The approach relies on the formalisation of statutory provisions and semi-automated legal reasoning assisted by the developer. DOI: 10.2966/scrip.090312.280 © Daniel Oberle, Felix Drefs, Richard Wacker, Christian Baumann, Oliver Raabe 2012. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. Please click on the link to read the terms and conditions. † SAP Research Karlsruhe, Germany. d.oberle@sap.com, ch.baumann@sap.com * Institute of Information and Economic Law, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. felix.drefs@kit.edu, richard.wacker@kit.edu, oliver.raabe@kit.edu (2012) 9:3 SCRIPT-ed 281

A prominent research focus, especially in the context of EU public funding, has been the systematic use of the Internet for new ways of value creation in the services sector. This idea of service networks in the Internet, frequently dubbed the Internet of Services orWeb service ecosystems, wants to make services tradable in digital media. In order to enable communication and trade between providers and consumers of services, the Internet of Services requires a standard that creates a “commercial envelope” around a service. This is where the Unified Service Description Language (USDL) comes into play as a normative and balanced unification of service information. The unified description established by USDL is machineprocessable, considers technical and business aspects of a service as well as functional and non-functional attributes.