Nanopublications are a granular way of publishing scientific claims together with their associated provenance and publication information. More than 10 million nanopublications have been published by a handful of researchers covering a wide range of topics within the life sciences. We were motivated to replicate an existing analysis of these nanopublications, but then went deeper into the structure of the existing nanopublications. In this paper, we analyse the usage of nanopublications by investigating the distribution of triples in each part and discuss the data quality issues that were subsequently revealed. We argue that there is a need for the community to develop a set of guidelines for the modelling of nanopublications.

Computer-Aided Biomimetics (CAB) tools aim to support the integration of relevant biological knowledge into biomimetic problem-solving processes. Specific steps of biomimetic processes that require support include the identification, selection and abstraction of relevant biological analogies. Existing CAB tools usually aim to support these steps by describing biological systems in terms of functions, although engineering functions do not map naturally to biological functions. Consequentially, the resulting static, functional view provides an incomplete understanding of biological processes, which are dynamic, cyclic and self-organizing. This paper proposes an alternative approach that revolves around the concept of trade-offs. The aim is to include the biological context, such as environmental characteristics, that may provide information crucial to the transfer of biological information to an engineering application. The proposed design process is exemplified by an illustrative case study.

The CoAKTinG project aims to advance the state of the art in collaborative mediated spaces for distributed e-Science. The project is integrating several knowledge based and hypertext tools into existing collaborative environments, and through use of a shared ontology to exchange structure, promotes enhanced process tracking and navigation of resources before, after, and while a meeting occurs. This paper provides an overview of the CoAKTinG tools, the ontology that connects them, and current research activities.

The CoAKTinG (Collaborative Advanced Knowledge Technologies in the Grid) projecthas developed a set of integrated tools to enhance collaboration between e-Scientists. As oneof three case studies, these tools are being applied within the Combechem e-Science pilotproject. Two levels of integration are being explored: straightforward deployment of genericCoAKTinG tools, and a “deep” integration between these tools and the Combechem grid. Thedeeper integration supports the publication at source research objective of Combechem, inwhich a digital record is maintained through the information processing chain that starts in thelaboratory, supporting retrospective use in the e-Science process. In this paper we provide anoverview of the tools and we focus in particular on the adaptation of one of the tools for theCombechem application.

CISA undertakes basic and applied research and development in knowledge representation and reasoning, and puts this into practical use through its Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute. Research Challenges The following are examples of major research challenges that CISA researchers have accepted and are now pursuing with government and industrial funding. Knowledge lifecycles. Old fashioned knowledge-based systems tended to be simple, self-contained and of limited importance to business success. Their modern counterparts are often complex, interacting with other systems and may be business-critical. This means that we must provide "joined up" engineering which links the various stages in use of knowledge (from acquisition to decommissioning) and enables us to support these in concert. Through projects like the AKT-IRC (see information sheet) we are developing this sort of engineering and the theories needed to understand it. Model integration. Normally our choice of representational styles and inference systems is conditioned by a particular style of modelling which we believe appropriate to the problem in hand. The ability to choose models appropriate to problems is a prerequisite for engineering but the proliferation of seemingly different models inhibits the development of unifying principles across similar types of problem. Through projects like AKT and I-X we are building the frameworks necessary to develop and share different types of problem-specific model through common underlying representations. Agent-based engineering. It is hard to build a multi-agent system and predict accurately what its behaviour will be. Even harder is the task of building an individual agent which will "do the right thing" within someone else's multi-agent system. The nub of the problem is that agent systems are not allowed precise expectations about the integrity of their environment or the reliability of the other agents with which they must interact. This demands that we bring engineering precision to "soft" concepts like negotiation, argument and belief revision, and that we understand how macro-behaviours of multi-agent systems may emerge from micro-behaviours of individual agents. We are doing this through projects like SLIE and I-X. Planning and activity management. We are exploring representations and reasoning mechanisms for inter-agent activity support. Planning and acting rationally are key capabilities for intelligent behaviour. The agents may be people or computer systems working in a coordinated and perhaps mixed-initiative fashion. We are exploring and developing generic approaches by engaging in specific applied studies. Intelligent Interfaces. We are researching and developing intelligent multi-modal interfaces that can provide support to user …

The use of mobile devices is becoming increasingly more frequent. Although very limited, these devices now have capacities for running more advanced systems. Opportunities for developing applications using artificial intelligence have emerged with the release of APIs that are not aimed at proprietary platforms, such as J2ME. This paper discusses some approaches of artificial intelligence planning aimed at mobile computing and subsequently presents an approach to delivering intelligent planning information to users of mobile devices that are participating in collaborative planning environments. Access to planning information by human agents on the move can improve several aspects of planning processes, including collaboration.

Automatic video processing for the EcoGrid poses many challenges as there is a vast amount of raw data that need to be analysed effectively and efficiently. Furthermore, ecological data are subject to environmental changes and are exception-prone, hence their qualities vary. We propose a hybrid workflow composition system that strives to provide automation to speed up this process. This approach utilises ontologies to provide semantic interoperability and Planning for task decomposition. We wish to extend the flexibility of workflow systems to vision problemswhich are highly specialised by nature. The solution soughtis one that best satisfies the system's requirements and that overcomes the limitations of existing Grid workflow composition systems.