AN INTEGRATED DECISION SUPPORT TOOL FOR EU

POLICIES ON HEALTH, TRANSPORT AND ARTISTIC

HERITAGE RECOVERY

Kanana Ezekiel and Farhi Marir

London Metropolitan University

Department of Computing, Communication Technology and Mathematics

2-16 Eden Grove

London N7 8DB

United Kingdom

Keywords: Enterprise Application Integratio

n, Information Integration and sharing, Integrated software

Abstract: In this paper, we describe an ongoing EU funded project (ISHTAR) that dev

elops an advance integrated

decision support tool (ISHTAR suite) for the analysis of the effects of long-term and short-term policies to

improve the quality of the environment, citizen’s health and preservation of heritage monuments. From the

background of the project, this paper goes on to explain the integration of information of a large number of

tools aimed at semantic approach integration to allow European cities to make balanced decisions on a wide

range of issues such as health, noise, pollution, transport, and historical monument. We also present and

suggest solutions to the information integration problem resulted when attempting to represent and share

information.

1 INTRODUCTION

European cities are faced with common challenges

concerning their quality of life ranging from

degradation of the urban environment, significant

risks for citizens health, traffic congestion and

economic inefficiency to progressive damage of the

artistic and monumental heritage. The process of

integrating such issues across organisation

boundaries is complicated and multidimensional

one. One difficult is derived from the lack of

integrated decision support tools that allow cities to

make balanced decisions on a wide range of issues

such as evaluation of the impacts of various types of

urban policies, actions on the quality of life of

citizens and in particular on traffic congestion, air

quality, citizen health and preservation of cultural

heritage.

The integration of information across

rganisation boundaries is a topic of interest to many

enterprises. According to some researchers (Fensel,

2003), (Butler, 2002) between 10% and 30% of

future IT spending will go towards Enterprise

Application Integration (EAI). Application

integration defines a core mission of IT

organizations today (Linkin, 2004). There are

several reasons for the increase in the need of

integration. New systems need to be integrated with

the legacy systems, and organisation or company

mergers require integration of software tools to

overcome problems in heterogeneity between data

sources. Also information sharing is a primary

emerging function (Figallo, 2002). The continue rise

in business opportunities and globalisation requires

capabilities that enable information integration to

ensure diffusion of information across enterprises.

By integrating tools through a middleware,

information can be accessed and shared across

organisational boundaries.

The Ishtar project aims to overcome the problem

of het

erogeneity between data sources by integration

of data sources or software tools using a central

integration manager called Ishtar Suite Manager

(ISM). The ISM manages and monitors processes of

software tools inside the suite. The Ishtar Data

Model (IDM) is proposed as a class/object model.

Each data corresponds to an object belonging to a

class defined in the metadata model. The metadata

model is managed in the ISM by means of a

database. Classes and objects are stored inside the

database. Objects inside the database represent the

actual data exchanged. The Ishtar Suite Interface

(ISI) for mapping users and the ISM is also

considered.

261

Ezekiel K. and Marir F. (2005).

AN INTEGRATED DECISION SUPPORT TOOL FOR EU POLICIES ON HEALTH, TRANSPORT AND ARTISTIC HERITAGE RECOVERY.

In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 261-266

DOI: 10.5220/0002522702610266

 SciTePress

In view of the above, this paper presents the process

of building an integrated tool for managing and

sharing information in the Ishtar project. We present

the specification of the architecture of the Ishtar

software tool. We also review some applications in

recently developed field of EAI. The paper is

organised as follows: In section 2, we present the

review of the state of the art and then in section 3 we

introduce the Ishtar Suite. In section 4, we present

the information integration problem and suggest

some solutions to the problem. Finally we provide

some conclusions in section 5.

2 STATE OF THE ART

With globalisation, organisations have become more

interconnected. The concept of EAI appeared only a

few years ago and it is now widely used and

explored because of the necessity for organisations

to interconnect their applications and provide new

functionalities to their users. The focus of EAI is on

process integration, structured data, and getting

applications to talk to each other. Although

according to InfoWorld (InfoWorld 2002) EAI

concept is still a tough and expensive nut to crack

despite advances in technology, it is being

implemented in a number of organisations (

Lejeune,

2003). In this section we observe some of the

achievements in the commercial sector and provide a

comparative evaluation with our approach.

WebLogic (BEA, 2004) is an integration server

with a full-featured platform for delivering

enterprise-class applications. WebLogic Integration

server not only provides data and application

integration but also business-to-business integration

and business process management. WebLogic

application Integration server is based on the J2EE

Connector Architecture (J2EE-CA) framework and

XML-based transformation engine. According to

Vijay Sarathy, product manager for Connectors and

JDBC at sun, the J2EE-CA is trying to extend what

JDBC has done for Java and J2EE in terms of

providing uniform connectivity with databases to

heterogeneous database systems. This application

framework links existing systems with new

applications. WebLogic supports leading enterprise

applications and technologies such as Oracle

Applications, MQ Series, SAP, Siebel, etc. It

provides a set of J2EE-CA to integrate with back-

end systems.

BusinessWare (Vitria, 2003) aims its product’s

integration capabilities at technical users.

BusinessWare is designed for application as well as

business-to-business integration. It offers dozens of

adapters for application integration, a connector

development kit, publish/subscribe messaging layer,

a transformation and data mapping tool, business

process management tool, etc. BusinessWare also

embeds rational Rose modelling tool for building

business processes.

Other applications that are close to WebLogic

and BusinessWare include WebSphere, SeeBeyond,

and ActiveEnterprise. WebSphere (Canon, 2004)

provides an EAI design and business-to-business

integration. WebSphere offers a strong

administration and deployment of tools. It not only

provides application integration but also a common

platform for development. This is particularly

appealing to companies that have a uniform platform

to develop their applications. SeeBeyond provides a

flexible way of linking applications and different

parts of a customer's supply chain independent of the

applications being connected. ActiveEnterprise is

designed for enterprise application integration and

business-to-business integration. It offers an end-to-

end integration product that aim at business users

with some technical knowledge. ActiveEnterprise

also offers packaged adapters for integration with

major databases and business systems such as Oracle

applications, SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards,

etc.

Although the EAI technology can effectively

move data between applications in real time, it does

not define an aggregated view of the data objects or

business entities. EAI is less adequately addressed

the need to merge data and information across the

enterprise. Along with the movement to real time,

the need to integrate different kinds of information

has become more important. The Enterprise

Information Integration (EII) does address this issue.

Although there has been a flurry of research

activities (Bergamaschi, 2001), (Mitra, 2001), (Noy,

2000), (Stefan, 1998), etc, in the EII area, still a lot

has to be done especially on the semantic level

integration. The work that most related to ours based

on semantic integration is the one presented in

(Bergamaschi, 2001). The approach of the MOMIS

project (Bergamaschi, 2001) is a semi-automatic

approach to schema integration. MOMIS has a

single mediator, which provides a global data

schema and query interface to users. Data sources

with an ODL wrapper are connected to the

architecture. Differently from our approach, the

Description Logics is used as a kernel language to

interactively set-up the Thesaurus. In our approach,

the structure and context of classes in the schema are

defined using the XML language transformation.

Also the MOMIS approach has not been used in any

major industrial projects and is mainly an academic

research activity.

Another interesting work that is built using

object integration technologies is in (Stefan, 1998).

Stefan focused the attention on suitable architectural

abstraction concepts of components and connectors

ICEIS 2005 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

262

for systems. They propose connectors as pattern-like

transferable abstractions of system level component

interconnection and interoperation.

Unfortunately the use of the above commercial

applications is not contemplated. Most of these

application integration approaches are complex,

costly, and inflexible and require additional design

and development efforts. Moreover, they are aimed

at large application integration in the enterprise. The

Ishtar suite is developed using ideas from both EAI

and EII technologies.

3 INTRODUCING THE ISHTAR

SUITE & THE ARCHITECTURE

The Ishtar project involves seven European cities

(Rome, Bologna, Athens, Paris, Brussels, Graz and

Grenoble) and a number of technical and scientific

organizations (ENEA, WHO, INRETS, TRAC,

ARIA, PHAOS, ASTRAN, etc) having different

roles in the integration process of the necessary tools

and other data sources for the Ishtar Suite.

The integration process includes both old and

new software tools. The suite supports a large

number of software tools including TRANSCAD,

TISIS, COPERT, dBEL, CALINE, PCRAMMET,

WOCCS, SIMT-SSP, ADMS-Urban, SATURN,

TRANUS, VISUM, METROPOLIS, TEE-

TURBAN, KEMIS, etc. Some of the tools need

connection to Microsoft office tools (Excel, Access,

etc), GIS and other tools such as Logical Decision

for Windows, Hielow, etc. Although most tools run

on PC under windows operating system, some run

on workstations under UNIX environment causing

additional difficult.

The architecture of Ishtar Suite (Figure 1)

consists of the following:

• Work packages with connector tools for

sending and receiving information to the

ISM.

• The Ishtar Suite Manager (ISM) for

managing the processes inside the suite.

• The user interface also known as Ishtar Suite

Interface (ISI) for connecting users to the

Ishtar Suite.

3.1 Work packages with connectors

The integration process is based on the seven

distinct steps of evaluation of transport policies

impacts on health and monuments, defined by the

following Work Packages:

• WP1: Urban Policies and Actions selection

and analysis

• WP2: Integrated transport Analysis Module

• WP3: Integrated transport Direct Impacts

• WP4: Pollutant and Noise Dispersion

Module

• WP6: Advance health Impact Module

• WP7: Damage reduction on Artistic

Heritage

• WP9: Overall Analysis of case studies

Each work package tool appears as a separate

software tool running its own data input, providing

its own output and possibly having its own user

interface. Using Connectors, work packages are

linked to the ISM (Section 3.2) for exchanging

information with other work package. This allows

information to be shared among applications.

Connectors are pieces of software or interface

components that are used in the integration of

applications and serve as a "wrapper" that mediates

access to an application that was not developed with

integration in mind. Connectors are used to move

data in and out of applications. This is similar to the

ODBC in relational databases, which allow unique

interface to each vendor of RDBMS. In the Ishtar

suite, a Connector performs two kinds of operations:

• The management of exchanges between ISM

and tool in work packages. All data used by

work package as input, output or internal data

are sent to ISM by the Connector on the form of

object corresponding to predefined classes of

metadata model. A connector communicates

with the ISM by means of messages in XML

format. Messages are sent to ISM for each

request of data.

• The management of execution of work package

tool under the control of ISM. A message may

be sent by ISM to start a work package tool, it is

the connector’s job to prepare the definition of

the object used by the work package tool and

then send to ISM. After approval by ISM, the

work package tool is launched. Two cases are

considered when launching the work package

tool:

o One case is when the work package

tool provides its own user interface.

The data provided by user will be

entered through work package tool’s

own interface. The connector carries

out the management of input data

building corresponding parameters

then send to ISM the object

corresponding to the parameters.

o The other case is when there is no user

interface. The data provided will be

entered through the ISI. Users

parameters are built by ISI and ISM

and then provided to the connector.

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3.2 The Ishtar Suite Manager (ISM)

The ISM performs the following functionalities:

• Management of data and information

exchanged between work packages

• Management of the current scenario

execution, keeping trace and archiving of

scenarios

• Control of the running process in the suite

• Monitoring processes of each work packages

• Control Ishtar Suite Interface (ISI)

• Store data that is run in each scenario in the

suite to a repository called Ishtar Suite

Database (ISDB). Also a GIS tool called

Ishtar Suite GIS (ISGIS) is used for the

management of geographical data and map

displays.

Most applications in the EAI domain use message

exchange communication to send and receive

information (David 1999), (Longo, 2001). The

principle of message communication is that a

message provides more than simple data. A message

contains data and information on action requested by

a tool. A Connector undertakes the connection and

message exchange of the application to the ISM.

Whenever an application needs to be integrated a

connector is added to a work package. Applications

are no longer tightly coupled. Also there is no longer

a bridge via one specific single user interface. The

ISM not only controls the processes but also

manages the information. Clearly information

management in this context is an extremely difficult

activity. In particular there is a need for managing

information transformation. Further details are

articulated in the following subsections.

3.2.1 Management of messages, objects and

data in ISM

All message or data exchanged are described as

objects belong to classes defined as metadata, part of

Ishtar Data Model. The kind of data that ISM

manages includes traffic data, population data,

network data, Meteo data, etc. Data management is

according to a transformation or mapping rule. To

achieve transformation objects must refer to one of

the classes defined in the IDM. The ISM contains a

database (ISDB) with a global schema. The global

schema is composed of hierarchy of global classes

defined for exchange. In each class, attributes are

identified and defined with data types in XML

format. Figure 2 shows the management of

messages, objects and data in the ISM:

• Message management gets the objects sent

by tools with associated request.

• Object management checks that the object

belongs to a class stored in the class database

and stores the object in the objects database.

3.2.2 Management of processes

The ISM launches a software tool on the request

from user via the interface. It then sends a launching

message to the connector tool. The ISM waits for the

response of the tool. After receiving message ISM

lock all other processes. The ISM is then control the

execution of the tool by means of the exchanged

messages. At the end of the execution of the tools

process, the connector sends a message of execution

end to ISM. ISM sends the information to the user

and unlocks the other processes. Figure 3 shows

management of processes in the ISM phase.

Ishtar Suite Mana

er (ISM)

Figure 1: The Architecture and Work Packages (WPs) with Connectors (C1 – C9).

ISDB

Ishtar Suite Interface

(

ISI

)

ISGIS

WP1

WP2

WP3

WP4

WP6

WP7

WP9

WP7

WP9

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264

Message management

3.2.3 Management of transformation of data

The ISM undertakes the transformation of data

coming from work package tools and requested by

the current tool. There are two kinds of

transformations. The first one concerns the content

of data. In some cases data requested by tool is not

directly provided by one tool rather a combination of

several data provided by several work package tools.

The ISM has a base rules for transformation to

assure that all data requested are completed from

relevant sources. The other transformation concerns

the format of data so that it fits the expected format.

ISM uses XML format as a core format for

exchanges of data inside the suite.

3.3 Ishtar Suite Interface (ISI)

The ISI is part of Ishtar suite through which user

controls the execution of processes in the suite. The

ISI provides an interactive window where user will

have a set of menus to control the process of Ishtar

Suite. Each menu corresponds to one of the seven

modules defined as work packages. The ISI opens

specific interface window when a module of the

suite is activated. It also provides an interactive

window for each activated module.

The combination of ISM, ISI and connectors

create a powerful architecture for information

integration in the Ishtar Suite. The architecture now

can flow from the ISI to WP9 tool to the ISM then

from ISM to WP3 tool. This makes the Ishtar Suite

adaptable to any existing software tools and does not

force them to conform to any particular form that is

existing tools. It is also designed to embrace new

applications or technologies as they emerge.

4 INFORMATION INTEGRATION

A collection of information or data is needed to

support most decision-making processes.

Information is a central part of any decision support

system. Heterogeneous information drawn from

internal operational tools as well as external data

sources is mapped to the information specified in a

global schema for exchange. Our approach follows

the semantic paradigm, in that a global conceptual

schema is involved and schema objects (sharable

information) are described using a common Ishtar

Data Model (IDM) and XML language. IDM is

defined as subset of Object Data Model. Information

integration is described in detail in (Lejeune, 2003).

4.1 The information Integration

Problem

When sharing knowledge between applications,

integration problems are compounded. Each

ect

Data management

ut data to tools

Transformation

rules

Classes Objects

Common data

Out

ut data from tools

ure 2: Mana

ement of messa

es, ob

ects and data in ISM.

User

launch WP

Send a launch message to

WPs

WP tool

Wait message from WPs

Manage messages from WP tool

Receive launch start message

Control execution of WP tool

Lock all

other processes

Messages

Info to the use

Unlock

rocesses

Treat error

ure 3: Mana

ement of

rocesses in ISM.

User

AN INTEGRATED DECISION SUPPORT TOOL FOR EU POLICIES ON HEALTH, TRANSPORT AND ARTISTIC

HERITAGE RECOVERY

265

organisation has its own set of applications,

technologies and standards. Information integration

is hindered by differences in software and hardware

applications and also by syntactic and semantic

differences in various data and data sources. This is

a recognized problem in the area of EAI where many

applications have been created for the purpose of

information integration. When broadening the scope

of the information integration problem to cross-

organisational boundary, the problem becomes even

more severe because within an organisation there is

certain amount of control over the applications used

by one organisation, while there typically is no

control over the applications used by other

organisations.

What further complicated the matter is the fact

that people who are involved in the integration

process from existing applications may sometimes

have little or no knowledge of the data sources or

software tools that are being used which make

mapping a hard problem.

4.2 Solving Information Integration

Problem

Most current tools, however, only addresses the

problems of platforms and syntactic heterogeneity.

The problem of semantic heterogeneity that is the

differences in the meaning of concepts is, in current

solutions reduced to syntactic rewriting without

explaining the meaning of data. In the Ishtar project,

we try to provide a solution for the information

integration problem across organization boundaries.

We use the Ishtar suite to create integration manager

ISM with a well-defined common Ishtar Data Model

(IDM). The ISM maps data schemas taken from

different sources to the IDM in order to make the

meaning of the concepts explicit. Here the ISM

enables information integration on a semantic level,

but there are still many issues to resolve, such as

standardisation in languages for specification of

mapping rules and the development of reusable,

industrial-strength tools for creation and operational

of these mapping. Standards are arising to mitigate

these problems, but current approaches are specific

for certain organisations and are typically very rigid

in what require from anyone using the standard.

5 CONCLUSION

We have presented the architecture of integrated tool

for the Ishtar project. The architecture is flexible,

allowing the integration of interdependent work

packages. We base our architecture on the main

principles of EAI and EII domains, namely the use

of an integration manager, constituting the core of

the suite, managing the control of processes and data

exchange between software in work packages. The

manager also communicates with all tools by means

of messages and manages exchange of data based on

XML file format. Specific tool called ‘Connector’ is

developed by each work package for

communication.

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