The availability of geographic and geospatial information and services, especially on the open Web has become abundant in the last several years with the proliferation of online maps, geo-coding services, geospatial Web services and geospatially enabled applications. The need for geospatial reasoning has significantly increased in many everyday applications including personal digital assistants, Web search applications, local aware mobile services, specialized systems for emergency response, medical triaging, intelligence analysis and more. Geospatial Semantics and the Semantic Web: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications, an edited volume contributed by world class leaders in this field, provides recent research in the theme of geospatial semantics. This edited volume presents new information systems applications that have potential for high impact and commercialization. Also, special effort was made by the contributors to focus on geospatial ontology development, related standards, geospatial ontology alignment and integration, and algorithmic techniques for geospatial semantics. Case studies and examples will be provided throughout this book as well as possibilities for future research.

Semantics, Web services, and Web processes promise better re-use, universal interoperability and integration. Semantics has been recognized as the primary tool to address the challenges of a broad spectrum of heterogeneity and for improving automation through machine understandable descriptions.

Semantic Web Services, Processes and Applications brings contributions from researchers who study, explore and understand the semantic enabling of all phases of semantic Web processes. This encompasses design, annotation, discovery, choreography and composition. Also this book presents fundamental capabilities and techniques associated with ontological modeling or services, annotation, matching and mapping, and reasoning. This is complemented by discussion of applications in e-Government and bioinformatics.

Special bulk rates are available for course adoption through Publishing Editor.

Information intermediation is the foundation stone of some of the most successful Internet companies, and is perhaps second only to the Internet Infrastructure companies. On the heels of information integration and interoperability, this book on information brokering discusses the next step in information interoperability and integration. The emerging Internet economy based on burgeoning B2B and B2C trading will soon demand semantics-based information intermediation for its feasibility and success. B2B ventures are involved in the rationalization' of new vertical markets and construction of domain specific product catalogs. This book provides approaches for re-use of existing vocabularies and domain ontologies as a basis for this rationalization and provides a framework based on inter-ontology interoperation. Infrastructural trade-offs that identify optimizations in performance and scalability of web sites will soon give way to information based trade-offs as alternate rationalization schemes come into play and the necessity of interoperating across these schemes is realized. Information Brokering Across Heterogeneous Digital Data's intended readers are researchers, software architects and CTOs, advanced product developers dealing with information intermediation issues in the context of e-commerce (B2B and B2C), information technology professionals in various vertical markets (e.g., geo-spatial information, medicine, auto), and all librarians interested in information brokering.

The Web is a globalinformationspace consistingoflinked documents andlinked data. As the Web continues to grow and new technologies, modes of interaction, and applications are being developed, the task of the Semantic Web is to unlock the power of information available on the Web into a common semantic inf- mation space and to make it available for sharing and processing by automated tools as well as by people. Right now, the publication of large datasets on the Web, the opening of data access interfaces, and the encoding of the semantics of the data extend the current human-centric Web. Now, the Semantic Web c- munity is tackling the challenges of how to create and manage Semantic Web content, how to make Semantic Web applications robust and scalable, and how to organize and integrate information from di?erent sources for novel uses. To foster the exchange of ideas and collaboration, the International Semantic Web Conference brings together researchers and practitioners in relevant disciplines such as arti?cial intelligence, databases, social networks, distributed computing, Web engineering, information systems, natural language processing, soft c- puting, and human-computer interaction. This volume contains the main proceedings of ISWC 2008, which we are - cited to o?er to the growing community of researchers and practitioners of the Semantic Web. We got a tremendous response to our call for research papers from a truly international community of researchers and practitioners from 41 countries submitting 261 papers. Each paper receivedan averageof 3.

Semantics, Web services, and Web processes promise better re-use, universal interoperability and integration. Semantics has been recognized as the primary tool to address the challenges of a broad spectrum of heterogeneity and for improving automation through machine understandable descriptions.

Semantic Web Services, Processes and Applications brings contributions from researchers who study, explore and understand the semantic enabling of all phases of semantic Web processes. This encompasses design, annotation, discovery, choreography and composition. Also this book presents fundamental capabilities and techniques associated with ontological modeling or services, annotation, matching and mapping, and reasoning. This is complemented by discussion of applications in e-Government and bioinformatics.

Special bulk rates are available for course adoption through Publishing Editor.

Information intermediation is the foundation stone of some of the most successful Internet companies, and is perhaps second only to the Internet Infrastructure companies. On the heels of information integration and interoperability, this book on information brokering discusses the next step in information interoperability and integration. The emerging Internet economy based on burgeoning B2B and B2C trading will soon demand semantics-based information intermediation for its feasibility and success. B2B ventures are involved in the rationalization' of new vertical markets and construction of domain specific product catalogs. This book provides approaches for re-use of existing vocabularies and domain ontologies as a basis for this rationalization and provides a framework based on inter-ontology interoperation. Infrastructural trade-offs that identify optimizations in performance and scalability of web sites will soon give way to information based trade-offs as alternate rationalization schemes come into play and the necessity of interoperating across these schemes is realized. Information Brokering Across Heterogeneous Digital Data's intended readers are researchers, software architects and CTOs, advanced product developers dealing with information intermediation issues in the context of e-commerce (B2B and B2C), information technology professionals in various vertical markets (e.g., geo-spatial information, medicine, auto), and all librarians interested in information brokering.

The availability of geographic and geospatial information and services, especially on the open Web has become abundant in the last several years with the proliferation of online maps, geo-coding services, geospatial Web services and geospatially enabled applications. The need for geospatial reasoning has significantly increased in many everyday applications including personal digital assistants, Web search applications, local aware mobile services, specialized systems for emergency response, medical triaging, intelligence analysis and more.

"Geospatial Semantics and the Semantic Web: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications," an edited volume contributed by world class leaders in this field, provides recent research in the theme of geospatial semantics. This edited volume presents new information systems applications that have potential for high impact and commercialization. Also, special effort was made by the contributors to focus on geospatial ontology development, related standards, geospatial ontology alignment and integration, and algorithmic techniques for geospatial semantics. Case studies and examples will be provided throughout this book as well as possibilities for future research.

Semantic web continues to be an increasingly important system for allowing end-users to share and communicate information online. Semantic Web: Ontology and Knowledge Base Enabled Tools, Services and Applications focuses on the information systems discipline and the tools and techniques utilized for the emerging use of semantic web. Covering topics on semantic search, ontologies, and recommendation systems, this publication is essential for academics, practitioners, and industry professionals.

The body of research in all aspects of Semantic Web development, design, and application continues to grow alongside new trends in the information systems community. Semantic-Enabled Advancements on the Web: Applications Across Industries reviews current and future trends in Semantic Web research with the aim of making existing and potential applications more accessible to a broader community of academics, practitioners, and industry professionals. Covering topics including recommendation systems, semantic search, and ontologies, this reference is a valuable contribution to the existing literature in this discipline.

Semantic Web technology is of fundamental interest to researchers in a number of fields, including information systems and Web design, as continued advancements in this discipline impact other, related fields of study. Semantic Services, Interoperability and Web Applications: Emerging Concepts offers suggestions, solutions, and recommendations for new and emerging research in Semantic Web technology. Focusing broadly on methods and techniques for making the Web more useful and meaningful, this book unites discussions on Semantic Web directions, issues, and challenges.