OntoAIProposal of Ontology to Define Digital TV Interactive Application

Diego Armando de Oliveira Meneses1, Antonio Aliberte de Andrade Machado1,Adicineia Aparecidade Oliveira1 and Rogerio Patricio Chagas Nascimento1

1Universidade Federal de sergipe, Sergipe, Brasil

Keywords: Digital TV, Interactive Applications, Interactivity and Ontology.

Abstract: Convergence of technologies has enabled the formation of the Digital TV infrastructure. The Brazilian DigitalTelevision System (SBTVD) was developed with a layer of middleware called Ginga. This middleware sup-ports the development of applications and is responsible for supporting interactivity. This structure providesnew opportunities and challenges. One of these challenges is the development process of interactive applica-tions for Digital TV. Develop interactive applications for Digital TV is a new and complex process. Createaid mechanisms to do this is necessary task. This paper proposes the development of an ontology that definesthe concepts and relationships in an interactive application. The ontology was developed from the executionof a specific methodology and with the support of bibliographic references and systematic review. Multidis-ciplinary teams that produce interactive applications can use the ontology as supporting documentation or tounderstand the concepts of an application. Aiming to facilitate integration with other applications ontologywas available in OWL format. The ontology created is simple and can be revised and altered depending on thecontext.

1 INTRODUCTION

Today there are several technologies that converge ondifferent devices, enabling new features and products.Television also going through this series of modifi-cations (Zuffo, 2006). The main change is the dig-ital signal. The digital signal together with the re-turn channel provides interactivity. The interactiv-ity allows you to control the viewer about the han-dling of applications and content creation (Montezand Becker, 2005).

Development process of interactive application iscomplex and immature for Digital Television. Com-plexity exists because of the convergence of two dis-tinct areas: audio-visual and software development(Crocomo, 2007). Immaturity occurs due to lack ofmethodologies, techniques and development methodsfor this type of application. Teams multidisciplinaryprovides a complex domain. The lack of knowledgeabout this domain, affect the development of applica-tions.

To solve this problem we suggest the creationof an ontology defining an interactive application ofDigital TV. An ontology brings the benefit of being in-dependent technology and provide better understand-ing of the problem from the modeling performed in ahigher level of abstraction (Gruber, 1993). This pa-

per proposes an ontology for defining an interactiveapplication of Digital TV. The ontology was createdfrom the use of a methodology and compiling con-cepts raised through a literature search.

1.1 Related Work

Works found during the systematic review. A sys-tematic review was performed from the string: ((on-tology) OR (ontologia)) AND (((”Digital TV”) OR(DTV) OR (”TV Digital”))). The research was con-ducted in SPRINGER and periodicals CAPES. Theprinciple were found 237 papers. After applicationof the inclusion criteria, 5 (five) were selected forreading. The following are 3 of these articles. (Kimand Kang, 2013) proposes an ontology of IPTV pro-grams and viewers consumption behavior to improvethe ability to recommend ads. (Saleemi and Lilius,2014) proposes a methodology with ontology-basedapproach that helps to design and develop interactiveTV applications. In Tsinaraki et al. (Tsinaraki et al.,2005) proposes a semantic indexing of audiovisualcontent-based indexing ontologies for MPEG-7 andTV-Anytime.

1.2 Paper Structure

The introduction contextualizes the problem, explainsthe difficulties, describes the motivations, presents theobjectives to develop the work. Theoretical back-ground is the compilation of several concepts used inthe construction of ontology. In Topic 3 we have thecreation of ontology, from the execution of the stepsof the methodology. In the topic brief analysis of theresults is made evaluating the ontology based on qual-ity criteria and levels of care to these criteria.

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This topic is done the compilation of concepts, DigitalTV, Interactivity and Ontology. The concepts are im-portant because they provide the basis for the creationof OntoAI.

2.1 Digital TV

Television is an electronic system for receiving soundimages and snapshots. It works based on the conver-sion of light and sound into electromagnetic wavesand their conversion into a receiver (TV). Digital TVoffers new services that previously were not possi-ble in the conventional transmission system into elec-tromagnetic waves. Related to the digital televisionservices are broadcast to multiple types of handset,record prgrams on your hard disk, computer systems,games and internet access. Access internet is the mainway to promote the full interactivity in digital TV, thisaccess is via the return channel, can use it as a com-munication: medium telephone line, dial-up, Asym-metric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) Power LineCommunications (PLC), cable, satellite and mobilephones (Meloni, 2007). Digital TV is a new plat-form of communication, which over time will causechanges society (Montez and Becker, 2005).

2.2 Interactivity

2.2.1 Concept

Interactivity is capacity (of equipment, communica-tion system, or computer, etc.) to interact and interactto allow.

In Interactive Digital TV, the TV is no longer uni-directional and proceeds to allow greater user par-ticipation in selecting contents (Montez and Becker,2005). This change provides interactivity makesthe production process more complex content. For(Steuer, 1992), the interactivity depends on the extent

how you can participate or influence the immediatechange in form and content.

2.2.2 Features

(Montez and Becker, 2005) describes five character-istics of interactivity. They are: Ability to stop, Gran-ularity, Soft Degradation, Limited Forecast and Non-Default.

2.2.3 Levels of Interactivity

We categorizing interactivity from its scope in rela-tion to the ability to control the contents in ascendingorder (Montez and Becker, 2005). The categories are:Reactive, Proactive and coercive.

2.2.4 Types of Interactivity

There are various types for interactivity. The mostused was proposed by the research and developmentcenter in Telecommunications (CPqD) where thereare 3 types: Local, Intermittent, Permanent.

2.2.5 Types of Interactive Applications

(Montez and Becker, 2005) states that it is possible toclassify the whole range of information incorporatedby the term interactivity into seven major groups.They are: TV Advanced (Enhanced TV), Internet onTV, Individualized TV, Video On Demand, PersonalVideo Recorder (PVR), Walled Garden and GamesConsole. (Gawlinski, 2003) adds two new groups:Electronic Program Guide and Teletext Services.

2.3 Ontology

2.3.1 Concept

(BlackBurn and Marcondes, 1997) describe ontologyas ”the branch of metaphysics that concerns whatexists.” Unlike philosophy, the term ontology has asui generis meaning in information organization andcomputer science. To (Sowa, 2001), ontology is a”catalog of types of things” where it is believed to bea domain, from the perspective of someone who usesa particular language. The ontology concept adoptedin Computer Science is expressed by (Gruber, 1993),”an ontology is a specification of a conceptualization,ie, an ontology is a description (like a formal specifi-cation of a program) of the concepts and relationshipsthat can exist for an agent or a community of agents”.(Borst, 2001) is a description of simpler and completeontology: ”An ontology is a formal, explicit specifi-cation of a shared conceptualization”. Where formal

specification has the meaning understood by comput-ers; explicit specification refers to the concepts, prop-erties, relations, axioms; the shared word means con-sensual knowledge (Almeida and Bax, 2003). In thisarticle we adopted the concept of (Borst, 2001) as abasis to suggest OntoAI.

2.3.2 Features

Ontology may represent the same area in differentways, this does not indicate that a diversity order iscorrect and another wrong, only indicates that a do-main can be represented in various ways dependingon the perspective that same rate. Despite this diver-sity, ontologies have characteristics and basic compo-nents common to most of them (Almeida and Bax,2003). The basic components of an ontology are:classes, relations, axioms, instances and functions(Gruber, 1993).

2.3.3 Uses, Benefits and Problems

In computing, ontologies can be applied to: informa-tion retrieval on the Internet, natural language pro-cessing, knowledge management, semantic web, edu-cation (Morais and Ambrosio, 2007). To (Guizzardi,2000) the benefits of using ontologies are: commu-nication, formal Specification (ontology) and knowl-edge representation and reuse. Guizzardi addressesthe key issues such as choice of ontologies, creationand evolution of ontologies, ontology library and de-velopment methodologies, considered for the authoras the problem worse.

2.3.4 Types

(Almeida and Bax, 2003) says ontologies can be typ-ified as to their degree of formality, application, con-tent or function. The degrees of formality are highlyinformal, semi-casual, semi-formal and formal rigor-ously. Related to the application, can be neutral au-thorship, specification and access to information. Re-garding the content can be: terminology, informa-tion, modeling knowledge, application, domain, orgeneric or representation. With respect to their func-tion (Structure) can be: generic, domain, task, appli-cation or representation (Guarino, 1997).

2.3.5 Methodologies

Develop ontologies is still considered an artistic pro-cess, so it is necessary the creation of methodolo-gies that aims to standardize and organize the con-struction and manipulation of ontologies (Lopez et al.,

1999). (Guizzardi, 2000) proposes a systematic ap-proach based on 6 stages: identify the purpose andspecify requirements, capture the ontology and for-malize the ontology, integrate with existing ontolo-gies and evaluate / document. Figure 1 shows the ac-tivity diagram and the iterative process of the method-ology, with the sequence in which the steps must beperformed.

Figure 1: Methodology activity diagram adapted fromMorais e Ambrosio (2007). Source: Authors (2014).

2.3.6 Tools and Languages

The most popular tool for building ontologies is theProtege. Created by Stanford University is an opensource tool that provides a graphical interface forbuilding ontologies that supports several languages(Noy and McGuinness, 2001).

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recom-mends the use of three languages: Ontolingua (Cre-ated by the Knowledge Systems Laboratory at Stan-ford University, is considered it the most expressive),RDF (Developed by W3C) and OWL (Ontology WebLanguage) also developed by W3C. It is a languagebased on computational logic. It can be operated bycomputer programs, for example, verify the consis-tency of the knowledge (W3C, 2012).

3 BUILDING THE ONTOLOGY:ONTOAI

The OntoAI was created from the Digital TV conceptsand interactivity and also from a lived experience in a

real development process. The OntoAI can be used asa resource to assist the process of developing interac-tive applications. first step in the creation of ontologywas sort your kind with regard to its function. Theontology was classified as domain ontology becauseit is a particular area of computing. For (Almeida andBax, 2003) the construction of domain ontologies in-volves first defining its domain and its scope. Thefield of ontology OntoAI are the interactive applica-tions and the scope is the Digital TV. After definingthese elements, it was necessary to choose a construc-tion methodology.

In this paper we adopted the methodology pro-posed by (Guizzardi, 2000) to help systematize theconstruction of OntoAI. The iteration allowed by themethodology helped refine the ontology initially pro-posed. This refinement was possible from revisionsmade in OntoAI.

The following topics describe the activities of themethodology. In each topic explains the activity andhow it should be performed. In each activity is shownas we arrived to OntoAI.

3.1 Identify Purpose and SpecifyRequirements

In this activity we identified the competence of theontology, ie, its purpose and use. The main purposeis to assist the process of development of interactiveapplications for Digital TV.

Other aims are: to serve as a base or genericdefinition of an interactive application, to provide aformal specification that can be understood by com-puter and can be searched from appropriate query lan-guages, sharing concepts involving such an applica-tion, integrate and reduce the ”differences” betweenthe members of the multidisciplinary team providedby the domain.

The ontology can be used as reference for theanalysis requirements as a starting device directed todeveloping models, such as documentation to aid thedevelopment process.

In this activity you can also identify potentialusers of the ontology, as system developers, analystsand software engineers, project managers, writers,producers audio visual, audio visual support team.

The OntoAI ontology was created for a specificaudience, but its simplicity makes it easy to use thesame for anyone.

3.2 Capture Ontology

For (Almeida and Bax, 2003) is the most importantactivity of the methodology, aims to capture the set

of elements of a domain, based on the expertise andconcepts that a involve.

The description of the basic components of an on-tology defined by (Gruber, 1993) helped structure thecapture.

The classes (main element) were captured usinga top-down approach, which first defines the genericconcepts and then specialize them. Another techniqueused was the taxonomy to organize in sub-classes fa-cilitating the understanding.

The more general classes captured in the processare listed below in order of importance:• Interactive-Application;• Interactivity;• Media;• Return-Channel;• Viewer;• Application-Type;• Interactivity-Type;• Interactivity-Level;• Interactivity-Features;• Interactivity-Location;• Interactivity-Time;• Interactivity-Access-Device.

Then there was the specialization of classes.Some of these Return-Channel, Application-Type, Interactivity-Type, Interactivity-Level andInteractivity-Features were specialized based onthe concepts of interactivity seen in the theoreticalbackground.

The class Interactivity is specialized based on def-initions provided in the Brazilian Digital TV stan-dard (SBTVD), where interactivity is only possiblethrough the use of middlware swing and their special-izations Ginga NCL and Ginga-J.

Other classes such as Media, Interactivity-Time,Interactivity-Access-Device are specialized, from ex-perience in developing this type of application. InFigure 2 you can see the class structure and some spe-cializations. This image shows the main structure ofthe ontology OntoAI.

After defining the classes and their hierarchies,you must define the relationships and constraints(Cardinalities) between them. In OntoAI, the mostimportant relationship is contained in the Interactive-Application class. This relationship defines the com-ponents of an interactive application. In Figure 3, onecan see the relationships and cardinality of the classInteractive-Application with the other classes: In-teractivity, Media, Application-Type, Return-Channeland Viewer.

Figure 2: Ontology class structure. Source: Authors (2014).

The class Interactive-Application has at least one(1) type of application. It has a return channel. Itis composed of at least one (1) interactivity. It iscomposed of at least one (1) media. The Viewerclass has a use relationship with the class Interactive-Application.

Figure 3: Relationships and constraints (cardinality) ofclass Interactive-Application. Source: Authors (2014).

Other important relationships are found in classInteractivity. This relationship is who defines interac-tivity, from their concepts. The class Interactivity has

somento one (1) type of interactivity. The Interactiv-ity has one or more characteristics. Interactivity alsohas access device, location, level and time. Here rela-tions and cardinalities of intetatividade class in Figure4.

Figure 4: Relationships and constraints (cardinality) ofclass Interactivity. Source: Authors (2014).

Also in Figure 4 one can see the relationship be-tween the Return-Channel and class Interactivity, thisrelationship states that the interactivity is provided bythe use of the return channel in different levels. Theclass Viewer has a relationship that shows that an in-dividual (Instance) of this class interact with Interac-tivity. Other less important relationships are definedin the ontology.

3.3 Formalize Ontology

This activity proposes specify the ontology language.For (Almeida and Bax, 2003) ontologies can be repre-sented formally (Mathematical Models) or informally(Natural Language). The language used to create theOntoAI ontology is the OWL language is used be-cause it has been easier to express meaning and se-mantics than XML, RDF and RDF (S) and representinterpretable content by machines. To consolidate theformalization of ontology, we use the Protege tool.The tool was chosen because it supports the OWL andcontains mechanisms for verification of logical con-straints, acquisition of information and etc. Figure 5shows a snippet of the OWL ontology generated byProtege tool.

3.4 Integrate With Existing Ontologies

This activity is responsible for identifying possibleontologies already defined. During the capture pro-cess and formalization was not identified any on-tology that could be integrated to OntoAI ontology.Some classes could be references to other ontolo-gies, but no existing ontology was compatible withthe needs of OntoAI ontology. It is worth noting thatthe reuse of ontologies is recommended when possi-ble.

Figure 5: Part of OWL OntoAI code. Source: Authors(2014).

3.5 Assess and Document

These two activities occur throughout the cycle of theiterative method. The evaluation serves to verify thatthe requirements (Purpose) are in accordance with thefinal ontology. (Guizzardi, 2000) defines criteria forassessing the quality of ontology. They are: Clar-ity, Consistency, Extensibility and minimal ontolog-ical commitment.

4 BRIEF ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

Figure 6 shows the evaluation of OntoAI ontology onthe criteria and service levels. The clarity criterion ispartially met because visually the class structure doesnot show all the relationships and constraints of theontology. The consistency criterion is fully satisfiedbecause all classes were captured from concepts al-ready established and referenced. The criterion on-tological commitments minimum and also fully satis-fied because the ontology although immature shownin accordance with the basic requirements of an on-tology. The extensibility criterion is partially met be-cause not all classes were created thinking about thisfeature, only some of them can be extended.

For (Guizzardi, 2000) documentation is madethroughout the development of the ontology. Thiswork was not possible to document the entire pro-cess, the documented part refers to ontology createdin Protege tool. The Protege tool provides a featureto export the ontology in OWL documentation, thisdocumentation is generated in HTML pages.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The choice of ontology can become a political pro-cess, since an ontology may not be entirely appro-

Figure 6: Ontology was evaluated according to the criteriaof Guizzardi (2000). Source: Authors (2014).

priate for all individuals or related groups (Almeidaand Bax, 2003). OntoAI is based on Digital TVconcepts and interactivity, exposed in the theoreticalbackground over the concepts and experiences gainedin the development of a real application. Purpose ofthe ontology is to help people involved in the processof creating an interactive application of Digital TV, iethe ontology was created on the point of view of thedeveloper and the audiovisual team, and not from thepoint of view of the viewer.

Integration with existing ontologies facilitatesnew ontology development process. Some studiesfound during the protocol execution show the use ofontologies as a basis for TV recommender systems ordefined ontology of TV programs.

The development process of interactive applica-tions is still immature and complex. The creation oftools, methods and techniques facilitates the develop-ment process. This paper proposes an ontology thatdefines what a interactive applications for Digital TV.This ontology can be used to support the developmentprocess.

The lack of ontologies that define an interactiveapplication was a stimulus to create the OntoAI. Thedifficulties faced in the creation of ontology were forlack of mature methodologies that show the processof creating an ontology. The ontology first developedAd-hoc without the use of a methodology, the difficul-ties in creating an ontology without a defined processwere increasing, making the process in artistic. Be-cause of these difficulties a methodology was adoptedto carry out the task of creation. The ontology canbe further improved running other iterations of themethodology. In future work it is possible to ver-ify that the ontology can be used as the main artifactof a software development project designed to mod-els. The ontology is available in Webprotege from thelink: http://goo.gl/dJcLx

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