Augmenting semantic web service descriptions with compositional specification

Abstract

Current ontological specifications for semantically describing properties of Web services are limited to their static interface description. Normally for proving properties of service compositions, mapping input/output parameters and specifying the pre/post conditions are found to be sufficient. However these properties are assertions only on the initial and final states of the service respectively. They do not help in specifying/verifying ongoing behaviour of an individual service or a composed system. We propose a framework for enriching semantic service descriptions with two compositional assertions: assumption and commitment that facilitate reasoning about service composition and verification of their integration. The technique is based on Interval Temporal Logic(ITL): a sound formalism for specifying and proving temporal properties of systems. Our approach utilizes the recently proposed Semantic Web Rule Language.