ACADEMIA
Linking up businesses to the semantic grid
Car insurance companies and people in charge of analysing satellite mission quality are just two of the beneficiaries of the EU-funded OntoGrid project, which came to an end recently. The aim of the project was to develop the technological infrastructure required for businesses to take full advantage of the 'semantic grid'. The semantic grid has the potential to revolutionise computing, data storage and the way information is communicated. 
At its core, the semantic grid aims to enhance the way information is understood by computers and its information translated and retrieved by users. Simple words may have several meanings, with each meaning dependant on the context in which it is said. A human is immediately able to interpret the context and understand what is meant by the word. A computer on the other hand is unable to understand the context and simply searches for similar letters appearing in the same sequence. This is why a series of qualifiers are also used to help facilitate searches. For example we would type in ship and bow if we wanted to look up information regarding the bow of a ship to differentiate from bow ties or even the bow of a violin. According to Oscar Corcho, the project's software architect, the semantic grid has countless applications, but is most valuable in situations where there is a huge volume of data that can be explicitly and clearly described and used for decision making. One sector where the project was able to apply the technology was car insurance. In the model set up by the project, called CarRepairGrid, an imaginary company called Damage Secure was set up. This company was responsible for controlling all the aspects of car insurance damage claims across a group of insurance companies. The model successfully demonstrated a clear increase in quality and efficiency of the claim submission processes between the consumer, the damage repair company and the insurance company. The project also demonstrated how insurance fraud could be better combated. A common strategy employed by hustlers is to submit accident claims to multiple international insurance agencies. As communication among these agencies about claimants is far from effective, the hustler is able to swindle money from several insurance companies. Thanks to CarFraudGrid, insurance companies would have easy and simple access to the claimants' information, ruling out such fraudulent activities. The success of the project is also highlighted by the fact that its results are now being developed further in new projects such as ADMIRE, which began in March 2008. The aim of ADMIRE is to apply the semantic grid to the field of river flood simulation. Meanwhile SemsorGrid4Env, which due to start in September 2008, will apply part of OntoGrid's research to the field of forest fire forecasting. The OntoGrid project was coordinated by the Ontology Engineering Group at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid's School of Computing (FIUPM), Spain. Other project partners came from Spain, the UK, Greece and the Netherlands. EU support for the three year project came from the Information Society Technologies (IST) priority of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). For further information, please visit: its Web site.
At its core, the semantic grid aims to enhance the way information is understood by computers and its information translated and retrieved by users. Simple words may have several meanings, with each meaning dependant on the context in which it is said. A human is immediately able to interpret the context and understand what is meant by the word. A computer on the other hand is unable to understand the context and simply searches for similar letters appearing in the same sequence. This is why a series of qualifiers are also used to help facilitate searches. For example we would type in ship and bow if we wanted to look up information regarding the bow of a ship to differentiate from bow ties or even the bow of a violin. According to Oscar Corcho, the project's software architect, the semantic grid has countless applications, but is most valuable in situations where there is a huge volume of data that can be explicitly and clearly described and used for decision making. One sector where the project was able to apply the technology was car insurance. In the model set up by the project, called CarRepairGrid, an imaginary company called Damage Secure was set up. This company was responsible for controlling all the aspects of car insurance damage claims across a group of insurance companies. The model successfully demonstrated a clear increase in quality and efficiency of the claim submission processes between the consumer, the damage repair company and the insurance company. The project also demonstrated how insurance fraud could be better combated. A common strategy employed by hustlers is to submit accident claims to multiple international insurance agencies. As communication among these agencies about claimants is far from effective, the hustler is able to swindle money from several insurance companies. Thanks to CarFraudGrid, insurance companies would have easy and simple access to the claimants' information, ruling out such fraudulent activities. The success of the project is also highlighted by the fact that its results are now being developed further in new projects such as ADMIRE, which began in March 2008. The aim of ADMIRE is to apply the semantic grid to the field of river flood simulation. Meanwhile SemsorGrid4Env, which due to start in September 2008, will apply part of OntoGrid's research to the field of forest fire forecasting. The OntoGrid project was coordinated by the Ontology Engineering Group at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid's School of Computing (FIUPM), Spain. Other project partners came from Spain, the UK, Greece and the Netherlands. EU support for the three year project came from the Information Society Technologies (IST) priority of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). For further information, please visit: its Web site. 
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