​Title

Procedural Metadata: Structured Guide for Data Interoperability in Support of Web of Things

Abstract

This paper presents the concept of a new metadata type, defined as procedural metadata, which enhances automation and interoperability of the web of things. As data-driven days have arrived, data has become ubiquitous, and it is considered as a new valuable asset for the fourth industrial revolution. Accordingly, systems and services are expected to intelligently make decisions and perform tasks by interacting with environments through sensing and actuation. This requires accumulated knowledge of procedures to be described in human and machine-readable ways. Procedural metadata is proposed as the means to provide the common descriptions on composable procedures of not only individual devices but also smart systems as a whole, based on existing data models and ontologies. As a type of metadata, procedural metadata does not affect the original formats, models, vocabularies, ontologies, etc. of data, devices, and systems. However, it rather provides additional information on common descriptions of logic and workflows to make decisions and perform tasks. This paper describes the proposed concept with examples, principles, and discussions. For a proof of concept it is implemented in Matlab based on a scenario analysis in a smart home environment. Then, its potential and feasibility to be applied to the web environment are given.

Keywords

Internet of things (IoT), metadata, procedural metadata, semantic web of things (SWoT), web of things (WoT)

Authors

Nakyoung Kim  (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea) Nakyoung Kim is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea. Her research interests are Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, data analysis, and data processing. Her recent research investigates analysis on power-related IoT data with machine learning techniques. She takes non-parametric clustering methods for investigating time-series data and neural-network-based approaches for further analysis, such as forecast, restoration, etc. She received her B.S. degree in computer and electrical engineering and M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 2015 and 2016, respectively, from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, United States. She has actively participated in several national funded research projects for ICT environment as a research assistant. She also has contributed International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector Study Group 20 and Focus Group on Data Processing and Management (FG-DPM) as contributors and editors since 2017.  Hyeontaek Oh (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea)  Hyeontaek Oh is currently a Ph.D. student in School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He received his B.S. degree in computer science and M.S. degree in electrical engineering from KAIST in 2012 and 2014, respectively. His research interests in trust in ICT environments, Internet of Things, and Web technologies. He has actively participated in several national funded research projects for ICT environment as a research assistant. He also has contributed International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector Study Group 13/20 and Focus Group on Data Processing and Management (FG-DPM) as contributors and editors since 2015. He received Outstanding Demo Award from IEEE 3rd Global Conference on Consumer Electronics in 2014 and Outstanding Paper Award from the 15th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology in 2013.     J​un Kyun Choi (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea) Jun Kyun Choi received the B.Sc. (Eng.) from Seoul National University in electronics engineering, Seoul, Korea in 1982, and M.Sc. (Eng.) and Ph.D. degree in 1985 and 1988, respectively, in electronics engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). From June 1986 until December 1997, he was with the Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute (ETRI). In January 1998, he joined the Information and Communications University (ICU), Daejeon, Korea as Professor. At the year of 2009, he moved to Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) as Professor. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, the executive member of The Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea (IEEK), Editor Board of Member of Korea Information Processing Society (KIPS), Life member of Korea Institute of Communication Science (KICS).​