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Doctoral thesis:

Maintaining Semantics in the Integration of Network Interoperable Product Data Models

Doctoral thesis submitted as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of 'Doutor em Engenharia de Produção' at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil.  Author: Vinícius Medina Kern. Advisor: Ricardo Miranda Barcia, Ph. D. Co-advisor (Virginia Tech): Jan Helge Bøhn, Ph. D.

This thesis was written in both English and Portuguese.  The author strongly recommends the reading of the English version. Please see details in the Foreword.
 

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Foreword

The doctoral research reported in this thesis was part of the "sandwich" program of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), with the credits taken at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Graduate Program in Production Engineering (UFSC/PPGEP, Brazil). From August, 1994, to November, 1995, the research was conducted at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech, USA). From November, 1995, to October, 1996, the research was conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA). At UFSC/PPGEP, the thesis project was approved in a qualifying examination in June, 1996, and the thesis was defended in December, 1997.

During the literature review, one term paper (Kern 1994), and three congress papers (Kern & Bøhn 1995) (Kern, Bøhn, & Barcia 1996) (Kern, Barra, & Barcia 1996) were published. The language in which the papers and the thesis were written is English. In order to comply with UFSC policies, the thesis was published in Portuguese with the title "Manutenibilidade da Semântica de Modelos de Dados de Produtos Compartilhados em Rede Interoperável", and the English version was included in the appendix.

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Abstract

Data in engineering applications has been managed using database management systems or dedicated mechanisms embedded in CAx systems. Current industrial competitiveness trends point to the necessity of integrating engineering applications. Two major demands arise: the use of a mechanism to provide for network interoperable access to data, and the necessity of handling data models supported by different paradigms. This doctoral thesis introduces the problems of product data exchange and interoperability among applications using standard formats, and discusses the problem of semantic loss in the translation of product data models for network interoperable access. An analysis of the problems that emerge in this translation, with the objective of assessing the maintainability of data semantics across a distributed network, is performed.

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