Towards interoperable BioNLP semantic web services using the SADI framework

Abstract

The number of NLP and BioNLP tools published as web services grows every year. Web services do not require installation, they are platform independent, and provide access to software modules that cannot be installed on regular computers due their complexity and heaviness. Whereas XML is the de facto interchange format for web services, the different XML schemas and the absence of semantics make the integration of resources (XML-based web services and their outputs) a very challenging task requiring significant effort from end users. We propose the use of semantic web services that provide semantic description of their in- and outputs to achieve interoperability of BioNLP services and the ad-hoc consolidation of their results. We leverage the SADI framework as a development platform to realize, by example, a number of highly integrated application and data integration scenarios. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.