Enhancing Software Interoperability Through Virtual Knowledge Graphs From Object-Oriented APIs

IF 4.2 3区计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

IEEE Access Pub Date : 2026-02-26 DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3668745

Maximilian Weigand;Felix Gehlhoff;Alexander Fay

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

In engineering disciplines such as mechanical or automation engineering, data exchange between different software often relies on non-standardized interfaces. While Semantic Web technologies (SWTs) offer solutions for efficient and versatile data exchange, the majority of software in engineering lack interfaces based on these technologies. Previous research has explored approaches to abstract structured data from external sources as virtual knowledge graphs (VKGs). In this work, we propose an approach to create VKGs from data available via the APIs of engineering software, enabling the querying of engineering data through SWTs and thus facilitating standardized data exchange. We first mathematically introduce the components of APIs of object-oriented software, including classes, their hierarchical relationships, attributes, and instances. We then define formulas to derive the triples of the VKG representing the components, as well as resulting triples according to RDFS entailment rules. Finally, we define a procedure based on the aforementioned formulas, which enables querying the VKG using triple patterns. This provides access to the VKG representing the software-internal data without materialization, in line with the concept of virtual. We provide a general implementation of the approach, supporting triple pattern and SPARQL queries, and a software-specific adaption for a particular engineering software. Using this, we demonstrate the capabilities of the approach through an industrial use case. The performance characteristics of the approach are evaluated by analyzing query execution times and scaling behavior across different query types and graph sizes, in comparison with equivalent materialized graphs.

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通过面向对象api的虚拟知识图增强软件互操作性

在机械或自动化工程等工程学科中，不同软件之间的数据交换通常依赖于非标准化接口。虽然语义Web技术（swt）为高效和通用的数据交换提供了解决方案，但工程中的大多数软件缺乏基于这些技术的接口。以前的研究已经探索了从外部来源抽象结构化数据作为虚拟知识图（VKGs）的方法。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种通过工程软件的api从可用数据中创建vkg的方法，使工程数据能够通过swt查询，从而促进标准化数据交换。我们首先从数学上介绍面向对象软件的api组件，包括类、它们的层次关系、属性和实例。然后，我们定义公式来导出表示组件的VKG的三元组，以及根据RDFS蕴涵规则生成的三元组。最后，我们基于上述公式定义一个过程，该过程支持使用三重模式查询VKG。这提供了对表示软件内部数据的VKG的访问，而不需要物化，这符合虚拟的概念。我们提供了该方法的通用实现，支持三重模式和SPARQL查询，以及针对特定工程软件的特定于软件的适配。使用它，我们通过一个工业用例演示了该方法的功能。通过分析查询执行时间和跨不同查询类型和图大小的缩放行为来评估该方法的性能特征，并与等效物化图进行比较。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

IEEE Access COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMSENGIN-ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC

CiteScore

9.80

自引率

7.70%

发文量

6673

审稿时长

6 weeks

期刊介绍： IEEE Access® is a multidisciplinary, open access (OA), applications-oriented, all-electronic archival journal that continuously presents the results of original research or development across all of IEEE''s fields of interest. IEEE Access will publish articles that are of high interest to readers, original, technically correct, and clearly presented. Supported by author publication charges (APC), its hallmarks are a rapid peer review and publication process with open access to all readers. Unlike IEEE''s traditional Transactions or Journals, reviews are "binary", in that reviewers will either Accept or Reject an article in the form it is submitted in order to achieve rapid turnaround. Especially encouraged are submissions on: Multidisciplinary topics, or applications-oriented articles and negative results that do not fit within the scope of IEEE''s traditional journals. Practical articles discussing new experiments or measurement techniques, interesting solutions to engineering. Development of new or improved fabrication or manufacturing techniques. Reviews or survey articles of new or evolving fields oriented to assist others in understanding the new area.