Méthodologie de génération d’applications auto-adaptatives grâce à un cadre de développement dirigé par les ontologies

Abstract

This thesis presents three applications that have been designed, developed and deployed in real use cases for Hydro-Quebec, the Quebec provincial producer, carrier and supplier of electricity. These applications were created in such a way as to exhibit properties of selfadaptability to the evolution of knowledge of the company. The objective of this applied research was to assess the feasibility of using semantic web technologies to create such web applications that are usable by novice users. The development of these three applications resulted in contributions specific to each of them. The first application is a textual semantic browser and it has demonstrated that it is possible to achieve conceptual independence thanks to semantic web technologies. The second application is a SPARQL visual query builder. Its development has mainly enabled the exploration of the transposition of functionalities associated with the construction of SQL queries to the SPARQL language. The third application is a view builder taking advantage of the lessons learned during the realization of the two previous applications. The contributions associated with this application include: 1. A unique software component for ontological exploration; 2. A list of ontological modeling recommendations allowing models to be used by applications applying this methodology; 3. A visualization ontology which is a first attempt towards the creation of a standard in order to guide and personalize user interfaces by annotations made within domain ontologies; 4. A set of pre-inferences allowing reconciliation of the concept of inheritance in object-oriented paradigms with the concept of classification of the paradigm of first-order logic; and 5. An approach for crossing data from OWL ontologies in an ad hoc manner. The experiments presented in this thesis made it possible to develop a methodology to generate self-adaptive applications maneuverable by neophytes, thus filling a gap in the literature. The feasibility of such an approach has been proven by the release of the third application, generated using this methodology, into the company's systems. This research suggests that such applications could lead to reduced software development and maintenance costs. In addition, the genericity and self-adaptability of the tools developed make this approach a prime candidate for the development of Industry 4.0 applications.

Date	2 Mar 2021
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Christian Desrosiers (Supervisor) & Luc Vouligny (Co-supervisor)