Cooperative problem solving can be viewed as a complex activity requiring harmonious and dynamic interaction between active agents and passive agents. This problem is currently being addressed by the research community at various levels of abstraction. Broadly, this paper analyzes the problem of cooperative problem solving from a database perspective and argues that recent advances in database technology facilitate development of a viable solution to the above problem. Specifically, in this paper, we first analyze the problem of cooperative problem solving to identify its underlying key characteristics. Based upon our analysis, we partition the problem space into classes along a spectrum and indicate the level of cooperation required. We propose near-term as well as long-term solutions for cooperative problem solving that progressively enhances the functionality of database systems by synthesizing appropriate abstractions and techniques. Furthermore, we identify problems, such as agent capability modeling that require further research to address the most general form of cooperative problem solving.

RESUMOOs sistemas de informação armazenam informações detalhadas sobre o recurso terra, de modo que estas possam ser acessadas, combinadas e analisadas, sob vários pontos de vista, para os mais variados usos. No Brasil, a disponibilização das informações geradas nos levantamentos de solos tem sido pouco eficiente, em razão do grande volume, complexidade e pouca normatização. Assim, com o objetivo de possibilitar o armazenamento, manipulação e disponibilização das informações sobre os solos brasileiros, foi desenvolvido o SigSolos. O SigSolos foi estruturado para permitir o armazenamento de informações oriundas de diferentes fontes, níveis e escalas de levantamentos de solos, tendo, como base, normas e conceitos utilizados na ciência do solo. A entidade "Trabalho" foi estabelecida como entidade central do sistema para reduzir a necessidade de compatibilizações e normatizações na aquisição dos dados, considerando as diferentes fontes e níveis de levantamento de solos existentes no Brasil. A 1ª etapa do SigSolos foi concluída com a disponibilização da versão 1.0, para o armazenamento de dados, e, atualmente, já é possível acessar algumas informações sobre os solos brasileiros, a partir da Iniciativa Solos.br, diretamente na página da Embrapa Solos na internet.

Business-IT alignment is gaining more importance in enterprises, and is already considered essential for efficiently achieving enterprise goals. This led organizations to follow Enterprise Architecture approaches, with the Information Architecture as one of its pillars. Information architecture aims at providing an integrated and holistic view of the business information, and this requires applying a data integration approach. However, despite several works on data integration research, the problem is far from being solved. The highly heterogeneous computer environments present new challenges such as distinct DBMSs, distinct data models, distinct schemas and distinct semantics, all in the same scenario. On the other hand, new issues in enterprise environment, such as the emergence of BPM and SOA approaches, contribute to a new solution for the problem. This paper presents a service-based approach for data integration, in which the services are derived from the organization's business process models. The proposed approach comprises a framework of different types of services (data services, concept services), a method for data integration service identification from process models, and a metaschema needed for the automation and customization of the proposed approach in a specific organization. We focus on handling heterogeneities with regard to different DBMSs and differences among data models, schemas and semantics.

In most scenarios, different information sources coexist and their content overlap, thus requiring domain knowledge to discover, understand and integrate information. In general, information sources are not designed for integration and their descriptive metadata do not suffice to enable IIS to consistently and unambiguously discover which information sources contain the required data to be integrated. This paper proposes an architecture to discover information sources through the use of semantic search techniques on top of corporative metadata repositories. Our experiments using a prototype of the proposed architecture obtained positive results with regard to precision and recall.

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