Information always transmits a meaning. Human and machine communication relies on both the technological and the semantical exchange of information. The application of controlled vocabulary can support the semantical information exchange if certain interoperability criteria are fulfilled. The commentary paper will give an overview about semantics and semantical interoperability with a focus on controlled vocabulary. As a result, two exemplary semantic representation forms will be analysed. Further possible steps to enhance the semantics in metrological data and how to achieve semantic interoperability will be concluded from the commentary overview.

In many disciplines, such as physics and engineering, the application of tools to support data metrology is encouraged and embedded in many processes and applications while in the life sciences, medicine and pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors these tools are often added as an afterthought, if considered at all. The use of data-driven decision making and the advent of machine learning in these industries has created an urgent demand for harmonised high-quality, instantly available, datasets across domains. The Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reproducible principles are designed to improve overall quality of research data. However, this alone does not guarantee that data is fit-for-purpose. Issues such as missing data and metadata, insufficient knowledge of measurement conditions or data provenance are well known and can be aided by applying metrological concepts to data preparation to increase confidence. This work presents the data metrology projects conducted by the National Physical Laboratory Data Science team in healthcare applications.

Even in today's connected world of measurement, organisations, NMIs and stakeholders across a multitude of disciplines employ their own specialised terminology to convey information relating to measurement, experimentation, and projects. While the terminology used is often governed by existing standards or industry norms, the overlaps between these standards and the breadth and depth of applied language frequently result in confusing terminology landscapes. This introduces significant difficulties for cross-disciplinary and cross-industry collaboration. We present a framework to record semantic information in discipline-specific parlance within a flat glossary-like ontology and make it accessible through a RESTful Application Programming Interface (API). This paper outlines the requirements to enable such operations: from vocabulary generation, transformation to ontology, and final exposure via an API. The methodology was exemplified using a pharmaceutical industry-aligned use case, whereby communication between several pharmaceutical industry partners and academic institutions was facilitated.

Introducing new information systems in organizations, often result in information sinks that disrupt people’s productivity and prevent a successful change management process. In this paper the Operation Layer is presented. A Cloud Native concept to break up data silos, to streamline workflows and to centralize IT services while maintaining the department’s workflows. This concept will simplify the IT maintenance while flattening the change management curve at the same time.

In general, manually checking a system log does not scale up, if the log becomes large. The problem also arises the case with checking an audit trail in verification of a measuring instrument under legal control. Software support for the check is critical. In this study, we address an approach to use Runtime Verification techniques for checking an audit trail. As an initial attempt to advance the approach, we consider the formal specifications of an audit trail for the check. Analysing the requirements in guidance OIML D31, we obtained abstract formal specifications for an audit trail. As an extension of the approach, a trend toward digital transformation for audit trails can be envisaged.