Short introduction to the Semantic Web

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Slides of the presentation …

This is an evolving slide set, updated regularly.

A Simple RDF Example

A Simple RDF Graph with full URI-s
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.ivan-herman.net">
    <foaf:name>Ivan</foaf:name>
    <abc:myCalendar rdf:resource="http://…/myCalendar"/>
    <foaf:surname>Herman</foaf:surname>
</rdf:Description>

Need for a Query Language

  • Each data model needs its own “query language” to access large amount of data
    • relational databases have SQL, XML has XQuery…
  • SPARQL is the query language for RDF
    • queries are expressed in forms of RDF triples with unknown variables
    • the query returns a list possible resources (i.e., URI-s or literal values) or full set of triples (depending on the query type)
  • SPARQL is emerging as the primary way to access RDF data

How to Get to RDF Data?

  • The simplest aproach: write your own RDF data in your preferred syntax
  • Using URI-s in RDF binds you automatically to the real resources
  • You may add RDF to XML directly (in its own namespace)
    • e.g., in SVG:
<svg ...>
  ...
  <metadata>
    <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://../rdf-syntax-ns#">
      ...
    </rdf:RDF>
  </metadata>
    ...
</svg>
  • Works in some cases, but not satisfactory for a real deployement!

RDF is not Enough…

  • Creating data and using it from a program works, provided the program knows what terms to use!
  • We used terms like:
    • foaf:name, abc:myCalendar, foaf:surname, …
    • etc
  • Are they all known? Are they all correct? (it is a bit like defining record types for a database)

Possible Issues to Handle

  • What are the possible terms?
    • “is the set of data terms known to the program?”
  • Are the properties used correctly?
    • “do they make sense for the resources?”
  • Can a program reason about some terms? Eg:
    • “if «A» is left of «B» and «B» is left of «C», is «A» left of «C»?”
    • obviously true for humans, not obvious for a program …
    • … programs should be able to deduce such statements
  • If somebody else defines a set of terms: are they the same?
    • clearly an issue in an international context

Ontologies

  • The Semantic Web needs a support of ontologies:
“defines the concepts and relationships used to describe and represent an area of knowledge”
  • We need a Web Ontologies Language to define:
    • the terminology used in a specific context
    • possible constraints on properties
    • the logical characteristics of properties
    • the equivalence of terms across ontologies
    • etc
  • This is done by RDFS (RDF Schemas) and OWL (Web Ontology Language)

RDFS and OWL

  • RDFS defines the basic principles
  • OWL adds more complicated features to RDFS like:
    • constructions of classes using existing ones
    • characterize relationships (e.g., whether they are transitive, symmetric, functional, etc)

OWL: Additional Features

  • Ontologies may be extremely a large:
    • their management requires special care
    • they may consist of several modules
    • come from different places and must be integrated
  • Ontologies are on the Web. That means
    • applications may use several, different ontologies, or…
    • … same ontologies but in different languages
    • equivalence of, and relations among terms become an issue
  • OWL includes possibilites for class/property equivalence, version and deprecation control, etc.

However: Ontologies are Hard!

  • Hard to implement a full ontology management system
    • may be superfluous for some applications
  • Hence the “onion” model of increasingly complex specs:
    • no property expressions or datatypes in RDF Schemas
    • not all set operators, restricted cardinality in OWL Lite
    • some restrictions, but a computational guarantee in OWL DL
    • full expressive power in OWL Full (but no computational guarantee)
concentric arcs with RDF, RDFS, OWL Lite, DL, and Full

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Ontologies are Hard! (cont)

  • “Lite” < “DL” < “Full”, but not completely true for RDFS
    • RDFS is “almost” a subcategory
    • not all RDFS statements are valid in DL…
    • …but they are for Full
  • Applications may take what they really need!
concentric arcs with RDF, RDFS, OWL Lite, DL, and Full

The Work is Not Over

Rules
more general logical rules to the Semantic Web infrastructure; work has just begun at W3C
Evolution of the RDF model
e.g., add time information, probabilities, “measure of fuzziness” to statements (still in research phase)
Trust
a trust infrastructure for SW (for example: “can I trust the author of this set of assertions?”); on the future stack of W3C…

Lots of Tools

Further Information

These slides are at:
http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/CorePresentations/SemanticWeb/
Semantic Web homepage
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
More information about W3C:
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/
Contact information:
http://www.w3.org//Consortium/Contact
Mail me:
ivan@w3.org