1 ASIST Nov, 02 i. The Web Ontology Language, OWL ii. Future Direction Prof. James Hendler University of Maryland

2 ASIST Nov, 02 You are here Semantic Web LayerCake (Berners-Lee, 99;Swartz-Hendler, 2001) You Are Here

3 ASIST Nov, 02 What the Web was meant to be "This is a pity, as in fact documents on the web describe real objects and imaginary concepts, and give particular relationships between them... For example, a document might describe a person. The title document to a house describes a house and also the ownership relation with a person.... This means that machines, as well as people operating on the web of information, can do real things. For example, a program could search for a house and negotiate transfer of ownership of the house to a new owner. The land registry guarantees that the title actually represents reality.”  Tim Berners-Lee plenary presentation at WWW Geneva, 1994

4 ASIST Nov, 02

5 Event:title Event:WebPage rdf:type photo:Photograph, Photo:File Photo:topic :event1#event:speaker. Event1 a Event:event; date “May 7-11”, speaker Title “WWW 2002…” TimBL rdf:type w3c-ont:person; name “Tim Berners-Lee” … describes a generic conceptabout events

Semantic Web provides “external” models to merge on SW languages add mappings And structure.        CV name education work private <  > <  > <  >  <  „  >

7 ASIST Nov, 02 A Usable “Modeling” language In science, models provide interoperability across jargons  Mathematical models: equations of a system  Physical models: “sticks and balls” of the atom  Virtual models: the visualization of a complex data set  INFORMATION MODELS: taxonomies and thesauris Ontologies extend thesaurus information models to provide  Semantic restrictions on property relations Must have vs. May have vs. Doesn’t have Has some vs. has N vs. has 1 Some vs. All property restrictions  Formal underpinnings Logical entailments Note: rules, logics, proofs are parts of ontologies, but not yet at a “consensus” level for standardization  Should build as add-ons to OWL to take advantage of “terminology features”

8 ASIST Nov, 02 W3C Web Ontology Working Group Web Ontology Working Group in the W3C Semantic Web Activity aimed at “extending the semantic reach of current XML and RDF meta-data efforts. “W3C Semantic Web Activity History  DAML+OIL is submitted as a joint committee effort published as a W3C note.joint committee W3C note  W3C WG Announcement in November rdf-logic/2001Nov/0000.htmlhttp://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- rdf-logic/2001Nov/0000.html  Weekly teleconferences started in November 2001  First Face to Face Meeting - New Jersey (Lucent), Jan ‘02; 2nd - Amsterdam April (W3C); 3rd - CA (Fujitsu/Stanford host) July; 4th in Bristol UK (HP Host) Oct.Face to Face Meeting  First version Working Drafts now complete Requirements/Use cases 3 Technical Documents - July 2002 (Language renamed OWL ) 3 “using it” Documents - November 2002

9 ASIST Nov, 02 Membership Current Working Group includes 55 members from over 30 organizations.Working  Chairs J. Hendler, MIND Lab UMCP G. Schreiber, Univ. of Amsterdam  Industry including: Large companies - Daimler Chrysler, IBM, HP, Intel, EDS, Fujitsu, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, Philips Electronics, Sun, Unisys Newer/smaller companies - IVIS Group, Network Inference, Stilo Technology, Unicorn Solutions  Government and Not-For-Profits: US Defense Information Systems Agency, Interoperability Technology Association for Information Processing, Japan (INTAP), Electricite De France, Mitre, NIST  Universities and Research Centers: University of Bristol, University of Maryland, University of Southamptom, Stanford University DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), Forschungszentrum Informatik, Ontoweb  Invited Experts Well-known academics from non-W3C members (Hayes, Heflin, Stein, Borden)

10 ASIST Nov, 02 Use Cases for Ontologies Abstracted six categories of Use case from approx 25 real-world applications/prototypes  Web Portals Categorization rules enhance search  Multimedia Collections Content-based searches for non-text media  Corporate Web Site Management Taxonomical Organization of documents Mapping Between Corporate Sectors (mergers!)  Design Documentation Explication of "derived" assemblies (e.g. wing spar) Explicit Management of Constraints  Intelligent Agents User Preferences/User Interests Content Mapping  Ubiquitous Computing Web Service Discovery and Composition Rights Management and Access Control Context-dependent content reformating

11 ASIST Nov, 02 OWL extends RDF… rdfs:Class rdf:ID="Meeting"> 1 1

12 ASIST Nov, 02 OWL extends RDF… rdfs:Class rdf:ID="Meeting"> RDF-schema  Class, subclass  Property, subproperty + Restrictions  Range, domain  Local, global  Existential  Cardinality + Combinators  Union, Intersection  Complement  Symmetric, transitive + Mapping  Equivalence  Inverse

13 ASIST Nov, 02 WOWG Documents Following Documents available  Requirements for a Web Ontology Language (WD)  Owl 1.0 Feature Description (WD)  Owl 1.0 Reference Document (WD)  Owl 1.0 Abstract Syntax Document (WD) (Not LC document)  Owl 1.0 Semantics (Model Theory) (WD)  Owl 1.0 Guide and Walkthru (WD)  Owl 1.0 Test Suite (WD) Coming soon  Non-normative appendices XML schema for OWL documents UML presentation syntax for OWL

14 ASIST Nov, 02 OWL is starting to move Based on DAML+OIL - the most used ontology language ever!!  (6M statements on over 20,000 web pages) Gaining acceptance by web players  Semantic Web Track was offered at WWW 2002 again at WWW 2003  Strong attendance at WWW2002 Developer Day on SW Significant (international) Govt Support  US DARPA/NSF; EU IST Framework 5,6  Japan, Germany, Australia considering significant investments  US National Cancer Institute to publish cancer vocabulary in DAML+OIL US National Cancer Institute to publish cancer vocabulary in DAML+OIL Much New Startup activity (even in this economic climate) Many tools being developed  Starting to see tools for users, not just developers (but a long way to go)

15 ASIST Nov, 02 The Semantic Web “Revolution”

16 ASIST Nov, 02 Making Markup Easier

17 ASIST Nov, 02 Common Metaphor across tools

18 ASIST Nov, 02 Use that markup in query/portal interfaces

19 ASIST Nov, 02 Moving to the futureof the web Semantic Web LayerCake (Berners-Lee, 99;Swartz-Hendler, 2001)

20 ASIST Nov, 02 “Know” how to process what’s on the web

21 ASIST Nov, 02 Off the desktop

22 ASIST Nov, 02 Or perhaps on different desktops…

23 ASIST Nov, 02 Web “travel agents” Query processed: 73 answers found  Google document search finds 235,312 possible page hits.  claims the answer is 289,921,836  A database entitled “Texas Cattle Association” can be queried for the answer, but you will need “authorization as a state employee.”  A computer program that can compute that number is offered by the State of Texas Cattleman’s Cooperative, click here to run program. ...  The “sex network” can answer anything that troubles you, click here for relief...  The “UFO network” claims the “all cows in Texas have been replaced by aliens How many cows are there in Texas?

24 ASIST Nov, 02 Use Semantics for Composition Translate my symptoms from French and find me a pharmacy that has the necessary medicine (then compute how to get there and print the directions) Print the directions to a pharmacy which has a medicine that cures the symptoms that I will tell you (in French)

25 ASIST Nov, 02 For goal-based service composition Buy the French version of a book from amazon.fr and have it sent to Mom’s address

26 ASIST Nov, 02 Services need Web Logics

27 ASIST Nov, 02 Distributed trust relationships

28 ASIST Nov, 02 Distributed Trust

29 ASIST Nov, 02 Conclusion It is no longer a question of whether the semantic web will come into being, it is already here! We’re already well past the starting gate  Web ontologies, term languages, “shims” to DB and services, research in proofs/rules/trust  Standardization providing a common denominator for KR researchers as well as web developers  Small companies starting to form, Big companies starting to move The current environment is open, encouraging, moving fast, and really exciting  Read our documents  Use our tools We want to hear from you!