Copyright, Issues from Internet Technologies 5 – From Data to Meaning? to Knowledge?? Roger Clarke, Xamax Consultancy, Canberra Visiting Prof/Fellow, Unis of N.S.W., Hong Kong, A.N.U. UofQ CCCS, 6 December 2004

Copyright, From Data to Meaning? to Knowledge?? Agenda The Semantic Web The Motivation Semiotics: Syntactics, Semantics,... XML, XML Schema, RDF, OWL Data => Information => Meaning? Metadata, Its Location, Its Structure

Copyright, The Motivation The holy grail for computer scientists has always been Artificial Intelligence Ive got nowhere with my arguments that we dont need more of what weve got, but should be aiming for Complementary Intelligence Theyre trying to extend I-P-O to achieve integrated sentience / intelligence / robotics Intelligence requires understanding of data The primary focus is on intelligent agents e.g. program agents to bid and transact on our behalf on stock markets and eBay

Copyright, Semiotics & Semantics Semiotics as the general theory of everything, or everything that matters to people, i.e. signs Elements: a sign, its object, its interpretant After Morris (1938): syntactics (interrelationships among signs) semantics (relationships between signs and the objects to which they apply) – thats a reductionists sense of meaning pragmatics (relationships between signs and users) – thats a humanists sense of meaning

Copyright, The Semantic Web XML has provided the means to express data structures in program-readable form The next steps are: Metadata to describe resources Controlled Vocabs, Thesauri, Ontologies Mappings between data-definitions Structured process definitions Then Software Agents will become feasible which, on behalf of users, are able to: Navigate Transact

Copyright, Stepping-Stones to The Semantic Web XML A markup language for defining documents and data structures, simple but extensible XML Schema To define a class of XML documents/records e.g. a Media Release, a Purchase Order Extends XML in areas of weakness, esp.: datatypes, for dates, numbers, etc. methods for describing the structure

Copyright, Stepping-Stones to The Semantic Web Resource Description Framework (RDF) a datamodel for objects (resources) and relations between them Web Ontology Language (OWL) to formally describe the meaning of terminology used in Web documents adding relations between classes (e.g. disjointness), cardinality (e.g. "exactly one"), equality, richer typing of properties, property characteristics (e.g. symmetry), and enumerated classes

Copyright, Issues in The Semantic Web Is Information really just more Data?? Is Knowledge really just more Information?? Do nLAs deliver Understanding? Is Intelligence just a hierarchy of controllers?? Has Tim suckered for reductionist semiotics? Is it just The More Richly Syntactic Web?

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Copyright, Data A symbol, sign or measure in a form which can be directly captured by a person or a machine Real-World Data Data that represents or purports to represent a fact in the real world Synthetic Data Data that does not represent or purport to represent a fact in the real world

Copyright, Information Data that has value Informational value depends upon context Until it is placed in an appropriate context, data is not information, and once it ceases to be in that context it ceases to be information The most common context is a decision, i.e. a choice among alternative courses of action

Copyright, Knowledge The matrix of impressions within which an individual situates newly acquired information Wisdom Judgement exercised by applying decision criteria to knowledge combined with new information

Copyright, Codified Knowledge An omelette recipe A combination of structured and unstructured text Tacit Knowledge The expertise to interpret the recipe, to apply known techniques and tools to the activity, to recognise omissions and exceptions, to deliver a superb omelette every time, to sense which variants will work and which won't, and to deliver with style

Copyright, Tacit Knowledge informal and intangible exists only in the mind of a particular person knowing that cf. knowing how to not readily communicated to others Codified Knowledge expressed and recorded, in a more or less formal language (text, formulae, blueprints, procedure descriptions) disembodied from individuals communicable information

Copyright, Knowledge Processes Knowledge Creation Always commences as Tacit Knowledge Articulation Conversion of Tacit into Codified Knowledge Knowledge Transfer Tacit Knowledge from one person to another: directly via Codified Knowledge

Copyright, Metadata Data about data Descriptions of data and its characteristics: to enable discovery of the data to support management Explicitly captured, by cataloguers Or generated, i.e. inferred by software Or Done Without, relying on the brute force method of search-engines concordances

Copyright, Metadatas Location Embedded in Data Objects In particular, in HTML Tags Separately Stored In conventional files and databases In XML Data Schemas

Copyright, Metadatas Structure Simple An Element contains a Value, e.g. Subject = barber Less Simple The Value must come from a Controlled Vocabulary Even Less Simple There are many Controlled Vocabularies, even within individual fields of knowledge Less Simple Again A Controlled Vocab may recognise synonyms e.g. barber=hairdresser=coiffe ur=coiffeuse Controlled Vocabs may be hierarchical taxonomies aka (shudder) ontologies Very Much Less Simple There may be mappings among Controlled Vocabs