Jim Hendler Chief Scientist - Information Systems Office DARPA

2 DAML: Building the Semantic Web Creating the next revolution in Internet technology... …by enabling agent communication at a Web-wide scale. The first revolution, the Internet, funded by DARPA, enabled disparate machines to exchange data. The second revolution, the World Wide Web, (funded by DARPA/NSF) enabled a wide range of new applications on top of the growing Internet. The Web made a huge amount of information available, in human-readable form, allowing a revolution in new applications, environments, and b2c e-commerce. The next revolution of the net is an agent-enabled resource (the Semantic Web) which makes a huge amount of information available in machine- readable form creating a revolution in new applications, environments, and b2b e-commerce. DARPA is funding this now!

3 The Evolving Web Web of Knowledge HyperText Markup Language HyperText Transfer Protocol Resource Description Framework eXtensible Markup Language Self-Describing Documents Foundation of the Current Web Proof, Logic and Ontology Languages Shared terms/terminology Machine-Machine communication Based on Berners-Lee, Hendler; Nature, 2001

4 What is an Ontology? Catalog/ ID General Logical constraints Terms/ glossary Thesauri narrower term relation Formal is-a Frames (properties) Informal is-a Formal instance Value Restrs. Disjointness, Inverse, part- of… TAXONOMY ONTOLOGY

5 TSE Ontology

6 How do we attack this problem? The key enabler of current interoperability in both military and commercial systems is the HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) Allows a machine readable, formal language, to be expressed on web pages for the presentation of data limited set of tags not useful for machine search How do we attack this problem?

7 Beyond HTML: adding syntax Current languages attack this by adding syntactic data handling abilities XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Extensible keyword set Solves syntactic inequalities between data formats DB 1 -> ADDRESS <- DB 2 Useful for Data Sharing Not search Beyond HTML adding syntax

8 Semantic Problems for XML Synonymy and polysemy * vs. * is an arachnid or software? Structural differences John Smith John Smith

9 Beyond XML:Agent Semantics DARPA will lead the way with the development of Agent markup Language (DAML) A semantic language that ties the information on a page to machine readable semantics (ontology) Currently being fielded at University level SHOE (Maryland), Ontobroker(Karlsruhe),OWL(Washington Univ) Largely grows from past DARPA programs (I3, ARPI) But not transitioning Even with SW activity, W3C membership focused on short-term gain:HTML/XML Beyond XML agent semantics <DEF-RELATION NAME=title-of" SHORT="was written by">

10 A distributed ontological representation Small communities define common semantics Technical Vocabularies abound Mission specific Technical jargons Shared values Larger communities form around shared terms Mapping and articulation become crucial Interoperability at web languages level Top-Down (AIA defines critical aircraft properties) or bottom up (Oh, a foxbat is a Mig29) Business case for improving communication!

11 uses This leads to a radically new view of ontologies! BEFORE * Monolithic * Fully Shared * Necessarily Consistent * Difficult to change Before * monolithic * consistent * fully shared * logic-based uses AFTER Distributed,partially mapped, inconsistent -- but very flexible!

12 A new/old model of DoD partnering Semantic Web Res. (EU) W3C DAML C2 link RDF XML RDF-S DAML-ONT DAML-LOGIC US/EU Joint Efforts (S. Decker, Coord) Horus Research efforts: SHOE OIL EC OntoWeb Intl Workshops Tools Lang Spec Demos Ctr for Army Lessons Learned EU W3C Members/directors (Dan Brickley, coord) DARPA: Funds a new generation of www technology Works closely with W3C to create a web standard Works closely with EU on international acceptance Brings DoD users (J2,J3,J6) in as early adopters

13 DoD and W3C Working Together DAML is being built on existing web standards, by many of the same people who developed them PI Team includes MIT researchers who also head up World Wide Web Consortium: PI/Co-PI: Tim Berners-Lee, Ralph Swick, Dan Connolly XML Existing W3C Recommendation RDF Existing W3C Recommendation RDF-Schema-extensions DAML-Ontology DAML-Logic DAML

14 Horus transitioning to use of DAML language Emerging DAML tools tested in Intelink environment via DAML-Horus TIEs Mature DAML tools integrated into Horus Toolkit Horus Toolkit applied in Horus Evaluation Site & Horus-enabled user sites Experiments with Intelink Users DAML – Horus Intelink Transition Objective Expected ResultsMethodology Simpler, More Accurate and Focused Searches Search on Information Organized by Content Capability to Follow Threads of Logic Help Independent Developers Tie Into Common Framework Changing the way we produce intelligence More linking, less traditional data entry Lots of grabbing Horus entities and dropping into products Software performs technical markup detail

15 DAML Status DAML+OIL ontology language released on World Wide Web Annotated walkthrough Examples Full definition RDFS = Resource Description Framework Schema Provides 100% mapping to XML Open discussion group run by W3C: Denotational (and axiomatic) Semantics published First formal semantics for a web language Proposal to W3C for standardization ongoing

16 DAML Examples Transparent Markup Content-Based Search Service advertising Reading DAML! Using DAML! Writing DAML!

17 Language Specifications DAML Newsletter (you can subscribe) Collection of web tools Ontology library 134 ontologies as of May 15, 01 DAML crawler over 14,000 pages w/2,000,000+ DAML statements, 5/15/01 Web tracking software used for baselining DAML use Over 500,000 hits in first 6 months

18 DAML Notional Schedule Now Later

19 Web travel agents Query processed: A satellite image taken yesterday at 10 AM is available on the web at A new satellite image, to be taken today at 10AM, will be available for $100 click here to authorize transfer of funds and obtain image (you will need a valid credit card number f rom one of the following providers: …) In an emergency situation, a Coast Guard observer plane can be sent to any location within the area you indicate. Service Note: You will be responsible for cost of flight if the situation does not result in emergency pickup. Click Here for more information. A high altitude observer can be sent to your location in 13 hours. Click here to initiate procedure. (You will need to provide US military authorization, A valid military unit code, and the name of commanding officer) A service entitled commercial service for providing satelite images is advertised as becoming available in See for more information

20 Service Descriptions

21 Web Logics

22 Conclusions The Semantic Web is coming! Joint development between DARPA/EU/and W3C communities Languages and tools are available to play with W3C interest group available for those wishing to join the discussion (live or archived) Ongoing DoD and commercial projects Come join us Submit ontologies/marked up pages Develop tools or help test ours Get in on the next big thing early!