1. 2006-02-06 NSF Support for Semantic Web Research Frank Olken National Science Foundation CISE/IIS folken@nsf.gov Presentation to SICOP Special Conference Falls Church VA Feb. 6, 2007

2. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web2 What is Semantic Web Research? Description Logic (OWL, etc.) Resource Description Framework (RDF) Ontologies, Ontology Building Tools, etc. Logic and Inference Engines Query Languages over RDF, etc. (SPARQL) Rules Languages, Inference Engines

3. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web3 Semantic Web Funding at NSF NSF is routinely funding semantic web research proposals as part of its normal research programs and solicitations.

4. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web4 Semantic Web Proposals Funded by NSF (active awards) 25 awards= “semantic web” in title/abstract 88 awards = “semantic” and “web” in title/abstract 86 awards = “ontology” in title/abstract 16 awards = “ontology” in title only 43 awards = “semantic” in title only 272 awards = “semantic” in title/abstract Many of these are traditional linguistics or programming language semantics 26 awards = “knowledge representation” in title/abstract Total IIS active awards = 1,000

5. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web5 Examples of NSF Supported Semantic Web Research Marine Metadata Initiative  uses OWL encoded ontologies for metadata attributes, taxonomies,... Microbial Genome Sequencing: Gene Ontology Terms for Standardized Annotation of Plant- Associated Microbe Genomes  standardized terms for describing all the functions of genes in living organisms (extensions of Gene Ontology (GO))

6. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web6 More Examples of NSF Supported Semantic Web Research BIOPAX  Uses OWL for data interchange standard for biopathways (metabolic, signaling, gene regulatory networks) data Workshop on Web Service Discovery & Composition  Uses OWL-S to specify web services Formal Theory of Distributed Ontologies for Semantic Web QPQ: An Open Source Deductive Software Repository

7. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web7 More examples of NSF funded Semantic Web Research Scalable Querying and Mining of Graphs  graph query algorithms for RDF, etc. TANGO: Table Analysis for Semiautomatic Generation of Ontologies  analyses tables in web pages to construct ontologies Deductive Integration of Heterogeneous Biological Data Sources

8. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web8 More examples of NSF funded Semantic Web Research Encoding Rights, Permissions and Obligations: Privacy Policy Specification and Compliance  Uses ontologies, modal action logic, deontic action logic for privacy policy specifications and compliance checking

9. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web9 Funding of Semantic Web Proposals by NSF Divisions CISE/IIS – DM, KM, IR, science informatics, ecoinformatics, AI, machine learning,... CISE/CCF -theory CISE/CNS – systems SBE/BCS – e.g., linguistics BIO/DBI – bioinformatics OCI – cyberinfrastructure OCE - Oceanography

10. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web10 Why does NSF care about semantic web technologies? Formalization of scientific knowledge Facilitate sharing of scientific data Facilitate access to scientific data and knowledge Natural language processing (information extraction, digital libraries,...) Support for digital government (semantic rules languages, disaster support,...) Support for machine learning Support for math/science education

11. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web11 Debates about semantic web research Skepticism about adoption of semantic tagging by the masses (and the quality of the tagging)  NSF is concerned about scientific / govt uses, not MySpace. Skepticism of semantics by most of the database research community:  Still somewhat an issue, because semantic proposals often go to to panels dominated by DB researchers. Progress in adding more semantic web researchers to panels. Skepticism about scalability of semantic search and inference engines  Open research issue...

12. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web12 More debates about semantic web research Description Logic vs. First Order Logic  Heated debates in KR research community about whether description logics are adequate or whether FOL or other logics should be used. Scalability and structuring of rule bases  Concerns about the software engineering of large rule bases (or collections of logic axioms). Efforts to partition such large rule bases / logic axiom collections (cf. Cyc's microtheories, etc.) This remains an open research topic. Poor Quality Ontologies  Ontology development and assessment remains difficult, rare skill. Some progress (e.g., Ontoclean), clear need for more research and more training of practitioners.

13. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web13 More debates about semantic web research Ontology Merging is very very hard:  Currently subject of research, see Ontoclean work, also work by Joslyn, et al. on use of partial orders.

14. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web14 Jeanette Wing named to head CISE at NSF CISE = Computing, Information Science and Engineering Directorate Dr. Jeanette Wing (CMU) is new head of CISE Consultant now, full time by July 1, 2007 Prof. Wing is an outspoken researcher and advocate of formal methods in CS “type checking as the generalization of dimensional analysis...” suggests an interest in expanding semantics of type systems

15. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web15 Where to apply for NSF funding for semantic web research? CISE/IIS Division  III (Information Integration and Informatics) Funds data management, information retrieval, knowledge management, digital libraries, digital government  RI (Robust Intelligence) Funds machine learning, artificial intelligence, speech, vision,... CISE CNS Division (systems) CISE CCF Division (theory)

16. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web16 Where to apply for NSF funding for semantic web research? Biology, Geosciences,... directorates  Fund domain specific ontologies for their specific research areas  May fund software tools for particular research areas – e.g., bioinformatics sequence annotation,...

17. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web17 Where to apply for NSF funding of semantic web development? CISE/CRI  Funds infrastructure for computer science research OCI (Office of CyberInfrastructure)  Funds software development for tools of use to broad scientific communities (biology, etc.)  Anticipates funding data exchange standards and domain specific ontologies Note: CRI and OCI support infrastructure, not direct research support !

18. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web18 Proposal Deadlines for 06-572 NSF 06-572 Program Solicitation  Deadline for small (<$450K) proposals was Dec. 6, 2006  Deadlines for large ($900K-$1.8M) and medium ($450K-$900K) proposals have past (Oct/Nov)  Only one solicitation for IIS division this year  Future solicitations expected annually with similar deadlines.

19. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web19 Contact Information for NSF CISE / IIS / III Frank Olken, folken@nsf.govfolken@nsf.gov  data semantics, data/ontology integration, workflow, eng./sci. informatics, metadata registries,... Maria Zemankova, mzemanko@nsf.govmzemanko@nsf.gov  Knowledge management, information retrieval, workflow, vizualization,... Sylvia Spengler, sspengle@nsf.gov, III Cluster Leadersspengle@nsf.gov  Ontologies, bioinformatics,... Steve Griffin, sgriffin@nsf.govsgriffin@nsf.gov  Digital libraries Larry Brandt, lbrandt@nsf.govlbrandt@nsf.gov  Digital government Le Gruenwald, lgruenwa@nsf.govlgruenwa@nsf.gov  Data management, security and privacy,...

20. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web20 Contact Information NSF/CISE/IIS Tanya Korelsky, tkorelsky@nsf.govtkorelsky@nsf.gov  Natural Language Processing Edwina Rissland, erissland@nsf.goverissland@nsf.gov  Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Representation

21. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web21 Contact Information NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure Chris Greer, cgreer@nsf.govcgreer@nsf.gov  Data Management cyberinfrastructure, bioinformatics, data collections Kevin Thompson, kthompso@nsf.govkthompso@nsf.gov  Software / middleware cyberinfrastructure To be hired,  Additional staff in data collections, knowledge management

22. 2006-02-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web22 Contact Info for Speaker Frank Olken  National Science Foundation  CISE Directorate / IIS Division / III Cluster  4201 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1125  Arlington, VA 22230  Email: folken@nsf.govfolken@nsf.gov  Tel: 703-292-8930 (receptionist)  Tel: 703-292-7350 (direct)  Cell: 510-703-2764 (does not work within NSF)