SWT - Lecture 2 (Semantic Web Structure) - 14-01-2009

SEMANTIC WEB TECHNOLOGIES
Instructor : Amna Basharat Haider

Lecture : 02
Date : 14th January 2009
Semantic Web Technologies
Session Learning Outcomes

• The Semantic Web Approach
• The Structure of the Semantic Web
• Semantic Web Layer Tower
• Semantic Technologies – An Overview
FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Recap!

BRINGING SEMANTICS TO THE WEB
And Thus SEMANTIC WEB!!!
The Semantic Web Approach

▫ Represent Web content in a form that is more
easily machine-processable,
machine-processable interpretable and
intelligible/understandable.
▫ Use intelligent techniques to take advantage of

these representations.
▫ The Semantic Web will gradually evolve out of

the existing Web,
Web it is not a competition to the
current WWW

Approach: Semantic Web

“The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having
data on the Web defined and linked in a way that it
can be used by machines not just for display
purposes,
b t for
but f automation,
t ti i t
integration
ti and d reuse
of data across various applications”
http://www.w3.org/sw/
Vision of Tim Berners Lee !

The
h Semantic Web b is an initiative with
h the
h goall off extending
d the
h
current Web and facilitating Web automation, universally
accessible web resources, and the 'Web of Trust', providing a
universally accessible platform that allows data to be shared and
processed by automated tools as well as by people.
SEMANTIC WEB STRUCTURE
Tim Berners-Lee's Vision of Semantic Web

Semantic Web: New “Users”

Users
Creators Users
Semantic
Web and Semantic Web applications
pp
Beyond content
agents
Semantic
Ontologies Logical Support
Annotations
Semantic
Web
Tools Applications /
Languages
Services
WWW Creators Users

and
Beyond Web content

Semantic Web: Annotations

Creators Users
Semantic applications
pp
Web and Semantic Web
Beyond content
agents
Semantic
Annotations
Semantic
Web •Semantic annotations are
specific sort of metadata,
Applications /
Languages Tools
Services which provides information
about particular domain
objects, values of their
Creators Users
properties and
WWW
relationships, in a machine-
and processable, formal and
Beyond Web content
standardized way.

Semantic Web:: Ontologies

g
Creators Users
pp
Beyond content
agents
•Ontologies make metadata
Semantic
Annotations
Ontologies Logical Support interoperable and ready for
Semantic efficient sharing and reuse.
• It provides shared and
Web
common understanding of a
Applications /
domain, that can be used both
Languages Tools
Services by people and machines.
• Ontologies are used as a form
of agreement
agreement-based
based knowledge
WWW Creators Users representation about the world
and or some part of it and generally
Web content describe: domain individuals,
Beyond
classes, attributes, relations
and d events.

Semantic Web:: Rules

Creators Users
pp
Beyond content
agents
Semantic
Annotations
Semantic
Web Logical support in form of rules is needed
to infer implicit content, metadata and
Applications / ontologies from the explicit ones.
Languages Tools
Services Rules are considered to be a major issue
in the further development of the
semantic web.
On one hand, they can be used in ontology
WWW Creators Users languages, in conjunction with or as an
alternative to description logics.
and And on the other hand, they will act as a
Beyond Web content
means to draw inferences, to configure
systems, to express constraints, to specify
policies, to react to events/changes, to
transform data, to specify behavior of
agents, etc.

Semantic Web:: Languages

g g
Creators Users
pp
Beyond content
agents
Semantic
Annotations
•Languages are needed for machine-
Semantic processable formal descriptions of:
Web metadata ((annotations)) like e.g.
g RDF;
ontologies like e.g. OWL.; rules like
e.g. RuleML.
Applications /
Tools
Services •The challenge is to provide a
Languages
framework for specifying the syntax

(e g XML) and semantics of all of
(e.g.
WWW Creators Usersthese languages in a uniform and
and coherent way.
Beyond Web content •The strategy is to translate the
various languages into a common
'base' language providing them with a
single coherent model theory.

Semantic Web:: Tools

Creators Users
pp
Beyond content
agents
Semantic
Annotations
Semantic
Web
User-friendly tools are needed for
Tools Applications metadata
/ manual creation (annotating
Languages
Services
content) or automated generation, for
ontology
gy engineering
g g and validation,,
for knowledge acquisition (rules), for
WWW Creators Users
languages parsing and processing, etc.
and
Beyond Web content

Semantic Web: Applications and Services

Creators Users
pp
Beyond content
agents
Semantic
Annotations
Semantic
Web
Tools Applications /
Languages
Services
Utilization of Semantic Web

WWW Creators Users metadata, ontologies, rules,
and languages and tools enables to
Web content provide scalable Web applications
Beyond
and Web services for consumers
and enterprises" making the web
'smarter' for people and machines.

Questions,, Q
Q Questions and More Q
Questions…
• How can Semantic Technology revolutionize how we use web to
find and organize information, or conduct business?
• How can semantics enable next generation data and application

interoperability and integration? Will it?
• What can you get by empowering Web services with semantics?
• What are Semantic Web Processes?
• What are research challenges?
• Are businesses taking notice of it?
• Will semantics bring new generation of Content Management,

will it revolutionize text analytics or content analytics?

SEMANTIC WEB TECHNOLOGIES
An Overview

▫ Explicit Metadata
▫ Ontologies
▫ Logic
g and Inference
▫ Agents

On HTML
▫ Web content is currently formatted
f human
for h readers
d rather
th than
th
programs
▫ HTML is the predominant language in

which Web pages are written (directly
or using tools)
▫ Vocabulary describes presentation

An HTML Example
<h1>Agilitas Physiotherapy Centre</h1>
Welcome to the home page of the Agilitas Physiotherapy Centre. Do
you feel pain? Have you had an injury? Let our staff Lisa Davenport,
Kelly Townsend (our lovely secretary) and Steve Matthews take care
of your body and soul.
<h2>Consultation hours</h2>
Mon 11am - 7pm<br>
Tue 11am - 7pm<br>
Wed 3pm - 7pm<br>
Thu 11am - 7pm<br>
Fri 11am - 3pm<p>
But note that we do not offer consultation during the weeks of the
<a href=". . .">State Of Origin</a> games.

Problems with HTML

• Humans have no problem with this
• Machines (software agents) do:

▫ How to distinguish therapists from the
secretary
▫ How to determine exact consultation hours

A Better Representation
<company>
y py
<treatmentOffered>Physiotherapy</treatmentOffered>
<companyName>Agilitas Physiotherapy Centre</companyName>
<staff>
therapist Lisa Davenport</therapist>
<therapist>Lisa Davenport /therapist
<therapist>Steve Matthews</therapist>
<secretary>Kelly Townsend</secretary>
</staff>
</company>

Explicit Metadata
• This representation is far more easily
processable by machines
• Metadata: data about data

▫ Metadata capture part of the meaning of data
• Semantic Web does not rely on text-based

text based
manipulation, but rather on machine-
processable metadata
p

Ontologies
• The term ontology originates from philosophy
•
• The study of the nature of existence
• Different meaning from computer science
• An ontology is an explicit and formal

specification
spec cat o of
o a conceptualisation
co ceptual sat o

Typical Components of Ontologies

• Terms denote important concepts (classes of
objects) of the domain
▫ e.g. professors, staff, students, courses,
departments
• Relationships between these terms: typically

class hierarchies
▫ a class C to be a subclass of another class C' if
every object in C is also included in C'
▫ e.g.
e g all professors are staff members

Further Components of Ontologies

• Properties:
▫ e g X teaches Y
e.g.
• Value restrictions
▫ e.g. only faculty members can teach courses
• Disjointness statements
▫ e.g. faculty and general staff are disjoint
• Logical relationships between objects
▫ e.g. every department must include at least 10
faculty

The Role of Ontologies on the Web

• Ontologies provide a shared understanding of
a domain: semantic interoperability
▫ overcome differences in terminology
▫ mappings between ontologies
• Ontologies are useful for the organisation and

navigation of Web sites

The Role of Ontologies in Web Search

• Ontologies are useful for improving the
accuracy
y of Web searches
▫ search engines can look for pages that refer to a
precise concept in an ontology
• Web searches can exploit generalisation/

specialization information
▫ If a query fails to find any relevant documents, the
search engine may suggest to the user a more
general query
g q y
▫ If too many answers are retrieved, the search

engine may suggest to the user some
specializations.
Logic and Inference

• Logic is the discipline that studies the
principles of reasoning
▫ Formal languages for expressing knowledge
▫ Well-understood formal semantics
x Declarative knowledge: we describe what holds without
caring about how it can be deduced
▫ Automated reasoners can deduce (infer)
conclusions from the given knowledge

An Inference Example
prof(X) → faculty(X)
faculty(X) → staff(X)
prof(michael)
We can deduce the following conclusions:

faculty(michael)
staff(michael)
prof(X) → staff(X)

Logic versus Ontologies

• The previous example involves knowledge
typically found in ontologies
▫ Logic can be used to uncover ontological
knowledgeg that is implicitly
p y given
g
▫ It can also help uncover unexpected relationships
and inconsistencies
• Logic is more general than ontologies

▫ It can also be used by intelligent agents for making
decisions and selecting courses of action

Software Agents
• Software agents work autonomously and
proactively
▫ They evolved out of object oriented and
component-based programming
• A personal agent on the Semantic Web will:

▫ receive some tasks and preferences from the
person
▫ seek information from Web sources,
communicate
i t with
ith other
th agentst
▫ compare information about user requirements
and p
preferences,, make certain choices
▫ give answers to the user
THE SEMANTIC WEB LAYER TOWER

The Semantic Web Layer Tower

Semantic Web Layers

• XML layer
▫ Syntactic basis
• RDF layer
▫ RDF basic data model for facts
▫ RDF Schema simple ontology language
• Ontology layer
▫ More expressive languages than RDF Schema
▫ Current Web standard: OWL

Semantic Web Layers (2)

• Logic layer
▫ enhance ontology languages further
▫ application-specific declarative knowledge
• Proof layer
▫ Proof generation, exchange, validation
• Trust layer
y
▫ Digital signatures
▫ recommendations, rating agencies ….

Semantic Web Layers: Principles

• The layers of the Semantic Web must respect
the following principles:
▫ Downward compatibility
x e.g., agents aware of the semantics of OWL can take full
advantage of information written in RDF and RDF Schema
▫ Upward partial understanding
x e.g., an agent only aware of RDF and RDF Schema
semantics can interpret knowledge written in OWL partly
by disregarding elements that go beyond RDF and RDF
schema

SEMANTIC WEB APPROACH :
ILLUSTRATED!
Demonstrating the Power of Semantic Web
Technology
Technolog







Readings
• Chapter 1 of Davies J., Fensel D. and van
Harmelen F.
F (2003)
• Berners-Lee T., Hendler J. and Lassila O.The
Semantic Web.
Web

Assignment # 1
• In their paper titled “The Semantic Web” Time
Berners-Lee
Berners Lee et al.”
al. describe a scenario exemplifying
a possible use of the Semantic Web. In your groups:
▫ Di
Discuss and
d describe
d ib another
h example
l off a possible
ibl usage
scenario of the Semantic Web
▫ Identify and list all the resources that need to be available on

the Semantic Web in order for the scenario to be successfully
fulfilled.
• Deadline:
▫ Friday
y 16th January
y 2008

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SEMANTIC WEB TECHNOLOGIES

Instructor : Amna Basharat Haider

Session Learning Outcomes

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

The Semantic Web Approach

▫ Use intelligent techniques to take advantage of

▫ The Semantic Web will gradually evolve out of

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Approach: Semantic Web

Vision of Tim Berners Lee !

Tim Berners-Lee's Vision of Semantic Web

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web: New “Users”

WWW Creators Users

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web: Annotations

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web:: Ontologies

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web:: Rules

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web:: Languages

framework for specifying the syntax

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web:: Tools

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web: Applications and Services

Utilization of Semantic Web

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

• How can semantics enable next generation data and application

• What can you get by empowering Web services with semantics?

• What are Semantic Web Processes?

• What are research challenges?

• Are businesses taking notice of it?

• Will semantics bring new generation of Content Management,

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Semantic Web Technologies

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

▫ HTML is the predominant language in

▫ Vocabulary describes presentation

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Problems with HTML

• Machines (software agents) do:

▫ How to determine exact consultation hours

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

• Metadata: data about data

• Semantic Web does not rely on text-based

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

• Different meaning from computer science

• An ontology is an explicit and formal

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Typical Components of Ontologies

• Relationships between these terms: typically

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

Further Components of Ontologies

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider

The Role of Ontologies on the Web

• Ontologies are useful for the organisation and

FAST-NU, Islamabad Fall 2008 - Lecture 2 Instructor: Amna Basharat Haider