Semantic Web BBN

1
Semantic Web _at_ BBN

• Mike Dean
• mdean_at_bbn.com
• Industry Track
• 7th International Semantic Web Conference
  (ISWC2008)
• Karlsruhe, Germany
• 29 October 2008
• http//asio.bbn.com/2008/10/iswc2008/bbn-2008-10-2
  9.ppt

2
Outline

• History
• Current efforts
• Looking forward

3
Introduction to BBN

• An advanced technology research and development
  firm, specializing in Information, Computer, and
  Physical Sciences
• Known for technical excellence and challenging
  conventions to provide new and fundamentally
  better solutions to complex technical problems
• Providing innovative, real-world solutions and
  satisfying our customers have been the keys to
  our success for 60 years
• Staff of 700 professionals
• 2/3 hold advanced degrees
• Principal offices in Cambridge, MA and the
  Washington, DC area

4
History of Innovation
5
Core Technical Expertise

• Data Mining and Knowledge Management
• Semantic Web, Advanced Database Technologies,
  Audio Indexing, Information extraction from
  speech and text
• Information Security
• Computer and network system architecture,
  information operations, cyber situation
  awareness, red teaming
• Speech Recognition and Natural Language
  Processing
• Real-time, large vocabulary, speaker-independent
  continuous speech recognition, Advanced
  speech-to-text systems, Audio monitoring and
  audio indexing, Speech-to-speech translation,
  Optical character recognition
• Intelligent Systems
• Genetic algorithms, Agent architectures,
  Cognitive systems
• Advanced Networking
• Wireless, ad hoc networks, High performance
  routers and encryptors, Satellite technology and
  security, Low power networks
• Infrastructure Security
• Large scale intelligent sensor networks, Unmanned
  surveillance
• Physical Systems
• Acoustic and seismic sensing and analysis systems
  and technologies
• Real-Time Embedded Computing
• High performance operational systems, Signal
  processing and analysis

6
DAML

• BBN was the Integration and Transition Contractor
  for the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML)
  program, 2000-2005
• Coordinated the efforts of 25 research teams
• Led the Joint US/EU ad hoc Agent Markup Language
  Committee, participated in W3C RDF Core and Web
  Ontology Working Groups
• Developed a number of tools, data sets, and
  applications
• Maintained daml.org and SemWebCentral.org

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SemWebCentral.org

• Open source software repository based on GForge
• 145 projects, 854 users
• Still maintained at BBN
• Hardware and software upgrade in progress

8
RD

• DAML was the first and last large US Semantic Web
  research program
• The DARPA Director thought we were done once
  OWL became a W3C Recommendation
• Smaller RD efforts in other agencies
• Several DARPA seedling projects
• Our focus has shifted to applications using the
  Semantic Web (explicitly or not)
• Government and commercial

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Data Integration

• Many of our applications focus on some aspect of
  data integration
• Diverse databases, web services
• Co-reference resolution among incomplete data
  sets
• Which of 500 references to John Smith refer to
  the same person?
• Combining structured and unstructured information
  (RDF encoding of natural language processing
  output)
• Translation between ontologies using SWRL plays a
  key role in many of solutions

10
AsioTM
1
Query SPARQL
Snoggle
6
Query Result Set
Query Decomposition
2
Semantic Query Decomposition (SQD)
Backwards Rule Chaining
5
Generation ofSub Queries
3
Automapper
Semantic Bridge Database
Semantic Bridge Web Service
Semantic Bridge SPARQL Endpoint
4
Data Access
Parliament
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Open Source

• Snoggle
• SWRL editor for ontology translation
• Parliament
• Memory-mapped embedded triple store
• Descended from DAML DB
• More details in my SSWS 2008 talk
• Will soon be released as open source on
  SemWebCentral

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Geospatial Semantics

• Geospatial Semantic Web RD program at NGA
• Geospatial ontologies (including trade study)
• Geospatial indexing of knowledge bases
• Semantic annotation of georegistered imagery
• Active participation in
• Spatial Ontology Community of Practice (SOCoP)
• Terra Cognita workshop series
• US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF)

13
Going Forward

• Growing business area
• Digital Whitewater (information deluge)
• Video annotation
• Active and streaming content
• Hope for resurgence in US Semantic Web RD with
  the new administration

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More Information

• asio.bbn.com
• snoggle.projects.semwebcentral.org
• parliament.projects.semwebcentral.org