Semantic Web Futures

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Semantic Web Futures

• Coming soon, coming later
• Jim Hendler
• Hendler _at_ cs.umd.edu
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hendler

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The Semantic Wave
(Berners-Lee, 03)
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Future of the Semantic Web
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The Semantic Web Revolution
(w/apologies to Larsen)
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The World Wide Web

• On the order of 108 users
• Used in every country on Earth
• On every continent (incl. Antarctica), Mars link
  is in transit!
• A tiny percentage is trained in any way
• On the order of 1010 indexed web resources (text)
  in Google etc
• Essentially Infinite if one includes dynamic
  web pages
• Massively distributed and open
• Anyone can play -- To someone on the Web, youre
  the nut
• A set of protocols and languages driven by a
  strong standards approach
• Implementation and platform independence crucial
• World Wide Web Consortium the most prominent

The miracle is the network effect
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Network Effect

• Sem Web languages allow the linking of
• multimedia
• databases
• Services
• meta-data repository
• Or any other Web resource!

Hendler 03- Science
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Network effect II

• The models can also link to other Semantic Web
  models
• partial mappings just fine
• this creates a web of models (semantics) much
  like the current web is a web of texts
• Network effect as mappings provide links to
  linked resources

BioMedCentral Article
Oncogene(MYC) Found_In_Organism(Human).
Gene_Has_Function(Transcriptional_Regulation).
Gene_Has_Function(Gene_Transcription).
In_Chromosomal_Location(8q24).
Gene_Associated_With_Disease(Burkitts_Lymphoma).
Vocabulary (RDFS)
NCI Cancer Ontology (OWL)
ltmetagt ltclassificationsgt ltclassification
type"MYC subtype"old_arx_id"gtbcr-2-1-059lt/class
ificationgt lt/classificationsgt lt/metagt
BioMedCentral Metadata (XML)
Web data set (XHTML)
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Now Tools for tool builders

• It is much easier to get started than it was a
  year ago,
• Parsers, APIs, triple-stores
• http//www.daml.org/tools
• http//www.w3.org/RDF
• End to end no longer takes a miracle
• Prototype OWL website took three undergraduates
  about 1 month.
• But end user tools just starting to emerge

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Now Semantic Web portals
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Next stepUser tools(aka where does the markup
come from?)
Tools for marking up images, figures and other
non-textual data must be built in a way that
they tie into the "business processes" of the
working scientist -- that is, rather than
learning a whole new set of tools, the basic web
tools of the scientist must include mechanisms
that make it EASIER for the scientist to produce
web content (appropriately markedup) while
authoring papers, performing experiments,
creating and logging data, and the other day to
day activities of the working researcher.
Even more true for eGov!
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New Info Management Paradigms
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And other cool stuff
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Marking up (sub)images
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And the info flows
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And the info flows correctly
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Coming sooner than you may think
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Real Soon shared calendaring
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Soon Tools for visualization and use
A number of tools for querying, browsing and
visualizing SW data are being developed
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Soon Grounding WSDL
input xsdcomplexoncogene
Oncogene(MYC) Found_In_Organism(Human).
Gene_Has_Function(Transcriptional_Regulation).
Gene_Has_Function(Gene_Transcription).
In_Chromosomal_Location(8q24).
Gene_Associated_With_Disease(Burkitts_Lymphoma).
output xsdcomplexRiskType
ltowlClass rdfabout"http//annotation.semanti
cweb.org/iswc/iswc.damlRiskIndicator"gt
ltrdfssubClassOfgt ltowlRestrictiongt
ltowlonProperty rdfresource"http/
/annotation.semanticweb.org/iswc/iswc.damlname"/gt
ltowlallValuesFrom
rdfresource"http//www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema
string"/gt lt/owlRestrictiongt
lt/rdfssubClassOfgt lt/Classgt
We can add services for even more network effect
(Mapping to OWL expected to be released in WSDL
1.2 spec)
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Use Semantics for Composition
Print the directions to a pharmacywhich has a
medicine that curesthe symptoms that I will tell
you (in French)
Scientific American sketched a medical
examplefor coordinating schedules between two
people dealingwith a parents medical treatment -
Demoed at WWW 2003
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Semantic Web Services
Advanced information management capabilities
Discovery, Filtering, Composition
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Later Use the links
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Research today
Are there any mountains in Europe bigger than Mt.
Blanc?
document
service
database
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Adding Proof
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Adding Trust
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Web queries - for real!!
How many train lines are there in Tokyo?

• Query processed 73 answers found
• Google document search finds 235,312 possible
  page hits.
• Http//wwwjp/JRTrains.html claims the answer is
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• A database entitled JRTLDB can be queried for
  the answer, but you will need Japanese Railroad
  Access Code.
• A computer program that can compute that number
  is offered by the Tokyo Digital City information
  analysis, click here to run program.
• ...

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Web agents (like travel agents)

• Query processed
• A satellite image taken yesterday at 10 AM is
  available on the web at http//
• 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 from 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 2004. See http// for more
  information

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How do we make this happen?

• Start now.

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Learning Training

• As with any new technology, hands on is needed
  for learning
• Short courses becoming available
• XML courses proliferating
• Sem Web courses becoming available (contact me)
• Many ontologies, tools and demos on line
• http//www.daml.org a good starting place
• Books coming along
• The Semantic Web Daconta, Obrst, Smith
• Semantics in Business Systems, McComb
  (forthcoming)
• OReilly XML and RDF book OWL soon, we hope
• Textbooks underway
• New Journal coming Oct 03
• Web Semantics Science, Services and Agents on
  the World Wide Web - Elsevier Publishing

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Get involved

• Taxonomy and Semantics SIG
• http//km.gov
• October 8 - Indexing and Thesauri workshop
• DC area
• Meeting of Core planning group
• TBD
• Contact information is on the web site

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Conclusion

• Semantic Web technologies are here now and being
  used
• Dont be afraid to get started
• Semantic Web technologies have a promising future
  and an exciting potential
• Keep your eye on the feed from research
• Together we can make it happen!

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MIND SWAP

• Maryland Information and Network Dynamics
  Laboratory, Semantic Web and Agents Project
• J. Hendler
• B. Parsia
• Jennifer Golbeck
• Aditya Kalyanpur
• Grecia Lapizco-Encinas
• Katy Newton
• Corporate Research Partners
• Fujitsu Laboratory of America, College Park
• Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories
• NTT Corp
• SAIC Corp.
• Govt Funding
• US Army Research Laboratory, NSF, DARPA, Another
  Agency
• http//owl.mindswap.org (OWL-powered Semantic
  Web page)

Evren Sirin Ronald Alford Ross Baker
Amy Alford Matt Westhoff Kendall Clark
Nada Hashmi