Semantic Web
Riccardo Rosati
Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Ingegneria Informatica
Sapienza Universit di Roma
2012/2013
Overview
Lecture 1: Introduction to the Semantic Web
Lecture 2: The RDF layer 1
RDF
Lecture 3: The RDF layer 2
RDFS, SPARQL
Lecture 4: The RDF layer 3
Linked Data, RDF tools
Lecture 5: The RDF layer 4
Writing and querying RDF models
The Semantic Web - course overview
Overview
Lecture 6: The Ontology layer 1
Ontologies, Description Logics, OWL
Lecture 7: The Ontology layer 2
OWL, OWL 2, OWL 2 profiles, DL-Lite
Lecture 8: The Ontology layer 3
OWL reasoners and tools (Protg, Pellet, QuOnto)
Lecture 9: The Ontology layer 4
Writing and querying OWL ontologies
Lecture 10: The upper layers (and concluding
remarks)
The Semantic Web - course overview
Part 1
Introduction to the Semantic Web
What is the Semantic Web?
The Semantic Web is a Web of actionable
informationinformation derived from data
through a semantic theory for interpreting the
symbols.
The semantic theory provides an account of
meaning in which the logical connection of
terms establishes interoperability between
systems
(Shadbot, Hall, Berners-Lee, The Semantic Web revisited, IEEE
Intelligent Systems, May 2006)
Introduction to the Semantic Web
The Semantic Web: why?
search on the Web: problems...
...due to the way in which information is stored on
the Web
Problem 1: web documents do not distinguish
between information content and presentation
(solved by XML)
Problem 2: different web documents may
represent in different ways semantically related
pieces of information
this leads to hard problems for intelligent
information search on the Web
Introduction to the Semantic Web
Separating content and presentation
Problem 1: web documents do not distinguish
between information content and presentation
problem due to the HTML language
problem solved by current technology
stylesheets (HTML, XML)
XML
stylesheets allow for separating formatting
attributes from the information presented
Introduction to the Semantic Web
Separating content and presentation
XML: eXtensible Mark-up Language
XML documents are written through a userdefined set of tags
tags are used to express the semantics of the
various pieces of information
Introduction to the Semantic Web
XML: example
HTML:
<H1>Seminari di Ingegneria del Software</H1>
<UL>
<LI>Teacher: Giuseppe De Giacomo
<LI>Room: 7
<LI>Prerequisites: none
</UL>
XML:
<course>
<title>Seminari di Ingegneria del Software
</title>
<teacher>Giuseppe De Giacomo</teacher>
<room>1AI, 1I</room>
<prereq>none</prereq>
</course>
Introduction to the Semantic Web
Limitations of XML
XML does not solve all the problems:
legacy HTML documents
different XML documents may express
information with the same meaning using different
tags
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The need for a Semantic Web
Problem 2: different web documents may
represent in different ways semantically related
pieces of information
different XML documents do not share the
semantics of information
idea: annotate (mark-up) pieces of information to
express the meaning of such a piece of
information
the meaning of such tags is shared!
shared semantics
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The Semantic Web initiative
viewpoint:
the Web = a web of data
goal:
to provide a common framework to share data on
the Web across application boundaries
main ideas:
ontology
standards
layers
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The Semantic Web Tower
Introduction to the Semantic Web
13
The Semantic Web Layers
XML layer
RDF + RDFS layer
Ontology layer
Proof-rule layer
Trust layer
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The XML layer
XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
user-definable and domain-specific markup
URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
universal naming for Web resources
same URI = same resource
URIs are the ground terms of the SW
W3C standards
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The RDF + RDFS layer
RDF = a simple conceptual data model
W3C standard (1999)
RDF model = set of RDF triples
triple = expression (statement)
(subject, predicate, object)
subject = resource
predicate = property (of the resource)
object = value (of the property)
=> an RDF model is a graph
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The RDF + RDFS layer
Example of RDF graph:
W3C
dc:Publisher
[Link]
dc:Creator
dc:Date
Ora Lassila
1999-02-22
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The RDF + RDFS layer
RDFS = RDF Schema
vocabulary for RDF
W3C standard (2004)
example:
Person
subClassOf
subClassOf
RDFS
Student
domain
range
hasSupervisor
type
RDF
Frank
hasSupervisor
Introduction to the Semantic Web
Researcher
type
Jeen
18
The Ontology layer
ontology = shared conceptualization
conceptual model
(more expressive than RDF + RDFS)
expressed in a true knowledge representation
language
OWL (Web Ontology Language) = standard
language for ontologies
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The proof/rule layer
beyond OWL:
proof/rule layer
rule: informal notion
rules are used to perform inference over
ontologies
rules as a tool for capturing further knowledge
(not expressible in OWL ontologies)
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The Trust layer
SW top layer:
support for provenance/trust
provenance:
where does the information come from?
how this information has been obtained?
can I trust this information?
largely unexplored issue
no standardization effort
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The Semantic Web: main ingredients
underlying web layer (URI, XML)
reusing and extending web technologies
basic conceptual modeling language (RDF)
ontology language (OWL)
rules/proof
reusing and extending AI technologies
knowledge representation
automated reasoning
...and database technologies
data integration
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The notion of ontology
ontology = shared conceptualization of a domain
of interest
shared vocabulary => simple (shallow) ontology
(complex) relationships between terms => deep
ontology
AI view:
ontology = logical theory (knowledge base)
DB view:
ontology = conceptual model
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Ontologies: example
class-def animal
% animals are a class
class-def plant
% plants are a class
subclass-of NOT animal
% that is disjoint from animals
class-def tree
subclass-of plant
% trees are a type of plants
class-def branch
slot-constraint is-part-of
% branches are parts of some tree
has-value tree
max-cardinality 1
class-def defined carnivore
% carnivores are animals
subclass-of animal
slot-constraint eats
% that eat any other animals
value-type animal
% herbivores are animals
class-def defined herbivore
subclass-of animal, NOT carnivore % that are not carnivores, and
slot-constraint eats
% they eat plants or parts of plants
value-type plant OR (slot-constraint is-part-of has-value plant)
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Ontologies: the role of logic
ontology = logical theory
why?
declarative
formal semantics
reasoning (sound and complete inference techniques)
well-established correspondence between
conceptual modeling formalisms and logic
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Ontologies and Description Logics
OWL is based on a fragment of first-order
predicate logic (FOL)
Description Logics (DLs) = subclasses of FOL
only unary and binary predicates
function-free
quantification allowed only in restricted form
(variable-free syntax)
decidable reasoning
DLs are one of the most prominent languages for
Knowledge Representation
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Ontologies and Description Logics
expressive abilities of DLs have been widely
explored
reasoning in DLs has been extensively studied
DL reasoners have been developed and optimized
DLs as a central technology for the SW
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Rule-based formalisms
Prolog
Logic programming
Constraint (logic) programming
Production rules
Datalog
...
Rule language for SW not standardized yet
RIF (Rule Interchange Format) W3C working group
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The Semantic Web in the real world
Linking Open Data cloud diagram, 09/2011 (by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. [Link]
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Linked Data
Linked Data: a recommended best practice for exposing, sharing,
and connecting pieces of data, information, and knowledge on the
Semantic Web using URIs and RDF
Linking Open Data (LOD): The goal of the W3C SWEO
Linking Open Data community project is to extend the Web with
a data commons by publishing various open data sets as RDF
on the Web and by setting RDF links between data items from
different data sources.
RDF links enable you to navigate from a data item within one data
source to related data items within other sources using a Semantic
Web browser.
As query results are structured data and not just links to HTML
pages, they can be used within other applications.
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The LOD cloud diagram
9/2007
9/2008
9/2009
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9/ 2010
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