David De Roure

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The Semantic Web

• David De Roure
• University of Southampton
• www.semanticgrid.org

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Outline

• The ambition
• Enabling Technologies
• Grid
• Semantic Web
• Semantic Grid
• EnviSense
• The Future

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Vision e-Science

• e-Science is about global collaboration in key
  areas of science and the next generation of
  computing infrastructure that will enable it.
• e-Science will change the dynamic of the way
  science is undertaken.

John Taylor, Director General of UK Research
Councils in 2001
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Vision Grid

• Grid computing has emerged as an important new
  field, distinguished from conventional
  distributed computing by its focus on large-scale
  resource sharing, innovative applications, and,
  in some cases, high-performance orientation...we
  define the "Grid problemas flexible, secure,
  coordinated resource sharing among dynamic
  collections of individuals, institutions, and
  resources - what we refer to as virtual
  organizations

From "The Anatomy of the Grid Enabling Scalable
Virtual Organizations" by Foster, Kesselman and
Tuecke
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Requirements

• These visions require an infrastructure for
  flexible, coordinated resource sharing they are
  fundamentally about joining resources up,
  automatically, in order to do things that werent
  possible before

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Challenges integration
Many sources of data, services, computation
Registries organize services of interest to a
community
Foster
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Two infrastructure enablers
Grid Computing
Semantic Web

• On demand transparently constructed
  multi-organisational federations of distributed
  services
• Distributed computing middleware
• Computational Integration

• An automatically processable, machine
  understandable web
• Distributed knowledge and information management
• Information integration

Goble
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Origins of the Semantic Web

• The Semantic Web is an extension of the current
  Web in which information is given a well-defined
  meaning, better enabling computers and people to
  work in cooperation.
• It is the idea of having data on the Web defined
  and linked in a way that it can be used for more
  effective discovery, automation, integration and
  reuse across various applications.
• The Web can reach its full potential if it
  becomes a place where data can be processed by
  automated tools as well as people.
• W3C Activity Statement

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Layers of Languages
Attribution
Explanation
You are here
Rules Inference
Ontologies
Metadata annotations
Standard Syntax
Identity
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Web vs Semantic Web
Web page
Any Web Resource
lta href
URIgt
HTML
lta hrefhttp//gt
URI
URI
URI
RDF is like the web!
RDF
Hendler
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Everything has a URI
Don't say "colour" say http//example.com/2002/std
6col
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Applications connected by concepts
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Making Knowledge Explicit
Ontology Inference Layer
DAML
OIL
RDF
DAMLOIL
All influenced by RDF
OWL Lite (thesaurus) OWL DL (reason-able) OWL
Full (anything goes)
OWL
OWL Web Ontology Language
RDF Resource Description Framework
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Clients of the RDF bus
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Triplestore
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Rocket Science (not)
Is this rocket science? Well, not really. The
Semantic Web, like the World Wide Web, is just
taking well established ideas, and making them
work interoperably over the Internet. This is
done with standards, which is what the World Wide
Web Consortium is all about. We are not inventing
relational models for data, or query systems or
rule-based systems. We are just webizing them. We
are just allowing them to work together in a
decentralized system - without a human having to
custom handcraft every connection.
Tim Berners-Lee, Business Case for the Semantic
Web, http//www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Business
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5 Myths Busted!

• Isnt it just AI and distributed agents (again)?
• No It is primarily metadata integration and
  querying
• Dont you need all that reasoning stuff?
• No A little bit of semantics goes a long way!
  (Hendler)
• It only applies to the Web?
• No the technologies are being used for
  Enterprise integration, exposing data in a common
  model, common ontology languages, representing
  terminologies.
• One big ontology of everything never works!
• No multiple ontologies multiple everything!
• One big Semantic Web!
• No lots of Semantic Web-lets, and expect it to
  break!

Goble
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The Semantic Grid Report 2001

• At this time, there are a number of grid
  applications being developed and there is a whole
  raft of computer technologies that provide
  fragments of the necessary functionality.
• However there is currently a major gap between
  these endeavours and the vision of e-Science in
  which there is a high degree of easy-to-use and
  seamless automation and in which there are
  flexible collaborations and computations on a
  global scale.
• www.semanticgrid.org

NB Report updated March 2005 issue of
Proceedings of the IEEE
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Building bridges
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Semantic Grid
SemanticWeb
SemanticGrid
Scale of Interoperability
ClassicalWeb
ClassicalGrid
Scale of data and computation
Based on an idea by Norman Paton
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Semantics in and on the Grid
The Semantic Grid is an extension of the current
Grid in which information and services are given
well-defined meaning, better enabling computers
and peopleto work in cooperation
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Semantics in and on the Grid
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Combe Chem pilot project
Video
Simulation
Properties
Analysis
StructuresDatabase
Diffractometer
X-Raye-Lab
Propertiese-Lab
Grid Middleware
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In the lab
www.smarttea.org
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In the bar
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eBank
Undergraduate Students
Digital Library
Graduate Students
E-Scientists
E-Scientists
E-Scientists
Grid
Entire E-Science CycleEncompassing
experimentation, analysis, publication, research,
learning
E-Experimentation
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CombeChem Semantic Datagrid

• Existing datastores linked by triplestores
• 80 million triples in 3store
• A social experiment! e.g. Chemists built
  ontology for units
• Chemists appreciate powerful queries and
  flexibility
• Metadata infrastructure is in place

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NASA Scenario
1. Astronauts debrief on EVA
Compendium maps from trained compendium astronaut
Remote Science Team (RST) on earth e.g. geologists
Video and Science Data
Mars
Plan for next Days EVA
2. Virtual meeting of RST using CoAKTinG tools
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Image from NASA
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Envisense

• The Centre for Pervasive Computing in the
  Environment is one of the seven national centres
  in the DTI Next Wave Technologies and Markets
  Programme
• Current projects FloodNet, GlacsWeb and SECOAS

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Study Site
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• Yellow spots indicate the location of sensors

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FloodNet
(De Roure, 2005)
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Semantic
Pervasive
Grid
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Fundamentally about Interoperability and
inference
Grid and Pervasive share issues in large scale
distributed systems. e.g. service description,
discovery, composition autonomic computing.
These can be aided with semantics.
Pervasive applications need the Grid, e.g.
Sensor Networks
Grid applications need Pervasive Computing e.g.
Smart Laboratory
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E-Science Special Issue

• IEEE Intelligent Issue Special Issue on
  E-Science, Jan-Feb 2004
• De Roure, Gil, Hendler
• Challenges
• Realising the network effect
• Moving beyond centralised stores
• Automated assembly
• Collaboration tools