Tutorial Introduction to Topic Maps

SABRE 2009 Leipzig

Tutorial:
Introduction to Topic Maps

Dr. Lutz Maicher
Topic Maps Lab at the University of Leipzig
maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de

Institut für Informatik
topicmapslab.de
Automatische Sprachverarbeitung

Einführung in Topic Maps
What is the Topic Maps Lab?
… it‘s a research group dedicated to Topic Maps technologies.

Located at the University of Leipzig, Germany
•
– Chair of the Topic Maps Labs: Dr. Lutz Maicher
Kontakt: maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de
0049 / 341 / 97 32303

Funded by the BMBF (German Federal Ministry for Research and Education)
•
Portal: http://www.topicmapslab.de
•

“Introduction to Topic Maps”
Dr. Lutz Maicher (maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de)
Automatische Sprachverarbeitung topicmapslab.de 2


Agenda quot;Topic Maps Tutorialquot;

SABRE 2009, Leipzig, Dr. Lutz Maicher

Goals quot;Introduction to Topic Mapsquot;
Learning what Topic Maps are
•
• Learning how Topic Maps can drive web applications
• Learning the fundamentals of the Topic Maps standards
• Learning how Topic Maps feed the web of data
• Presentation of the Topic Maps Lab and it’s portal

Inquire, whenever you have a question or comment!



Subject-centric models



quot;realquot; world

model
has name Nikolaikirche has name Leipzig
has name St. Nicolai
has name St. Nicolas (in en)
was founded in 1165
was founded in 1165
has a website ….

has name Saint-Nicolas (in fr)


quot;realquot; world

model
has name Nikolaikirche
has name Leipzig
has name St. Nicolai
has name St. Nicolas (in en)
was founded in 1165
was founded in 1165
has a website ….
has name Saint-Nicolas (in fr)



Data model of Topic Maps


The data model of Topic Maps
Nikolaikirche
variant

St. Nikolai
English

name scope
St. Nicholas Church

foundation

occurrence type
1165

website

www.nikolaikirche
occurrence type
-leipzig.de/


Associations in the data model of Topic Maps
container-containee
containee container

St. Nikolai role type Leipzig

role player ass. role association


Data model of Topic Maps
one topic represents one subject in a data source
•
– names represent the names of the subject
• names might have variants

– occurrences represent properties of the subject
– associations represent relationships between subjects
• flexibility through roles
• n-ary associations

– all types and scopes are (set of) Topics
• in a topic map everything is a topic


What are Topic Maps (ISO 13250)?
Topic Maps are highly-networked data sources
•
• one topic for each subject
• relationships of subjects are associations between topics
• subject-centric modelling paradigm
Topic Maps have a human-centric data model
•
• vocabulary for documenting information fits human cognition
• network resembles human cognition
Topic Maps have an integration model
•
• whenever two topics represent the same subject, they have to be merged
• always one information access hub for each subject
Topic Maps is an international industry standard (ISO
•
13250)



Musica migrans – a Topic Maps driven Portal

SABRE 2009, Leipzig, Lutz Maicher (maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de

How it all began …
During a concert break we discussed with Prof. H. Loos,

who is one of the leading German historians about
the Eastern European music history
that he dreams of a system which allows him to collect
and analyse
biographical data about little-known Eastern European
musicians in the 19th century.

He was interested in making usable
all the relationships in the data! This sounded like a case for
Topic Maps, so we asked
Mr. Loos to sketch his domain…
SABRE 2009, Leipzig, Lutz Maicher (maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de

… and he started to sketch the domain!
has names birthplace of a person
with a lot of different spellings
Place
Person place of death of a person
has educational development place of educational phase
has professional development place of a job
has concerts place of a concert
primary nationality of a person
birthday of a person
Nationality
Date a person secondary nationality of a person
day of death of
start and end of educational phase goal of educational phase
start and end of a job main profession of a person
date of a concert
Profession
archive secondary profession of a person
encyclopaedia
confessions of a person profession in a job
Reference Confession
further literature
SABRE 2009, Leipzig, Lutz Maicher (maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de)


Praktikum quot;Wissens-und Contentmanagement WS 2007/2008quot; (c) Lutz
Maicher
List page for persons in Musica migrans


Maicher
List page for places in Musica migrans


Maicher

IndividualInstitut für Informatik
page (general) for Bargiel Waldemar in Musica migrans


Maicher

Individual page für Informatik
Institut
(employment) for Bargiel Waldemar in Musica migrans


Maicher
Individual page (as working place) for Berlin in Musica topicmapslab.de
migrans
Automatische Sprachverarbeitung 20


Maicher

Individual pagefür Informatik
Institut
for Bargiel Waldemar in Musica migrans (Role: author)


Getting started with Topic Maps – part 1


Introduction to the Omnigator
Omnigator is generic Topic Maps Browser
•
– download it at http://www.ontopia.net

data model
•
– elements of the data model
query languages (tolog)
•
full text queries
•
exchange formats (XTM, LTM)
•
schemas
•
editing topic maps with Ontopoly
•




Browsing through Informatik Map using a generic Topic Maps browser (Omnigator)
Institut für
a Topic



Institut für
a Topic

Duality of Topic Maps –
Rendering of a Topic Map as Portal


Browsing the same Topic Map in a simple web application (Topic Maps Portal)


Portals


Kulturnett.no
www.kulturnett.no
•
– all cultural events in Norway


Kulturnett.no



Fuzzzy.com
Social bookmarking service
•
– tags are semantically rich


Pansori Portal
http://61.97.135.247:9000/pansori
•
– information portal about South Korean folk music


Gentech Topic Map
http://mips.gsf.de/genre/proj/pedanttm/
•
– integrates databases about genes, proteins and functions (on the fly)
– very large amount of data


Increased Usability
„Subject-centric Information Architecture“ (Topic Maps
•
Portal) increases the usability

– Sam Gyun Oh, Ok Nam Park: Design and Users' Evaluation of a Topic Maps-Based
Korean Folk Music Retrieval System. TMRA 2006: 74-89
– Sam Gyun Oh, Won Sunmin: The Effects of Topic Map Components on Serendipitous
Information Retrieval. TMRA 2008: 301-310
– Myongho Yi, Sam Oh: A Topic map-based ontology IR system versus Clustering-based
IR System: A Comparative Study in Security Domain. TMRA 2008: 63-76


… even more Topic Maps portals

Maicher
http://www.fuzzzy.com/tag/?id=2238


Advanced Features


Scope
each statement in Topic Maps might have a scope
•
– is defined by a set of topics
the usage context is equally defined by a set of topics
•
if all topics of the scope are in the usage context, the
•
scoped statement is valid in the current context
unconstraint scope = empty scope set
•
Usage:
•
– multilingualism
– service/user/access levels
– worldviews


Reifikation
reification = a statement in a topic map becomes the
•
subject of a new topic
– Who is the author of this statement?
– When this statement was created?
Topics can't be reified
•
Author: Heinrich Müller
Last Update: 10.05.2008
subject
RP RP

RT R A R RT

AT


Merging – the integration model of Topic Maps


Integration model of Topic Maps
The identity of a topic is defined by a set of Subject Identifiers …

St. Nikolai
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipziger_Nikolaikirche

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas%27_Church%2C_Leipzig

http://www.nikolaikirche-leipzig.de/


… whenever two topics in one topic map use the same subject identifier,
they will be merged.
St. Nikolai



Saint-Nicolas


Merging of Topics: a new topic replaces the old ones and provides
•
all information of them as unified access hub
• all subject identifiers
• all names
• all occurrences
• all association roles, the topic is playing in

St. Nikolai


Saint-Nicolas
and all Occurrences and Roles Played from both Topics …

Effort: Entrance in League of Nations
Name: Gustav Stresemann
Date of Birth: 1878-05-10 Effort: Fight against hyper inflation

Doctoral Thesis: Das Wachstum
Effort: Dawes Plan
der Berliner Flaschenbierproduktion

Subject Identifiers Subect Identifiers
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Stresemann http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Stresemann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Stresemann http://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografien/StresemannGustav/


Effort: Entrance in League of Nations
Name: Gustav Stresemann
Effort: Fight against hyper inflation
Date of Birth: 1878-05-10

Doctoral Thesis: Das Wachstum Effort: Dawes Plan
der Berliner Flaschenbierproduktion

Subject Identifiers
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Stresemann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Stresemann
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografien/StresemannGustav/


Subject Identifier (and Subject Indicator)


Subject Locator


Features of the Integration model in Topic Maps
merges all information about a subject at one hub
•
is schema-free
•
– merging of topics only depends on the subject identifiers of each topic
implies terminological flexibility
•
– all topics must only use subject identifiers from a shared vocabulary
– for all statements about the subjects (names, occurrences, association
roles) heterogeneous vocabulary can be used
disambiguates between Subject Locator and Identifier
•



Getting started mit Topic Maps (part 2)


Some Syntax – How do I write a Topic Map?
A Topic has an ID, a Name, a Type and a Subject Identifier,
•

[lm : person = quot;Lutz Maicherquot; %quot;mailto:maicher@informatik.uni -leipzig.dequot;]
[ul : organisation = quot;University of Leipzigquot; %quot;http://www.uni-leipzig.de/quot;]

A topic might have occurrences and
•
{lm, room , [[Johannisgasse 5-50]]}
{lm, phone, [[0341-97-32303]]}

Associations to other topics
•
employment ( ul : employer, lm : employee)

And the Topic Maps is finished.
•


…or make some API calls …
require 'rtm'
RTM.connect # or memory or other backends
tm = RTM.create quot;http://a/b/c/base_locatorquot; # create or get topic map

lm = tm.get!(quot;mailto:maicher@informatik.uni-leipzig.de quot;)
lm.add_type(quot;personquot;)
lm[quot;-quot;]=quot;Lutz Maicherquot;

ul = tm.get!(quot;http://www.uni-leipzig.de/quot;)
ul.add_type(quot;organisationquot;)
lm[quot;-quot;]=quot;University of Leipzigquot;

# alle Infos siehe: http://rtm.rubyforge.org/


Exercise: Model this course as Topic Map

“Titel des Vortrags”


Topic Maps exchange protocols –
feeding the web of data


Topic Maps in distributed environments
protocols for exchange between distributed Topic
•
Maps repositories: TMRAP, (TMIP, Topincs)

– request distributed Topic Maps repositories whether information
about a given subject is available
• if available, Topic Maps fragments around the according topic will be exchanged
and merged into the requesting repository

– Topic Map Remote Access Protocol (TMRAP) is developed by
Ontopia (www.ontopia.net)
• implemented for OKS and TM4J



SABRE 2009, Leipzig, Dr. Lutz Maicher 6
Institut für Informatik 3
Automatische Sprachverarbeitung topicmapslab.de

The duality of Topic Maps portals
Topic Maps portals have two quot;facesquot;
•
– the rendered web interface for humans
• topic pages
• list pages

– the TMRAP/TMIP/Topincs interface for (global) information
integration


The human-centric interface for Tasmania



The TMRAP interface for Tasmania



Musica migrans will feed the web of data …



Topic Maps standards primer


The ISO Topic Maps standards


Data model (TMDM) and exchange formats (XTM, LTM)
data model is core of Topic Maps
•
– application logic should never operate on any syntax!
query, constraint and
serialisation and manipulation
deserialisation
TMQL-queries
LTM - Topic Map
TMCL constraints
XTM - Topic Map TMDM instance
TMCL rules
gen. Topic Map
query and
TMQL-updates
maniuplation

TMAPI
(tinyTIM, TM4J, P
HPTMAPI, OKS)



Software


Topic Maps software
commercial Topic Maps engines
•
• OKS – Java-basierte Lösung von Ontopia
• TMCore –.NET-basierte Lösung von networked planert

free Topic Maps engines and tools
•
• TMAPI (http://www.tmapi.org/) – standardisierte API für TMs (Open Source)
• tinyTM (http://tinytim.sourceforge.net/) - „kleine“ TM-Engine (Open Source)
• TM4J (http://tm4j.org/) – TM-Engine (Open Source)
• QuaaxTM (http://quaaxtm.sourceforge.net/) – TMAPI-Implementation für PHP
• Topincs (http://www.cerny-online.com/topincs/)
• Wandora (http://www.wandora.net)
• Ruby Topic Maps
• ZTM - Zopic Topic Maps System (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ztm/)
• ....

see: http://www.topicmapslab.de/projects
•


The Topic Maps Lab in Leipzig



What does the Topic Maps Lab do?
We build a free available technology stack
•
based on Topic Maps
– for flexible, scalable, and high-performance information integration and
– for flexible interfaces (APIs, portals, desktop, Q&A) to Topic Maps data.

We do precursor research in Topic Maps.
•
We evangelize Topic Maps.
•

We set-up and join new research projects
•
… and looking for you as partner!



http://www.topicmapslab.de


Stakeholder of the Topic Maps Lab

Newbies Strangers Experts
I want to learn more about Oh, I can solve my problems What happens in the
Topic Maps in detail. with Topic Maps! community today?


The portals theme
a coral reef is like a topic map
•
– it is a complex ecosystem
– with huge diversity of different individuals
– with strong interrelations and dependencies among them
– which is dynamic, static and growing at the same time
– which is colorful, beautiful and positive


The portals theme
a starfish looks like a topic maps fragment
•
– and feels comfortable in the coral reef



http://www.topicmapslab.de/community/


http://www.topicmapslab.de/projects/


http://www.topicmapslab.de/projects/SharpTM/


http://www.topicmapslab.de/people/Marcel_Hoyer


http://www.topicmapslab.de/library/


http://www.topicmapslab.de/news/


The graduates from the Topic Maps Lab

http://onotoa.topicmapslab.de/


http://onotoa.topicmapslab.de

Onotoa is a free TMCL-Editor
(Topic Maps Ontology Editor)
http://onotoa.topicmapslab.de
a topic maps lab graduate

http://onotoa.topicmapslab.de/

Join TMRA 2009 (from 11.11.2009 to 13.11.2009)
Fifth International Conference on Topic Maps Research
•
and Applications
– Nov. 11, 2009 – tutorials day
– Nov. 12 and Nov. 13, 2009 – conference days
– Mediencampus Villa Ida, Leipzig, Germany
Website will be published soon (http://www.tmra.de)
•



Material


Literature about Topic Maps (1/2)

Ahmed, K.; Moore, G.: An introduction to Topic Maps. In: The
•
Architecture Journal, 5, 2005.
(http://www.architecturejournal.net/2005/issue5/Jour5Intro/)

Ahmed, K.; Moore, G.: Apply Topic Maps to Applications. In: The
•
Architecture Journal, 6, 2006.
(http://www.architecturejournal.net/2006/issue6/Jour6TopicMaps /)

further articles: bibMap
•
(http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~maicher/bibliography.html)
(http://www.topic-maps.org/cgi-
bin/tmv_graph.pl?id=b1&path=bibmap.xtm)


Literature about Topic Maps (2/2)

Park, J.; Hunting, S. (eds.): XML Topic Maps.
•
Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web.
Addison-Wesley, (2002).
Maicher, L.; Park, J. (eds.): Charting the Topic Maps
•
Research and Applications Landscape. Proceedings
of TMRA 2005, Leipzig. LNAI 3873. Springer: Berlin
(2006).
Maicher, L.; Sigel, A.; Garshol, L. M. (eds.):
•
Leveraging the Semantic of Topic Maps. Proceedings
of TMRA 2006, Leipzig. LNAI 4438. Springer: Berlin
(2006).
Maicher, L.; Sigel, A.; Garshol, L. M. (eds.): Scaling
•
Topic Maps. Proceedings of TMRA 2009, Leipzig. to
appear Spring 2009.




http://www.tmra.de
research conference



http://www.topicmaps.com/
user conference


Tutorial Introduction to Topic Maps

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