Dr. Sabin Buraga
Faculty of Computer Science
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania
www.purl.org/net/busaco

passion music
painting
@busaco literature
photography
arts
XML Romania
Computer Science professor
Web interaction
research
conferences
semantic design A. I. Cuza
University
teaching books
programming

server

server
client

server
server
client

server
server
client
client

server
client
server
client
client server

Web server

Web server Web client(s)

Web server Web client(s)
HTTP as protocol

URI to address resources

HTML as markup language structure

CSS for styling presentation

anything can link to anything

Web as a platform facilitating participation

social software
(micro)blogs, social networks, wikis,…

tagging
social software
(micro)blogs, social networks, wikis,…

from collaboration to trust (?!)

RIA – rich interaction between users and applications

mash-ups

new (e)business models

some questions…

how about reusing data in other contexts?

reality: walled “gardens” (mansions)

how about explaining data?

in fact, we really want to annotate data by hand?

how about enriching data?

reality: the need of “intelligent” software

how about maturity: from data to knowledge?

pragmatism: there are costs, lack of expertise, etc.

laziness & resistance to change?
pragmatism: there are costs, lack of expertise, etc.

let’s add some semantic spices to old HTML juice

first simplest solution: microformats

<div class="vcard">
<h3>Personal details</h3>
<img src="sabin-buraga-busaco-csb35.jpg"
alt="Photo of Sabin-Corneliu Buraga" class="photo" />
<p>Full name: <span class="fn">
<span class="given-name">Sabin-Corneliu</span>
<span class="family-name">Buraga</span></span></p>
<p><span class="vevent"><span class="summary">
Date of birth</span>: <abbr class="dtstart"
title="19740107">January 07, 1974</abbr></span></p>
</div>

<div class="vcard"> hCard microformat
<h3>Personal details</h3>
<img src="sabin-buraga-busaco-csb35.jpg"
alt="Photo of Sabin-Corneliu Buraga" class="photo" />
<p>Full name: <span class="fn">
<span class="given-name">Sabin-Corneliu</span>
<span class="family-name">Buraga</span></span></p>
<p><span class="vevent"><span class="summary">
Date of birth</span>: <abbr class="dtstart"
title="19740107">January 07, 1974</abbr></span></p>
</div>

hCard + hEvent
Operator extension for Firefox in action

asserting social relations via XFN microformat

result: metadata embedded into Web documents

we need a more flexible approach!?

creating/using specific vocabularies in a standard way

RDF – Resource Description Framework

“The Wall is an album made by Pink Floyd.”

TheWall isA Album . TheWall madeBy Pink Floyd .

TheWall isA Album .
subject predicate object

TheWall isA Album .
subject predicate object

TheWall isA Album .
subject predicate object

TheWall isA Album .
subject predicate object

TheWall isA Album .
subject predicate object
URI URI URI

TheWall dc:title "The Wall"@en .

Dublin Core (DCMI) vocabulary
TheWall dc:title "The Wall"@en .

PinkFloyd foaf:made TheWall .

FOAF (Friend Of A Friend)
PinkFloyd foaf:made TheWall .

PinkFloyd rdf:type mo:MusicGroup .

any vocabulary you like… ☺
PinkFloyd rdf:type mo:MusicGroup .

using multiple (standardized) vocabularies
web of data

Person class
owns
Anca www.flickr.com/laurian
knows
tagged
relation
firstname pig
property
photo
Laurian

so, we can publish and reuse public RDF data

linked data

anyone can say anything about any topic

RDF constructs can be used directly into Web pages
RDFa
interesting initiatives: Common Tag, Good Relations

other well known vocabularies:
DOAP – Description Of A Project
SIOC – Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities
vocab.org

how about specifying concepts, their properties,
relations between concepts, restrictions,…?

modeling knowledge via ontologies

OWL – Web Ontology Language

classes

rdf:type
Equinoxe a Album

JeanMichelJarre a foaf:Person
RogerWaters a foaf:Person
RogerWaters a db:MusicalArtist
TheWall a db:Album
foaf:Person a owl:Class
db:City a owl:Class
mo:MusicGroup a owl:Class

JeanMichelJarre a foaf:Person
RogerWaters a foaf:Person
a class from DBpedia ontology
RogerWaters a db:MusicalArtist
TheWall a db:Album
foaf:Person a owl:Class
db:City a owl:Class
mo:MusicGroup a owl:Class

JeanMichelJarre a foaf:Person
RogerWaters a foaf:Person
RogerWaters a db:MusicalArtist
TheWall a db:Album
defining different classes via OWL
foaf:Person a owl:Class
db:City a owl:Class
mo:MusicGroup a owl:Class

relations

Vangelis foaf:made Direct

Vangelis foaf:knows JonAnderson

related specifications:
RDF Schema
SKOS – Simple Knowledge Organizational System

how about querying such webs of data?

SELECT ?title WHERE {
?group a mo:MusicGroup ;
foaf:name "Pink Floyd";
foaf:made ?album .
?album dc:title ?title .
}
ORDER BY ?title LIMIT 3
access to BBC Music
queries about individuals via SPARQL

using SPARQL in tools – for example, Zemanta

db:MusicalArtist rdfs:subClassOf foaf:Person .
plays a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain db:MusicalArtist ;
rdfs:range mo:Song .
RogerWaters plays If .

db:MusicalArtist rdfs:subClassOf foaf:Person .
plays a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain db:MusicalArtist ;
rdfs:range mo:Song .
RogerWaters plays If .
must be a song!

db:MusicalArtist rdfs:subClassOf foaf:Person .
plays a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain db:MusicalArtist ;
rdfs:range mo:Song .
RogerWaters plays If .
must be an artist

db:MusicalArtist rdfs:subClassOf foaf:Person .
plays a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain db:MusicalArtist ;
rdfs:range mo:Song .
RogerWaters plays If .
must be an artist
and a person, too

db:MusicalArtist rdfs:subClassOf foaf:Person .
plays a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain db:MusicalArtist ;
rdfs:range mo:Song .
RogerWaters plays If .
query regarding knowledge (e.g., classes) inference

www.mkbergman.com/new-version-sweet-tools-sem-web/
more things to come…

thank you!

Dr. Sabin Buraga
www.purl.org/net/busaco
twitter.com/busaco