The Semantic Web: A White Elephant or a New Hope for The Web?

The Semantic Web A White Elephant or a New Hope? Eran Toch Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Advisors: Dov Dori and Iris Reinhartz-Berger

Agenda

What is the Semantic Web?

Applications

The Problem with the Semantic Web

What we do + Demo

So, what is wrong with the current Web?

Today, a Web of Documents

The Current Web <html> <head> <title>The Technion</title> </head> <body> Welcome to the Technion. </body> </html> HTML Document URL: http://www.technion.ac.il

Vision: A Web of Data

The Current Web HTML + URL The Semantic Web By Tim Berners-Lee et al., Scientific American (2001)

Humans Machines Semantic Resource

How do we inject meaning?

A common agreement between parties

Ontology

From the Greek onto : being and - logy : theory

A common conceptualization of a domain

Concept Resource Writes Reads Knows Knows ? !

Example: Social Networks

Personal details (name, mail, location)

Organizations, networks

People you know (friends)

...

FOAF Ontology Structure Image Person Agent URL Organization Email has has knows is a is a Address lives Employee Ontology Worker Company is a is a Technion Network has Eran instance of instance of member

OWL: Web Ontology Language FOAF Ontology Employee Ontology FOAF Competitor Eran

Agenda

Applications

What we do + Demo

Example 1: Semantic Search

Example 2: GoPubMed

Example 3: Friend of a Friend

FOAF Entity

Example 4: Semantic Web Service Composition

FOAF Ontology Image Person Agent URL Organization Email has has knows is a is a Address lives has member Get Address input output Get Members input output

Web Services Pool I want an application that maps my friend’s homes Agent User Find Friends Get Address Map Addresses

Agenda