This document discusses linking data and people through ontologies and semantic web technologies. It provides examples of using RDF, FOAF, and Linked Data principles to describe people and relationships. It also showcases several applications that utilize these technologies including Vivo, a semantic publishing platform, and domain-specific knowledge environments.

1. Linking Data, Linking People
2010 International Symposium on Agricultural Ontology Service
John Fereira, Cornell University
jaf30@cornell.edu

3. An RDF Graph
John Fereira
Cornell University
isAnEmployeeOf
• Subject: John Fereira
• Predicate: isAnEmployeeOf
• Object: Cornell University

4. What is an Ontology?
• an ontology defines a set of representational primitives
with which to model a domain of knowledge or
discourse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)

5. My Definition of an Ontology
• An Ontology is the language, or vocabulary used by
practitioners in a specific domain.
• Essentially it is a controlled vocabulary for a specific
subject area,
• Geographic Names Ontology defines terms for things
like:
• Park, Shelf, Saddle
• Terms might have different means if using a different
ontology

6. Sample RDF can describe members
<foaf:Organization>
<foaf:name>Cornell University</foaf:name>
<dc:type
rdf:about="http://projectrss.org/wiki/spec#Type_of_Organization">nonprofit<
/dc:type>
<foaf:member>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:name>John Fereira</foaf:name>
</foaf:Person>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:name>Aaron Godert</foaf:name>
</foaf:Person>
</foaf:member>
</foaf:Organization>

10. Code4Lib: Code For Libraries

12. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
...
<Person rdf:about="http://www.code4lib.org/id/zoia">
<name>Zoia</name>
<nick>zoia</nick>
<depiction rdf:resource="http://rc98.net/img/zoia.jpg" />
<based_near rdf:parseType="Resource">
<geo:lat>40.7355556</geo:lat>
<geo:long>-74.1727778</geo:long>
</based_near>
<s:comment>This URI indentifies me the person. Feel free to use it when making statements
about me the person (such as "your_uri foaf:knows http://www.code4lib.org/id/zoia").</s:comment>
<knows>
<Person rdf:about="http://rc98.net/foaf#me">
<nick>gsf</nick>
</Person>
</knows>
<swc:attendeeAt rdf:resource="http://code4lib.org/2009#conference" />
<swc:attendeeAt rdf:resource="http://code4lib.org/node/266#linked-data-preconf" />
<interest rdf:resource="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Python_%28programming_language%29"/>
<interest rdf:resource="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Singing"/>
</Person>
</rdf:RDF>

14. Linked Data principles
Tim Berners-Lee:
• Use URIs as names for things
• Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those
names using the web
• When someone looks up a URI, provide useful
information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL)
• Include links to other URIs so that people can
discover more things
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
http://linkeddata.org

16. Vivo in the Open Data Cloud

17. Food security

22. Melbourne Central Research Data Registry

23. SKE Knowledge Environment

24. Biomedical and Health Knowledge Environment

25. Unique Identifier for Michael Conlon
• http://vivo.ufl.edu/individual/n25562
• http://vivo.ufl.edu/individual/Michael_Conlon would be
better

27. Requesting RDF using an Accept Header
• curl -H "Accept: application/rdf+xml" -X GET
http://vivo.ufl.edu/display/n25562

29. Querying Triples with SPARQL
• By individual URI (subject or object)
• Everything about one event, a grant, a person
• By property relationship (verb)
• All organizations that are part of another
• By type
• Everything with an rdf:type of Event, Person, or
Project
• By combinations of the above
• SPARQL leverages the RDF format to focus on the data

32. Enabling National Networking of Scientists

33. Vivoweb is open source
http://www.vivoweb.org
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vivo

34. cancer

37. Visualizing RDF as a map

38. Querying the CIARD ring with SPARQL

39. Ciard Ring SPARQL Query results

41. Thank You
Zie Zie

42. Linking Data, Linking People
A collection of links
Ontology defined on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_scienc
e)
Example of FOAF
http://code.google.com/p/projectrss-spec/wiki/examples
About.me
http://about.me/
Semantic Web Conference Ontology
http://data.semanticweb.org/ns/swc/ontology
Code4Lib
http://www.code4lib.org
Code4Lib "Zoia"
http://code4lib.org/irc/faq
Linked Data Principals
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
Linked Data site
http://linkeddata.org
Cornell Vivo (classic Vivo)
http://vivo.library.cornell.edu
Melbourne Central Research Data Registry
http://vitrofe.esrc.unimelb.edu.au:8333/vitroANDS/i
ndex.jsp?primary=1
Subject Knowledge Environment
http://ske.las.ac.cn/
Vivo at University of Florida
http://vivo.ufl.edu/
Semantic Web Services app
http://turner.mannlib.cornell.edu:8080/SemanticSer
vices/showMainMenu.do
Cornell Classics Department site
http://classics.cornell.edu/people/faculty.cfm
Vivoweb
http://vivoweb.org
Vivoweb on Sourceforge
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/vivo