The use of Semantic Web languages as information representation and even as programming languages would assist greatly with interoperability as these modelling languages are standardised for use in a wide range of computer systems.
Research can bring together End-User Programming, Modelling and the Semantic Web approaches, so the shaded area is examined.
A methodology that involves structuring of information through Ontology and Semantic Web techniques and enabling end-user programming through visualisation and interaction aims to achieve effective production of generic models. Horrocks (2002) explains Semantic Web technologies and the use of agents and ontologies, and ontology representation languages. This demonstrates the linked nature of Ontology and Semantic Web research.
Berners-Lee and Fischetti (1999) sum up the advantage of a Semantic Web program over programs in other languages. They write, "The advantage of putting the rules in RDF is that in doing so, all the reasoning is exposed, whereas a program is a black box: you don't see what happens inside it." They discuss the use of Semantic Web languages as programming languages and explain the benefits declaring "The Semantic Web, like the Web already, will make many things previously impossible just obvious. Visual Semantic Web programming is one of those obvious things".
Berners-Lee et al. (2006) explain the importance of visualisation for navigation of information "Despite excitement about the Semantic Web, most of the world's data are locked in large data stores and are not published as an open Web of inter-referring resources. As a result, the reuse of information has been limited. Substantial research challenges arise in changing this situation: how to effectively query an unbounded Web of linked information repositories, how to align and map between different data models, and how to visualise and navigate the huge connected graph of information that results." The use of Semantic Web languages as programming languages would assist greatly with interoperability as these languages are standardised for use in a wide range of computer systems
The main advantage of open standard representation of information provided by the Semantic Web is that information can be transferred from one application to another. Additionally it provides a layered architecture that allows for a stepped translation from users to computer and back for conveying results of a modelling run. The program transformation approach argued for by Lieberman (2007) can be used to translate from a domain expert End-User Programmer abstraction to models represented by Semantic Web languages, ontologies and code.
Use of Semantic Web technologies is a means for open standard representation of collaborative models, transformation into different representations as required, and for provision of a high-level interface as a tool for model visualisation and system creation. Structuring of information through Ontology and Semantic Web techniques and enabling End-User Programming through visualisation and interaction can achieve effective production of generic models. Semantic Web technologies could assist greatly with Web based Simulation and Modelling. Kuljis and Paul (2001) evaluate progress in the field of web simulation. They argue the need for web-based simulations to be focussed on solving real-world problems in order to be successful. Miller and Baramidze (2005) establish that for a "simulation study that includes model building, scenario creation, model execution, output analysis and saving/interpreting results. Ontologies can be useful during all of these phases." Model-Driven Programming and the Semantic Web are explained by Frankel et al. (2004).
Research in the use and visualisation of Semantic Web information can provide the tools that end-user programmers have been lacking until recently, and these tools can be used for modelling. Crapo et al. (2002) assert the need for a methodology for creation of systems to enable more collaborative approaches to modelling by domain expert end-users, and that this combined with visualisation would allow engineers to model problems accurately.
Many organisations produce text based reports from their IT systems. But text based reports do not always show information well enough for good decision making. Automated conversion of these reports into Semantic Web languages could assist greatly with this. So a translation process is required and can be implemented as part of an overall User-Driven Modelling/Programming Approach. Once reports are converted to a standardised representation, hierarchical information can be represented as clickable trees and numerical representation as charts. This makes it possible to customise outputs from existing IT systems and so allows an improvement in readability of information without major changes to the way it's produced. This could provide a large gain at little cost.
References
Berners-Lee, T., Fischetti, M., 1999. Weaving the Web. Harper San Francisco; Paperback: ISBN:006251587X
Berners-Lee, T., Hall, W., Hendler, J., Shadbolt, N., Weitzner, D. J., 2006. Creating a Science of the Web. Science 11 August 2006:Vol. 313. no. 5788, pp. 769 - 771.
Crapo, A. W., Waisel, L. B., Wallace, W. A., Willemain, T. R., 2002. Visualization and Modelling for Intelligent Systems. In: C. T. Leondes, ed. Intelligent Systems: Technology and Applications, Volume I Implementation Techniques, 2002 pp 53-85.
Frankel, D., Hayes, P., Kendall, E., McGuinness, D., 2004. The Model Driven Semantic Web. In: 1st International Workshop on the Model-Driven Semantic Web (MDSW2004) Enabling Knowledge Representation and MDA® Technologies to Work Together.
Horrocks, I., 2002. DAML+OIL: a Reason-able Web Ontology Language. In: proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT 2002) March 24-28 2002, Prague.
Kuljis, J., Paul, R. J., 2001. An appraisal of web-based simulation: whither we wander?. Simulation Practice and Theory, 9, pp 37-54.
Lieberman, H., 2007. End-User Software Engineering Position Paper. End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.
Miller, J. A., Baramidze, G., 2005. Simulation and the Semantic Web. In. Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference.
Further Information on this research is at -
Semantic Web - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PeterHale/RDF/RDF.htm.
End-User Programming - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/EndUserProgramming.htm.
Modelling - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Modelling.htm.
Semantic Web Modelling - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/ModellingSemanticWeb.htm.
4 comments:
Hi Peter,
Very interesting post. Perhaps you would care to take a look here: www.meaning2go.com - and www.semanticdiscoverysystems.com
Perhaps we should have a chat sometime? - our company is based in London/UK
Ian Goldsmid
http://www.linkedin.com/in/iangoldsmid
Ian
Thank you. This project is interesting so I've linked relevant web pages to it, and am looking at it.
Peter, a couple of thoughts about user driven modeling -- but in a broader context:.
1. People have a lot of experience encoding ideas.
2. People encode ideas, knowledge, logic, etc. using different languages. writing, pictures, graphics, gesture, schemas, programming.
3. To do interesting and valuable stuff typically involves collaboration amongst people whose knowledge, skill sets, and method of expression differ.
4. How about a semantic collaboration environment where some people write (for example policy) some people model (for example schemas), some make pictures (for example diagrams) and some people program (rules, algorithms), BUT where the collaborative technology is "transemantically" powerful enough deal with and interrelate different natural languages, visual semantics, various modeling formalisms, and behavior specification.
5. This sort of collaborative space is already in the works. It's a species of what Tom Gruber would call a "collective knowledge system" that combines natural language processing / understanding; modeling of data, process, presentation, and user experience; directly executable knowledge and goal oriented behavior; and machine learning.
So, is this the semantic web? in the sense of RDF and OWL and description logic reasoning?
Mills
Thank you, those ideas look very interesting. There are so many ways of encoding ideas and people have preferences according to their abilities and roles. So finding a way of automating collaboration to make it easier to encode ideas in different ways and collaborate would be very useful. so I would be interested in "collective knowledge systems" like you mention.
Thank you
Peter
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