Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL

Dean Allemang, James Hendler

Morgan Kaufmann, Apr 9, 2009 - Computers - 352 pages

The promise of the Semantic Web to provide a universal medium to exchange data information and knowledge has been well publicized. There are many sources too for basic information on the extensions to the WWW that permit content to be expressed in natural language yet used by software agents to easily find, share and integrate information. Until now individuals engaged in creating ontologies-- formal descriptions of the concepts, terms, and relationships within a given knowledge domain-- have had no sources beyond the technical standards documents.

Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist transforms this information into the practical knowledge that programmers and subject domain experts need. Authors Allemang and Hendler begin with solutions to the basic problems, but don’t stop there: they demonstrate how to develop your own solutions to problems of increasing complexity and ensure that your skills will keep pace with the continued evolution of the Semantic Web.

• Provides practical information for all programmers and subject matter experts engaged in modeling data to fit the requirements of the Semantic Web.
• De-emphasizes algorithms and proofs, focusing instead on real-world problems, creative solutions, and highly illustrative examples.
• Presents detailed, ready-to-apply “recipes? for use in many specific situations.
• Shows how to create new recipes from RDF, RDFS, and OWL constructs.

What people are saying

Review: Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL

User Review  - Gopala Krishna Koduri - Goodreads

This is an excellent book to get started with the concepts of semantic web, not just for ontologists but anyone. Every other page has an example that help readers to comprehend the concepts with ease ...

Review: Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Modeling in RDF, RDFS and OWL

User Review  - David - Goodreads

Excellent introductory overview.

Contents

• What Is the Semantic Web?: 1
• SMART WEB DUMB WEB: 2
• Smart Web Applications: 3
• A Connected Web Is a Smarter Web: 4
• SEMANTIC DATA: 5
• A Distributed Web of Data: 6
• Features of a Semantic Web: 7
• What about the RoundWorlders?: 9
• To Each Their Own: 10
• Theres Always One More: 11
• SUMMARY: 12
• Fundamental Concepts: 13
• Semantic Modeling: 15
• MODELING FOR HUMAN COMMUNICATION: 17
• EXPLANATION AND PREDICTION: 19
• Mediating Variability: 21
• Variation and Classes: 22
• Variation and Layers: 23
• Expressivity in Modeling: 26
• SUMMARY: 28
• Fundamental Concepts: 29
• RDFThe Basis of the Semantic Web: 31
• DISTRIBUTING DATA ACROSS THE WEB: 32
• MERGING DATA FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES: 36
• NAMESPACES URIs AND IDENTITY: 37
• Expressing URIs in Print: 40
• Standard Namespaces: 43
• IDENTIFIERS IN THE RDF NAMESPACE: 44
• RDF AND TABULAR DATA: 45
• HIGHERORDER RELATIONSHIPS: 49
• ALTERNATIVES FOR SERIALIZATION: 51
• Notation 3 RDF N3: 52
• RDFXML: 53
• BLANK NODES: 54
• Ordered Information in RDF: 56
• Fundamental Concepts: 57
• Semantic Web Application Architecture: 59
• RDF PARSERSERIALIZER: 60
• Other Data SourcesConverters and Scrapers: 61
• RDF STORE: 64
• RDF Data Standards and Interoperability of RDF Stores: 66
• Comparison to Relational Queries: 72
• APPLICATION CODE: 73
• RDFBacked Web Portals: 75
• SUMMARY: 76
• Fundamental Concepts: 77
• RDF and Inferencing: 79
• INFERENCE IN THE SEMANTIC WEB: 80
• Virtues of InferenceBased Semantics: 82
• WHERE ARE THE SMARTS?: 83
• Asserted Triples versus Inferred Triples: 85
• When Does Inferencing Happen?: 87
• Inferencing as Glue: 88
• SUMMARY: 89
• Fundamental Concepts: 90
• RDF Schema: 91
• WHAT DOES IT MEAN? SEMANTICS AS INFERENCE: 93
• THE RDF SCHEMA LANGUAGE: 95
• domain and rdfsrange: 98
• subClassOf: 99
• RDFS MODELING COMBINATIONS AND PATTERNS: 102
• Property Intersection: 104
• Set Union: 105
• Property Union: 106
• CHALLENGES: 108
• InstanceLevel Data Integration: 110
• Data Typing Based on Use: 111
• Filtering Undefined Data: 115
• MODELING WITH DOMAINS AND RANGES: 116
• NONMODELING PROPERTIES IN RDFS: 120
• rdfsisDefinedBy: 121
• Fundamental Concepts: 122
• RDFSPlus: 123
• INVERSE: 124
• Integrating Data that Do Not Want to Be Integrated: 125
• Using the Modeling Language to Extend the Modeling Language: 127
• The Marriage of Shakespeare: 129
• Using OWL to Extend OWL: 130
• TRANSITIVITY: 131
• Relating Parents to Ancestors: 132
• Layers of Relationships: 133
• Managing Networks of Dependencies: 134
• EQUIVALENCE: 139
• Equivalent Classes: 141
• Equivalent Properties: 142
• Same Individuals: 143
• Merging Data from Different Databases: 146
• COMPUTING SAMENESSFUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES: 149
• Functional Properties: 150
• Inverse Functional Properties: 151
• Combining Functional and Inverse Functional Properties: 154
• A FEW MORE CONSTRUCTS: 155
• SUMMARY: 156
• Fundamental Concepts: 157
• Using RDFSPlus in the Wild: 159
• Semantic Relations in SKOS: 163
• Meaning of Semantic Relations: 165
• Special Purpose Inference: 166
• Published Subject Indicators: 168
• FOAF: 169
• People and Agents: 170
• Names in FOAF: 171
• Online Persona: 172
• Groups of People: 173
• Things People Make and Do: 174
• Identity in FOAF: 175
• Its Not What You Know Its Who You Know: 176
• SUMMARY: 177
• Fundamental Concepts: 178
• Basic OWL: 179
• Questions and Answers: 180
• Adding Restrictions: 183
• Kinds of Restrictions: 184
• CHALLENGE PROBLEMS: 196
• Filtering Data Based on Explicit Type: 198
• Relationship Transfer in SKOS: 202
• RELATIONSHIP TRANSFER IN FOAF: 204
• ALTERNATIVE DESCRIPTIONS OF RESTRICTIONS: 209
• SUMMARY: 210
• Fundamental Concepts: 211
• Counting and Sets in OWL: 213
• UNIONS AND INTERSECTIONS: 214
• Closing the World: 216
• differentFrom: 218
• DIFFERENTIATING MULTIPLE INDIVIDUALS: 219
• CARDINALITY: 222
• Small Cardinality Limits: 225
• SET COMPLEMENT: 226
• DISJOINT SETS: 228
• PREREQUISITES REVISITED: 231
• No Prerequisites: 232
• Counting Prerequisites: 233
• Guarantees of Existence: 234
• CONTRADICTIONS: 235
• UNSATISFIABLE CLASSES: 237
• INFERRING CLASS RELATIONSHIPS: 238
• REASONING WITH INDIVIDUALS AND WITH CLASSES: 243
• SUMMARY: 244
• Fundamental Concepts: 245
• Using OWL in the Wild: 247
• THE FEDERAL ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE REFERENCE MODEL ONTOLOGY: 248
• REFERENCE MODELS AND COMPOSABILITY: 249
• SETS VERSUS INDIVIDUALS: 251
• CONSTRAINTS BETWEEN MODELS: 253
• OWL AND COMPOSITION: 255
• imports: 256
• ADVANTAGES OF THE MODELING APPROACH: 257
• THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE ONTOLOGY: 258
• REQUIREMENTS OF THE NCI ONTOLOGY: 259
• UPPERLEVEL CLASSES: 261
• DESCRIBING CLASSES IN THE NCI ONTOLOGY: 266
• INSTANCELEVEL INFERENCING IN THE NCI ONTOLOGY: 267
• SUMMARY: 269
• Fundamental Concepts: 270
• Good and Bad Modeling Practices: 271
• Know What You Want: 272
• Inference Is Key: 273
• MODELING FOR REUSE: 274
• Keeping Track of Classes and Individuals: 275
• Model Testing: 277
• Exclusivity Antipattern: 282
• Objectification Antipattern: 285
• Managing Identifiers for Classes Antipattern: 288
• Creeping Conceptualization Antipattern: 289
• SUMMARY: 290
• Fundamental Concepts: 291
• OWL Levels and Logic: 293
• OWL DIALECTS AND MODELING PHILOSOPHY: 294
• Executable Models: 296
• OWL FULL VERSUS OWL DL: 297
• ClassIndividual Separation: 298
• OWL LITE: 299
• BEYOND OWL 10: 300
• Multipart Properties: 301
• Qualified Cardinality: 302
• Rules: 303
• SUMMARY: 304
• Conclusions: 307
• Frequently Asked Questions: 313
• Further Reading: 317
• Index: 321

Bibliographic information

• Title: Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL; Safari Books Online
• Authors: Dean Allemang, James Hendler
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann, 2009
• ISBN: 0080558380, 9780080558387
• Length: 352 pages
• Subjects: Computers / Systems Architecture / General