Geroimenko / Chen Visualizing the Semantic Web

XML-based Internet and Information Visualization
2. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-84628-290-4
Verlag: Springer
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 257 Seiten, eBook

The Semantic Web is a vision that has sparked a wide-ranging enthusiasm for a new generation of the Web. The Semantic Web is happening. The central idea of that vision is to make the Web more understandable to computer programs so that people can make more use of this gigantic asset. The use of metadata (data about data) can clearly indicate the meaning of data on the Web so as to provide computers enough information to handle such data. On the future Web, many additional layers will be required if we want computer programs to handle the semantics (the meaning of data) properly without human - tervention. Such layers should deal with the hierarchical relationships between me- ings, their similarities and differences, logical rules for making new inferences from the existing data and metadata, and so on. Dozens of new technologies have emerged recently to implement these ideas. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) forms the foundation of the future Web, RDF (Resource Description Framework), OWL (Web Ontology Language) and many other technologies help to erect a “multistory” bui- ing of the Semantic Web layer by layer by adding new features and new types of metadata. According to Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the current Web and the Semantic Web, it may take up to ten years to complete the building. The new Web will be much more complex than the current one and will contain enormous amounts of metadata as well as data.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Geroimenko, Vladimir

Chen, Chaomei

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Semantic, Visual, and Technological Facets of the Second-Generation Web.- The Concept and Architecture of the Semantic Web.- Information Visualization and the Semantic Web.- Ontology-Based Information Visualization: Toward Semantic Web Applications.- Topic Maps, RDF Graphs, and Ontologies Visualization.- Web Services: Description, Interfaces, and Ontology.- Recommender Systems for the Web.- SVG and X3D: New XML Technologies for 2D and 3D Visualization.- Visual Techniques and Applications for the Semantic Web.- Using Graphically Represented Ontologies for Searching Content on the Semantic Web.- Adapting Graph Visualization Techniques for the Visualization of RDF Data.- Spring-Embedded Graphs for Semantic Visualization.- Semantic Association Networks: Using Semantic Web Technology to Improve Scholarly Knowledge and Expertise Management.- Interactive Interfaces for Mapping E-Commerce Ontologies.- Back Pain Data Collection Using Scalable Vector Graphics and Geographical Information Systems.- Social Network Analysis on the Semantic Web: Techniques and Challenges for Visualizing FOAF.- Concluding Remarks: Today’s Vision of Envisioning the Semantic Future.

Leseproben

Chapter 8
Using Graphically Represented Ontologies for Searching Content on the Semantic Web (p. 137-138)

LeendertW.M.Wienhofen

8.1 Introduction

The SemanticWeb (Berners-Lee, 1998) is a revolution for machine-understandability of Web pages, yet for the typical kind of user, the nontechnical one, the bene.ts may not be as obvious as for researchers. In order to enable "naive" users to bene- .t from the Semantic Web, this chapter proposes a search paradigm using graphical ontologies to retrieve content. Retrieval problems started when the Internet became available for everyone.

The ease of publishing led to an abundance of mostly unstructured data, since HTML is meant to display content for humans and not machines. If we wish that all Web pages become Semantic Web enabled, publishing needs to be as easy as it currently is, and retrieval methods need to be as easy as they currently are, but of course the relevance of the retrieved content needs to be much better. The paradigm presented, called GODE (Graphical Ontology Designer Environment) (Wienhofen, 2003), gives users the possibility to search both the Web and the SemanticWeb.

This chapter describes how to prepare users for the new .ow of information, by introducing them to the concept of graphical search step by step. A bene.t of using graphical search is that it is query language independent.Users have a uniformmethod of accessing information; a conversion algorithm can be made and used as a plug-in for the search language for each query language available. A variety of dif.culty levels are identi.ed to make sure that everybody can bene.t from this approach in different situations. Application areas are discussed for both the simple and the advanced version of GODE.

8.2 Visual Query Languages

An experimental proof by Catarci and Santucci (1995) shows that QBD. (Query By Diagram.), a visual query language, is easier to use and gives better results than text based SQL queries. The experiment de.ned three groups of users: naive, medium, and expert. All three groups got better results faster by using this visual approach. Other visual query languages, such VISUAL (Balkir et al., 2002) and GLASS (Ni and Ling, 2003), are available.

Even though most are designed for use with databases or XML .les, the type of use presented in this chapter is not that much different, as most SemanticWeb languages areXMLbased and de.ne semantic relations. Database queries (SQL) are based on relations, andXML.le queries are done on structured data. The available visual query languages, however, are generally not focused toward the naive users, though they are no doubt the largest group of users. This chapter presents a search method that is aimed at the naive user, yet having enough possibilities for it to be useful to expert users as well. In fact, it is built up with the goal that naive users gradually can become medium-level users and eventually expert users (Wienhofen, 2004). 8.3 The Graphical Ontology Designer Environment Different building blocks and ideas are presented, which are used as a foundation for building the Graphical Ontology Designer Environment (GODE).