[om-list] [Fwd: FW: SD Web Services Report: Semantic Web Wrestler]

[Luke Call]

Interesting stuff about semantic web & its status today.  (Mark I'm 
saving all your email messages I haven't replied to, including that last 
article.)

Glacially yours,

Luke

-----Original Message-----
From: SD Web Services 
[mailto:sdwebservicesreport at softwaredevelopment.email-publisher.com]
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 4:30 PM
Subject: SD Web Services Report: Semantic Web Wrestler


Web Services Report
June 2004
By Warren Keuffel

Welcome to Software Development magazine's Web Services
Report newsletter. This monthly e-mail newsletter is a free
service for Software Development and SD Online subscribers.
If you do not wish to get this newsletter, please follow the
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In this Issue:
--> Celebrating Our Anniversary
--> Semantic Web Wrestler
--> Hot Links

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                            ***

SEMANTIC WEB WRESTLER
Compact yet mighty, SUMO may have the muscle to unlock the
Semantic Web's secrets.

Last month, I suggested that when the Semantic Web is fully realized,
everyone will be an ontologist -- that is, someone who, in the words of the
W3C, "defines the terms used to describe and represent an area of
knowledge." I introduced you to Cyc (pronounced "psych") and its smaller,
open source counterpart, OpenCyc. One of the uses I suggested for Cyc is
enabling "creation of a semantic file system in which files are indexed not
just by a few attributes and hierarchical links, but through inferences 
that
match the file's caption to the user's current query or task."

A response to that newsletter encouraged me to look beyond DARPA's
Agent Markup Language (DAML) Semantic Web program (which
includes Cyc) and pointed me toward the Suggested Upper Merged
Ontology (SUMO). I learned that SUMO actually predates OpenCyc due
to complaints about Cyc being a closed and proprietary component of what
was supposed to be an open standard; far from being proprietary, SUMO is
the first draft of the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working
Group.

But SUMO offers other advantages besides being free and standards-based.
In contrast to the monolithic Cyc and OpenCyc, which may be too large
for any one person to understand, SUMO has taken a modular approach not
dissimilar to that of a class library, in which increasingly specialized 
mid-
and application-level ontologies (think subclasses) inherit the general
knowledge concepts embodied in the upper ontology. In addition, upper
ontologies are useful for integrating two or more domain-oriented 
ontologies
and also for providing a pathway along which multiple ontologies covering
the same domain but using different vocabularies can communicate.

The formal language of Teknowledge's ontologies is SUO-KIF: Standard
Upper Ontology-Knowledge Interchange Format; KIF is a simplified
version of the proposed ANSI KIF and, as a First Order Logic language,
uses prefix notation. What this means is that all of the knowledge
embodied in SUMO, mid-level ontology (MILO) and the domains is
structured in a format structured around terms of five basic types: class,
relation, function, attribute or individual. Classes provide the 
classification
scheme in which general knowledge concepts are ever-more-specifically
defined. Here's an example: vehicle -- land vehicle -- road vehicle --
motorcycle -- Harley-Davidson.

Relations are established with prefix notation predicates, such as "is 
a" but
also are used to create hierarchical relationships. For example, (instance
BradPitt Movie_Actor) establishes that the individual, Mr. Pitt, is a 
member
of the class known as Movie_Actor. This can also be expressed as Brad
Pitt is a Movie Actor. Functions are a more specialized form of relation
in which specific, not general, relationships are established. We're all
familiar with attributes; in the case of Mr. Pitt, we can establish that he
has blond hair by stating (attribute BradPitt BlondHaired).

One of the advantages of the prefix-notation KIF language is that the
knowledge base's structure, while primarily designed for machine
readability, can also be read by humans.

Having skimmed the surface of SUMO at 30,000+ feet, the question arises:
How do we do use it to build the Semantic Web? Recall that in this report's
Jan. 2004 edition, I reviewed how XML and the Resource Description
Framework (RDF) provide the syntax and structure of the metadata that
form the Semantic Web, and also noted that the W3C has a working group
devoted to OWL, the Ontology Working Language in which Semantic
Web concepts are expressed. ( Find January's WSR at
http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbIa4ESPMb/ )
According to the "User's Guide to Teknowledge Ontologies,"
"Teknowledge ontologies may be exported to the OWL Web Ontology
Language being designed by the W3C Ontology Working Group. It should
be noted that OWL expresses only a subset of what can be expressed in
SUO-KIF. In particular, OWL does not yet express rules. While SUO-KIF
is suited for both human and machine consumption, OWL is mainly
oriented towards use by computers." (Download the "User's Guide
to Teknowledge Ontologies" at 
http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbJa4ESPMb/ ).
What's exciting about this is that it represents one of many intersections
between the knowledge-engineering community and the Web. Although
the Semantic Web's design is being driven by the W3C, many
organizations, such as Teknowledge, are stepping up to provide the
building blocks.

A note about costs and licensing: Although SUMO is free and licensed
using the GNU Public License, various companies, including Teknowledge,
have invested in building mid-level and domain ontologies on top of SUMO.
Some earlier versions of MILO that Teknowledge built for DARPA are
also GNU-licensed, but more recent MILO products are available at no
charge only to other government agencies as well as to institutions
collaborating with those agencies and unaffiliated research organizations.
Commercial use of MILO outside of the government is approved on a
case-by-case basis by Teknowledge.

                                   ***

HOT LINKS

For more Teknowledge information about SUMO and its ontology products,
visit http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbKa4ESPMb/

To learn more about the company's activites, go to its homepage at
http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbLa4ESPMb/

Go to the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology Working Group's page at
  http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbMa4ESPMb/

For more about the W3C's Web-Ontology Working Group's activities, visit
http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbNa4ESPMb/

If you're interested in browsing the scope of currently available 
ontologies,
check out the list at 
http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbOa4ESPMb/

Finally, if you want to compare SUMO and OpenCyc, you can visit OpenCyc
at http://click.sd.email-publisher.com/maacmuJaa7JbPa4ESPMb/

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