A Semantic Infosphere

Abstract

We describe a prototype implementation of a semantic filtering capability added to an existing XML-based publish and subscribe infrastructure. An ontology is used to provide vocabulary for expressing both 1) the semantic annotations that characterize the published documents and 2) the subscriptions specifying the class of documents to be routed to a given client. A description logic (DL) classifier is used to determine which subscribers an incoming document is routed to. We outline the key elements of the ontology for the battlefield domain and give some sample annotations and subscriptions. This is the basis for describing a number of scenarios showing how this filtering capability could be used practice. We critically analyze the suitability of a DL language and reasoner in general, and the particular implementation choices (DAML+OIL, FaCT and OilEd) for performing this task. A key result of the work is to demonstrate the importance of testing semantics-based technologies on practical problems. We discovered a number of new and interesting areas for future work, which in turn can direct the focus of the research community.

Description Logic Reasoning with Syntactic Updates

“…Additionally, Semantic Web portals often allow content authors to modify or extend the ontologies which organize their site structure or page content. Lastly, there has been recent interest in utilizing DL reasoning for the purpose of matching published content with subscription requests [8,9,26,17]. When disseminating time sensitive information efficient reasoning for frequently changing KBs will be critical in achieving practical DL-based approaches.…”

“…published content), enabling more accurate dissemination. Recently, there has been interest in utilizing OWL and DL reasoning for the purpose of matching published content with subscription requests [8,9,26,17]. When disseminating time sensitive information (e.g., in the financial domain), efficient reasoning for frequently changing KBs (due to continuously published information) will be critical in achieving practical DLbased approaches.…”

Integrated information and network management for end-to-end Quality of Service

“…The primary information management research that we build upon is based on the Joint Battlespace Infosphere concept [14], [15], which has been realized in several prototype versions [4], [7], [8], [16]. A number of other publish-subscribe services are available, although most only provide an interface for disseminating information, rather than the rich, active information management of the IM services.…”

Toward expressive syndication on the web

“…However, if a more expressive approach with a formal semantics can be provided, many benefits can be achieved; these include a rich semantics-based mechanism for expressing subscriptions and published content, allowing increased selectivity and finer grained control for filtering [22]. Additionally, reasoning can be utilized for discovering subscription matches not found using traditional syntactic syndication approaches.…”

“…As the semantics of a large subset of OWL is aligned with description logics (DLs), reasoning techniques for DLs can then be leveraged for matching content with subscription requests [9,22,17]. In such an approach, the previously mentioned benefits of using a formal representation language can therefore be achieved.…”