ESWC 2005 Tutorials

Tutorials will be held May 29, immediately prior to the technical conference.

Topics Overview

1. MDA Standards for Ontology Development
2. Human Language Technology (HLT) for Knowledge Acquisition for the Semantic Web: A Hands-on Tutorial
3. Semantic Web Services Tutorial
4. Schema and Ontology Matching
5. Text Mining for Semi-Automatic Ontology Construction

1. "MDA Standards for Ontology Development"

Abstract

The Semantic Web is the main direction of the future Web development. Domain ontologies are the most important part of Semantic Web applications. Artificial intelligence techniques are used for ontology creation, but those techniques are more related to research laboratories. Recently, there are many proposals to use software engineering techniques, especially the UML since it is the most accepted software engineering standard, in order to bring ontology development process closer to wider practitioners' population. However, UML is based on object oriented paradigm, and has some limitation regarding ontology development. These limitations can be overcome using UML's extensions (i.e. UML profiles), as well as other OMG's standards (i.e. Model Driven Architecture - MDA ). Currently, there is an initiative (i.e. RFP) within the OMG aiming to define a suitable language for modeling Semantic Web ontology languages in the context of the MDA.

The main goal of this tutorial is to present comprehensive introduction into MDA-based ontology development. It will provide an introduction to the field of the Semantic Web and ontology engineering, a description of several UML- and metamodeling- based solutions and tools for ontology development, an overview of the OMG's MDA effort and related standards (Meta-Object Facility -MOF, UML, XML Metadata Interchange -XMI), a detail overview of the OMG's proposal for Ontology Definition Metamodel ( http://ontology.omg.org ). Finally, we will describe our experiences in developing and employing an MDA-based infrastructure for ontology engineering we defined using the OMG's recommendations.

Presenters:

Dragan Gasevic

Dragan Djuric

Vladan Devedzic

2 . "Human Language Technology (HLT) for Knowledge Acquisition for the Semantic Web: A Hands-on Tutorial"

  Abstract

Human Language Technology (HLT) involves the analysis, mining and production of natural language. HLT has matured over the last decade to a point at which robust and scaleable applications are possible in a variety of areas.

The tutorial core will be on HLT tools, followed by a number of example Semantic Web applications, built by non-specialist HLT researchers from three organisations, as part of SEKT and KnowledgeWeb projects:

• Introduction to HLT, GATE and its principle components relevant to ontologies (USFD)
• Use of GATE tools for deriving web service ontologies from text, covering use of parsing, pattern-mathing rules, performance evaluation, and ontology visualisation tools. (VUA)
• Text2Onto HLT-based paradigm for ontology construction, including use of part-of-speech information, morphological analysis, shallow parsing, and textual patterns. (UKARL)
• Research on automatic ontology population from text (USFD) . Work on massive semantic annotation and visualisation of the results (Ontotext Lab, Sirma AI).

Presenters:

Hamish Cunningham, University of Sheffield

Kalina Bontcheva, University of Sheffield

Marta Sabou, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Johanna Voelker, University of Karlsruhe

Atanas Kiryakov, Ontotext Lab, Sirma AI EOOD

3. Semantic Web Services Tutorial

Abstract

The tutorial presents the state of the art in Semantic Web Services. Based on exhaustive semantic description frameworks, Semantic Web Services aim at providing intelligent mechanisms are applied for automated and dynamic discovery, composition, contracting, and execution of Web Services. The tutorial provides attendees with an overall overview on the challenges on Semantic Web Services and how these are addressed within relevant frameworks, explains recent research results on discovery and composition, and presents existing tools and implementations for Semantic Web Services. Furthermore, attendees learn practically applying Semantic Web Service technologies in an extensive hands-on session, wherein attendees model a concrete use case scenario and use the tools and systems demonstrated in the course of the tutorial.

The Semantic Web Service tutorial is presented in a full day event, including a theoretical part in the morning session, and a tools presentation and hands-on session in the afternoon. The agenda of the tutorial is as follows:

As preparation for the hands-on session, attendees are requested to download and install the material available at:  http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/irs/eswc2005/IRS-III.zip

The tutorial is presented as a joint effort of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute DERI (Austria, Ireland) - www.deri.org - the Center for Advanced Learning and Discovery from the Carnegie Mellon University (USA) - http://www.cald.cs.cmu.edu/ -, the Knowledge Media Institute from the Open University (UK) - http://kmi.open.ac.uk/ -, and the University of Rome "La Sapienza" (Italy) - http://www.dis.uniroma1.it -. The consortium of tutorial presenters assembles experts in related research fields that can provide attendees with insights far beyond the scope of the tutorial.

Presenters:

Daniela Berardi, Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza"

Christoph Bussler, DERI, Galway

Liliana Cabral, The Open University

Emilia Cimpian, DERI, Galway

John Domingue, The Open University

Massimo Mecella, Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza"

Matthew Morgan, DERI, Galway

Michael Stollberg, DERI Austria

Katia Sycara, Carnegie Mellon University

Michal Zaremba, DERI Galway

4. "Schema and Ontology Matching"

Abstract

We view Matching as one of the key operations for enabling the Semantic Web since it takes two schemas/ontologies, each consisting of a set of discrete entities (e.g., tables, XML elements, classes, properties, rules, predicates), as input and determines as output the relationships (e.g., equivalence, subsumption) holding between those entities. In this tutorial we introduce, via examples, the schema/ontology matching problem and its application domains. We provide a detailed discussion of the techniques used for schema/ontology matching with the help of a classification of matching approaches. We overview state of the art systems in light of the classification presented, indicating which part of the solution space they cover. Finally, we outline future research directions and new scientific challenges arising in schema/ontology matching.

Presenters:

Pavel Shvaiko

Jérôme Euzenat

5. Text Mining for Semi-Automatic Ontology Construction

Abstract

The tutorial on Text Mining for Semi-Automatic Ontology Construction will focus on two main analytical approaches when analyzing Web data: text mining for the purpose of analyzing web documents and ontology construction. First, the tutorial will cover some basic steps and problems when dealing with the textual data showing what is possible to achieve without very sophisticated technology. The idea of this first part is to present the nature of un-structured and semi-structured data. In the second part, some more sophisticated methods for solving more difficult and challenging problems will be shown. In the last part, some of the current open research issues will be presented and some practical pointers on the available tolls for solving previously mentioned problems will be provided. The aim of this tutorial is to present topics from the areas of text mining and ontology construction in the relationship to the web data. The goal is to make an overview of the available approaches, which are potentially useful for solving interesting problems connected to the documents and their linkage coming from the web structure.

Presenters:

Marko Grobelnik, J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana , Slovenia

Dunja Mladenic, J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana , Slovenia

CONTACT

ESWC2005 Tutorial Chair:   Jos de Bruijn, Digital Enterprise Research Institute (Austria)

jos.debruijn@deri.org