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2004 | Buch | 2. Auflage

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Ontologies

A Silver Bullet for Knowledge Management and Electronic Commerce

verfasst von: Prof. Dr. Dieter Fensel

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Enthalten in: Professional Book Archive

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Über dieses Buch

Ontologies have been developed and investigated for some time in artificial intelligence to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse. More recently, the notion of ontologies has attracted attention from fields such as databases, intelligent information integration, cooperative information systems, information retrieval, electronic commerce, enterprise application integration, and knowledge management. This broadened interest in ontologies is based on the feature that they provide a machine-processable semantics of information sources that can be communicated among agents as well as between software artifacts and humans. This feature makes ontologies the backbone technology of the next web generation, i.e., the Semantic Web. Ontologies are currently applied in areas such as knowledge management in large company-wide networks and call centers, and in B2C, B2G, and B2B electronic commerce. In a nutshell, ontologies enable effective and efficient access to heterogeneous and distributed information sources. Given the increasing amount of information available online, this kind of support is becoming more important day by day.

The author systematically introduces the notion of ontologies to the non-expert reader and demonstrates in detail how to apply this conceptual framework for improved intranet retrieval of corporate information and knowledge and for enhanced Internet-based electronic commerce. He also describes ontology languages (XML, RDF, and OWL) and ontology tools, and the application of ontologies.

In addition to structural improvements, the second edition covers recent developments relating to the Semantic Web, and emerging web-based standard languages.

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Abstract

Recently, ontologies have moved from a topic in philosophy to a topic in applied artificial intelligence that is at the center of modern computer science. Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, referred to the future of the current WWW as the Semantic Web — an extended Web of machine-readable information and automated services that extend far beyond current capabilities. The explicit representation of the semantics underlying data, programs, pages, and other Web resources will enable a knowledge-based Web that provides a qualitatively new level of service. Automated services will improve in their capacity to assist humans in achieving their goals by “understanding” more of the content on the Web, and thus providing more accurate filtering, categorization, and searches of information sources. This process will ultimately lead to an extremely knowledgeable system that features various specialized reasoning services. These services will support us in nearly all aspects of our daily life — making access to information as pervasive, and necessary, as access to electricity is today.

Dieter Fensel

2. Concept

Abstract

Ontologies were developed in artificial intelligence to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse. Since the beginning of the nineties ontologies have become a popular research topic, investigated by several artificial intelligence research communities, including knowledge engineering, natural-language processing and knowledge representation. More recently, the notion of ontology is also becoming widespread in fields such as intelligent information integration, cooperative information systems, information retrieval, electronic commerce, and knowledge management. The growing popularity of ontologies is in a large part due to what they promise: a shared understanding of some domain that can be communicated between people and application systems. Currently computers are changing from single isolated devices to entry points into a worldwide network of information exchange and business transactions. Therefore support in the exchange of data, information, and knowledge is becoming the key issue in current computer technology. Providing shared domain structures is becoming essential, and ontologies will therefore become a key asset in describing the structure and semantics of information exchange.

Dieter Fensel

3. Languages

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the language infrastructure that will enable ontologies to be put into practise. We have already mentioned the fact that computers are changing from single isolated devices to entry points into a worldwide network of information exchange and business transactions. Therefore, support for data, information, and knowledge exchange is becoming the key issue in computer technology. In consequence, strenuous efforts are being made towards a new standard for defining and exchanging data structures. The eXtendible Markup Language (XML) is a Web standard that provides such facilities. In this chapter we will therefore investigate XML in detail before going on to describe how it relates to the use of ontologies for information exchange. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a second important standard when talking about the Web and ontologies. Ontologies are formal theories about a certain domain of discourse and therefore require a formal logical language to express them. We will discuss some of the major formal approaches and we will investigate how recent Web standards such as XML and RDF relate to languages that express ontologies.

Dieter Fensel

4. Tools

Abstract

This chapter describes tools that help us to work with ontologies and to apply them to improve information access. We start with a general survey on various aspects of ontology tooling and give examples. Then we describe a tool that was among the first to merge the ontology paradigm with the Web, helping to create the research field that is now called the Semantic Web. Its description gives us an example that illustrates the different requirements to make ontology technology work. Then we discuss some professional tools now available on the market.

Dieter Fensel

5. Applications

Abstract

A technology can only be justified by successful applications. Therefore, there is a clear need to talk about the interesting application areas of ontology technology. However, the fast iteration of marketing waves makes it a quite hard to see the real and stable ground. The need for ontologies arises from (electronic) information sharing and reuse. Therefore, we will take the triangle of intranet, Internet, and extranet (see Fig. 33) as our organizing metaphor when talking about application areas. Not all of them are typical of just one network type, however, it helps to reduce the chaos of the overall picture. Let us first characterize the three different types of networks:

Intranet: closed user community, company- or organization-wide use.
Internet: open access; worldwide user community.
Extranet: limited access from the outside (Internet) to an intranet.

Dieter Fensel

6. Conclusions and Outlook

Abstract

Currently, computers are changing from single isolated devices to entry points into a worldwide network of information exchange and business transactions. Therefore, support in data, information, and knowledge exchange is becoming the key issue in computer technology. Ontologies provide a shared understanding of a domain that can be communicated between people and heterogeneous application systems. In consequence, they will play a major role in supporting information exchange processes in various areas. Their impact may be as important as the development of programming languages in the seventies and eighties.

Dieter Fensel

7. Appendix — Survey Of Standards

Abstract

This appendix summarizes most of the approaches we have discussed in this book. We have list standards in the areas of ontologies, software, Web languages, text, video and metadata, and electronic commerce. Finally, we mention shopbots, auction houses, and B2B portals.

Dieter Fensel

Backmatter

Titel: Ontologies
verfasst von: Prof. Dr. Dieter Fensel
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-662-09083-1
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-05558-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-09083-1

Springer Professional

Über dieses Buch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

2. Concept

3. Languages

4. Tools

5. Applications

6. Conclusions and Outlook

7. Appendix — Survey Of Standards

Backmatter