Semantic Web For Dummies E-Book

Jeffrey T. Pollock

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 622

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Semantic Web technology is already changing how we interact with data on the Web. By connecting random information on the Internet in new ways, Web 3.0, as it is sometimes called, represents an exciting online evolution. Whether you're a consumer doing research online, a business owner who wants to offer your customers the most useful Web site, or an IT manager eager to understand Semantic Web solutions, Semantic Web For Dummies is the place to start! It will help you: * Know how the typical Internet user will recognize the effects of the Semantic Web * Explore all the benefits the data Web offers to businesses and decide whether it's right for your business * Make sense of the technology and identify applications for it * See how the Semantic Web is about data while the "old" Internet was about documents * Tour the architectures, strategies, and standards involved in Semantic Web technology * Learn a bit about the languages that make it all work: Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL) * Discover the variety of information-based jobs that could become available in a data-driven economy You'll also find a quick primer on tech specifications, some key priorities for CIOs, and tools to help you sort the hype from the reality. There are case studies of early Semantic Web successes and a list of common myths you may encounter. Whether you're incorporating the Semantic Web in the workplace or using it at home, Semantic Web For Dummies will help you define, develop, implement, and use Web 3.0.

Leseprobe

Semantic Web For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How to Use This Book

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Welcome to the Future of Data and the Web

Part II: Catch the Wave of Smart Data Today

Part III: Building the Semantic Web

Part IV: Putting the Semantic Web to Work

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Welcome to the Future of Data and the Web

Chapter 1: Getting the Gist of the Semantic Web

Exploring Different Ways of Looking at the Semantic Web

Finding the Connection to Web 3.0

Exploring the Business Side of Semantics

Setting Information Free

Rebirthing Artificial Intelligence

Checking Out the Semantic Web’s Origin

Unpacking Semantic Web Baggage

Inflated hype and expectations

The legacy of artificial intelligence

Politics of standards movements

Instilling Simplicity in Complex Data

Seeing the Semantic Web’s Starring Role in Web 3.0 Showcase Applications

Linked open data in the cloud

Active metadata in business systems

Bridges across global standards

Cutting-edge research and development for nation states

Recognizing Compelling Reasons for the Semantic Web

Make your life simpler

Save money and time

Do new projects faster

Chapter 2: The Semantic Web in Your Life

Taking a Look at How the Web Is Used Daily

Exploring the Web 2.0 Movement and What It Means

An Internet microbubble

Web 2.0: Technological or social?

Defining the Features of Web 3.0 — the Semantic Web

Checking Out Some Ahead-of-the-Curve Semantic Web Sites

Yahoo! Search with SearchMonkey

Twine: Interest networking

TripIt: Travel aggregator

ZoomInfo: People finder

Dapper: Mashups and semantics

Peering into the Crystal Ball of the Semantic Web

Semantic Web desktop applications

Semantic blogging

Semantic wikis

Semantic search engines

Semantic news feeds and publishing

Semantic social networks

Chapter 3: The Data Web at Work for Business

Getting a Handle on Enterprise Data Challenges and Opportunities

Understanding the Difference between Information and Data

Evaluating the Web in Your Current Systems

Maintaining existing business applications

CIO priorities and decision making

Grasping the Vision of the Semantic Web at Work

Flourishing in a Semantic Web Utopia

Semantic Web applications

Semantic Web databases

Semantic Web integration

Semantic Web directories

Semantic Web policies and data security

Discovering Why Semantics Are for Everyday Businesspeople

Commercial trading alliances

National security programs

Business operations

Making the Semantic Web Choice Now

Understanding why people buy enterprise business software

Seeing the technical superiority of the Semantic Web

Discovering the Semantic Web as a foundation for modern business

Part II: Catch the Wave of Smart Data Today

Chapter 4: A Quick Semantic Web Primer

Getting Started with RDF Data

Making a statement (Or two!)

Behold: A federated data graph

Gleaning what the data model says

Exploring the Semantics of RDF

Discovering Languages That Use RDF

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Friend of a Friend (FOAF)

RDF in Attributes (RDFa)

Web Ontology Language (OWL)

Other Semantic Web languages

A Little Semantics Goes a Long Way

Chapter 5: Why the Semantic Web Is New Technology, Not Hype

Tracing the Roots of the Semantic Web

Realizing That the Internet Is Made Up of Pages, Not Data

Realizing That Web 2.0 Is for People and Semantic Web Is for Software

Databases Mean Business; So Does Semantic Web

Relational databases

Columnar databases

Hierarchical databases

Graph databases

Object databases

What Semantic Web and databases have in common

Grasping Why SOA/Integration Is for Messages, Not Data Structures

Message-oriented middleware (MOM)

Enterprise application integration (EAI)

Service-oriented architecture (SOA)

Enterprise information integration (EII)

Extract, transform, load (ETL)

What Semantic Web has in common with other integration technologies

Realizing That XML Is for Documents, Not Data

Seeing Why Object Orientation Is a Heuristic

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Java

What the Semantic Web has in common with OOP

Seeing a New Beginning for Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Grasping How Semantic Web Is New and Different

Chapter 6: The Problem with Metadata

Grasping the Basics of Data and Information

Devising a Framework for Classifying Metadata

Level 0: Instance data and records

Level 1: Syntactic metadata

Level 2: Structural metadata

Level 3: Referent metadata

Level 4: Domain metadata

Logic and Rules in Your Metadata

How rules differ from logics

Modeling constraints

Discovering the Many Types of Metadata

Web metadata: HTML, XML, and Web services

Database metadata: OLTP, OLAP, and so on

Object-oriented language metadata: C# and Java

Programming framework metadata: IBM EMF, and Oracle ADF

Mainframe system metadata: Copybooks and JCL

Network and protocol metadata: TCP, IP, HTTP, and FTP

OMG metadata: CWM/IMM, MOF, and MDA

W3C metadata: Web infrastructure metadata

ISO metadata: 10303, 11179, Dublin Core, and others

OASIS metadata: SAML, UDDI, and so on

Industry vocabularies

Semantics and Metadata

Semantic Web model theory in a minute

Entailment, expressiveness, and closure

Decidability

Seeing the Semantic Web as a Superset for Metadata

Part III: Building the Semantic Web

Chapter 7: Using the Resource Description Framework (RDF)

Breaking It Down to the R, to the D, to the F

Triplify me!

Universal Resource Identifier (URI)

Viewing RDF Data as a Graph

Understanding That RDF Is XML

Using Typed Literals

Identifying the Type of Resource

Describing Stuff with RDF Schema

Discovering Other Triple Formats: N3, Turtle, and N-Triples

N3

Turtle

N-Triples

Specializing in Microformats, RDFa, eRDF, and GRDDL

Microformats

RDFa

eRDF

GRDDL

Extracting the RDF

Getting to Know the Strengths of RDF

Seeing Why RDF Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg

Chapter 8: Speaking the Web Ontology Language

Introducing OWL

Discovering the Various Species of OWL

Exploring the Foundations of OWL

Open-world assumption

OWL is monotonic

Understanding OWL Essentials

Individuals (Also known as instances)

Properties: Datatype and object

Classes

Making Simple Assertions

Equivalence

Disjointness

Subsumption

Inconsistency

Examining Property Characteristics

Functional

Inverse

Symmetric

Transitive

Complex Classes

Intersection (And)

Union (Or)

Complement (Not)

Restriction classes

Domain and range

Distinguishing Necessary from Necessary and Sufficient

Understanding Why OWL Is Different

Precision

Dynamism

Expressiveness

Developing OWL Ontologies

Chapter 9: Exploring Semantic Web Enablers

Revisiting the Semantic Web Stack

Unicode and URI

XML

RDF and RDFS

OWL

SPARQL

RIF and SWRL

Unifying Logic layer

Proof, trust, and cryptography

GRDDL, SAWSDL, RDFa, and SKOS

Digging a Bit Deeper into SPARQL

Developing Easy RDF Models

Protégé

XML Spy SemanticWorks

TopBraid Composer

Finding Out Why Business Rules Are a Good Thing

RIF: A family of dialects

Non-monotonic reasoning

Fuzzy logics, statistical mining, and how they relate to the Semantic Web

Grappling with Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Enabling New Operational Models

Handling uncertainty

Dynamic classification

Ad hoc modeling and browsing

Unstructured data pipeline

Open-source data

Setting the Truthiness Dial

Part IV: Putting the Semantic Web to Work

Chapter 10: The Rise of the Information Worker

Taking a Look at the Global 2000

Understanding the Tactical Role of Information in Business Economics

Getting to Know the Types of Information Workers

Business analysts

Corporate librarians

Taxonomists

Ontologists

Information architects

Data stewards

Database architects (DBAs)

Understanding the Needs of the Information-Centric Company

Automotive manufacturing

Consumer packaged goods

Publishing

Financial services

Energy/oil and gas

Aiding Information Workers with the Semantic Web

Search optimization

Business intelligence

Metadata management

Data accuracy and quality

Enterprise content visibility

Forecasting the Information Worker of Tomorrow

Chapter 11: Discovering the Enterprise Semantic Web

Discovering the Roles within the Software Industry

Creating Semantics for Enterprise Systems

Semantics for data integration

Semantics for service-oriented architectures

Semantics for business intelligence and data warehousing

Semantics for enterprise governance

Enterprise metadata on steroids

Discovering a Single Source of Truth for the Enterprise

OWL knowledgebase

RDFS view layer

OWL view layer

RDF knowledgebase

Hybrid implementations

Exploring Some Enterprise Semantic Web Use Cases

NASA: Expert locator service

Eli Lilly: Targeted drug assessment

Renault: Intelligent automobile diagnostics

Pfizer: A drug compound knowledgebase

Finding more enterprise Semantic Web use cases

Chapter 12: Scalable Architectures

Recognizing That This Is Not Your Father’s Database

Noting Semantic Web Tool Patterns

Ontology as static metadata

Ontology as active metadata

Triples databases

Reasoners, inference engines, and rule systems

Scaling Semantic Web Tools

Query entailment and distribution

Rulebase speed and scale

Memory-resident knowledgebase

Relational knowledgebase

Change management and security

Understanding Patterns of Architectural Usage

Three-tier application approach

Data classification as a service

Composite data graph

Intelligence at the edge

Buyer Beware!

Chapter 13: Assessment Strategies

Understanding the Business Problem

The problem requires handling of unpredictable data

The problem requires dynamic classification of data

The problem requires ad hoc modeling and data browsing

The problem requires understanding unstructured data

The problem requires open-source data

Avoiding Common Traps in Planning Your Semantic Web Application

Identifying Semantic Web Opportunities

Blue Ocean Strategies

Operational efficiency strategies

Social and political implications

Technical implications

Reviewing Your Assessment Checklist

Application behavior requirements

Application interface requirements

Application development requirements

Scoring the Checklist and Understanding Benefits

Making the Decision

Chapter 14: Exploring the Limitations of the Semantic Web

Staying Within the Standards

Straying Outside the Standards

Realizing the Implications of a Complete Semantic Web Solution

Tool immaturity

Scalability limitations

Skill shortage

New patterns and anti-patterns

Making Good Choices

Partners

Timelines

Functional expectations

Sticking to Best Practices

Chapter 15: A Guide to Essential Vendor Implementations

Consumer Web Sites

Twine

Harpers Magazine

DBpedia and DBpedia Mobile

Yahoo!

hakia

Freebase (by Metaweb)

TripIt

ZoomInfo

BBC online

Business Software

Thomson Reuters Calais

Oracle Database

IBM Registry

Garlik Online Identity Protection

Dow Jones Client Solutions

Microsoft

Metatomix Semantic Integration

TopQuadrant TopBraid

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 16: Ten Myths About the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web Is Science Fiction

The Semantic Web Is for Tagging Web Sites

The Semantic Web Will Put Google Out of Business

The Semantic Web Is Too Complex to Succeed

The Semantic Web Is a Catalog System

The Semantic Web Is an Ivory Tower Design

The Semantic Web Is Description Logic

The Semantic Web Is Artificial Intelligence (Again)

The Semantic Web Is a $20-Billion Industry

The Semantic Web Hasn’t Changed the World

Chapter 17: Ten Things to Look Forward to Beyond Web 2.0

More Cool Features on the Web Sites and Browsers You Already Use

Dramatically More Scalable Digital Knowledge and Machine Intelligence

Widespread Embedding in Enterprise Software

New Semantic Web Technical Standards

Greater Expressivity for Core Languages

Simple-to-Use Tools for Launching Your Own Personal Ontology

Developers Scrambling to Take Semantic Web Training

Semantic Advertising and Marketing Schemes

Technology Managers Planning for New Supporting Workflows

Explaining Web 3.0 to Your Grandmother

Chapter 18: Ten Next Steps to Take from Here

Try Twine

Explore Yahoo! SearchMonkey

Check Out Calais

Read Up on RDF and OWL Modeling or Attend Training

Read the RDF and OWL Specifications

Contact Your Trusted Vendors

Write Down and Assess New Ideas

Ask Zepheira

Prototype Using Open-Source and Free Software

Sell Your Boss on the Idea!

Semantic Web For Dummies®

by Jeffrey T. Pollock

Semantic Web For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Jeffrey T. Pollock is a technology visionary and author of the enterprise software books Semantic Web For Dummies and Adaptive Information (both published by Wiley). Currently a Senior Director with Oracle’s Fusion Middleware group, responsible for management of Oracle’s data integration product portfolio, Mr. Pollock was formerly an independent systems architect for the Defense Department and Vice President of Technology at Cerebra and Chief Technology Officer of Modulant, developing semantic middleware platforms and inference-driven SOA platforms since 2001. Throughout his career, he has architected, designed, and built application server/middleware solutions for Fortune 500 and U.S. Government clients. Previously, Mr. Pollock was a Principal Engineer with Modem Media and Senior Architect with Ernst & Young’s Center for Technology Enablement. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, author for industry journals, active member of W3C and OASIS, and formerly an engineering instructor with UC Berkeley’s Extension for object-oriented systems, software development process, and enterprise systems architecture.

Dedication

For my family: Kathryn, Carson, Sienna, and Sirus. Especially for my wife, who as a former ontologist is more understanding and patient than most people could ever be with a semantics-obsessed husband. Without her love and support, this book would not have been possible.

Author’s Acknowledgments

Semantic Web is a passion for me. Without the inspiration of Tim Berners-Lee, Jim Hendler, Ora Lassila, Deb McGuinness, Ian Horrocks, and others like them, I would not have ever embraced this vision for the future. Without people like Nova Spivack, Mark Greaves, Eric Miller, and Dean Allemang constantly evangelizing and refining the way we all talk about the Semantic Web vision, I would not have been able to simplify and distill my own thoughts into a coherent whole. Finally, I owe very special thanks to Samir A. Batla and David Provost, whose contributions to several chapters in this book have made it a better work, more practical and more encompassing of the full scope of the Semantic Web.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

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Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

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Introduction

The Semantic Web community has a distinct feeling of manifest destiny. Here in the early part of the 21st century, the Web is still in its infancy (less than 20 years old), and the scope of unsolved digital data challenges is simply enormous. To many in the software industry, myself included, it seems inevitable that the next great Web revolution must address these universally acknowledged data problems.

In the face of exponentially rising volumes of digital data, the existing software solutions simply fail to provide any meaning or understanding among all that digital noise. Today, many thousands of Semantic Web developers, architects, and visionaries are working to bring meaning to a very messy world of digital data.

Semantic Web is not only a vision, but also a technology, a social phenomenon, and a Web-scale architecture. This book aims to describe all these aspects of the Semantic Web.

About This Book

This book is an unintimidating yet thorough introduction to the Semantic Web. It isn’t intended to be a programmer’s desk reference or an exhaustive how-to book. This book is written for savvy technologists and forward-thinking businesspeople who want to see the whole Semantic Web picture, while still being firmly grounded in the fundamentals and reality of an emerging technology.

Because the Semantic Web is a revolutionary path forward for data processing and metadata specifications, it will have an exceptionally broad impact on every aspect of all types of software.

This book explores the social, consumer, business, and purely technical impacts of the Semantic Web. Unlike many programming language books that you may have read before, this book covers the visionary and architectural aspects of the Semantic Web in addition to the specific technology languages and programming specifications.

Conventions Used in This Book

Just about every technical book starts with a little typeface legend, and Semantic Web For Dummies is no exception. What follows is a brief explanation of the typographical conventions used in this book:

New terms are set in italics.

When I want you to type something or perform a step, I use bold.

You will also see this monospaced font, which I use for code, filenames, Web page addresses (URLs), on-screen messages, and other such things. Also, if something you need to type is really long, it appears in monospaced font on its own line or lines.

For many code examples used in this book, some verbose and unimportant syntax items may be omitted or shortened. For example, in an RDF header, an http namespace may appear as xx:SomeName, in this case, the xx is referring to “any namespace,” and no particular namespace is important for the example.

Foolish Assumptions

When I wrote this book, I made a few assumptions about you, the reader. If one of these assumptions is incorrect, you should be fine. If all of these assumptions are incorrect . . . well, you should buy this book anyway and give it to someone who fits the profile! (Hey, I need the money for my kids’ college fund!)

I assume that you know little or nothing about the Semantic Web. This book isn’t an “all things to all people” book: It’s squarely aimed at the technically savvy, curious individual who is a novice to the Semantic Web. If you’re brand-new to the world of semantic computing, this is the book for you.

I assume that you can think logically. You don’t have to be a developer for this book to be worthwhile for you, but you have to have some semblance of structured thinking. So much of the Semantic Web is based on formal logic, that although I don’t teach math in this book, you better be ready to think in a highly organized manner to keep up with the examples!

I assume that you have some knowledge of the Web, business software systems, or ideally both. Just because this book is aimed at the Semantic Web novice doesn’t mean it’s a good book for the average technology-hating Luddite. To get the most out of this book, you should already be pretty familiar with the basic technical aspects of the Web (HTML, HTTP, and so on) and be familiar with the business software systems (databases, XML, transaction systems, and so on). Understanding why the Semantic Web is cool depends on having some of that basic knowledge for why the existing technology isn’t perfect.

How to Use This Book

I wish I could say that you can open this book up to any page and immediately begin to be productive coding the Semantic Web. In one sense this is true — the code examples in each chapter allow you to write your own little corner of the Semantic Web — but a significant portion of this book is dedicated to explaining the bigger picture about the Semantic Web. To understand why the code you’re writing is different and better than the code you could have written with Java or XML, the bigger picture of how things fit together is very important.

In this book, I’ve divided the content into manageable chunks. You can jump straight to the programming parts of the book, or read about the social implications of the Semantic Web in business and on the Web. This book is designed as a modular reference, meaning that you can skip around to the chapters that interest you, or you can read the book from front to back. When I need to refer to content from another chapter, I include a note for you to reference where you can find more details.

How This Book Is Organized

Writing a book about the Semantic Web in 2008 is like writing a book about the Internet in 1995 — in addition to the details about technology at a moment in time, a substantial part of the book needs to explain how vastly different the future will be and how to prepare for that future.

The impact of the Semantic Web will be felt for decades to come. This book is organized in such a way to help the reader understand just how much the world of data will soon change, why the technology enables these changes, and exactly how to use the programming languages to make those changes.

This book is divided into the following parts:

Part I: Welcome to the Future of Data and the Web

The chapters in Part I introduce you to the full scope and potential of the Semantic Web. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the vastness of the Semantic Web focusing on the differences between consumer and business adoption styles. Chapter 2 explores how the typical Internet user will feel the effects of the Semantic Web, and Chapter 3 stresses the variety of ways businesses will change when Semantic Web data becomes more pervasive.

Part II: Catch the Wave of Smart Data Today

This part shows you today’s Semantic Web technology with some easy examples and then explains why the new languages are so powerful for Web sites and businesses. Chapter 4 is a quick primer on Semantic Web technology specifications. Chapter 5 provides detailed examples of how the technology is different than anything that came before, and Chapter 6 describes in detail why Semantic Web metadata is the key enabler for massive software benefits.

Part III: Building the Semantic Web

Sometimes the Semantic Web can seem very complicated. In this part of the book, I simplify the Semantic Web by breaking it down into manageable steps that are easy to follow. Chapters 7 and 8 help you understand how to program RDF and OWL, and Chapter 9 describes how business rules fit into the picture.

Part IV: Putting the Semantic Web to Work

The effects of the Semantic Web will be felt in the workplace in a myriad of ways. New kinds of jobs will appear, and new business processes, technology architectures, and procurement strategies will evolve as a consequence of Semantic Web adoption. Part IV looks at some of the managerial, architectural, and lifecycle challenges to prepare yourself for in the coming years. I also introduce some of the definitive case studies of early Semantic Web success.

Part V: The Part of Tens

The Part of Tens is where you can easily find answers to common questions about the Semantic Web. Chapter 16 clarifies some of the most prevalent misconceptions about the Semantic Web. Chapters 17 and 18 provide guideposts for finding today’s state of the art Semantic Web examples and also for gauging where the future advances will lead us.

Icons Used in This Book

A big part of writing a For Dummies book is the style and simplicity of how the content is presented. As such, I use some elemental icons to help you scan and dissect the key parts of the book. Here’s a list of the icons used in this book:

A tip is an extra piece of information — something helpful that the other books may forget to tell you.

Everyone makes mistakes. Goodness knows that the Semantic Web is easy to make mistakes with. When I think of a mistake that people are especially prone to make, I mark it with a Warning icon.

I’m as forgetful as anybody. Keys, names, addresses — I forget them all. There are lots of details in the Semantic Web that you ought to remember, especially compared with other technologies. When I want to stress a point to be remembered, I use the Remember icon.

Sometimes it’s easy to dive too deep into the technical stuff, especially in an introductory book like this. For the more advanced readers, these may be the most interesting parts, but if you’re a novice or you’re simply in a hurry, you might want to skip on by. In either case, the technical commentary is labeled with the Technical Stuff icon.

Where to Go from Here

If you’ve gotten this far, it’s time to start reading about the Semantic Web. Think of me as your personal guide through this complex topic. I do everything I can to simplify your experience, keep you interested and entertained, and still give you the useful information that you want. (If you didn’t want that info, I presume you wouldn’t be reading this book!) If you like what you read and want to send me a note, please e-mail me at [email protected].

Part I

Welcome to the Future of Data and the Web

In this part . . .

In the beginning there was the Web, and people liked to surf Web sites, check e-mail, and create new software programs for their companies. Life was good.

But soon people came to like the Web too much, and all the data on the Web was a tantalizing resource for them to use in new ways. But the Web was made for sharing documents, not for sharing the data inside those pages. And people were sad.

Then the Semantic Web was created to extend the Web and make data easy to reuse everywhere.

In this part of the book, you begin to understand why people will soon be happy again, and why life will be good when information is free.

Chapter 1

Getting the Gist of the Semantic Web

In This Chapter

Understanding why the Semantic Web is just another way of saying Web 3.0

Looking past the hype for real solutions to real problems

Discovering how the Semantic Web may change the world

Figuring out how to make smart data work for you

Congratulations on your curiosity: It takes courage and open-mindedness to even open the pages of a book with the word semantic in the title. Of course, the title also contains the word Dummies, which lessens the intimidation factor just a bit! The intent of this book is to give you a gentle and complete introduction to the Semantic Web. For many people, this is just the first step. Only a few chapters in this book have code examples — just enough to whet your appetite in case you decide that the next step is to fire up your trusty text editor and bang out some code. More often, I’ll be giving you a guided tour of how the Semantic Web changes the Web as you know it, as well as business software applications, open-source software, social networking, and even everyday search engines that you’re already using.