Report on W3C Technical Plenary Session

March 2005, Boston
http://www.w3.org/2004/12/allgroupoverview.html
Fabien Gandon (INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, ACACIA Lab.)

Semantic Web Interest Group

Agenda
 http://esw.w3.org/topic/SwigAtTp2005
Scratchpad
 http://swig.xmlhack.com/2005/02/28/2005-02-28.html#1109617476.865450
Scribing
 http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/discovery/chatlogs/swig/2005-02-28.html
 http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/discovery/chatlogs/swig/2005-03-01.html

Session #1: Eric Miller summarized the work in semantic web the past 4 years.
http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/0228-swig-em/

Session #2:
Eric Prud'hommeaux gives an update on the activity of DAWG (Data Access Working Group). In particular, the publications so far:
- SPARQL Query;
- SPARQL variable binding in XML,
- SPARQL Protocol
The work on nested queries was deferred i.e. the use of the result of a query to create a new query.
For more, see http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/28-DAWG-SWIG/

Session #3:
Chris Bizer talks of named graphs and gives an update of its use in SPARQL (with Carroll, Hayes, Stickler). They use the keyword "WITH" used to give trusted sources. Also, trust weighting and propagation over the sources.
http://beta.foaf-project.org/2004/media/wp-content/moblog-images/2005-02-28_150851_7242_0.jpg
Use of SWP (?) for signing RDF graphs.
Two syntaxes are mentioned to represent named graphs (TriX, in XML and TriG in Turtle)
See
 - http://www.w3.org/2004/03/trix/
 - http://swdev.nokia.com/trix/TriX.html
 - http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/TriG/
NG4J is mentioned as an implementation for Jena.
http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/ng4j/
Ralph raised a question: Timbl has log:includes in N3. What's the relation between that and named graphs?
Talk:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2005Feb/att-0049/NamedGraphsMeetSPARQL_TechPlen2005.ppt

Session #4:
Jeremy Carroll, SW Best practices work on Datatyping
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/XSCH/xsch-sw-20050127/
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/XSCH/xsch-sw-20050127/#sec-values-discussion
see SWBG session on that.

Session #5:
Bijan Parsia presents the Filmtrust application: trust network, rating and recommendation of films see : http://trust.mindswap.org/
Second presentation is about Swoop: web browser inspired ontology browser
A hypermedia-based Featherweight OWL Ontology Editor
http://www.mindswap.org/2004/SWOOP/
Also shows the use of Pellet to validate schemas e.g. in tanbis ontology, 144 unsatisfiable classes
Third presentation: Econnection: automatic partitioning of Web ontologies to address problems of ontologies where things are accumulated as needed and redundant with existing ontology or which small parts could be reused somewhere else if these ontologies were modular. Example of ontologies used for testing: GALEN, NCI, etc.
See http://www.mindswap.org/2004/multipleOnt/

Session #6: Alistair Miles on Semantic Web and Thesauri
Recall: SKOS( initially Simple Knowledge Organisation Systems) is an open collaboration developing specifications and standards to support the use of knowledge organization systems (KOS) on the semantic web. Expressing concept schemes (thesauri, classification schemes, controlled vocabularies, structured vocabularies, terminologies, glossaries, taxonomies ...) in RDF
SKOS interacts with the task force "Porting Thesauri" in the working Group Semantic Web Best practices.
Linked documents:
- SKOS Core Vocabulary Specification, W3C Working Draft in Preparation
   http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/spec/
- SKOS Core Guide, W3C Editor's Working Draft 15 February 2005
   http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/guide/
- SWBP Quick Guide to Publishing a Thesaurus on the Semantic Web:
   http://www.w3.org/2004/03/thes-tf/primer/
This guide of the Semantic Web Best Practices Working Group makes use of the RDFS schema of SKOS.
Notes on the talk: http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/skos/pres/swig-talk-2005.txt

Session #7: Amit Sheth (Semagix) presents projects Real World applications from his group in anti-money-laundering system and law enforcement systems.
Online demo: http://www.semagix.com/downloads/product_demo.htm

Session #8: Frank Manola (SW Business): talks about business applications of the semantic web :"How do I recognize a SW business app if I meet one?". Underlines that there is not enough visibility of existing work from industry.
The talk makes a reference to a message provocatively entitled "non semantic-web uses of RDF / S ";-)
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2004Dec/0061.html

Session #9: Charles McCathie-Nevile talks about an application of Semantic Web to Human Rights documentation.

Session #10: Jeremy Caroll gives an update on RDF/A, a collection of attributes for layering RDF on XML languages, as described in the note by Mark Birbeck and Steven Pemberton:
http://www.formsplayer.com/notes/rdf-a.html
See also SWBP session on this subject.

Session #11: Evan Wallace gives an update on the "Ontology Definition Metamodel" issued by OMG and reviewed by SWBP. This document is intended to present foundational formalisms for ontology-based Model Driven Architecture (MDA) in software engineering. It is concern with the different representation formalisms, their interoperability, and their contribution to the automation of business semantics. One of the objectives stated by the introduction of this document is to provide the basis for specifications to marry MDA and Semantic Web technologies "to support semantic web services, ontology and policy-based agent communications, and policy-based applications in general".
See Revised submission for the OMG Ontology Definition Metamodel (Jan. 2005)
http://www.omg.org/docs/ad/05-01-01.pdf
And "Representing UML in RDF": some early previous work on UML in RDF from Sergey Melnik
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~melnik/rdf/uml/

Session #12: SIMILE Project by Ryan Lee, Stefano Mazzocchi, David Huynh.
Semantic Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments
SIMILE is a joint project conducted by the W3C, HP, MIT Libraries, and MIT CSAIL. SIMILE seeks to enhance inter-operability among digital assets, schemata / vocabularies / ontologies, metadata, and services.
http://simile.mit.edu/
Welkin is a graph-based RDF visualizer http://simile.mit.edu/welkin/index.html
Longwell is a suite of web-based RDF browsers http://simile.mit.edu/longwell/index.html
Piggy-Bank, a Firefox extension to let users collect and browse "semantic data" linked from ordinary web pages http://simile.mit.edu/piggy-bank/index.html

Session #13: RDF-SIG: Leveraging XML-SIG and XKMS for digitally signing RDF Graphs
by Jose Kahan
http://www.w3.org/Talks/2005/0229-jk-rdf-sig/
Growing interest in signing RDF graphs but while some work is new, other is duplicating things done previously by XML-SIG. We need to leverage existing technologies.
If we sign the XML serialization, we need an algorithm for canonicalization of the graph serialization.

Session #14: Phil Archer on quality labels: quality and content description in RDF by Internet Content Rating Association. He proposes rules with URL patterns to annotate the quality and content of all the resources at a web site. RDF Content Labels: Use Cases and Draft Schemas:
http://www.w3.org/2004/12/q/doc/rdf-contentlabels.html
Envisage centralized authorities for labeling and distributed labeling.

Session #15: Fumihiro KATO (Keio) Trust with labeling

Session #16: Dan Applequist - vodafone perspective on using RDF for content metadata in mobile applications. Try to achieve device neutral format of content.
 
Session #17: Bijan Parsia on Web Service policy checked using the pellet engine.

Session #18: Andreas Harth from DERI: Linking Semantically-Enabled Online Community Sites - SIOC Ontology
Use RDF to link between different community exchange technologies (email, RSS, etc.).
Query result in RDF to get the info wherever it comes from.
http://sw.deri.org/~aharth/2005/02/swigf2f/slide1.html
Common data format (RDF), Common ontology (SIOC) or mappings to SIOC, Common protocol for data exchange (SPARQL), Links/metadata to relate posts, forums, and sites,  Object consolidation/smushing.

Session #19: Marja - Annotea and Firefox update. Annotea Ubimarks in Mozilla
http://www.annotea.org/mozilla/ubi.html
Inspirited by study of physical bookmarks, tabs in book / scribbles, etc.
Second phase: shared bookmarks and topics
Shows an annotea-extended bookmark view pane in firefox running live
Collaborative bookmarking.
http://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea/
Mapping between SKOS and W3C Bookmarks vocabs
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2005Mar/0000.html

Session #20: Tom Croucher - compound IFP discussion (Inverse Functional Property)
http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0tco/eswc2005.pdf
Problem of a set of Functional Property providing an identity criterion for a resource.
Especially to uniquely identify things that don't have URIs also called " unambiguous property constellations", " composite keys in database"
(// Identity Conditions)
Paper on the subject : "Situation and Identity A Generalisation of Inverse Functional Properties" by Tom Croucher and Joe Geldart
Problem of open-world assumption for designing "unambiguous property constellations".

Session #21: Amit Sheth presents METEOR-S and SWETO.
METEOR-S is a platform for web service development, discovery, invocation and composition.
SWETO Semantic Web Technology Evaluation Ontology : Large-Scale Semantic Web Test-bed

Session #22: Sandro - Rule workshop/Ontaria (?)
W3C Workshop on Rule Languages for Interoperability
Workshop on rule language for the web (and not only the semantic web)
http://www.w3.org/2004/12/rules-ws/cfp
Ontaria = searchable browsable directory of semantic web data.
http://projects.semwebcentral.org/projects/ontaria/

Session #23: Patrick Stickler, Forum Nokia Meets the Semantic Web
Nokia forum for developers of Nokia applications using RDF metadata for menus, summaries, etc.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2005Mar/att-0002/2005-03_W3CTP-LT.ppt
 
Session #24: Fabien Gandon, KmP: A Semantic Web Service for the Cartography of Competences in the Telecom Valley of Sophia Antipolis and Update on CORESE (conceptual graph based search engine) and its query language
 


Plenary Session Day

Agenda:
http://www.w3.org/2005/03/02-TechPlenAgenda.html
Notes: http://www.w3.org/2005/03/02-tp-irc

Introduction: Leading the Web to its Full Potential
Steve Bratt, Chief Operating Officer W3C
http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/0302-sb-techplenary/Overview-1.html

Panel on extension and versioning
Intro: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-techplenary/2005Mar/0003.html

XML and Binary content.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xbc-properties/
http://www.w3.org/TR/xbc-use-cases/
http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/Binary

Where XML is Going, and Where it Should (or Shouldn't) Go

Issues in Developing Multiple Specification Test Suites
User Agent Perspective: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/presentations/2005-03-02-w3c/slide1.html

WAI : http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/0302slh/

Lihgting talks, Multi-modality demos,
 


Semantic Web Best Practices Working Group

Home page
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/
Agenda
 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Feb/0157.html
Scribing:
 http://www.w3.org/2005/03/03-swbp-irc
 http://www.w3.org/2005/03/04-swbp-irc

Session #1: Software Engineering Task Force
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/SE/
Ontology Driven Architectures (ODA) and Potential Uses of the Semantic Web in Software Engineering
http://dl-web.man.ac.uk/~panz/swse/ODA08.htm
Automated consistency checking get better quality of software, maintenance costs reduced because of tie between model & software.
It is expected to see more focus on ODA application of RDF/OWL.
It would be surprising if some form of ontological approach wasn't used in case tools or case research or other form of MDA in the past.
Discussion on the usefulness of the document: some members think the current version is just a collection of hype statements; some thinks it is just an early draft that could be turned into something with more content and that it is just too early now for a review.
Issue on who really contributed.
One idea is that a good note could be a document that focuses on ontological additions to software engineering practise, building on 30 years of research; a focussed note on how some of previous approaches in software engineering could benefit from a Semantic Web approach.

Session #2: Vocabulary Management Task Force.
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/    
The goal is to produce a short document (8-12 pages) reviewing current practices for managing vocabularies. Draft of TF is available here:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/VocabManagementNote
Link with TAG issues:
What should a "namespace document" look like?
 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#namespaceDocument-8
  (see also http://www.textuality.com/tag/Issue8.html )
What is the range of the HTTP dereference function?
 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#httpRange-14
Syntax and semantics for embedding RDF in XHTML
 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#RDFinXHTML-35
Meaning of URIs in RDF documents
 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html?type=1#rdfURIMeaning-39

Session #3: Application and Demo Task Force
Question raised: "What is a good application as convincing application for semantic web?"
Idea to movie to DOAP descriptions:
http://usefulinc.com/doap/
Use an online DOAP-a-matic form to produce descriptions for projects.
http://doapy.bonjourlesmouettes.org/doap-a-matic
A better workflow would be that people use DOAP to describe their projects themselves and the TF links these descriptions. Then have facetted servers to present these descriptions.
What should be the criteria for inclusion?
RSS as an application of RDF?
Article on "The Role of RSS in Science Publishing"
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december04/hammond/12hammond.html

Session #4: Embedding RDF in HTML
NB; the task force has a separate list
 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/
Former charter (2003):
 http://www.w3.org/2003/08/rdf-in-xhtml-charter.html
Grouped session with the XHTML working group for XHTML 2.0
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Group/2005/WD-xhtml2-20050224/
Just a reminder for HTML nothing to embed RDF, for XHTML 1.0 one can use GRDDL, for
XHTML 2.0 one can use RDF/A.
GRDDL (Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages) a mechanism for encoding RDF statements in XHTML and XML to be extracted by programs such as XSLT transformations. They are considering moving towards recommendation:
http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl/
Section in XHTML2.0 W3C Working Draft on Metainformation Attributes Module
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Group/2005/WD-xhtml2-20050224/mod-metaAttributes.html#s_metaAttributesmodule
RDF/A http://www.formsplayer.com/notes/rdf-a.html
Discussion on real scenario that would use RDF in HTML, I proposed the case of e-learning:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Mar/0048.html

Session #5: Ontology Engineering and Patterns Task Force (OEP)
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/OEP/
The draft "Representing Specified Values in OWL: 'value partitions' and 'value sets' " is moving to Note:
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/%7Erector/swbp/specified_values/specified-values-8-1.html
The draft "Representing Classes As Property Values on the Semantic Web is moving to Note:
http://smi-web.stanford.edu/people/noy/ClassesAsValues/ClassesAsValues-2nd-WD.html
New draft is proposed on "Units and Measures"
Alan to take over the Qualifying Cardinality Restrictions Note from Guus

Session #6: WordNet Task Force

Session #7: RDF and XML Schema Datatypes
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/XSCH/xsch-sw/
To reference XSCD in OWL, a possible solution is to have an ID in the Datatype definition to reference the type in RDF.
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/XSCH/xsch-sw/#sec-id-attr
Also, the idea of using a mime type to type fragIDs as type not definitions.
 
Session #8: Quick intervention of Bijan Parsia on the way to include RDF descriptions in WSDL: compares a straight way and a complex way.

Session #9: RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability Survey
http://www.ontopia.net/work/survey-pres.html
Goal of RDFTM is to provide Guidelines for combining RDF/OWL and Topic Maps
RDFTM: Survey of Interoperability Proposals
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/RDFTM/survey
Test Cases for RDF/TM Interoperability
http://tesi.fabio.web.cs.unibo.it/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/RDFTM/TestCases
Key problem is that TM and RDF have different levels of semantics any triple could map to 6 different things in a TM.
Discussion on naturalness ("faithfullness" to the paradigm) vs. fidelity (correctness of the translation)
Is it the case that information expressed naturally in the source formalism (Topic Maps) and then translated into the target formalism (RDF) can be naturally integrated with information expressed naturally in the target formalism (RDF).
 
Session #10B: Applications and Demos Task Force
Discussion:
 - How to provide and maintain a list of Applications and Demos?
 - Should we go for a DOAP format?
 - Criteria for including/excluding a demo in the list?
Use DOAP and leave it to the users to maintain it: we would only maintain a list of small descriptions (a pointer and a sentence) and with the pointer can access the DOAP file and harvest.
First priority = getting a number of them in the list.
Summarizing : we stay with web log, we try to set up some tools for task force administration tasks (accept a description), we provide support for DOAP and we maintain a simple list of DOAP files in the blog.
Issue with including TM applications: to be included in the repository, an application should at least import and export RDF(S) / OWL data.
List of projects is available at http://www.aktor.org/technologies


Some references for this working group:
OEP:  Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web: Use With Individuals
http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-n-aryRelations/

OEP: Classes as values
http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-classes-as-values/

OEP: Value partitions
http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-specified-values/

OEP: Part-whole relations
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~rector/swbp/simple-part-whole/simple-part-whole-relations-v0-2.html

PORT: Core Guide
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/guide/

PORT: Core Vocaab Spec
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/spec/

PORT: Quick Guide
http://www.w3.org/2004/03/thes-tf/primer/

RDF/TM" Survey
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/RDFTM/survey

RDF/TM: Tests
http://tesi.fabio.web.cs.unibo.it/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/RDFTM/TestCases

VM:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/VocabManagementNote

RDF-XHTML: RDF/A
http://www.formsplayer.com/notes/rdf-a.html

RDF-XHTML: GRIDDL
http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl/

XSD: XML Schema Datatypes in RDF/OWL
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/XSCH/xsch-sw/

WNET: Ontowordnet
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Feb/0066.html

WNET: WordNet data model:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Feb/0068.html

WNET: ISLE lexical entries
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Feb/0069.html

SE: ODA draft
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Feb/0137.html