Semantic Web Collaborations

Note: errors in original addresses require this separate posting.

Dear Colleagues:

I was recently asked to write a brief description of a rationale to 
begin establishing regular liaison connections between entities or 
bodies working on standards or pilot programs by which the emerging 
framework of the Semantic Web as envisioned in the W3C can be 
advanced. In other words, 'It's time to start making the semantic web 
work in practical, pragmatic terms with concrete examples by 
connecting previously unconnected resources."

I am sending this message out to the specific resources, bodies and 
entities that I personally want to connect, so please understand that 
this message is request for help to make this happen.

If you want to skip the rest of the preamble and get to the nuts, 
bolts, who, what and how of this message, you can skip to the 
horizontal rule.

First, let me narrow this request by saying that it is aimed at the 
leadership of the lists to which this message is being sent but that 
is not meant to preclude anyone who reads this from participating, 
especially those whose suggestion prompted this message. Any of us 
can act as informal liaisons or contribute in any number of ways, but 
I do want to move toward some more formal relationships to enable a 
regular exchange of information at the least, and, at best, active 
participation in new and existing projects and pilot programs as well.

That said, there are several facts I want to note. This effort to 
describe the interconnections that are now ready to be made in 
liaisons and collaborations that will benefit and advance the work of 
all parties revolves first around my own participation in the OASIS 
Emergency Management Technical Committee, then the Web Services for 
Remote Portlets, WSRP, and HumanMarkup TCs, and then my potential 
participation in the E-Gov TC.

As co-chair of the HumanMarkup TC, I can say that we identified our 
own requirement for a liaison with the E-Gov TC from its inception, 
but have not had success in finding someone capable of following 
through with such a commitment, and so I have decided to do this 
myself, and curtail other commitments to enable this, perhaps by 
serving as liaison to both the Emergency Management and HumanMarkup 
TCs.

I also envision working with both the ebXML Registry TC and the 
Content Assembly Mechanism TC. The ebXML Registry TC has a Semantic 
Content Management Subcommittee which may be of specific interest and 
use in connecting with E-Gov TC, which has identified a requirement 
to address the need for a Semantic Content Management Mechanism of 
some sort.

A note on my personal history may help put this into a more complete 
context. I co-founded the Content Development Working Group of the 
Web3D Consortium in 1998, when it was named The VRML Consortium. I 
joined HumanMarkup work as it was forming in order to develop a high 
level authoring language capable of being used to provide standard 
behaviors for real-time representation of 3D humans on the web, and 
this remains my long term goal. I recently became involved with 
Emergency Management because it is a natural extension of my work to 
provide geospatially accurate 3D depictions of  emergency 
environments in real time. These are, of course, longer term goals as 
opposed to what we can provide more immediately in the next few 
years. So, this is a consistent thread in my own work since I first 
began working on standards for my own work.

As an example of the kind of work I envision, I offer the 60-slide 
presentation accompanied by a 27-page paper, I made on behalf of the 
OASIS HumanMarkup TC, and Humanmarkup.org, Inc., the 501(c)(3) 
Non-Profit Corporation to educate and foster development of the Human 
Markup Language, of which I am the volunteer Executive Director. The 
ultimate product of the collaboration described was a (WSRP 1.0/JSR 
168 conformant) Web Services-based Public Healthcare Preparedness 
Portal using the Common Alerting Protocol, CAP, developed by the 
Emergency Management TC, shown in slide 59:

Slides:

http://ua-exp.gov/QuickPlace/ua-exp/Main.nsf/h_12CDF5C6107594FD85256DEF0073C0BA/B6211857396EBE3485256DF6007B83A8/?OpenDocument

Paper:

http://ua-exp.gov/QuickPlace/ua-exp/Main.nsf/h_12CDF5C6107594FD85256DEF0073C0BA/E2D6A4734FFFA14585256DF80053D03F/?OpenDocument



Realizing the Semantic Web:

The W3C released the most current RDF and OWL specifications December 
15, 2003. OWL is the Web Ontology Language and RDF is the Resource 
Descritpion Framework, and together they comprise the fundamental 
specifications which specifically enable inference engines and, 
therefore, allow the Semantic Web to begin developing in earnest.

OWL Overview:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-owl-features-20031215/

OWL Guide:
http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-guide/

OWL Reference:
http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/

OWL Semantics and Abstract Syntax:
http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-semantics/

OWL Web Ontology Language Test Cases:
http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-test/

OWL Use Cases and Requirements:
http://www.w3.org/TR/webont-req/

RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/

RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/

RDF Primer:
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/

Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Syntax
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/

RDF Semantics
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/

RDF Test Cases
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-testcases/

The Stanford Medical Informatics Groups recently released Protege 
2.0, a working Knowledge Base and Ontology Building open source 
application project, which has both an OWL Plugin and an RDF Plugin.

http://protege.stanford.edu

This gives us a set of languages and a toolkit to use to build 
applications realizing practical, working applications of the 
Semantic Web.

Disclaimer: all of these components are recent, though they have been 
in development for several years, but should not be expected to 
display error-free or mature reliability.

My personal short term goal at this point in time is to develop an 
extension of the Portal developed in the presentation given to the EA 
Collaboration Expedition Workshop #30 cited above, perhaps including, 
or being included within an extended format with the presentation 
given by ebXML Registry Services to XML 2003 in December in 
Philadelphia, PA.

http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/presentations/oasis-demo-xml2003.sxi
http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/presentations/oasis-demo-xml2003.ppt

The very extensive collaborations represented in the presentations 
given at the EA Workshop and XML 2003 illustrate the breadth of 
standards and organizations which can interoperate using the 
principles on which the Semantic Web is based. Moving this further 
can be facilitated by adding a few more components such as the the 
Web Services Business Process Execution Language, WSBPEL, and the Web 
Services Choreography Language which is under development by W3C.

To be specific about the entities which I would like to see involved 
in active liaisons, I offer this list:

OASIS Content Assembly Mechanism TC
OASIS ebXML Registry TC
	ebXML Registry Semantic Content Management SC
OASIS e-Government TC
OASIS Emergency Management TC
	EM GIS SC
	EM Infrastructure Framework SC
	EM Messages and Notification SC
OASIS HumanMarkup
OASIS Web Services Business Process Execution Language TC
OASIS Web Services for Remote Portlets TC

My wish list for extra-OASIS participants:

W3C Web Services Choreography Working Group
Stanford Medical Informatics--Protege
Web3D Consortium Geovrml Working Group

This does not mean that I do not think other groups ought to be 
included, but I am somewhat more focused on the emergency management 
application area in order to deliver immediately understandable, and 
global/pan-human benefits in any demonstration projects that might be 
developed.

-- 
Rex Brooks
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA, 94702 USA, Earth
W3Address: http://www.starbourne.com
Email: rexb@starbourne.com
Tel: 510-849-2309
Fax: By Request