CFP Special Issue of the Journal of Web Semantics on Semantic Web Dynamics

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Journal of Web Semantics

Special Issue on Semantic Web Dynamics

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Description

Recent years have witnessed the arrival of more and more semantically  
annotated data and related ontologies in the Semantic Web. For  
example, the linked data initiative has been very successful in making  
datasets available online, with a total of about 5 billion triples all  
together so far. While existing semantic tools and reasoning engines  
are year after year getting better in dealing with time invariant  
domain of ontological knowledge, supporting rapidly changing  
information has not yet attracted sufficient attention.

There are more and more heterogeneous and/or dynamic data types being  
created and which integration could lead to interesting applications  
and models (e.g. sensor data streams, geospatial information and  
imagery, financial transactions, news feeds, 3D models, engineering  
data, information for policy intelligence etc.). Current Stream  
Database Management Systems provide on the fly analysis of data  
streams, but they suffer several limitations: they cannot handle  
heterogeneous data streams originating from a variety of already  
deployed sensors; they cannot combine data streams with slowly  
evolving knowledge at query time; and they cannot perform reasoning  
tasks. And in the area of reasoning, while the problem of classical,  
time invariant domain of ontological knowledge has been extensively  
studied, the task of reasoning with rapidly changing information has  
been mostly neglected and constitutes a new challenge.

Furthermore, ontologies, just like any structure holding knowledge and  
information, need to be updated too: changes could be initiated  
because of a change in the world being modelled; or by a change in the  
users’ needs which would require a different conceptualization; or by  
the acquisition of knowledge previously unknown, unclassified or  
otherwise unavailable; or by the noticing of a design flaw in the  
original conceptualization. In all these cases, the representation of  
knowledge in the ontology should be modified so as to form a more  
accurate or adequate conceptualization of the domain.

This general issue of Semantic Web Dynamics includes difficulties from  
both practical and theoretical points of view, raising a variety of  
research questions and development challenges, such as how to support  
the ontology and data publishers in maintaining up-to-date, adequate  
representations; how to detect the need for evolution and changes; how  
to facilitate the integration of new, dynamic sources in existing  
datasets and ontologies; how to validate and evaluate the impact of  
the changes on semantic information; how to handle changes triggered  
from multiple sources and collaborative updates; and how to keep track  
of (possibly concurrent) versions of and ensure the delivery of up-to- 
date and valid knowledge.



Topics of Interest

For this special issue, we seek articles describing foundational and  
theoretical work as well as technological solutions to these challenges.

More specifically, we expect submission on (but not restricted to) the  
following topics:

• Foundational and formal aspects of Semantic Web dynamics

• Language extensions for Semantic Web dynamics

• Reasoning with dynamic data and ontologies

• Engineering dynamic data and ontologies

• Requirements and practical issues for Semantic Web dynamics

• Applications of dynamic data and ontologies

• Theory for stream reasoning

• Logic language for stream reasoning

• Scalability issues in stream reasoning

• Ontologies for dynamic environments

• Dynamic knowledge building, and (re-)use

• Ontology evolution and versioning

• Language extensions for evolution

• Belief revision for ontologies

• Change propagation in ontologies dynamic datasets and ontologies

• Inconsistency in evolving semantic information

• Incremental reasoning

• Case studies and applications of ontology and knowledge evolution

• Tools to support dynamic data and ontologies



Important Dates

31 May 2010: Submission deadline

31 August 2010: First-round reviews complete

31 October 2010: Revised papers submitted

23 December 2010: Final acceptance decisions



Method of Submission


Submission should be realized through Elsevier's Electronic Submission  
system (EES) at http://ees.elsevier.com/jws, selecting "Special Issue:  
Semantic Web Dynamics" as article type. A guide for authors is  
available concerning the use of this system at http://epsupport.elsevier.com/al/12/1/article.aspx?aid=1520&bt=4

Guest Editors/Contacts

Grigoris Antoniou - FORTH, Greece (antoniou@ics.forth.gr)

Mathieu d’Aquin - The Open University, United Kingdom (m.daquin@open.ac.uk 
)

Jeff Z. Pan - University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom (jeff.z.pan@abdn.ac.uk 
)

  

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