Re: RDF as a syntax for OWL (was Re: same-syntax extensions to RDF)

On 6 Jan 2005, at 16:35, Jeen Broekstra wrote:
> Also, in teaching about the semantic web stack I have not had any 
> particular problems with the fact that the knowledge is represented in 
> graphs.

Well, I suspect that you are teaching only simple KR languages. Is the 
triple-based OWL syntax easily understood by your students, or do you 
resort to the abstract syntax?

> There are tons of implementation tasks in which the triples do not 
> "get in the way" and are even at times beneficial. Representing 
> thesauri for example, or integrating multiple knowledge sources, or 
> implementing semantic p2p systems, or querying RDF/RDFS/OWL, or... 
> sheesh I don't know what type of example to quote.

This can be true only if the involved KR language is trivial enough 
(e.g., RDFS) to fit easily within triples, with the correct 
compositional semantics. In other words: if you use RDFS as a KR 
language, then it is likely that sticking to a triple representation 
for the implemention may be beneficial. Other challenges: are knowledge 
integration systems, as surveyed for example in [1], easily 
representable within triples? Are semantic p2p systems, as surveyed for 
example in [2], easily representable within triples?
Like it has been already pointed out by other people, I believe that 
the triple game in the syntax should stop with RDFS. My understanding 
of the hierachy of languages in the semantic web, is that all these 
languages should be based on the same notion of *semantic model* (that 
is the one isomorphic to a ground bnodes-free RDF graph), in order to 
be semantically interoperable. The syntax is really irrelevant.

Cheers
--e.

[1] Maurizio Lenzerini. Data Integration: A Theoretical Perspective. 
PODS 2002.
[2] Enrico Franconi, Gabriel M. Kuper, Andrei Lopatenko, Luciano 
Serafini. A Robust Logical and Computational Characterisation of 
Peer-to-Peer Database Systems. DBISP2P 2003.

Enrico Franconi                  - franconi@inf.unibz.it
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano - http://www.inf.unibz.it/~franconi/
Faculty of Computer Science      - Phone: (+39) 0471-016-120
I-39100 Bozen-Bolzano BZ, Italy  - Fax:   (+39) 0471-016-129

Received on Thursday, 6 January 2005 16:46:08 UTC