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Semantics for the Rest of Us -- Variants of Semantic Web Languages in the Real World

Held in conjunction with 8th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2009)
26 October 2009, Washington, DC


Objectives

The Semantic Web is a broad vision of the future of personal computing, emphasizing the use of sophisticated knowledge representation as the basis for end-user applications' data modeling and management needs. Key to the pervasive adoption of Semantic Web technologies is a good set of fundamental "building blocks" - the most important of these are representation languages themselves. W3C's standard languages for the Semantic Web, RDF and OWL, have been around for several years; instead of strict standards compliance, we see "variants" of these languages emerge in applications, often tailored to a particular application's needs. These variants are often either subsets of OWL or supersets of RDF, typically with fragments OWL added. Extensions based on rules, such as SWRL and N3 logic, have been developed as well as enhancements to the SPARQL query language and protocol (http://esw.w3.org/topic/SPARQL/Extensions).

In this workshop we will explore the landscape of RDF, OWL and SPARQL variants, specifically from the standpoint of "real-world semantics". Are there commonalities in these variants that might suggest new standards or new versions of the existing standards? We hope to identify common requirements of applications consuming Semantic Web data and understand the pros and cons of a strictly formal approach to modeling data versus a "scruffier" approach where semantics are based on application requirements and implementation restrictions.

The workshop will encourage active audience participation and discussion and will include a keynote speaker as well as a panel.

Topics of interest

Our main topics of interest include but are not limited to
  • Real world applications that use (variants of) RDF, OWL, and SPARQL
  • Use cases for different subsets/supersets of RDF, OWL, and SPARQL
  • Extensions of SWRL and N3Logic
  • RIF dialects
  • How well do the current Semantic Web standards meet system requirements ?
  • Real world ``semantic'' applications that use other structured representations (XML, JSON)
  • Alternatives to RDF, OWL or SPARQL
  • Are ad hoc subsets of SW languages leading to problems?
  • What level of expressive power does the Semantic Web need?
  • Does the Semantic Web require languages based on formal methods ?
  • How should standard Semantic Web languages be designed ?

Organizers

Program Committee

  • Ben Adida, CHIP, Harvard Medical School
  • Melliyal Annamalai, Oracle
  • Jie Bao, RPI
  • Kendall Clark, Clark & Parsia
  • Richard Cyganiak, DERI
  • Stefan Decker, DERI
  • Li Ding, RPI
  • Tim Finin, UMBC
  • Benjamin Grosof, Vulcan
  • Harry Halpin, University of Edinburgh
  • Anupam Joshi, UMBC
  • Lalana Kagal, MIT
  • Ora Lassila, Nokia
  • Thomas Lukasiewicz, Oxford University
  • Alistair Miles, Oxford
  • Natasha Noy, Stanford
  • Bijan Parsia, University of Manchester
  • Axel Polleres, DERI National University of Ireland
  • Marwan Sabbouh, Mitre & Northeastern
  • Lynn Andrea Stein, Olin College of Engineering
  • Susie Stephens, Johnson & Johnson

Keynote

Sandro Hawke is a Software Developer and Systems Architect at W3C and a Research Scientist at MIT. He does software research and development for the Semantic Web Activity and is the staff contact for OWL, and RIF working groups.

Panel

Title: "Little vs Large Semantics: What's next for the Semantic Web languages?"
Moderator: Jim Hendler, RPI

Panelists
Kendall Clark, Clark & Parsia, LLC
Leigh Dodds, Talis
Ivan Herman, W3C
Ora Lassila, Nokia

Submission

Camera-Ready Submission

  • Length
    • Full papers upto 12 pages long
    • Position papers upto 7 pages long

  • Format papers according to the ISWC 2009 instructions. In order for your paper to be included in the workshop proceedings, at least one author needs to be registered for the workshop by Oct 2nd, 2009.

  • Email papers to semrusiswc09@easychair.org by Oct 2nd, 2009

  • Fill out the non-exclusive copyright form at http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2009/SemRUs-ISWC09/CEUR-WS-Copyright.txt and fax it to +1 (814) 253-2612

Important Dates

Paper submission: August 14th, 2009
Notification: September 4th, 2009
Camera ready papers: October 2nd, 2009
Workshop: October 26th, 2009

Accepted Papers

  • Streaming OWL, Mike Dean
  • RDF syntax normalization using XML validation, Denny Vrandecic, Frank Dengler, Sebastian Rudolph and Michael Erdmann
  • Accessing Site-Specific APIs Through Write-Wrappers From The Web of Data, Oana Ureche, Aftab Iqbal, Richard Cyganiak and Michael Hausenblas
  • LTML - A Language for Representing Semantic Web Service Workflow Procedures, Mark Burstein, Robert Goldman, Drew McDermott, David McDonald, Jacob Beal and John Maraist
  • LexRDF Model: An RDF-based Unified Model for Heterogeneous Biomedical Ontologies, Cui Tao, Jyotishman Pathak, Harold Solbrig, Wei-Qi Wei and Christopher Chute

Program

08:30-08:45 Welcome, introductions, etc. [15]
08:45-09:45 Sandro's invited talk + discussion [60]
9:45 - 10:35 2 research paper [50]
RDF syntax normalization using XML validation - Denny Vrandecic, Frank Dengler, Sebastian Rudolph and Michael Erdmann (research paper) [25]
LexRDF Model: An RDF-based Unified Model for Heterogeneous Biomedical Ontologies - Cui Tao, Jyotishman Pathak, Harold Solbrig, Wei-Qi Wei and Christopher Chute (research paper) [25]
10:35-10:50 Break [15]
10:50 - 11:55 1 position paper, 2 research papers [65]
Streaming OWL, Mike Dean (position paper) [10]
Accessing Site-Specific APIs Through Write-Wrappers From The Web of Data - Oana Ureche, Aftab Iqbal, Richard Cyganiak and Michael Hausenblas (research paper) [25]
LTML - A Language for Representing Semantic Web Service Workflow Procedures - Mark Burstein, Robert Goldman, Drew McDermott, David McDonald, Jacob Beal and John Maraist (research paper) [25]
11:55 - 12:40 Panel + discussion [45]
12:40-12:45 Closing comments and Wrap-up
12:45-2:00 Lunch

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