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Knowledge Technologies for the Semantic Web
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer
Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe. Germany
FZI Research Center for Information Technologies,
Karlsruhe
ontoprise GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany
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Abstract:
Currently,
we are entering the process of transforming the 'first generation
web', that is characterized by HTML pages and human processing of
the Web contents, to the 'second generation web' or the 'Semantic Web'
that
aims at machine-processable information. To achieve that next level
one
needs means and standards not only for describing the syntactic structure
of Web documents as offered by XML, but also means and standards for
specifying the semantic content of Web sources. RDF/RDF schema offers a
first step in this direction.
We
argue that ontologies will play a crucial role in enabling the 'Semantic
Web'.
In our context ontologies provide a formal conceptualization of particular
domains that is shared between people and/or application systems.
Ontologies may be specified by languages that are defined as extensions
of RDFS, as e.g. DAM+OIL, and may be supported by a 'Semantic Web' infrastructure
that offers means for storing ontologies and for making inferences.
Of course, sophisticated ontology engineering environments are required
that support the construction, learning, reuse and maintenance of ontologies.
Ontologies
are also the backbone for metadata management since they pave
the
way for the semi-automatic semantic annotation of Web sources as well as
for information extraction from Web sources. The advantages
of Semantic Web technologies will be illustrated in the context of eLearning scenarios.
Biographical
Information:
Rudi
Studer is Full Professor in Applied Computer Science at the
University of Karlsruhe, Insitute AIFB (www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS).
His research interests include knowledge management, Semantic Web
technologies and applications, knowledge engineering and knowledge
discovery. He obtained a Diploma in Computer Science at the
University of Stuttgart in 1975. In 1982 he was awarded a Doctor´s
degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of
Stuttgart, and in 1985 he obtained his Habilitation in Computer
Science at the University of Stuttgart.
From
1977 to 1985 he worked as a research scientist at the University of
Stuttgart. From 1985 to 1989 he was project leader and manager at
the Scientific Center of IBM Germany.
Rudi
Studer is also leader of the Knowledge Management Group at the FZI
Research Center for Information Technologies at the University of
Karlsruhe (www.fzi.de/wim) as well as co-founder of the spin-off
company ontoprise GmbH (www.ontoprise.de) that develops technologies
for the Semantic Web. He is speaker of the special interest group
Knowledge Management of the German Informatics Society and a member
of the editorial board of IEEE Intelligent Systems.
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