The Semantic Web - Interacting with the Unknown

Steffen Staab The Semantic Web: Interacting with the Unknown 1Institute for Web Science and Technologies · University of Koblenz-Landau, GermanyWeb and Internet Science Group · ECS · University of Southampton, UK &

The Semantic Web: Interacting with the Unknown

Steffen Staab

University of Southampton

&

Universität Koblenz-Landau

Steffen Staab The Semantic Web: Interacting with the Unknown 2

Daten – Menschen

Meaning?


Traditional Information System

Business Logics

Structured DataUnstructured

Data

Presentation and Interaction

Charakteristics:• Processes known• Data structures

known• Meaning of data in

schema and implicit in code


Information ecosystems nowadaysExamples• Open Data• 1000s

DBs/company• Ad-hoc data

Characteristics• Some structure• Late structure• Social context• Meaning of data

most important


How does data receive meaning?Explicit:• Formal schema/ontology

– By someone else?

Implicit:• Names are just used for

describing

Social:• Communities converge

– By discussion– By emergence

Meaning?


A Bit like Crisps ...

Sub languages• For consumer

– title,...

• Global retailers– barcode

• US food industry– serving size, calories,...

• Producer– batch number

...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga1aSJXCFe0

Depending on who you are – you encounter the (un)expected, the (un)known, the (un)understandable,...


What is the Semantic Web/Linked Data?


What is a triple?

http://dbtune.org/musicbrainz/resource/artist/d87e52c5-bb8d-4da8-b941-9f4928627dc8

ABBA

foaf:name


What is Linked Data? The LOD Cloud


What is Linked Data? Linked Data Principles1. URIs as identifiers

2. http lookup

3. RDF (triples)

4. relations, also to other locations


What is Linked Data good for?• Data integration is (relatively) easy

– Migrating different data sources to linked data is (relatively) easy

• Late schema is easy– Just add some more fields

• Ignoring data is easy– Think of crisps

• Serendipitous use– Discover new information & new sources

by following links

• Data repurposing / pointing– Use what others have done at both schema

and data level

Dealing w

ith the unknown

data and data schema


Issue: From Unknown Data Publishing to Unknown Data (Schema) Understanding

?


State-of-the-Art: One App at a TimeShameless self-promotion: Semaplorer

[Schenk et al., JoWS 2009]

Billion Triples Challenge 1. Prize 2008


State-of-the-Art: One App at a Time

Shameless self-promotion: LISA

1. PrizeGerman Linked Open Gov Data Competition 2012


LENA – A Fresnel application

Fresnel Vocab by [Pietriga et al. ISWC-2006]


What‘s between the two?

One App at a Time

+ Great to use

+ Like DB application- Brittle- Not really extensible

Generic Frameworks

+ Can be applied on all data- Data remains hard to

understand- No process support- Noone wants to use them

?


Facet Navigation in an Open World


Mobile Facets: Exploring Spaces & Events

(Linked) Data Sources• Places and names:

– Wikipedia– GeoNames

• Events– Eventful– Upcoming

• Photos– Flickr

Characteristics:• open list• unknown categories

and items• low quality

categorization• mobile app


Mobile Facets: Exploring Spaces & Events


Conceptual Navigation Model


Hypertextual Navigation (from D. Schwabe)

What does it mean to click here? Semantics is clear, but Pragmatics?

Context + Grice‘s Pertinence!

[Bomfim & Schwabe, 2011]



• Input: LOD + Navigation Model + other stuff

• Navigation Model– A Context is a set of resources that share similar

navigation opportunities.• Context:Navigation ⇔Class:Structure+Behavior

– Navigation Metamodel



Hitting a link of type „Organization“ means different things in different contexts!

Here is one!


Programming with the Unknown


Programming with Linked Data


Programming with Linked Data

Tasks of the Programmer

1 Schema exploration

2 Programming code types

3 Programming queries

4 Programming procedures for

• creating, • manipulating,• persisting

objects

c1


Node Path Query Language with auto completion

Exploration of classes

Exploration of relations

Exploration of instances


LITEQ in Action


NPQL and LITEQ

NPQL (Node Path Query Language)• Intensional Queries describing classes and relations

• Extensional Queries data items

LITEQ (Language Integrated Types, Extensions and Queries) • Implementation of NPQL as F# Type Provider in Visual Studio• Auto completion using NPQL queries• Automatic typing

of extensional query resultsby intensional queries


Outlook: Programming with Linked Data• More expressive query languages

– Derived data types in tractable description logics!

• More precise combined type inference– (derived) type from data source– type inference in programming language

• Programming across data sources– Federated queries– Linktraversal-based queries (the unknown sources)

• Integration of schema induction – Low quality of schema/ontologies

• Improved autocompletion


Tags & Eye TrackingDeriving Semantics from Interaction


Meaning from Cues + Observation

=

car + +

carcar


PragmaticsA theory for interacting with the unknown?


Austin: How to do things with words

Core Hypothesis by Austin:Speech is not only passively describing a given reality, but it can change the (social) reality it is describing through speech acts

Summary from Wikipedia, 2012-06-09


Why Do We Understand the Text Web?



• Phonic act / graphic act:

PopulationIs486,855.

• Locutionary act:

population(Duisburg,486,855)

Grice‘s maxims


Grice‘s Maxims / Cooperative Principle

Interacting agents mutually assume that:• Quantity:

– Be as informative as you possibly can, – give as much information as needed, not more.

• Quality:– Be truthful

• Pertinence:– be relevant,– say things pertinent to the discussion

• Manner:– be clear, brief, orderly as one can – avoid obscurity and ambiguity

Criteria are competing and

overlapping.




PopulationIs486,855.

• Locutionary act:

population(Duisburg, 486,855)

• Illocutionary act:

Inform reader about core characteristic of a city

• Perlocutionary act:

Plan for how to travel, use of taxi/rental car…

Grice‘s maxims



Core Hypothesis by Austin:Speech is not only passively describing a given reality, but it can change the (social) reality it is describing through speech acts

Summary from Wikipedia, 2012-06-09

Hypothesis of this talk: Linked data is facts, but the idea of linked data is also

re-purposing,

⟹ re-presenting,

⟹ re-narrating,

to achieve an understandable dialogue


Data is not TextQuantity:• One triple vs big data

➯ What is the right amount?

Pertinence:• Pertinence to dialogue

➯ Does the discussion/interaction determine data selection?

Manner:• Data is not sequential

➯ No implicit ordering contained in the data (e.g. birthdata before date of death)


Semantic Web / Linked Data


ThetemperatureinMilwaukeeis100°F. - various syntaxes - • Locutionary act:

population(Duisburg, 486,855)

- RDF/OWL interpretation –

Generic applications easily

violate Grice‘s maxims!

Quantity Quality Pertinence Manner

Lead question:Does the Semantic Web have a pragmatics layer?How would this look like?


Conclusion


Syntax

Semantics

Pragmatics

MetamodelsPatternsRankings...


Issue: From Unknown Data Publishing to Unknown Data Understanding

CognitionStorytellingPragmatics

Ontology PatternsConceptual Modeling

Metamodels...

QuantityPertinenceManner


• Size of „unknown“ data is quickly growing• Interaction with „unknown“ data is underexplored• Interaction with the Semantic Web is both

– Challenge– Opportunity

• Example topics/challenges:– What are best Meta-frameworks?– What are best styles of interaction for user-defined

semantics of data?– Conceptual Programming by Non-Programmers

Call-to-arms


Semantic Web

Social Web & Web Retrieval

Interactive Web & Human Computing

Web & Economy

Software & Services

Computational Social Science

Thank You!


LiteratureJ. L. Austin. How to do things with words. Oxford University Press, 1962/1975.

M. H. de S. Bomfim, Daniel Schwabe. Design and Implementation of Linked Data Applications Using SHDM and Synth. Int. Conf. Web Engineering 2011, pp. 121-136.

Chierchia, Gennaro.; McConnell-Ginet, Sally: Meaning and Grammar : An Introduction to Semantics. MIT Press, 1990.

E. Pietriga, C. Bizer, D. Karger, R. Lee: Fresnel: A Browser-Independent Presentation Vocabulary for RDF. International Semantic Web Conference 2006, Springer 158-171.

S. Schenk, C. Saathoff, S. Staab, A. Scherp. SemaPlorer – Interactive Semantic Exploration of Data and Media based on a Federated Cloud Infrastructure. In Journal of Web Semantics. Special issue on Semantic Web Challenge Winners 2008. Elsevier, 7(4), 2009.

Kleinen, A. Scherp, S. Staab. Interactive faceted search and exploration of open social media data on a touchscreen mobile phone. Multimedia Tools and Applications. DOI 10.1007s11042-013-1366-3

M. Konrath, T. Gottron, S. Staab, A. Scherp. SchemEX – Efficient Construction of a Data Catalogue by Stream-based Indexing of Linked Data. In: Journal of Web Semantics. Special issue on Semantic Web Challenge Winners 2011. Elsevier, Volume 16, November 2012, pp. 52-58.

M. Leinberger, S. Scheglmann, R. Lämmel, S. Staab, M. Thimm, E. Viegas. Semantic Web Application Development with LITEQ. In: ISWC-2014, LNCS, Springer 2014

The Semantic Web - Interacting with the Unknown

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