Add 'meaning' to documents put on WWW

By: Samir Mishra

Introduction

The worldwide web in its current form is a mesh of information, which can be consumed by the human beings. But Semantic web promises a step further where the machines can understand the information available on the web as well.

Semantic Web is a Project from World Wide Web Consortium, which will enable a universal medium for information exchange by putting documents on World Wide Web. This will enable computers to access documents, which are put onto World Wide Web using the meanings the documents make. Currently under the direction of Sir Tim Berner Lee, Semantic web extends current web using Standard Markup Language and the related processing tool.

In other words is a mesh of information, which can be understood by machines. Currently the information available on web can be used by human beings only. The information available today cannot be interpreted by machines. Semantic web is the solution to make that information interpretable by machines.

What is Semantics?

This is the first question that comes in our mind. What is Semantics? As per Wikipedia "Semantics refers to the aspects of Meaning that are expressed in Language, Code or other form of representation."

Semantics is the study that relates signs to things in the world and patterns of signs to corresponding patterns that occur among the things the signs refer to.

Then the Question comes is What am I doing with Semantics? How is Semantics related to Computer Science? In computer science, Semantics is considered in part as an application of mathematical logic. Semantics reflects the meaning of programs.

Application of Mathematical Logic

 Application of Mathematical Logic is Applying Mathematical Logic or Usage of Mathematical Logic. In order to understand what it means it is better to understand the Mathematical Logic First.

Mathematical Logic

is a specialized sub-field of mathematics where we deal with Formal Systems in relation to the mathematical concepts like Sets, Numbers and computations etc. It has an important role to play in the Study of Foundation of Mathematics. It is not much of the Logic of Mathematics rather instead it is Mathematics of Logic. It deals with those parts of the logic which can be modeled and studied mathematically and also includes area of pure mathematics like Model Theory and Recursion Theory.

What is Meaning?

In previous sections we talked a lot about Meaning. The next question, which comes to our mind, is What is Meaning? What do we mean by Meaning?

While representing Knowledge in the system we need to ask all the wh-questions to find out what the entity is all about. A meaning of an entity gives all possible details about the entity including its purpose, state, type and also answers question pertaining to its existence.

Why do we need Semantic Web?

Currently the World-Wide Web is a collection of Web Pages containing different kind of information. There is no existing technology, which can link these millions of pages of information based on the context (or meaning). As discussed earlier the limitations we have today are that only human beings understand the information available on web.

Then comes the tedious process of finding that information. While different search engines have made the search process easy, but they cannot guarantee the relevance of the search result or how close it is to what we are looking for. We do not have a search mechanism today where we can put different criteria for search like the purpose and kind of entities we are after. The search operation uses the keyword to retrieve the pages from web.

The web in its current form means so many different things to so many different people. The Semantic web is going to multiply this versatile face of web by thousand folds. It could be anything ranging from which devices will communicate to each other, or help in making corporate decisions or trusting and existing document on the web. There are infinite usages of semantic web in future applicable to almost every day-to-day activity.

How can one participate?

There are many ways in which one can contribute to creating the Semantic Web. Here are a few of them:

o Publish some globally useful data in RDF.

o Write an inference engine in the language of your choice.

o Spread the word: do some education and outreach.

o Help in the development of RDF Schema and/or DAML.

o Contribute in representing state in RDF, a rather neglected field of research.

o Apply your own development backgrounds to the Semantic Web, give us all a new angle to consider it from.

o Instead of using some proprietary system for your next application, consider making it a Semantic Web project instead.

These are just few ways one can be part of this evolution. There are many semantic web related communities around the world.

Future of Semantic Web and Related Technologies

Whatever be the cause, there is something in store for everyone in Semantic Web. It's a journey which is already in progress and the destination is far from being in sight. But there have been significant progresses made so far and its been exciting too. The possibilities are endless, and even if we don't ever achieve all of them, the journey will most certainly be its own reward.

About the Author

Samir is a software professional with over 10 years of experience in various phases of software development life cycle. He has extensive knowledge of Architectural and Design patterns. He is currently working on Project based on Semantic Database and blogs at http://semanticdb.blogspot.com/