1. Developing “Geo” Ontology Layers for Web Query Faculty of Design & Technology Conference - 2005-12-07 David George, Department of Computing

2. Focus of this Presentation The Web - a “global information space”, with information issues. Ontology – what is it and how can it be used? Semantic Web - as method of linking (or integrating) information and knowledge using Ontology. Research area: “Geographical Ontology Layers for Query Purposes”. >>

3. The Global Information Space

4. The Web – a Global Information Space Graphical representation of World Wide Web around Google (from Wikipedia, a Web-based free-content encyclopaedia) GNU Free Documentation License

5. Information issues - Web queries Google queryPage results Cook130,000,000 “New Zealand”230,000,000 Cook discovered “New Zealand”950,000 “Cook discovered New Zealand”167

6. Ontologies

7. Ontologies – what are they? In Computing - ontology is a formal vocabulary defining basic terms and concepts of a topic area (“universe of discourse”) e.g. medicine, manufacturing, geography, etc. An Ontology defines: concepts and their attributes. relationships between concepts. constraints on those relationships.

8. Geographical Ontology (extract)

9. Semantic Web

10. What is the Semantic Web? Project aimed to make web pages ”understandable” by computers. Universal medium for information exchange by giving meaning or semantics. Semantic Web solution based on RDF and OWL Ontology XML-based languages (W3C, 2004).

11. Semantics on the Web Based on RDF triple (subject, property, object) – termed a binary directed relationship, e.g.: discovered(Cook, New Zealand) same as: RDF is a graph-based model for describing how Internet resources relate to each other (e.g. Web pages).

12. WWW and Semantic Web a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a Current WWWSemantic Web (Kiryakov et al, 2004)

13. WWW and Semantic Web

14. Graduate School Scenario

15. RDF/XML Serialisation <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:info="http://www.dgeorge.com/vocabulary/pim/info#"> David George Research Student RDF Graph of linked resources RDF Directed Graph David George Research Student

16. Geographic Ontology Layers and the Semantic Web

17. Geographical Ontology (extract)

18. Geographic Ontology Layers Water Utility relief pipelines rivers LA. Planning housing economic population

19. Geographic Ontology Layers

20. Road Transportation & Populations

22. OWL Ontology Language

23. Linked Ontology Layers Updated Grid Refs. [1] based on Ordnance Survey Positional Accuracy Improvement programme. [1] http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/gi/nationalgrid/nghelp1.html http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/gi/nationalgrid/nghelp1.html

24. Say two Local authorities were considering a planning application for a Chemical factory extension? The plant was 200 metres from a nearby school. What other examples of planning approvals exist? I.e. are there precedents for rejection or approval? Queries using an Ontology

25. LA x LA y “Chemical_Plant” “Chemical_Factory”

26. Querying the Ontology: OWL-QL based on RDF triple of (subject, predicate, object) Query to find other LA terms: {(subclassOf ?x Chemical_Process_Unit)} Then apply further queries based on retrieved information.....

27. Early Conclusions Ontology – requires complex specification. Issues of how organisation databases can be transformed into Semantic Web data. Need to consider the the Query process.