.

.
..

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

Michael Rovatsos
School of Informatics

MASWS 17 January 2011

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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.
. .1 Describing Resources
.
. .2 Dublin Core
.
. .3 Resource Descriptions
.
. .4 RDF Basic Concepts
RDF Graphs and Triples
URIs
.
. .5 Summary

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Data and Metadata

.
Examples, 1
..
pottery fragment: site of discovery

packet of crisps: average salt content

person: date of birth
.

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..

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Data and Metadata

.
Examples, 1
..
pottery fragment: site of discovery

person: date of birth

.
..
.
Examples, 2
..
academic paper: date of publication

packet of crisps: average salt content

map: scale (e.g. 1:25,000)

audio les: sampling rate
digital photo: make of camera used
database entry: who entered the data
web-page: topic
.
Metadata: Data about data
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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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..

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Example from
http://careo.prn.bc.ca/losc/mod2t3.html

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More on metadata

Hillman http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/2003

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

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MASWS 17 January 2011

..
A metadata record consists of a set of attributes, or elements, necessary to
describe
the resource in question.
.
..

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Associating Metadata with a Resource, 1

Embedding: The metadata is physically contained in the resource. Mainly

relevant for digital resources, e.g. as a le header.
.
Embedded metadata (Postscript)
..
%!PS-Adobe-2.0
%%Creator: dvips 5.526 Copyright 1986, 1994 Radical ...
%%Title: Paper.dvi
%%CreationDate: Tue Sep 13 12:38:42 1994
%%Pages: 24
%%BeginProcSet: tex.pro
/TeXDict
250 dict def TeXDict begin /N{def}def ...
.
..

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Associating Metadata with a Resource, 2

Aboutness: The metadata is a separate resource, and points to the

resource it is about.

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Associating Metadata with a Resource, 2

Aboutness: The metadata is a separate resource, and points to the

resource it is about.
.
Resource Identiers
..
What scheme can we use for globally identifying resources?

.
..

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Associating Metadata with a Resource, 2

Aboutness: The metadata is a separate resource, and points to the

resource it is about.
.
Resource Identiers
..
What scheme can we use for globally identifying resources?

.
..

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

digital resources: use URIs (Uniform Resource Identiers)

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Associating Metadata with a Resource, 2

Aboutness: The metadata is a separate resource, and points to the

resource it is about.
.
Resource Identiers
..
What scheme can we use for globally identifying resources?

digital resources: use URIs (Uniform Resource Identiers)

Similar to URLs, but more general: URIs dont have to be addressable.

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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

.
..

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Advantage of Explicit Metadata

Discovering resources, both by software agents and by humans (searching,

browsing).

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Advantage of Explicit Metadata

Discovering resources, both by software agents and by humans (searching,

browsing).
Compare web with a structured database:

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

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MASWS 17 January 2011

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Advantage of Explicit Metadata

Discovering resources, both by software agents and by humans (searching,

browsing).
Compare web with a structured database:
I

database records can be searched according to the eld

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Advantage of Explicit Metadata

Discovering resources, both by software agents and by humans (searching,

browsing).
Compare web with a structured database:
database records can be searched according to the eld

.
DB Query
..
SELECT
Author, Title
FROM
Catalogue
WHERE
Author = "Burns"
.
..

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Advantage of Explicit Metadata

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Formal Metadata Schemes

Library catalogue cards adopt informal conventions for expressing

metadata.

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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Formal Metadata Schemes

Library catalogue cards adopt informal conventions for expressing

metadata.
What about formal conventions for recording computer-based metadata?

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Formal Metadata Schemes

Library catalogue cards adopt informal conventions for expressing

metadata.
What about formal conventions for recording computer-based metadata?
Especially metadata about digital objects

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Formal Metadata Schemes

Library catalogue cards adopt informal conventions for expressing

metadata.
What about formal conventions for recording computer-based metadata?
Especially metadata about digital objects
Example: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative

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Dublin Core (DC)

Initiated by librarians

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Dublin Core (DC)

Initiated by librarians
Well established and widely used metadata standard

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Dublin Core (DC)

Initiated by librarians
Well established and widely used metadata standard
15 elements for describing resources

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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Dublin Core (DC)

Initiated by librarians
Well established and widely used metadata standard
15 elements for describing resources
a small language for making a particular class of statements about resources

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Dublin Core (DC)

Initiated by librarians
Well established and widely used metadata standard
15 elements for describing resources
a small language for making a particular class of statements about resources
The resource is the implicit subject of the statements

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Dublin Core (DC)

Initiated by librarians
Well established and widely used metadata standard
15 elements for describing resources
a small language for making a particular class of statements about resources
The resource is the implicit subject of the statements
.
Example of DC Statements
..
Title
= "A Red, Red Rose"
Creator = "Robert Burns"
Date
= 1794
Type
= poem
.
..

.
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

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Simple DC Elements

.
DCMES
..
Content

Intellectual Property

Instantiation

Coverage
Description
Type
Relation
Title
Subject
Source

Creator
Contributor
Publisher
Rights

Date
Format
Identier
Language

.
..
DCMES = Dublin Core Metadata Element Set

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How Elements are Dened

.
Creator
.
..
An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource.
Examples of Creator include a person, an organization, or a service. Typically,
the
. name of a Creator should be used to indicate the entity.
..
.
.
Format
.
..
The physical or digital manifestation of the resource.
Typically, Format may include the media-type or dimensions of the resource.
Format may be used to identify the software, hardware, or other equipment
.needed to display or operate the resource.
..
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

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MASWS 17 January 2011

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More on elements

Elements are not functions: they can be repeated.

.
Repeated Elements
..
Title = "In the Heart of the Moon"
Creator = "Ali Farke Tour"
Creator
= "Toumani Diabat"
.
..

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More on elements

Elements are not functions: they can be repeated.

.
Repeated Elements
..
Title = "In the Heart of the Moon"
Creator = "Ali Farke Tour"
Creator
= "Toumani Diabat"
.
..

There is no mandatory constraint on element values; but recommended

best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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More on elements

Elements are not functions: they can be repeated.

.
Repeated Elements
..
Title = "In the Heart of the Moon"
Creator = "Ali Farke Tour"
Creator
= "Toumani Diabat"
.
..

There is no mandatory constraint on element values; but recommended

best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary.
Some DC Qualiers (next slide) provide the latter.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

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Simple and Qualied Dublin Core

Simple DC: 15 elements listed above

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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Simple and Qualied Dublin Core

Simple DC: 15 elements listed above

Qualied DC:

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Simple and Qualied Dublin Core

Simple DC: 15 elements listed above

Qualied DC:

Additional 3 elements: Audience, Provenance and

RightsHolder

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Simple and Qualied Dublin Core

Simple DC: 15 elements listed above

Qualied DC:

Additional 3 elements: Audience, Provenance and

RightsHolder
Qualiers these extend or rene the original 15
elements

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Qualiers: Renement

.
Element Renement
..
Making
the meaning of an element more specic.
.
..

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Qualiers: Renement

.
Element Renement
..
Making
the meaning of an element more specic.
.
..
.
Example: Renements of Date
..
Used when more than one date is needed.

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

dateSubmitted = 2001-01-31
dateAccepted
= 2001-10-01
.
..

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Qualiers: Encoding Scheme

.
Encoding Scheme
.
..
Provides controlled vocabulary or formatting structure to aid interpretation of
an
. element value.
..
.

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Qualiers: Encoding Scheme

Language
= eng
.
..

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

.
Encoding Scheme
.
..
Provides controlled vocabulary or formatting structure to aid interpretation of
an
. element value.
..
.
.
Example: Controlled Vocabulary for Language
.
..
Value of Language element is selected from list registered by ISO 639-2 (Alpha-3
Code)

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Qualiers: Encoding Scheme

Language
= eng
.
..
.
Example: YYYY-MM-DD format for dates (W3CDTF)
..
dateSubmitted
= 2001-01-31
.
..
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

.
Encoding Scheme
.
..
Provides controlled vocabulary or formatting structure to aid interpretation of
an
. element value.
..
.
.
Example: Controlled Vocabulary for Language
.
..
Value of Language element is selected from list registered by ISO 639-2 (Alpha-3
Code)

.
.

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Finding out more about Dublin Core

http://dublincore.org main web site for DC Initiative

.
DC Metadata for MASWS Homepage
.
..
<meta name="DC.title" content="Multi Agent Semantic Web Systems" />
<meta name="DC.creator" content="Ewan Klein" />
<meta name="DC.publisher" content="School of Informatics, ..." />
<meta
name="DC.date" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" content="2010-01-16" />
.
..
.

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Finding out more about Dublin Core

http://dublincore.org main web site for DC Initiative

http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide Using Dublin
Core: a good and readable introduction

.
DC Metadata for MASWS Homepage
.
..
<meta name="DC.title" content="Multi Agent Semantic Web Systems" />
<meta name="DC.creator" content="Ewan Klein" />
<meta name="DC.publisher" content="School of Informatics, ..." />
<meta
name="DC.date" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" content="2010-01-16" />
.
..
.

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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

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Finding out more about Dublin Core

http://dublincore.org main web site for DC Initiative

http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide Using Dublin
Core: a good and readable introduction
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dcdot.pl tool that
generates Dublin Core metadata for any web page

.
DC Metadata for MASWS Homepage
.
..
<meta name="DC.title" content="Multi Agent Semantic Web Systems" />
<meta name="DC.creator" content="Ewan Klein" />
<meta name="DC.publisher" content="School of Informatics, ..." />
<meta
name="DC.date" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" content="2010-01-16" />
.
..
.

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Generalizing the notion of Resource

In the Semantic Web vision, anything can be a resource.

The data / metadata distinction is blurred.
Challenge: representing knowledge about resources on a web-scale.

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Challenges to controlled vocabulary

.
Johann Strauss
.
..
Title = "Wiener Waltz"
Creator
= "Johann Strauss"
.
..
.
.
Wikipedia Entry
.
..
Johann Strauss I (1804-1849), or Johann Strauss Sr., composer, popularizer
of the waltz
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899), or Johann Strauss Jr., composer, known as
the Waltz King, son of Johann I

.
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

.
..

Johann Strauss III (1866-1939), composer, son of Eduard Strauss and

grandson of Johann I

21 / 34

More on Identiers

Problems with ambiguous names.

Problems with synonymous names.
.
Synonyms (Aliases)
..
J. Strauss I
Johann Strauss Vater
Johan Strauss, Sr.
Johann Strau sr.
Johann Straus sr.
Johann Strauss Sr
Johann
Strauss Snr.
.
..

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Unique Identiers, 1

DBPedia (http://dbpedia.org): semi-automatic transformation of

Wikipedia into RDF.
Every resource that is the subject of a page in Wikipedia has a
corresponding URI in DBpedia.
.
DBPedia URIs
..
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_I
DBpedia:
http://DBpedia.org/resource/Johann_Strauss_I
.
..

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Unique Identiers, 2

MusicBrainz (http://musicbrainz.org): user-maintained

metadatabase for music
Collects and makes available information such as artist name, release title,
and the list of tracks that appear on a release.
Each artist receives an ArtistID

http://musicbrainz.org/artist/UUID, where UUID is a (128-bit)

Universally Unique Identier in its 36 character ASCII representation.
.
MusicBrainz ArtistID
..
Name:
Johann Strauss I
UUID:
725fb443-0a26-42f8-b4b7-5257b3a61eb5
.
..

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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RDF Background

Dublin Core provides a syntax and a vocabulary for talking about resources.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

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RDF Background

Dublin Core provides a syntax and a vocabulary for talking about resources.
The vocabulary is given by the elements (Title, Creator, Format, )

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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RDF Background

Dublin Core provides a syntax and a vocabulary for talking about resources.
The vocabulary is given by the elements (Title, Creator, Format, )
Lots of different, specialized vocabularies for talking about different objects
/ domains.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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RDF Background

Dublin Core provides a syntax and a vocabulary for talking about resources.
The vocabulary is given by the elements (Title, Creator, Format, )
Lots of different, specialized vocabularies for talking about different objects
/ domains.
W3C decided to build infrastructure where users can make assertions
using their own vocabularies:

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

25 / 34

RDF Background

Dublin Core provides a syntax and a vocabulary for talking about resources.
The vocabulary is given by the elements (Title, Creator, Format, )
Lots of different, specialized vocabularies for talking about different objects
/ domains.
W3C decided to build infrastructure where users can make assertions
using their own vocabularies:
I

Resource Description Framework (RDF)

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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RDF Background

Dublin Core provides a syntax and a vocabulary for talking about resources.
The vocabulary is given by the elements (Title, Creator, Format, )
Lots of different, specialized vocabularies for talking about different objects
/ domains.
W3C decided to build infrastructure where users can make assertions
using their own vocabularies:
I

Resource Description Framework (RDF)

RDF Working Group established in 1997

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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RDF Data Model

Resource

Property

Literal value

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

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RDF Data Model

Resource

Property

Literal value

Resource

Property

Resource

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RDF Example 1

http://amusic.com/aft.mp3

year

2005

title

In the Heart of
the Moon

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RDF Example 1

http://amusic.com/aft.mp3

year

2005

title
artist
In the Heart of
the Moon

http://africanmusic.org/artists/alifarka.html

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Syntax: Dublin Core vs. RDF

.
Dublin Core
..
Title = "In the Heart of the Moon"
Date = "2005"
Identifier = dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon
Creator
= dbpedia:Ali_Farka_Tour
.
..

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Syntax: Dublin Core vs. RDF

.
Dublin Core
..
Title = "In the Heart of the Moon"
Date = "2005"
Identifier = dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon
Creator
= dbpedia:Ali_Farka_Tour
.
..
.
RDF Style
..

.
..

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon dc:title "In the Heart of the Moon" .

dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon dc:date "2005" .
dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon dc:creator dbpedia:Ali_Farka_Tour .

28 / 34

RDF Syntax
RDF statements identify a resource being described; a specic property;
and value of the property.
Terminology:
I subject (e.g., dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon)
I predicate (e.g., dc:date)
I object (e.g., ''2005'')

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RDF Syntax
RDF statements identify a resource being described; a specic property;
and value of the property.
Terminology:
I subject (e.g., dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon)
I predicate (e.g., dc:date)
I object (e.g., ''2005'')
.
RDF Triples
..

.
predicate
z }| {
dc : date

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

object
z }| {
2005 .

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

subject
z
}|
{
. dbpedia : In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon
..

29 / 34

RDF Syntax
RDF statements identify a resource being described; a specic property;
and value of the property.
Terminology:
I subject (e.g., dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon)
I predicate (e.g., dc:date)
I object (e.g., ''2005'')
.
RDF Triples
..

.
predicate
z }| {
dc : date

object
z }| {
2005 .
.

subject
z
}|
{
. dbpedia : In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon
..

objects can be literals (e.g. strings) or resources.

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Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

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RDF Syntax
RDF statements identify a resource being described; a specic property;
and value of the property.
Terminology:
I subject (e.g., dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon)
I predicate (e.g., dc:date)
I object (e.g., ''2005'')
.
RDF Triples
..

.
predicate
z }| {
dc : date

object
z }| {
2005 .
.

subject
z
}|
{
. dbpedia : In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon
..

objects can be literals (e.g. strings) or resources.

subjects can only be resources.

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RDF Syntax
RDF statements identify a resource being described; a specic property;
and value of the property.
Terminology:
I subject (e.g., dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon)
I predicate (e.g., dc:date)
I object (e.g., ''2005'')
.
RDF Triples
..

.
predicate
z }| {
dc : date

object
z }| {
2005 .
.

subject
z
}|
{
. dbpedia : In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon
..

objects can be literals (e.g. strings) or resources.

subjects can only be resources.
more usual relational syntax:
date(dbpedia:In_the_Heart_of_the_Moon, "2005")
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Processing RDF Statements

RDF is designed to make machine-processable statements.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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Processing RDF Statements

RDF is designed to make machine-processable statements.

Two things required:

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

30 / 34

Processing RDF Statements

RDF is designed to make machine-processable statements.

Two things required:

...
1

a machine-processable syntax for expressing RDF statements

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

30 / 34

Processing RDF Statements

RDF is designed to make machine-processable statements.

Two things required:

...
1

a machine-processable syntax for expressing RDF statements usually XML

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

30 / 34

Processing RDF Statements

RDF is designed to make machine-processable statements.

Two things required:

....
..
1
2

a machine-processable syntax for expressing RDF statements usually XML

a machine-processable system for unambiguously identifying subjects,
predicates and objects

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

30 / 34

Processing RDF Statements

RDF is designed to make machine-processable statements.

Two things required:

....
..
1
2

a machine-processable syntax for expressing RDF statements usually XML

a machine-processable system for unambiguously identifying subjects,
predicates and objects URIs

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

30 / 34

URIs

Uniform Resource Identier (URI): a simple and extensible means for

identifying a resource.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

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URIs

Uniform Resource Identier (URI): a simple and extensible means for

identifying a resource.

.
Examples of Resources
.
..
an electronic document, an image, a source of information with a consistent
purpose (e.g., todays weather report for Los Angeles), a service (e.g., an
HTTP-to-SMS
gateway), a collection of other resources
.
..
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

31 / 34

URIs

Uniform Resource Identier (URI): a simple and extensible means for

identifying a resource.

.
Examples of Resources
.
..
an electronic document, an image, a source of information with a consistent
purpose (e.g., todays weather report for Los Angeles), a service (e.g., an
HTTP-to-SMS
gateway), a collection of other resources
.
..
.
Uniform Resource Location (URL): a special kind of URI that species a
network location.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

31 / 34

URIs

Uniform Resource Identier (URI): a simple and extensible means for

identifying a resource.

.
Examples of Resources
.
..
an electronic document, an image, a source of information with a consistent
purpose (e.g., todays weather report for Los Angeles), a service (e.g., an
HTTP-to-SMS
gateway), a collection of other resources
.
..
.
Uniform Resource Location (URL): a special kind of URI that species a
network location.
A URI does not need to identify a network-accessible resource.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

31 / 34

More on URIs
.
Example URIs
..
.. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
1
.2. http://www.example.com/my/fictitious/example
.3. ftp://ftp.is.co.za/rfc/rfc1808.txt
4

mailto:[email protected]

news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix

..

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

.
.
.
...
...
.

32 / 34

More on URIs
.
Example URIs
..
.. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
1
.2. http://www.example.com/my/fictitious/example
.3. ftp://ftp.is.co.za/rfc/rfc1808.txt
4

mailto:[email protected]

news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix

..

.
.
.
...
...
.

(1)(2) are HTTP URIs.

Originally intended to identify information resources (or documents), i.e.,
things which
I
I

carry some semantic content;

can be represented digitally.
.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

32 / 34

Summary, 1

Dublin Core is a good concrete illustration of a formal metadata scheme.

Motivation: more effective methods for nding resources on the web.
Illustrates a protracted standardization effort (started in 1994, DCMES
became an ISO standard in 2003).
Simple language: restricted set of elements, key-value pairs
Some extensibility via qualiers.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

33 / 34

Summary, 2

Metadata inevitably leads to describing concrete resources (e.g., people)

But names are often ambiguous, and hard for machines to deal with.
I

China: than 1.1 billion people share just 129 surnames (cf. Identity Crisis
paper reference at http://sites.google.com/site/masws09/uris).

Various approaches for generating unique identifers for resources.

I

E.g., OpenID for people.

Michael Rovatsos (School of Informatics)

Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems: Data & Metadata

MASWS 17 January 2011

34 / 34