Saturday, September 30, 2006

Ontologies

Ontologies: "Imagine that you have a beaker capable of holding 10cc of a liquid and you pour 5cc of water into it. Some people would say that the beaker is half-full ... others would say that it is half-empty ... and some would say that it is filled to one-half of its capacity or that it merely contains 5cc of water.

The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that we can portray the same item in various ways, with each representing a different perspective or mindset. Thus, when selections are made from the set of possible portraits and are then gathered together in the conceptual framework known as an ontology, the result is but one of several possible vistas."

Towards semantic web agents: Knowledge Web and AgentLink

Towards semantic web agents: Knowledge Web and AgentLink: "This paper presents an overview on the role of agents in the Semantic Web, that was the topic of the AgentLink Technical Forum Group on "Semantic Web Agents", aimed at fostering closer collaboration between the European communities working in these areas. The paper is structured in three main sections. In the first one, we argue how agents are an essential component of the Semantic Web, then we provide a brief history, by no means comprehensive, of how the Semantic Web vision -- that includes agents -- has evolved in the past fifteen years. We then conclude reporting on the topics presented and discussed during the Technical Forum."