drC Zone

Jena SemWeb Servlet now does OWL

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:36:58 +0000

Having been working on understanding the Jena (Java-based) Semantic Web framework API and finally have something to show for it - a servlet that does semantic web deduction using either RDFS or OWL deduction. The link is:

http://neo.engr.smu.edu:8080/JenaServlet/JenaOwl

I’ve set up a data file and a schema file available as URLs. The semantics are:

Rollo is a person who enjoys the NBA (data file)
NBA is a SportsTeamInterest (data file)
A SportsTeamInterest is a subClassOf SportsInterest (schema file) — this means that anything that is a SportsTeamInterest is ALSO a SportsInterest
An (OWL) class called SportsFan is defined (using the OWL restriction capability) as consisting of anyone who :enjoys something that is a SportsInterest (schema file)
Taken literally, rollo enjoys the NBA which is a kind of SportsTeamInterest
Inferencing will conclude that the NBA is ALSO a SportsInterest so that,
Rollo is a SportsFan!

To try it out, there are sample data and schema files at:

http://lyle.smu.edu/~coyle/cse7347/semweb/foafData.n3

http://lyle.smu.edu/~coyle/cse7347/semweb/foafSchema.n3

The schema file defines the class and subclass relationships. The data file defines things that are instances of classes.

The servlet takes a baseurl parameter that makes it easier to type in the full URLs for schema and data file. Try out a test with this run servlet link.

You can examine the URL to see the parameters needed to trigger the deduction. What you get back does not display well in the browser but if you look at page source, you’ll see the N3 that results. (Lots of other stuff gets deduced here related to the OWL inferencing process, but it can be useful to see what is going on behind the scenes)

What to read?

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:52:25 +0000

How to keep up? What should the techno literati be tracking in the universe of data, posts, articles, blogs, tweets and more? Some URLs of interest:

XML News from Robin Cover. Cover harvests everything related to XML and packages it in bytesize chunks.
Security insights from Bruce Schneier http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html. Bruce is THE MAN when it comes to security.
Slashdot.org — one can subscribe and get the lastest tech news via email.

On twitter where I follow Tim O’Reilly, publisher of all those great tech-animal books. I have picked up lots of good info from his micoblogs and links.
Also, check out my microblogs, hopefully not too banal: http://www.twitter.com/frankc101

Semantic Web Microblogging

admin — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:33:55 +0000

Been following the New Semantic Net at robocrunch.com, new portal concentrating on semantic technologies for Net 3.0.
It’s an interesting approach to generating semantic web content via microblogging (twitter).
See http://tinyurl.com/bagola to find our more, but the basic idea is to tweet and include RDF embedded in tweets. Very cool idea. For example:

#define city: New York City, New York, NYC [ state: New York; country: USA ]
#has [ borough: Manhattan; county: New York]
#has [ borough: Brooklyn; county: Kings ]
#has [ borough: Queens; county:Queens ]
#has [ borough: The Bronx; county:Bronx ]
#has [ borough: Staten Island; county:Richmond ]
#has [ team: New York Yankees; sport: baseball ]
#has [ team: New York Mets; sport: baseball ]
#has [ team: New York Jets; sport: football ]
#has [ team: New York Giants; sport: football ]
#has [ team: New York Knicks; sport: basketball ]

Over time this can build to an interesting semantic net.

Susan Boyle Video

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:43:24 +0000

talk about inspiration. check out the susan boyle video on youTube
serious tweets for it.

Visual Interface for MySQL

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:33:50 +0000

Found an interesting MySQL tool called Toad - for MySQL database development and admin. Let’s you rapidly creating and execute queries, manage complex database systems. Free for MySQL, costs for Oracle. Looks interesting. check it out at: http://www.toadsoft.com/

John Maeda at Web 2.0 Expo

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:17:28 +0000

O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo is over. Lots of good stuff. One of the interesting keynotes was by John Maeda of RISD. Check it out the video of his talk

phonegap.com

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:33:41 +0000

The question of what phone platform to develop for is not trivial. Android, iPhone, Nokia, and beyond, require the user to choose and then figure out how to port their apps to another platform. phonegap.com comes in a says, use html, javascript, css, to maximize cross platform action, then connect where necessary to phone platform specific APIs.

Web 2.0

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:37:45 +0000

The morning sun coming in over Union Square park

Attending the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference. Caught two workshops, one on Andriod Development the other on creating social maps as part of developing a coherent web strategy. Both great.

leveraging social networks as part of your web strategy

admin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:48:52 +0000

Social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter are opening up new opportunities for entrepreneurs to leverage their connections and expand their markets. I recently caught Marc Andreessen, one of the Netscape founders, on Charlie Rose, talking about his new social network platform called Ning. Andreessen believes that going forward one will want to maximum distribution across the largest number of users via a single back-end, and then multiple sets of front-end pages including:

One set of standard HTML and Javascript pages for consumption by normal web browser.
Another set of HTML and Javascript pages that use the Open Social API’s Javascript calls for consumption with Open Social containers/social networks.
A third set of pages in FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that use Facebook’s proprietary APIs for consumption within Facebook as a Facebook app.
Perhaps a fourth set of pages adapted for the Apple iPhone and/or other mobile devices.

The key of course is the content and then the distribution across different formats. How is that possible. XML of course! Check out what Marc has to say about mobile delivery of content on Charlie Rose.

tweet time

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:51:33 +0000

Twitter is hot. The social networking website that allows users 140 characters to tell their followers what they’re doing ‘right now, even has congress on the Twitter bandwagon. As Obama addressed Congress last night, several senators and representatives pulled out their BlackBerrys and started tweeting. A few days earlier, on Feb 19, the NY Times lead story in the Styles Section was titled There’s Trouble in the Tweets, talking about how the fashionista cognoscenti were tweet dueling to see who could spread the latest goings-on re: Fashion Week. The take-away? If you’re not aware of the power of the tweet, it’s time to get busy. http://twitter.com/