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Web Ontology Language Design and Related Tools: a Survey JOURNAL OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN WEB INTELLIGENCE, VOL. 3, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2011 47 Web Ontology Language Design and Related Tools: A Survey Farheen Siddiqui (Hamdard University, India [email protected]) M. Afshar Alam (Hamdard University, India [email protected]) Abstract— The foundation of the semantic web lies OWL 2 [1] is ontology language for the Semantic firmly on a strong foundation of Web Ontology Web, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium Language(OWL). OWL was developed by World (W3C) Web Ontology Working Group. The OWL Web Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Ontology Ontology Language is intended to provide a language that Working Group and has features from several can be used to describe the classes and relations between families of representation languages. OWL also shares them that are inherent in Web documents and many characteristics with RDF, the W3C base of the applications. In simpler words OWL represents Semantic Web. This paper will discuss how the information about categories of objects pertaining to a “thought process” behind OWL can be connected to specific domain and their interdependencies—the its older formalisms, with modifications due to the “domain mode” that is often called an ontology. OWL functionalities that OWL had to give. A smooth move can also represent information about the objects from RDF to OWL is made possible by handling themselves—the sort of information that is often thought every possible situation of RDF in OWL. Also various of as data. species of OWL are discussed with their features and OWL is an effort in W3C’s Semantic Web activity, restrictions. The recent development in ontology and is compatible with XML and RDF. OWL is primarily engineering and the immense tool support for OWL is used to formalize a domain by defining classes and a conformance of its acceptability. properties of those classes, defining individuals and assert properties about them, and reason about these classes and individuals to the degree permitted by the formal Index Terms— Ontologies, Semantic Web, semantics of the OWL language. Before the development Description Logics, Frames, RDF of OWL there was already several ontology languages designed for use in the Web thus OWL had to maintain a upward compatibility with earlier web languages to ensure its smooth adaptability. I. INTRODUCTION The multiple influences on OWL resulted in some Ontologies have become a very popular topic, not only difficult trade-offs. OWL is devised in such a way that it in AI but also in other disciplines of computing. There could be shown to have various desirable features, while are also efforts focused on developing ontologies in many still retaining sufficient compatibility with its roots. This other branches of science and technology. Hence paper describes some of the trade-offs and design ontologies are growing fast into a distinct scientific field decisions that had to be made by the Web Ontology with its own theories, formalisms, and approaches. The Working Group during the design of OWL and its tool major purpose of ontologies is not to serve as support After a brief introduction and quick survey of vocabularies and taxonomies; it is knowledge sharing and OWL in Section II , in Section III we present influences knowledge reuse by applications. Every ontology on design of OWL and section IV discusses different provides a description of the concepts and relationships ontology language that preceded OWL. The issues related that can exist in a domain and that can be shared and to OWL design are discussed in Section V and section VI reused among intelligent agents and applications. gives details of how these issues were addressed .OWL Moreover, working agents and applications should be versions are discussed in VII and section VIII discusses able to communicate such ontological knowledge. Shared current trends in ontology engineering and tool support. ontologies let us build specific knowledge bases that describe specific situations but clearly rely on the same underlying knowledge structure and organization. © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER doi:10.4304/jetwi.3.1.47-59 48 JOURNAL OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN WEB INTELLIGENCE, VOL. 3, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2011 II. OWL OVERVIEW – Web services, where they can provide rich service descriptions that can help in locating suitable services. Ontology is a term borrowed from philosophy that In order to support these and other usage scenarios, refers to the science of describing the kinds of entities in OWL takes the basic fact-stating ability of RDF [8] and the world and how they are related. Informally, the the class- and property-structuring capabilities of RDF ontology of a certain domain is about its terminology Schema [6] and extends them in important ways. OWL (domain vocabulary), all essential concepts in the can declare classes, and organize these classes in a domain, their classification, their taxonomy, their “subclass” hierarchy, as can RDF Schema. OWL classes relations (including all important hierarchies and can be specified as logical combinations (intersections, constraints), and domain axioms. According to Dragan unions, or complements) of other classes, or as Gaˇsevi´c · etal [9] I”f someone who wants to discuss enumerations of specified objects, going beyond the topics in a domain D using a language L, an ontology capabilities of RDFS. OWL can also declare properties, provides a catalog of the types of things assumed to exist organize these properties into a “subproperty” hierarchy, in D;the types in the ontology are represented in terms of and provide domains and ranges for these properties, the concepts, relations, and predicates of L”. again as in RDFS. The domains of OWL properties are Both formally and informally, the ontology is an OWL classes, and ranges can be either OWL classes or extremely important part of the knowledge about any externally-defined datatypes such as string or integer. domain. Moreover, the ontology is the fundamental part OWL can state that a property is transitive, symmetric, of the knowledge, and all other knowledge should rely on functional, or is the inverse of another property, here it and refer to it. In the context of the Semantic Web, again extending RDFS. ontologies are expected to play an important role in OWL can express which objects (also called helping automated processes (so called “intelligent “individuals”) belong to which classes, and what the agents”) to access information. Generally ontologies property values are of specific individuals. Equivalence provide a number of useful features for intelligent statements can be made on classes and on properties, systems, as well as for knowledge representation in disjoint statements can be made on classes, and equality general and for the knowledge engineering process. In and inequality can be asserted between individuals. particular, ontologies are expected to be used to provide However, the major extension over RDFS is the ability in structured vocabularies that explicate the relationships OWL to provide restrictions on how properties behave between different terms, allowing intelligent agents (and that are local to a class. OWL can define classes where a humans) to interpret their meaning flexibly yet particular property is restricted so that all the values for unambiguously. Ontology specifies terms with the property in instances of the class must belong to a unambiguous meanings, with semantics independent of certain class (or datatype); at least one value must come reader and context. Translating the terms in ontology from a certain class (or datatype); there must be at least from one language to another does not change the certain specific values; and there must be at least or at ontology conceptually. Thus ontology provides a most a certain number of distinct values. For example, vocabulary and a machine-processable common using RDFS we can understanding of the topics that the terms denote. The – declare classes like StudyProgaram, Courses, and meanings of the terms in ontology can be communicated student; between users and applications. – state that RegularStudent is a subclass of Student; With OWL we can additionally The OWL Web Ontology Language is a language for – RegularStudent and ParttimeStudent are disjoint defining and instantiating Web ontologies. OWL classes; ontology may include descriptions of classes, properties – RegularStudent is equivalent to Student with and their instances. Given such ontology, the OWL EnrollIn property value from RegularCourse formal semantics specifies how to derive its logical – Instructs and HasInstructor are inverse properties consequences, i.e. facts not literally present in the – A StudyProgram should have minimum of 5 Courses ontology, but entailed by the semantics. These – Enrollment is a functional property. entailments may be based on a single document or multiple distributed documents that have been combined The core education ontology will define concept such using defined OWL mechanism as study Programs, Courses, students and Instructors.(to Terms whose meaning is defined in ontologies can be link a study program with its courses and courses with its used in semantic markup that describes the content and instructors)There could be a subtype of study Program functionality of web accessible resources [2]. Ontologies such as Online program and Regular Program Using and ontology-based semantic markup could be used in OWL logical connectors it is further possible to define – E-commerce where they can provide a common classes by their logical characteristics such as regular domain model of products on form of product ontology Student could be defined as student who is enrolled in for both sellers and buyers some Regular Study Program Also OWL allows classes – search engines, where they can help in finding pages to be defined disjoint or equivalent by logical connectors that contain semantically similar but syntactically equivalent and disjoint. For example the class Regular different words and phrases Student is equivalent to class Student will Enroll In © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER JOURNAL OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN WEB INTELLIGENCE, VOL.
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