Semantic Web Engineering in the Knowledge Society

Citation

Schutte, M. (2009), "Semantic Web Engineering in the Knowledge Society", Online Information Review, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 1014-1014. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520911002025

This title showcases cutting edge research and experiments in using semantics and ontologies to give information well‐defined meaning with the aim of making seamless cooperation between computers and people possible. In 14 chapters a variety of researchers, scientists and practitioners present their findings and experience in terms of theories, tools and applications of the design, implementation and launch of semantic web applications. In many chapters conceptual frameworks and case study reports are offered that exemplify the conclusions drawn from the latest research, while simultaneously sowing the seeds for future research and exploration.

Chapters 1‐3 introduce the concept of semantic web applications, discuss the industrial use of semantics and consider how well semantic web technologies can be applied to various personalisation applications. Chapters 4‐6 call for specific methods and primitives to be used for achieving good design results, discuss the potential of semantically processing monitoring data in industrial applications, and set forth the of combining information extraction tools with knowledge representation tools for the achievement of the two parallel tasks of semantic annotation and ontology population.

Chapter 7‐9 highlight the importance of differentiating between permanent and transient semantic mapping faults, promote the benefits of using semantics for the analysis of a collaboration network in a bibliography set, and illustrate how semantic approaches can be used to find, extract and structure information from natural language texts on the web.

The remaining five chapters discuss how to convert legacy relational databases into a normalised database schema, suggest how Social Software and Web 2.0 can be applied in an adaptive knowledge engineering methodology to enhance truly semantic collaboration, present the design of a standard Social Semantic Desktop together with an ontology pyramid developed to support it, deal with the interesting concept of uncertainty representation and reasoning for the Semantic Web, and stress the importance of having a benchmarking methodology in place to evaluate Semantic Web applications and technologies.

Eleven of the chapters contain a “Questions for Discussion” Appendix, which makes the book ideal for use in advanced computer studies. The book is a versatile reference for academics, senior students, researchers and practitioners who are interested in exploring the solutions made possible by semantic web technologies and applications.