Elements of a First Visual Rule Language for the Semantic Web

2011

Abstract. A key factor in the further progress of the Semantic Web is the development and wide-spread usage of rule-and logic-based applications. However, there is an evident lack of software tools that can assist end-users in developing such applications. Consequently, users usually resort to more generic tools that offer support at a syntactic level, but prove inadequate in semantically supporting the user.

2005

The Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) aims to be the standard rule language of the Semantic Web. It provides the ability to write Horn-like rules expressed in terms of OWL concepts. This paper describes an open-source rule editor for SWRL that operates within the Protégé OWL Plugin, the most widely-used OWL development platform. This editor provides a highly interactive rule editing interface that is tightly integrated with the OWL Plugin and supports the full set of current SWRL language features. This editor also provides a mechanism that allows thirdparty rule engines to be tightly integrated with the editor. We describe the integration of the Jess rule engine with the editor and show how SWRL coupled with Jess can provide a rich rule-based reasoning facility for the Semantic Web.

2008

Rules and ontologies play a key role in the layered architecture of the Semantic Web, as they are used to ascribe meaning to, and to reason about, data on the Web. While the Ontology Layer of the Semantic Web is quite developed, and the Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a W3C recommendation since a couple of years already, the rules layer is far less developed and an active area of research; a number of initiatives and proposals have been made so far, but no standard as been released yet. Many implementations of rule engines are around which deal with Semantic Web data in one or another way. This article gives a comprehensive, although not exhaustive, overview of such systems, describes their supported languages, and sets them in relation with theoretical approaches for combining rules and ontologies as foreseen in the Semantic Web architecture. In the course of this, we identify desired properties and common features of rule languages and evaluate existing systems against their support. Furthermore, we review technical problems underlying the integration of rules and ontologies, and classify representative proposals for theoretical integration approaches into different categories.

… and Rule Markup Languages for the …, 2004

Defeasible reasoning is a rule-based approach for efficient reasoning with incomplete and inconsistent information. Such reasoning is, among others, useful for ontology integration, where conflicting information arises naturally; and for the modeling of business rules and policies, where rules with exceptions are often used. This paper describes these scenarios in more detail, and reports on the implementation of a system for defeasible reasoning on the Web. The system (a) is syntactically compatible with RuleML; (b) features strict and defeasible rules and priorities; (c) is based on a translation to logic programming with declarative semantics; and (d) is flexible and adaptable to different intuitions within defeasible reasoning.

2006

Abstract Developments in the RuleML initiative have led to the design of several languages for representing rules. In this paper we describe a framework, based on the integration of different flavors of logic programming, aimed at facilitate reasoning with multiple sources of knowledge expressed in an heterogeneity of RuleML languages. The framework allows the derivation of logic programming modules from each rule base, and their inter-operation through a well-defined module interface.

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2005

A technical infrastructure for storing, querying and managing RDF data is a key element in the current semantic web development. Systems like Jena, Sesame or the ICS-FORTH RDF Suite are widely used for building semantic web applications. Currently, none of these systems support the integrated querying of distributed RDF repositories. We consider this a major shortcoming since the semantic web is distributed by nature. In this paper we present an architecture for querying distributed RDF repositories by extending the existing Sesame system. We discuss the implications of our architecture and propose an index structure as well as algorithms for query processing and optimisation in such a distributed context.

Rules and Rule Markup …, 2005

Defeasible reasoning is a rule-based approach for efficient reasoning with incomplete and inconsistent information. Such reasoning is useful for many applications in the Semantic Web, such as policies and business rules, agent brokering and negotiation, ontology and knowledge merging, etc., mainly due to interesting features, such as conflicting rules and priorities of rules. However, the RuleML syntax of defeasible logic may appear too complex for many users. Furthermore, the interplay between various technologies and languages, such as defeasible reasoning, RuleML, and RDF impose a demand for using multiple, diverse tools for building rule-based applications for the Semantic Web. In this paper we present VDR-Device, a visual integrated development environment for developing and using defeasible logic rule bases on top of RDF ontologies. VDR-Device integrates in a user-friendly graphical shell, a visual RuleML-compliant rule editor that constrains the allowed vocabulary through analysis of the input RDF ontologies and a defeasible reasoning system that processes RDF data and RDF Schema ontologies.

2013 International Computer Science and Engineering Conference (ICSEC), 2013

With the Semantic Web data standards defined, more applications demand inference engines in providing support for intelligent processing of the Semantic Web data. Rule-based inference engines or rule-based reasoners are used in many domains such as supporting clinical decision support system, ecommerce recommender system, access control mechanism. In order to allow rule reuse and interoperation, several rule languages have been designed for the Web. In this paper, we review and compare some rule languages designed for the Web including FOL-RuleML, SWRL, Notation3, Jena rules and RIF. Some of the comparison criteria include rule expressiveness, syntax, production operations, and built-in functions. In addition, we review and compare some free and public domain rule-based reasoners including Jena inference engine, EYE, OWLIM-lite, BaseVISor and FuXi. Some of the comparison criteria include inference algorithms, supported programming languages, RDFS/OWL reasoning, rule languages and functions. The review and comparison results will provide some guideline for researchers and developers in choosing the rule languages and systems that match the application requirements.

2014

Abstract. This articles discusses the logic, or logic-based, languages required for a full deployment of the Semantic Web. It presents ten theses addressing 1. the kinds of logic languages needed, 2. data and data processing, 3. semantics, and 4. engineering and rendering issues. The views reported about in this article have been presented at the W3C

2008

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International RuleML Symposium on Rule Interchange and Applications, RuleML 2008, held in Orlando, FL, USA, in October 2008-collocated with the 11th International Business Rules Forum. The 10 revised full papers and 10 revised short papers presented together with 2 demo papers and the abstracts of 3 keynote lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on rule engineering, rule-based ...