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Hierarchical Search in SemantEco Supporting Varied Ontology Design Patterns
Building: Grand Hotel Mediterraneo
Room: Sala dei Continenti
Date: 2013-11-01 12:10 PM – 12:19 PM
Last modified: 2013-10-07
Abstract
There exist multiple ontology design patterns for modeling taxonomic classification. For example, in the Vertebrate Taxonomy Ontology (VTO), taxons are represented as classes (e.g., Ictaluridae SubClassOf Siluriformes), where the same classes are punned as individuals in the Phenoscape Ontology (e.g., Ictaluridae subCladeOf Siluriformes) in support of a representation of “population thinking”. The former approach leverages the OWL class construct and standard subsumption reasoning, while the latter leverages property chains, including inference for up-propagation of features from descendent species populations to their ancestors. Within our work on the SemantEco framework, our aim is to enable hierarchical semantic search that supports varied design patterns, such as these, including that which is less “conventional” but more representative modeling.
In doing so we adhere to the model-view-controller software architecture pattern, which prescribes a clear separation between the underlying representation and that which is presented to the user. In the arena of tools for viewing/manipulating ontologies, this separation is demonstrated in ontology editors such as Protege whose default view shows a Class hierarchy, while there are alternative views within which to navigate classes are available via additional plugins. One such plugin is the Outline/Existential tree plugin, where the Existential Tree view shows the tree along a specified property (e.g. a PartOf object property), while the Outline View follows existential restrictions to build up a view of the current class by its definition.
In the same spirit, for user interface rendering for navigation along multiple axes, and in support of SemantEco’s goal of search and discovery of environmental, ecological, and earth science data, we include within its modular architecture a Hierarchical Search Facet component, that provides SemantEco module designers the capability of providing custom hierarchical search facets. These facets enable flexible navigation of resources that are individuals or classes via their relationships to other such resources, for the purpose of providing users with multiple paths for finding data.
The tree navigation leverages JSTrees, where each node maps to an RDF Resource, and the selection of a node triggers construction of a SPARQL pattern, which, for example, constrains the query to a class and its subclasses. The SPARQL pattern is provided by a module designer along the axes of interest for hierarchical navigation, so for example they can enable a search hierarchy along SubClassOf or PartOf within axioms along existential restrictions between classes, or instead as asserted between individuals. The SPARQL pattern is ultimately composed along with a data-level SPARQL query, for example for water quality or species count data, for leveraging the respective ontologies for enabling search.
This design for semantic hierarchical search enables one to develop ontologies and semantic web applications independently, either conceptualization described above for taxon modeling can be leveraged in the Hierarchical Search Facet component with the appropriate supporting SPARQL queries in place. This suits our immediate needs for semantic search in SemantEco as a portal and as an architecture can enable any semantically-enabled monitoring environment that for supporting flexible search backed by semantics.
In doing so we adhere to the model-view-controller software architecture pattern, which prescribes a clear separation between the underlying representation and that which is presented to the user. In the arena of tools for viewing/manipulating ontologies, this separation is demonstrated in ontology editors such as Protege whose default view shows a Class hierarchy, while there are alternative views within which to navigate classes are available via additional plugins. One such plugin is the Outline/Existential tree plugin, where the Existential Tree view shows the tree along a specified property (e.g. a PartOf object property), while the Outline View follows existential restrictions to build up a view of the current class by its definition.
In the same spirit, for user interface rendering for navigation along multiple axes, and in support of SemantEco’s goal of search and discovery of environmental, ecological, and earth science data, we include within its modular architecture a Hierarchical Search Facet component, that provides SemantEco module designers the capability of providing custom hierarchical search facets. These facets enable flexible navigation of resources that are individuals or classes via their relationships to other such resources, for the purpose of providing users with multiple paths for finding data.
The tree navigation leverages JSTrees, where each node maps to an RDF Resource, and the selection of a node triggers construction of a SPARQL pattern, which, for example, constrains the query to a class and its subclasses. The SPARQL pattern is provided by a module designer along the axes of interest for hierarchical navigation, so for example they can enable a search hierarchy along SubClassOf or PartOf within axioms along existential restrictions between classes, or instead as asserted between individuals. The SPARQL pattern is ultimately composed along with a data-level SPARQL query, for example for water quality or species count data, for leveraging the respective ontologies for enabling search.
This design for semantic hierarchical search enables one to develop ontologies and semantic web applications independently, either conceptualization described above for taxon modeling can be leveraged in the Hierarchical Search Facet component with the appropriate supporting SPARQL queries in place. This suits our immediate needs for semantic search in SemantEco as a portal and as an architecture can enable any semantically-enabled monitoring environment that for supporting flexible search backed by semantics.