CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
Bernhard Schueler
Ontoprise:
B3 - Semantic B2B Broker
whitepaper review
Overview
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Aim of Ontoprise
Problem: interoperability
Previous approaches
Using ontologies
Using RDF
Remarks
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
2
Aim of Ontoprise
The aim of Ontoprise is to provide ontology-based B2Bapplications.
Those applications should make the semantics of
business information machine-processable.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
3
Example: Product Catalogues
The seller’s product catalogue is transformed into an
electronic data format.
Programmers write transformation programs to
generate different formats and views required by
buyers.
This process requires human resources and time.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
4
Example computer dealer
Seller and buyer have catalogues, which are structured
differently.
Seller’s catalogue:
a printer has an attribute type with values laser, ink or
matrix.
Buyer’s catalogue:
there is a subclass laser printer.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
5
Problem: Mapping
How can the data formats automatically be mapped
between the catalogues?
Mapping is necessary to create and update the buyer’s
catalogue.
It is expensive to program those mappings.
Solution:
automate the creation of mappings, which can
automate creation and update of the catalogue.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
6
Previous approaches - EDIFACT
EDIFACT
• provides a standardized electronic format to
exchange data between sellers and buyers,
• allows the specification of standards for application
areas.
The standards cover the semantics of different
application areas.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
7
Previous approaches – XML
XML-specifications provide a semi-structured
description of products, orders, … .
DTDs or XML-schema specifications define the
structure of the data.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
8
Advantages of XML over EDIFACT
• Readable for non-experts,
• Integrated with other document/data exchange
standards,
• DTDs, XML-schema enable generation of tools like
form editors,
• Designed for the web.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
9
XML Description, Example:
<article>
<articleid>a_5634</articleid>
<category>printer</category>
<type>laser</type>
</article>
<article>
<articleid>a_5634</articleid>
<category>laserprinter</category>
</article>
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
10
Deficiencies of XML – 1
Implicit agreement on meaning of tags is necessary.
Validation of XML using DTDs is only syntactic.
The labeled tree structure is checked.
There can’t be semantic constraints, e.g.
The price of a mouse may only be 1/100 of the price
of a computer system.
There is no inheritance.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
11
Deficiencies of XML – 2
Transformations:
They are purely syntactical, using XSLT and DTDs.
Therefore they would have to bee hand-coded.
Queries:
XQL and XML-QL allow to query the document
structure.
Give me all printers for which cartridges are available
that last for more than 5000 pages.
Can be done. But it’s very cumbersome and
overloaded with syntactic aspects.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
12
Ontologies
Ontologies define a domain and provide a shared
vocabulary.
“leight-weight” ontologies model concepts with
properties and relationships, which are embedded in
an is-a-hierarchy.
They are comparable to database schemata.
“heavy-weight ontologies also contain rules and
constraints.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
13
Ontologies in B3
Ontology
Ontology
OntoMap
DTD Maker
OntoLift
DTD
DTD Custom
DTD
XML documents
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
DTD
XML documents
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
14
Ontologies in B3 - with RDF
Ontology
Ontology
OntoMap
RDF documents
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
RDF documents
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
15
The B3 B2B Broker – Basic tools
• OntoEdit,
• OntoFact,
generates forms for attributes and relations of
instances (of concepts of an ontology),
• OntoAnnotate,
allows the user to add meta information to HTML,
Word, PDF.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
16
The B3 B2B Broker – Advanced tools
• OntoLift,
provides means to identify concepts and relationships
from an XML-DTD or XML-schema,
• DTDMaker,
• OntoMap,
semi-automated creation of mapping rules,
• OntoCompile,
creates a set of XSLT transformations.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
17
Remarks
By the time the paper was published not all of the tools
had been implemented.
By now, data would rather be stored using RDF than
pure XML.
A means to create forms, views and web content form
RDF might be more interesting.
Bernhard Schueler - Ontoprise: B3
CSCI 8350, Spring 2002,UGA
18