DAML IOW 2002

Pat Hayes, IHMC, U. of West Florida

A. We expect to continue basic work associated with the activities of the DAML Joint committee. These include particularly :

1. Designing a DAML query language to support structured, semantically-based interaction with DAML ontologies.

2. Contributing to the design of a DAML rule language, to support inference-based reasoning engines that extend the expressive ‘reach’ of DAML ontologies and to specify translations and relationships between and among the content of multiple DAML ontologies.

3. Continuing basic work on ‘layering’ i.e. reconciling the semantics of RDF(S), DAML and XML datatyping schemes, in support of integrated tool designs which permit the deployment of XML and RDF functionality in support of DAML activities.

While the above is not directly focused on the proposed ‘DAML experiment’, we expect that the work will be relevant to uses of DAML in that experiment, particularly if the experiment involves the deployment of several ontologies and requires sensitivity to semantic relationships between them.

B. We propose to develop a ‘DAML for dummies’ input scheme, consisting of a simplified textual notation for representing DAML content. This will be couched at a somewhat higher conceptual level than basic DAML, with the intent of providing users with a more natural way to state common facts that does not require users to learn a special ‘way of thinking’ in order to express themselves in DAML.

We do not have the resources to implement a complex version of such a scheme, but we believe that a simple tool may provide a useful level of functionality, particularly for SMEs who are unfamiliar with the notational and description-logical subtleties of XML/DAML.

Unlike graphical input schemes, this will be a simple text-based input designed for rapid input at a keyboard and ease of interfacing with scripting and text-based editing tools.