Rudi Studer von KIT

1. KIT – The Research University in the Helmholtz Association
29 April 2016
Zillertal, Austria
www.kit.edu
Smart Services with Semantic Technologies
Tourism Fast Forward 2016
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer
Dr. Maria Maleshkova, Dr. Andreas Harth

2. Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal
Description Methods (AIFB)
2
• Motivation
• Use Case 1 - Building Agile Systems
• Use Case 2 – Collaborative Development of
Business Processes
• Summary and Conclusion
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

3. Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal
Description Methods (AIFB)
3
Market
Influence
Technology
Development
Today’s Driving Forces
Shorter innovation cycles
Need for continuous adaptation
Near real-time analyses
Involvement of the customer not only with
the finished product/service but during the
complete development cycle
Ubiquitous access
Social and community Web
Heterogeneous big data
Distributed component-based
solutions
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

4. Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal
Description Methods (AIFB)
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Motivation – Travel context
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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The Rise of Big Data
With increased use of computers more and more data is being stored
Organisations rely on data to support business decisions
Data drives policy decisions in government
Individuals rely on data from the Web for information and communication
Data volumes and number of sources explode
Combining data from multiple sources enables insights
More and more data available on the Web is published in
Semantic Web standards
See: Linking Open Data (LOD) initiative
Semantic Web technologies are beneficial for data exchange and
integration
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Semantic Technologies
Semantic Web technologies,
standardised by the W3C, are
mature:
RDF recommendation in 1999,
update in 2004
RDFa (RDF in HTML) note in 2008
RDFS recommendation in 2004
SPARQL recommendation in 2008
OWL recommendation in 2004,
update in 2009
Linked Data is a subset of the
Semantic Web stack
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Use Cases
1. Building Agile Systems
Fast integration of heterogeneous data and programmable interfaces
based on semantic technologies
2. Collaborative Development of
Business Processes
Semantics for modeling, analyzing, and executing processes
E.g. booking process
Semantic
description
Semantic
description
Semantic
description
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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BUILDING AGILE SYSTEMS
Semantics for integrating data and programmable interfaces
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Today‘s Web is about Dynamic Data
Data is often dynamically created as a result of some calculation
carried out over input data (e.g., weather information)
Data can change frequently (e.g., moving objects)
APIs are used to trigger functionalities in the Web and the real world
and provide access to dynamic and static data sources
An important role plays
Representational State Transfer
(REST)
Architectural style for client–
server interaction
Compatible with Web architecture
http://programmableweb.com
8816 APIs
Over 14,795 APIs and 6173 mashups
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Linking Open Data Cloud
Linking Open Data cloud diagram 2014, by Max Schmachtenberg, Christian Bizer, Anja Jentzsch and Richard Cyganiak.
http://lod-cloud.net/
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Linked Data Principles
1. Use URIs to name things; not only documents, but also people,
locations, concepts, etc.
http://dbpedia.org/resource/London
2. To enable agents (humans and machines) to look up those names,
use HTTP URIs
http://dbpedia.org/page/London
3. When someone looks up a URI we provide useful information; with
'useful' in the strict sense we usually mean structured data in RDF
<http://dbpedia.org/page/London> dbo:areaTotal
1572000000.000000^^xsd:double.
4. Include links to other URIs allowing agents (machines and humans)
to discover more things
<http://dbpedia.org/page/London> owl:sameAs
<sws.geonames.org/2643743/> .
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Mashups
=
Procedural glue
code
Procedural glue
code
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Motivation for Combining Semantics and
Services
Increased value comes from combinations of services and
APIs
6000+ Mashups on programmableweb.com
But a lot of manual effort is required for this compositions (glue code)
Structured service/API descriptions ease the composition process considerably
Semantic descriptions allow for the automatic execution of several tasks
(e.g., data alignment, service discovery, …)
Manually drafted
glue code Semantic
description
Semantic
description
Semantic
description
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Semantics and Services
Functionality attainable via the Web
RESTful services (respecting Web architecture)
resource-oriented
manipulated with HTTP verbs
GET, PUT, POST, DELETE
Negotiate representations (XML, JSON, RDF)
Linked data
Uniform use of URIs
Use of RDF and SPARQL
= Linked Services
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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From Web APIs to Linked APIs
Linked APIs
Web APIs
REST APIs
Linked Data
Resources, HTTP Verbs,
HATEOAS
Resources, RDF
HTTP Verbs,
HATEOAS
RDF
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Linked Services Benefits
Interfaces and semantics are clearly defined and described in a
machine-interpretable manner
Possible to access documentation (via „JavaDoc“ for APIs)
Possible to automate discovery and composition of Web APIs
Easier reuse of implemented functionality
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Facilitate Data Integration
Linked Service
Combines data (MashUp)
build on top
Application
that consumes one
Linked Service
Bad solution
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Facilitate Data Integration
Linked
Service
Application
(consumes and integrates
RDF from 3 Linked Services)
Good solution
Linked
Service
Linked
Service
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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Linked Service Architecture
Linked APIs consume and produce
RDF data
Linked APIs are described with an RDF document
Including SPARQL graph patterns, representing the structure of input
and output data
Accessible via the Web
Linked
API
Pattern Pattern
Description (RDF+SPARQL)
RDF in RDF out
match match
?x a sg:Reservation ;
sg:startDate ?start ;
sg:endDate ?end .
?y a sg:ConfirmedReservation .
?y sg:reservation ?x .
?x sg:startDate ?start .
?x sg:endDate ?end .

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COLLABORATIVE
DEVELOPMENT OF
BUSINESS PROCESSES
Semantics for process modeling, analysis and execution
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Modeling Processes
Well-defined processes improve performance and support monitoring
Standards for process modeling exist – e.g. BPMN
Modeling and enriching BPMN with meta-information is still challenging
Enhancing processes with semantics:
Use (lightweight) ontologies to model meta-information
Dublin Core Schema, Friend of a Friend Ontology (FOAF),..
Use meta-information for
process analysis and optimization
making conclusions about activities and data artifacts (reasoning)
deducing new knowledge about processes
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016
<META NAME="DC.Title" CONTENT=”Trip Booking">
<META NAME="DC.Creator" CONTENT=”John Smith">
<META NAME="DC.Language" scheme="RFC1766"
CONTENT="en; de">
<META NAME="DC.Date" CONTENT=”2016-04-29">
<foaf:Person rdf:ID=“http://exmaple.com/me">
<foaf:givenname>John</foaf:givenname>
<foaf:family_name>Smith</foaf:family_name>
<foaf:interest
rdf:resource="http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ol703129
z"/>

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Architecture
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Implementation
Using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) as a modeling
language
Standard proposed by Object Management Group in 2008
Very expressive
Widely spread
Describes processes for documentation purposes and serves
as basis for the automatic execution in a workflow-engine
Easily extensible
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Modeling and Execution of Booking Processes
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016
Confirm Trip

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Implementation
Semantic MediaWiki is a semantic extension of MediaWiki
Allows to store information in a structured way
Provides semantic modelling primitives for describing entities and
their relationships
“Europahaus” islocatedIn “Mayrhofen”
Supports the publication of information according to the LinkedData
Principles
Tools:
MediaWiki + Semantic MediaWiki
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org
Semantic Forms
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_Forms
Cognitive Process Designer
http://aifb-ls3-vm2.aifb.kit.edu/DevelopersDay
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Functionality
Functionality provided by Cognitive Process Designer:
Create BPMN Processes
Load / Edit BPMN Processes
Import / Export BPMN Processes in BPMN 2.0 XML
Annotate BPMN Processes
Semantic meta-information
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Functionality: Process Analysis and
Information Access
Information and metadata is stored in a semantic format which
can be queried
Examples:
What type of persons are involved in the process?
What is the workload of each involved person?
Which roles require the highest expertise and are the most
data intensive ones?
If a flight and a cruise are both a kinds of trip, how many trips did
a customer make?
If a customer that has booked more than 10 flights in 2015 is defined
as frequent flyer, how many frequent flyers have been to Paris?
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Description Methods (AIFB)
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Summary and Outlook
We need technology solutions to achieve more automation
Executing tasks manually does not scale
Market trends and technology developments pave the way for
developing new products and services, which are more flexible and
adapted to the customer needs
We need to be ready to support shorter innovation cycles for
products and services
We can use semantic and Web Technologies to support:
the rapid development of mashups and applications
the collaborative modelling, analysis and reuse of processes
the export of data in a structured way thus being amenable for usage
in further applications
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016

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Relevant Publications
S. Stadtmüller, S. Speiser, A. Harth, R. Studer. Data-Fu: A Language and an
Interpreter for Interaction with Read/Write Linked Data. Proceedings of the 22nd
International Conference on World Wide Web, pp. 1225-1236, 2013.
A. Harth, C. Knoblock, S. Stadtmüller, R. Studer, and P. Szekely. On-the-fly Integration
of Static and Dynamic Sources. in Proceedings of the Int. Semantic Web Conf.
Workshop on Consuming Linked Data. 2013: CEUR-WS.
M. Maleshkova, P. Philipp, Y. Sure-Vetter, R. Studer. Smart Web Services (SmartWS)
– The Future of Services on the Web. IPSI BgD Transactions on Advanced Research
(TAR), 12, (1), pp. 15-26, January, 2016.
T. Weller, M. Maleshkova. Towards a Collaborative Process Platform: Publishing
Processes according to the Linked Data Principles. Proceedings of Workshop Linked
Data on the Web (LDOW2016), World Wide Web Conf., Montreal, Canada, April 2016.
T. Weller, M. Maleshkova. Cognitive Process - An Open-Source Tool to Capture
Processes according to the Linked Data Principles. The Semantic Web: ESWC 2016
Satellite Events, Springer.
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer | Tourism Fast Forward 2016