Daniel’s Blog

It’s absolutely fantastic that more and more people are taking up Semantic Web solutions and providing RDF.

Guys and Girls it’s time for the next step!

This is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. People, although they are taking up the SemWeb, they don’t seem to understand the full power of it’s expressiveness. This isn’t a providing problem, this is a usage problem…. Yes it’s fantastic that we can interlink objects now, but what does it mean to be an object? What can we learn implicitly and explicitly from this highly-structured and highly-distributed web of data objects? and finally, what can we do with what we learn?

These questions are the real heart and real soul of the Semantic Web, and an area in which us Semantic Web advocates have really mentioned much before.

And please note, this shouldn’t *just* be an academic thing. Systems which embrace this, and which are in the wild, would greatly benefit. It’s breaking down the walled-garden and combining the intelligent systems which have previously been in websites like amazon.co.uk and google, and exposing those methods to the real semantic data.

The key to all of this is improvement of society. If your project improves society (or helps the environment in some way), then your project should be excellent. Whether or not it makes money!

Hope this all makes sense…. feel free to ask questions, or give your opinion.

Daniel

Rumours have it, that there will be another Bristol Knowledge Unconference.

The last one was a success… a good turn out, some interesting talks and discussions. So it’s only right to do another one.

This one coming up doesn’t have a date yet, or a location. It will, unlike the previous, have a “theme” which I’ll be trying to get speakers for…. and of course, it’ll be in Bristol somewhere.

So… I need some helpers. Please do get in contact with me if you can:

• help me find a location
• help do some general organisational/administrative assistance
• offer to do a talk about knowledge, set to a specific them
• give some money to pay for food and drink

I will strive to make this Unconference completely free for attendees, which does mean that we require the location to be free (or sponsored) and the food to be supplied (or paid for) by some organisation(s)/people.

So please do get in contact if you can help in any way by sending me an email ( danieljohnlewis at gmail dot com ). Else, I’ll keep you all up to date through my blog.

Thank you,

Daniel Lewis

Here are some predictions for Computing & IT in 2009:

• Hardware
  • More and more Cloud Computing services (and improvements)
  • Personal Supercomputer Hardware (such as NVidia Tesla)
• Software
  • Advancement of ease-of-use in Operating Systems, particularly Linux… which will see more of a take up this year than ever before.
  • Browsers (particularly Mozilla-based and Opera) will start to contain more and more Semantic Web based features.
• Web
  • More people and organisations providing Semantic Web services. Leaders in this field will help greatly, such as the BBC, BT and the UK Government.
  • The original developers and advocates of the Semantic Web, will start to move away from it a little in an attempt to improve the semantics of the Semantic Web. Areas such as Fuzzy Logic, Bayesian Probability, Advanced Description Logic, Intelligent Agents and Artificial Neural Networks will be bridged with the Semantic Web by researchers.
  • Web development will become more and more like desktop application development.
  • Web design will become more focused on providing the data rather than providing pictures, fusing with Information Architecture.

BUT! More importantly, things may seem to slow down in terms of development within the computing field. This won’t be entirely the case, we’ll see more efficiency improvements than feature additions… and these developments will probably help the efficiency of those companies using that software/hardware.

Although I’ve mentioned all of this. Please note that I truly feel that we should move away from a materialistic view to a more societal and/or spiritual point of view. This means that although new things may be released in the future, we should recognise them, but not be tempted by them if they are not necessary updates.

Hi all,

Just letting you all know that this months Semantic Web Gang podcast for October 2008 was released today. It’s available on the The Semantic Web Gang blog as a post titled “October 2008: The Semantic Web Gang discusses the launch of Twine“. It is in fact about the recent public release of the Twine.com system by Radar Networks.

Plus, we’ve got Nova Spivack (the CEO of Radar/Twine) and Jim Wissner (the Chief Architect of Twine) on the call!

It’s great. I am on the call, I didn’t say much on the call particularly as just as I was about to ask a question someone else usually piped up just before me and asked a question (often the same question!). I appear at the start and the end of the recording though.

The central thing that I am interested in is actually still under the hood of Twine. I’m incredibly interested by the progression of the recommendation algorithms, particularly through modern machine learning techniques. I’m also interested in their automatic ontology editing. It’s very exciting, and I do have a feeling that the public release that you see today isn’t the entirety of twine.

It was lovely to speak to Nova and Jim, and the rest of the gang. There should be another episode later this month

Enjoy!

Daniel

Recently I did the IBM developerWorks article for “Intelligent Agents and the Semantic Web” which used Java (and the JADE library) to build agents (for the non-techies agents are a bit like software versions of robots).

However, I’ve recently re-stumbled across the Microsoft Robotics Development Studio (MRDS), which is free to download and play with!!! Apparently it’s not just good for developing robots (and the simulation of robotics), but can be used for a lot more (see zdnets article on “Why business users should grab a copy of Microsoft’s new robotics toolkit“). Potentially it could be used for web-based agents, particularly intelligent ones!

Trouble is, I haven’t played with it… because it only works on Microsoft Windows!

But there is a however! It has recently been brought up on the Mono forums (see “MS Robotics Runtime Port“) , that people are going to be trying to implement the missing functions found within the MRDS executable (so that it can run on Mono, rather than .Net… therefore making it runnable on Linux or Mac). The guys on the Mono forums have also created a wiki page (see “MRDS on Mono“) in order to stimulate discussion and development.

I really hope to be able to see the Microsoft Robotics Development Studio on Mono soon, particularly if I can hook into it with the Mono versions of Java and Ruby!

…

Right, that was a quick post… comment if you have any questions or comments… I’ve got to head off to the University now.

Cheers,

Daniel

Right, I’ve been doing a lot with Genetic Algorithms (I’m actually implementing some using the Ruby Programming Language). However, the masters unit which covers G.A.s is quite theoretical, and aimed at mathematically improving the evolution process. So, I’m sending this message out:

Wanted: Links (e.g. Hyperlinks or Articles/Documentation/Papers) of Real World Applications which implement Genetic Algorithms. Particularly if they are engineering based rather than biological modelling based, but I’ll look at either. Source code (or even pseudocode) of the GA would be a huge bonus but not essential.

Please comment on this post or send me an email, I’d love to hear about it!

Cheers,

Daniel

Well, well, well… you may have noticed that I haven’t made a blog post since the one about the diary.

Well, I’ve just started the Masters (MSc in Machine Learning and Data Mining) at the University of Bristol. I had an intro week last week, and started attending lectures and other events yesterday.

I am really really enjoying it, the only one thing that I am a bit worried about is that it’s going to be taking up a lot more time than I realised. Which may affect me earning some money, unless I work on things which are similar enough to the stuff that I am working on at University. We shall see, it is only the first week, and things shall probably calm down a little.

I am particularly enjoying the biological aspect of the course (e.g. Genetic Algorithms/Programming and Computational Genomics and Bioinformatics), and I’m looking forward to touching the psychological aspects also.

This is actually going to sound quite weird coming from someone who titles himself “Technology Evangelist”, but I really don’t like using technology… computers (hardware and software) are so awkward to use, mobile phones never have enough signal and it’s all so reliant on electricity. The one thing that I truly feel about the whole subject of Machine Learning and Data Mining is that it is supposed to make things easier! In order for technology to become really useful we have to look towards some things that we have outside of technology:

• High/Deep Semantics and Art
• Biology, Psychology and other Sciences
• Ubiquity/Omnipresence
• Humanities and Society

Maybe the seven liberal arts can also help out:

1. Grammar
2. Rhetoric
3. Logic
4. Geometry
5. Arithmetic
6. Music
7. Astronomy

I do not believe that we can continue with technology in it’s current state. As for the Semantic Web, I do believe it is a step in the right direction, but it is only a small piece of the future puzzle.

Now for an incredibly Formal Blog Post. For equality I thought that I should open this up to as many people as possible, I’ve been pondering about making this blog post for a while, and I have even discussed the project with a few of you. Receiving my introduction pack and registration guide this morning has prompted me to write this post.

Intro

Many of you know that, I will be starting postgraduate study at the University of Bristol from the end of this September (2008). This will be a one-year full-time MSc course with project, the subject area is “Machine Learning and Data Mining“.

I would like to open up my project idea to an organisation in return for sponsorship of the course. I only ask for the cost of the tuition (£3950 GBP, which is currently roughly $7711 USD / €4982 Euros / $8032 Canadian Dollars / $8428 Australian Dollars / 323385 Indian Rupees / 830725 Japanese Yen / 52861 Chinese Yuan / 8102 Swiss Francs). In return the sponsor would have some say in the project itself, in addition to logos and names on all relevant websites and in documentation (negotiable).

I would (potentially) be interested in taking the project further after the project has been completed, this could be in the form of a business idea or another academic project. This is also negotiable.

My Project Proposal

I do already have an idea for a project, and have even written a project proposal which has been approved by the department. However, the content of that project proposal is negotiable and I could even change it completely depending on my interests/skills, the criteria for approval and also the sponsors interests.

The idea I already have will be an entirely new way of turning Free-Text into Linked Data, with the specific use-cases being very humanities (including anthropology and religion) based. But as said before, this is negotiable.

Course Information

The postgraduate course is officially titled “MSc in Advanced Computing (Machine Learning and Data Mining)”, it is a taught course but contains a full academic project. Topics within the course include Logic Programming (using Prolog), Bayesian methods, Natural Language Processing, Genetic Algorithms/programming, Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, Reinforcement Learning and some Bioinformatics content.

The official programming languages used at the University of Bristol include: C, Java, Haskell, Prolog, Progol… etc

Systems/Frameworks include: Weka, MatLab

A little about me

If you have just stumbled across this blog post, then you’ll be wondering about who I am. So a brief biographical summary:

I currently work as a Technology Evangelist for OpenLink Software dealing with Semantic Web/Linked Data technologies in addition to data portability, social web and database technologies. In May 2007 I completed my undergraduate degree with a 2:1 honours and a Double A grade for my final year project titled “Adding Semantics to Social Web Tagging Systems”, the undergraduate degree was a “BSc(Hons) in Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering” at Oxford Brookes University. My computer science interests are in the “Evolution of the Web” (so Semantic Web/Linked Data, the Social Web, Web 3.0, WUPnP and the Intelligent Web), Open Source Software and Open Data, Programming Languages and finally Intelligent Systems (mainly Logic Programming, Machine Learning, Data Mining, Agent Technology and Knowledge-Bases). I have experience in many programming/query languages, but some of my favourites include: Ruby, Java, Haskell, Prolog and SPARQL. My interests outside of computer science include: psychology, philosophy, music, religion and esoterica. I am a “Liberal Catholic Anglican” Christian and active/open-to/passionate-for Interfaith/Interreligious dialogue. I am a full member of the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). There is more about me on my simple homesite, my blog and my linkedin account, other information (including a CV) can be provided on request.

Important Dates

• Autumn Term: Monday 29th September 2008 to Friday 12th December 2008
• Spring Term: Friday 9th January 2009 to Friday 20th March 2009
• Summer Term: Monday 20th April 2009 to Friday 19th June 2009

I must have details about sponsorship as soon as possible, the final date for setting sponsorship up is Friday 12th September 2008…. and I really don’t want to leave it until then.

Useful (Official) Links

• Machine Learning and Data Mining Unit Descriptions
• University of Bristol and the University of Bristol’s Computer Science Department

If you are interested

If you are interested then please do let me know. I’m available by email or jabber… we can converse by phone or skype… and we can even meet up in/near the wonderful city of Bristol (UK).

• Email: danieljohnlewis [-at-] gmail [-dot-] com
• Jabber/GTalk: [email protected]
• Skype: daniel.lewis
• Phone: +447834355516 (UK specific: 07834355516)
• Current Location: Clifton, Bristol, England, UK (it’s in the South-West, about a 2 hour train journey from London)
• Current Time Zone: British Summer Time (GMT+1)

I will announce

I will announce on my blog when I receive funding. So if you don’t hear, then please do assume that I have not found any yet.

Many many thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from interested people soon.

Cheers,

Daniel

The nice guys at True Knowledge Ltd (who are based in Cambridge, UK) have given me some beta invites to give out. So if you are interested in beta testing trueknowledge.com then please send me an email or comment in this blog and I’ll send you your invite.

True Knowledge Ltd is a company founded by AI sage William Tunstall-Pedoe, and their product (in beta stage at the time of writing) is a search engine which answers questions. It answers questions using natural language processing (NLP) and a highly-structured wikipedia-style question and answer system.

Unfortunately the True Knowledge system is not yet exposing Linked Data, but I am sure that they see a benefit in that area once the engine is released fully and publicly.

I haven’t got many invites, so be sure to let me know if you want one soon. It will be on a first come first serve basis.

Thanks,

Daniel

OK, so in my last post (”RDF: Simpler if you look at it in a different way“) I said that RDF is a modeling framework to link data together in the form of object to object relationships, I briefly mentioned some “vocabularies” (aka ontologies) and some formats (e.g. Notation3, RDF/XML). I want to mention again that it is a modeling framework for Linking Data, and not specifically a format for importing and exporting (although it can be used in this way).

This brings me on to the topic of Linked Data. A lot of people, some of which are part of the W3C, want to see a “Web of Data” where data is linked across domains (physical (e.g. web servers), virtual/symbolic (e.g. knowledge bases or domains of knowledge/understanding)). This is where every “thing” on the web is structured in a kind of “object orientated” way, RDF happens to be a standardised way of achieving this. But this does not mean that a “Web of Data” will replace the document view that we see today, it means that the Linked Data are the roots and a human view is what the user sees:

Figure: Linked Data are the roots for the future web (black arrows are “labeled arcs” aka “relationships”/”predicates”)

Here we see documents rendering information from objects which are in the enriched soil, this is so that the humans can consume the information. You can’t eat potatoes raw, you’ll find it hard to digest! With information in this form your data is more meaningful as it shows idiosyncrasies with other data via labeled links. Note that the documents are able to do this either through getting information directly from a graph, or by querying using a language called SPARQL.

We also see the two trees of Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing. They will also want to get at the lovely nutrients in the soil. These trees transform nutrients into fruit, and fruit is edible by humans. In reality these trees are intelligent software agents (either server or client side), capable of inferring new information and dealing with uncertainty.

These meaningful objects all have their own identifier in the form of a URI, which should be an HTTP accessible URI. A URI in this form is the name and the co-ordinates of that particular object. HTTP URIs can be used within RDF to form Linked Data. There is a lot of Linked Data out there already which is open and ready to use (see Richard Cyganiak’s Linked Open Data Cloud for the data sets that the Semantic Web Interest Group / Linked Data Group are aware of), so its just a case of getting your data out there and using it… and thats how we make it real!

More information

More information is available from (in Human Friendly form):

• The Linked Data Group and the Linking Open Data Wiki
• “Design Issues - Linked Data” by Tim Berners-Lee
• “Teaching triples to a six year old” by Leigh Dodds
• Some Linked Data systems: DBpedia (”DBpedia Mobile” now available on mobile/cell phones via a map mashup), Umbel, Musicbrainz, Geonames and many more in the linked data cloud.
• “Linked Data Deployment” at XTech 2008 by me (slides and paper coming soon!)
• “Linked Data Spaces and Data Portability (PDF)” by Kingsley Idehen and Orri Erling at LDOW2008@WWW2008.
• Other papers and presentations at LDOW2008.
• “Linked Data Principles Revisted” by Michael Hausenblas on the O’Reilly XML Blog

Theres a lot out there, not only academic stuff but business stuff too. Explore, and if you find anything interesting then please do share it here!

Thanks for reading,

Daniel