Download Beyond the world wide web

Beyond the world wide web
Research at the University of Oxford aimed at
enabling computers to understand and respond to
complex human requests will underpin the nextgeneration world wide web – and is already in
use by GPs.
www.ox.ac.uk/oxfordimpacts
The world wide web has revolutionised the way we
can retrieve information, yet it is in essence a simple
system which locates documents containing key words
or phrases within documents and presents them to
humans for interpretation. Whilst your PC can tell you,
for example, the names of heads of states in various
countries, ask ‘Which heads of state have been in
power for more than five years?’ and it will be foxed.
Documents on the web are currently written in
HTML – hypertext markup language – and web
browsers display these as readable pages. Professor
Ian Horrocks and his research group at the University
of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science are
at the forefront of developing new knowledge
representation languages – computer languages
which can capture complex knowledge as well as
simple facts. Such languages are key in what world
wide web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee has dubbed
the ‘semantic web’, in which computers will become
capable of analysing data on the web and acting as
‘intelligent agents’.
Indeed, these technologies are already in use in
contexts that deal with information in a well-defined
area, and where data need to be exchanged. The
NHS and health organisations in around a dozen
other countries use an information system built on
knowledge representation languages closely related
to OWL and developed and tested using reasoning
systems devised at Oxford. Using a standardised
vocabulary of some 400,000 terms covering areas
such as anatomy, diseases, and treatments, GPs
and other medical practitioners can, for example,
interrogate patient records to find individuals who
need to be screened for a particular condition,
confident that the intelligent system they are
consulting will know, for example, that ‘left ventricle’
pertains to the heart.
‘Oxford researchers have made very important
contributions to the development of the Semantic
Web. They have co-authored some of the most
widely referenced papers, devised algorithms
that are necessary for the practical deployment of
Semantic Web technologies like OWL, and have
provided practical implementations.’
Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead,
World Wide Web Consortium
The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is based on
knowledge representation languages developed
at Oxford. OWL has already been endorsed by the
World Wide Web Consortium (which oversees the
evolution of the web) and has attracted widespread
academic, commercial, and medical interest.
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http://web.cs.ox.ac.uk/activities/knowledge/index.html
Funded by: The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the
European Commission.