Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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. 38 http://web.cs.ox.ac.uk/activities/knowledge/index.html Funded by: The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the European Commission.