Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies (Chapman & Hall/CRC Textbooks in Computing) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have some basic familiarity with RDF, and Semantic Technologies. This book from chapter 1 on was a horrible read. Terribly written with long arduous run on sentences which were frustrating to comprehend. The examples were atrocious. The book was written by academics who must like hearing themselves speak. The writing was so bad it reminded me of reading a legal contract. I bought the book since it was rather new, and my other OWL, RDF, and Semantic Web books are a bit dated now. I was looking for some help with modeling best practices. I generally don't return books, but this one is already in the box again. I'd use it as a door stop but the almost $80 price tag prevents me from using it as such.

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With more substantial funding from research organizations and industry, numerous large-scale applications, and recently developed technologies, the Semantic Web is quickly emerging as a well-recognized and important area of computer science. While Semantic Web technologies are still rapidly evolving, Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies focuses on the established foundations in this area that have become relatively stable over time. It thoroughly covers basic introductions and intuitions, technical details, and formal foundations.The book concentrates on Semantic Web technologies standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium: RDF and SPARQL enable data exchange and querying, RDFS and OWL provide expressive ontology modeling, and RIF supports rule-based modeling. The text also describes methods for specifying, querying, and reasoning with ontological information. In addition, it explores topics that are clearly beyond foundations, such as tools, applications, and engineering aspects.Written by highly respected researchers with a deep understanding of the material, this text centers on the formal specifications of the subject and supplies many pointers that are useful for employing Semantic Web technologies in practice.The book has an accompanying website with supplemental information.

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Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL Review

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(More customer reviews)There are maybe half a dozen or so books in my library that have defined the body of knowledge that has been the subject of my career. All the others are interesting (or not) but not the definitive description of the subject. It is very rare when a new one comes along. But when one does succinctly and clearly define and describe a subject area I have been struggling to master for several years, this is worth celebrating.

This is such a book. For the last several years, I have been studying OWL and the Semantic Web, recognizing that there is something there that is important. But it's been a struggle to get on top of it. For example, the books I've found so far (and indeed, the OWL specification itself) describes the language in terms of XML. That's ok, and I was able to understand bits and pieces of it. And I did get the fundamental difference between semantic modeling as done in OWL and semantic modeling as I have been doing with entity/relationship modeling. But I never really felt comfortable that I "got it".
This book, however, very clearly starts at the beginning and takes the reader through the steps required to understand not just the languages involved, but why they are important and why they are significant to the Semantic Web. Indeed this is the first time I can say that I really understand the semantic web.
One of the reviews complains that the book doesn't go far enough. Perhaps not. But if you are looking for a place not just to start your education and to get a through grounding in fundamental concepts, this is the book for you.
I strongly recommend this book.


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The promise of the Semantic Web to provide a universal medium to exchange data information and knowledge has been well publicized.There are many sources too for basic information on the extensions to the WWW that permit content to be expressed in natural language yet used by software agents to easily find, share and integrate information. Until now individuals engaged in creating ontologies-- formal descriptions of the concepts, terms, and relationships within a given knowledge domain-- have had no sources beyond the technical standards documents.Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist transforms this information into the practical knowledge that programmers and subject domain experts need.Authors Allemang and Hendler begin with solutions to the basic problems, but don't stop there:they demonstrate how to develop your own solutions to problems of increasing complexity and ensure that your skills will keep pace with the continued evolution of the Semantic Web. . Provides practical information for all programmers and subject matter experts engaged in modeling data to fit the requirements of the Semantic Web.. De-emphasizes algorithms and proofs, focusing instead on real-world problems, creative solutions, and highly illustrative examples. . Presents detailed, ready-to-apply "recipes" for use in many specific situations.. Shows how to create new recipes from RDF, RDFS, and OWL constructs.

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Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, Second Edition: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL Review

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(More customer reviews)The book is well organized, well written, and clear in its exposition of the subject. The way they build up, from the simpler concepts of RDF through RDFS to OWL, is a great way to learn the subject. The examples are instructive and well organized. The summaries at the end of each chapter help put it all in perspective.
In spite of the title of the book, I think many people who do not consider themselves "working ontologists" would benefit from reading the book.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has some familiarity with knowledge representation but needs to learn how the Semantic Web does it. (It might be a bit of a tough read for someone with no prior exposure to knowledge representation of any kind.)

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Semantic Web models and technologies provide information in machine-readable languages that enable computers to access the Web more intelligently and perform tasks automatically without the direction of users. These technologies are relatively recent and advancing rapidly, creating a set of unique challenges for those developing applications.



Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist is the essential, comprehensive resource on semantic modeling, for practitioners in health care, artificial intelligence, finance, engineering, military intelligence, enterprise architecture, and more. Focused on developing useful and reusable models, this market-leading book explains how to build semantic content (ontologies) and how to build applications that access that content.

New in this edition:


Coverage of the latest Semantic Web tools for organizing, querying, and processing information - see details in TOC below



Detailed information on the latest ontologies used in key web applications including ecommerce, social networking, data mining, using government data, and more



Updated with the latest developments and advances in Semantic Web technologies for organizing, querying, and processing information, including SPARQL, RDF and RDFS, OWL 2.0, and SKOS
Detailed information on the ontologies used in today's key web applications, including ecommerce, social networking, data mining, using government data, and more
Even more illustrative examples and case studies that demonstrate what semantic technologies are and how they work together to solve real-world problems

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