Section: Research Program

Vocabularies, Semantic Web and Linked Data Based Knowledge Representation and Artificial Intelligence Formalisms on the Web

For all the models we identified in the previous sections, we rely on and evaluate knowledge representation methodologies and theories, in particular ontology-based modeling. We also propose models and formalisms to capture and merge representations of different levels of semantics (e.g. formal ontologies and social folksonomies). The important point is to allow us to capture those structures precisely and flexibly and yet create as many links as possible between these different objects. We propose vocabularies and semantic Web formalizations for the whole aspects that we model and we consider and study extensions of these formalisms when needed. The results have all in common to pursue the representation and publication of our models as linked data. We also contribute to the transformation and linking of existing resources (informal models, databases, texts, etc.) to be published on the Semantic Web and as Linked Data. Examples of aspects we formalize include: user profiles, social relations, linguistic knowledge, business processes, derivation rules, temporal descriptions, explanations, presentation conditions, access rights, uncertainty, emotional states, licenses, learning resources, etc. At a more conceptual level we also work on modeling the Web architecture with philosophical tools so as to give a realistic account of identity and reference and to better understand the whole context of our research and its conceptual cornerstones.