Mike Bennett

Semantic Web and Big Data meets Applied Ontology: The Ontology Summit 2014

Leo Obrst a,∗, Michael Gruninger b, Ken Baclawski c, Mike Bennett d, Dan Brickley e, Gary Berg-Cross f, Pascal Hitzler g, Krzysztof Janowicz h, Christine Kapp i, Oliver Kutz j, Christoph Lange k, Anatoly Levenchuk l, Francesca Quattri m, Alan Rector n, Todd Schneider o, Simon Spero p, Anne Thessen q, Marcela Vegetti r, Amanda Vizedom s, Andrea Westerinen t, Matthew West u and Peter Yim v a The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, USA b University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada c Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA d Hypercube Ltd., London, UK e Google, London, UK f Knowledge Strategies, Washington, DC, USA g Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA h University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA i JustIntegration, Inc., Kissimmee, FL, USA j Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany k University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany; Fraunhofer IAIS, Sankt Augustin, Germany l TechInvestLab.ru, Moscow, Russia m The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong n University of Manchester, Manchester, UK o PDS, Inc., Arvada, CO, USA p University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA q Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA r INGAR (CONICET/UTN), Santa Fe, Argentina s Criticollab, LLC, Durham, NC, USA t Nine Points Solutions, LLC, Potomac, MD, USA u Information Junction, Fareham, UK v CIM Engineering, Inc., San Mateo, CA, USA

Towards ontology evaluation across the life cycle: The Ontology Summit 2013

The goal of the Ontology Summit 2013 was to create guidance for ontology developers and users on how to evaluate ontologies. Over a period of four months a variety of approaches were discussed by participants, who represented a broad spectrum of ontology, software, and system developers and users. We explored how established best practices in systems engineering and in software engineering can be utilized in ontology development.

Ontology for Big Systems: The Ontology Summit 2012 Communiqué

The Ontology Summit 2012 explored the current and potential uses of ontology, its methods and paradigms, in big systems and big data: How ontology can be used to design, develop, and operate such systems. The systems addressed were not just software systems, although software systems are typically core and necessary components, but more complex systems that include multiple kinds and levels of human and community interaction with physical-software systems, systems of systems, and the socio-technical environments for those systems which can include cultural, legal, and economic components. The focus themes used for this exploration were Big Systems Engineering, Big Data Challenge, Large Scale Domain Applications, and cross-cutting aspects Ontology Quality, and Federation and Integration of Systems.The Ontology Summit 2012 consisted of over three months of intensive virtual collaborative elaboration of these issues in presentations, panels, and group email. The culmination of these activities was a face-to-face Symposium at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA, 12--13 April 2012. The primary product of this Ontology Summit is the communique reported here. But there are other products, some continuing as collaborative, more specifically focused analysis and modeling efforts aligned with various open standards activities.Behind all of these particular products, of course, is the real overriding purpose of the Ontology Summit 2012, which was: the joint collaboration of three distinct communities, the ontology, systems engineering and big systems stakeholder communities, who came together to address common problems, create common understanding and propose common solutions.

Internet of Things: Toward Smart Networked Systems and Societies

Mark Underwood a, Michael Gruninger b, Leo Obrst c,∗, Ken Baclawski d, Mike Bennett e, Gary Berg-Cross f, Torsten Hahmann g and Ram Sriram h a Krypton Brothers, Port Washington, NY, USA b University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada c The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, USA d Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA e Hypercube Ltd, London, UK f Knowledge Strategies, Washington, DC, USA g University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA h National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Ontology Summit 2017 communiqué – AI, learning, reasoning and ontologies

There are many connections among artificial intelligence, learning, reasoning and ontologies. The Ontology Summit 2017 explored, identified and articulated the relationships among these areas. As part of the general advocacy of the Ontolog Forum to bring ontology science and engineering into the mainstream, we endeavored to abstract a conversational toolkit from the Ontology Summit sessions that may facilitate discussion and knowledge sharing amongst stakeholders concerned with the topic. Our findings are supported with examples from the various domains of interest. The results were captured in the form of this Communiqué, with expanded supporting material provided on the web.

The role of ontologies in Linked Data, Big Data and Semantic Web applications

Since the beginnings of the Semantic Web, ontologies have played key roles in the design and deployment of new semantic technologies. Yet over the years, the level of collaboration between the Semantic Web and Applied Ontology communities has been much less than expected. Within Big Data applications, ontologies appear to have had little impact. These communities, along with the Linked Data community, all share the need for a common semantic understanding and a formal representation of the domains being studied, but they have taken very different approaches to deal with the challenges of large scale applications and linking of vast heterogeneous data. Because of this situation, the Ontology Summit 2014 focused on building bridges between these four communities. It was felt that identifying and overcoming ontology engineering bottlenecks is critical for all of these communities. This special issue is an effort to continue the process that began in 2014. The papers in this issue are concerned with the various aspects of the barriers identified at the Ontology Summit, and propose approaches for addressing them.