Summarising and evaluating the contributions made to the Semantic Web Essay

Summarising and evaluating the contributions made to the Semantic Web research area and Challenges of the semantic web - Essay Example While the progressive implications of the Semantic Web are evident there remains a number of varying contributions and challenges to the overriding movement. Ontologies are one of the prominent aspects of the Semantic Web. As the Indeed, as the Semantic Web is divided into a number of hierarchical layers, it’s noted that, â€Å"the Ontology layer, in form of the OWL Web Ontology Language, is currently the highest layer of sufficient maturity† (Lukasiewicz and Straccia 2007). While ontologies are highly contingent elements within the Semantic Web one of the primary problems related to their implementation is the notion of vagueness. Current approaches to vagueness issues have been approached by a variety of formalisms; for instance Google uses probalistic techniques. One of the most pervasive concerns in terms of vagueness is the understanding that linguistic elements oftentimes contain within them necessarily vague structural demarcations. For instance, Lukasiewicz and Straccia (2007) note the difficulty in determining the true extent that a tomato is ripe; one considers that young or tall would produce similar search diffi culties. Still, it’s recognized that considerable development is needed in this area, with current research focusing on description logics. Another prominent challenge of the Semantic Web is in terms of uncertainty. While vagueness issues are relegated to linguistic elements that lack a definite boundary, uncertainty challenges can be understood -- as indicated by Lukasiewicz and Straccia (2007, p. 3) -- as including â€Å"all those approaches in which statements rather than being either true or false, are true or false to some probability or possibility (for example, â€Å"it will rain tomorrow†)†. In these instances, uncertainty is further understood in terms of probability and possibility, with possibility regarded as entirely