Friday, June 11, 2004

TKS the RDF Database

The Semantic Web in the Enterprise ""RDF provides a simple model to represent logical statements in the form of subject, predicate, object," said Daconta. "While this follows a linguistic approach, that same model can also represent resource, property, and value. This triple model is a powerful underpinning of more powerful languages layered on top of it like OWL."

He referenced one of his non-RDF projects that uses explicit database tables to make certain data associations. This approach is neither scalable nor flexible. The unique nature of RDF, however, can provide a flexible mechanism that would allow far greater associative capabilities, thereby increasing the ability to query and make inferences on topic matters not explicitly hard-wired into tables.

Daconta added that good strides have been made in commercial products supporting Semantic Web technologies, including RDF databases (such as Tucana Knowledge Server), ontology editors and inference engines (such as Network Inference's Cerebra Server), and data source integration engines (such as Unicorn System)."

The author is Ken Fromm from Loomia who are working on "a semantic technology software company building an RDF/FoaF-based identity and relationship stack".

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