Developing Semantic Web Services [Paperback]

H.Peter Alesso (Author), Craig F. Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2004

Developing Semantic Web Services is "well-informed about work on WS [Web Services] and the SemWeb [Semantic Web], and in particular . . . understand[s] OWL-S . . . very well . . .. Also, the book . . . fill[s] a need that, to my knowledge, hasn't been met at all." ---David Martin, editor OWL-S Coalition The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, is also the originator of the next generation Web architecture, the Semantic Web. Currently, his World Wide Web consortium (W3C) team works to develop, extend, and standardize the Web's markup languages and tools. The objective of the Semantic Web Architecture is to provide a knowledge representation of linked data in order to allow machine processing on a global scale. The W3C has developed a new generation of open standard markup languages which are now poised to unleash the power, flexibility, and above all---logic---of the next generation Web, as well as open the door to the next generation of Web Services. There are many ways in which the two areas of Web Services and the Semantic Web could interact to lead to the further development of Semantic Web Services. Berners-Lee has suggested that both of these technologies would benefit from integration that would combine the Semantic Web's meaningful content with Web Services' business logic. Areas such as UDDI and WSDL are ideally suited to be implemented using Semantic Web technology. In addition, SOAP could use RDF payloads, remote RDF query and updates, and interact with Semantic Web business rules engines, thereby laying the foundation for Semantic Web Services. This book presents the complete Language Pyramid of Web markup languages, including Resource Description Framework (RDF), Web Ontology Language (OWL) and OWL-Services (OWL-S) along with examples and software demos. The source code for the "Semantic Web Author," an Integrated Development Environment for Semantic Markup Languages is available on CD-ROM with the book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" ""An excellent resource book for web developers."" -Vijay Kumar, E-Streams, August 2005
""Alesso and Smith (both, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) have provided a wonderful introduction to semantic Web development that goes far beyond semantic Web services. With a clear, very readable style, they tell the reasons for creating a semantic Web, the personalities involved, and the primary technologies . . . that form the structures needed for these services. "" -H. J. Bender, CHOICE Magazine Magazine, May 2005
""Reflecting their expertise arising from many years of extended research experience . . . the coauthors have succeeded in producing a seminal, essential, professional-level instruction manual and reference work."" -Paul T. Vogel, Reviewers' Bookwatch, February 2005"

About the Author

H. Peter Alesso is a technology Innovator with twenty years research experience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). As Engineering Group Leader at LLNL, he has led a team of physicists, computer scientists and engineers in a wide range of successful software development research projects. He earned an M.S. and an advanced Engineering Degree from M.I.T. and has published several software titles as well as numerous scientific journal and conference articles. H. Peter Alesso is the author of e-Video: Producing Internet Video as Broadband Technologies Converge, Addison-Wesley, July 2000, and co-author of The intelligent Wireless Web, Addison Wesley, 2001. Craig Smith, PhD. is an engineer with 30 years experience in research and development, and application of advanced technologies. He is currently employed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and serves as the Lawrence Livermore Chair Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He is responsible for several cutting edge technology development projects and he is a collaborator on several international research initiatives. His areas of interest include sensors, robotics and automated systems: information technology applications; and future energy systems. He has published numerous scientific journal and conference articles on advanced engineering topics. Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1975.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: A K Peters/CRC Press (October 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568812124
• ISBN-13: 978-1568812120
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,623,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

H. Peter Alesso is a technology innovator with twenty years research experience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). As Engineering Group Leader at LLNL he led a team of computer scientists and engineers in innovative applications across a wide range of supercomputers, workstations and networks. He has an M.S. and an advanced Engineering Degree from M.I.T. He has published several software titles and numerous scientific journal and conference articles and he is the author/co-author of five books. (Website www.hpeteralesso.com)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent technical source, August 12, 2005

By 

Anthony Gonzales (Palm Beach, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Developing Semantic Web Services (Paperback)

This book is a comprehensive text for markup languages in general and an excellent primer on XML,RDF,OWL AND OWL-Services. It includes many illustrative examples that are followed through from chapter to chapter to provide a common thread as you move up the language pyramid. The presentation of OWL-Services includes an extensive Enterprise example that covers several chapters and is analyzed in detail. While the book is not a cookbook for a wide variety of applications it does cover semantic search technology and semantic group-ware.
The companion CD-ROM provides C# source code for an integrated development tool for XML, RDF and OWL that includes parsing and validation capability and is readily expandable.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars RDF and OWL - are they enough?, September 27, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Developing Semantic Web Services (Paperback)

The text is about what might sit above XML, in the making of a Semantic Web. It explains XML and several of its numerous subsets, like XPath, XPointer, XSLT and XLink. The union of all these is powerful and has led to XML being the most common format for data interchange on the Web.

But the problem is that XML does not imbue meaning to that data. Just structure. This needs other efforts. Specifically, RDF and OWL. You get a detailed look at their current abilities. A hope in this field is that those languages will suffice to make Semantic Web services.

Indeed, RDF is shown to have nice constructs, each with a "sentence" of subject, predicate and object. This rule encoding can be (and is) expressed in XML, and it can operate on XML data, given an RDF engine.

Exciting possibilities for revving up the Web. Maybe. The question as to whether they are adequate is still open.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A seminal, essential, professional level instruction manual, February 12, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Developing Semantic Web Services (Paperback)

The collaborative work of technology innovator H. Peter Alesso and research engineer Craig Smith, Developing Semantic Web Services presents the complete Language Pyramid of Web markup languages, including Resource Description Framework (RDF), Web Ontology Language (OWL) and OWL-Services (OWL-S), along with numerous examples and software demos. Developing Semantic Web Services also describes the semantic software development tools including design and analysis methodologies, parsers, validators, editors, development environments, and inference engines. Additionally, the source code for the "Semantic Web Author", an Integrated Development Environment for Semantic Markup Languages, is included on an accompanying CD-ROM. Reflecting their expertise arising from their many years of extended research experience at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the co-authors have succeed in producing a seminal, essential, professional level instruction manual and reference work.