The Semantic Web: Semantics for Data and Services on the Web (Data-Centric Systems and Applications)

A decade ago Tim Berners-Lee proposed an extraordinary vision: despite the p- nomenal success of the Web, it would not, and could not, reach its full potential unless it became a place where automated processes could participate as well as people. This meant the publication of documents and data to the web in such a way that they could be interpreted, integrated, aggregated and queried to reveal new connections and answer questions, rather than just browsed and searched. Many scoffed at this idea, interpreting the early emphasis on language design and reas- ing as AI in new clothes. This missed the point. The Grand Challenge of the Semantic Web is one that needs not only the information structure of ontologies, metadata, and data, but also the computational infrastructure of Web Services, P2P and Grid distributed computing and workflows. Consequently, it is a truly who- system and multi-disciplinary effort. This is also an initiative that has to be put into practice. That means a pragmatic approach to standards, tools, mechanisms and methodologies, and real, challenging examples. It would seem self-evident that the Semantic Web should be able to make a major contribution to clinical information discovery. Scientific commu- ties are ideal incubators: knowledge-driven, fragmented, diverse, a range of str- tured and unstructured resources with many disconnected suppliers and consumers of knowledge. Moreover, the clinicians and biosciences have embraced the notions of annotation and classification using ontologies for centuries, and have dema- ing requirements for trust, security, fidelity and expressivity.

Vipul Kashyap, PhD is a Senior Medical Informatician in the Clinical Informatics Research & Development group at Partners HealthCare System. He plays the role of a systems and information architect in the content of a platform for Clinical Knowledge Management Platform and creating of clinical information models in the context of the Enterprise Clinical Services architecture at Partners Healthcare System. Vipul has received his PhD from the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick that investigated the use of metadata and ontologies for information and knowledge management. He was a co-project manager of a Knowledge Management effort at Telcordia Technologies (formerly known as Bellcore) focused on knowledge sharing and reuse across Telcordia's Professional Services Units. He was a fellow at the National Library of Medicine, and has held positions at Micro-electronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Vipul has published 2 books on the topic of Semantics in Information Brokering and Integration, 40-50 articles in prestigious conferences and journals. He serves on the editorial boards of 3 journals and sits on the technical advisory board of an early stage companies developing semantics-based products. He also represents Partners on the W3C Advisory Committee and the EHR Technical Committee of the HealthCare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP).

Christoph Bussler is Staff Software Engineer at BEA Systems, Inc., working in the core WebLogic application server product development organization. Before joining BEA, Chris was architect at Cisco Systems, Inc. in San Jose, CA, USA, responsible for the service-oriented architecture at Cisco Systems' Quote-to-Cash business unit. Before taking this position he was Science Foundation Ireland Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway in Ireland and Executive Director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI). In addition to his role as Executive Director of DERI, Chris led the Semantic Web Services research group at DERI. Chris has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Erlangen, Germany and a Master in computer science from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Chris published a book titled 'B2B Integration', two books on workflow management, over 100 research papers in journals and academic conferences, gave tutorials on several topics including B2B integration, workflow management and service-oriented architectures and was keynote speaker at many conferences and workshops on topics like workflow management, B2B and EAI integration as well as Semantic Web.

Matthew Moran is a Senior Design Engineer with the SOA R&D group at Nortel Networks (Ireland) Ltd. working on their Multimedia Contact Center product. Prior to that, he was a Research Engineer with the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)., where he was co-founder and architect of the WSMX open source Semantic Web Service execution environment. Previously, Matthew gained extensive industrial experience as a software engineer over ten years in Ireland, Germany and Australia. He worked with MediaOne in Dublin, Ireland and Rumble Group in Sydney Australia as a Web design engineer focusing on the early integration of Web service technology into Web applications.  Matthew is completing his PhD in Semantic Web Services with NUIG and has a Bachelor of Electronic Engineering Degree from the same university. He is co-author of thirteen research papers in academic journals and conferences as well as three book chapters on topics relating to Semantic Web Services. He is co-architect of the WSMX open source Semantic Web Service execution environment and is co-author of the OASIS Semantic Execution Environment working group. In addition, he has co-authored and presented tutorials at eightinternational conferences.