Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-fr72s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-20T01:29:11.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

N3Logic: A logical framework for the World Wide Web

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2008

TIM BERNERS-LEE ,
DAN CONNOLLY ,
LALANA KAGAL ,
YOSI SCHARF  and
JIM HENDLER
TIM BERNERS-LEE
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected])
DAN CONNOLLY
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected])
LALANA KAGAL
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected])
YOSI SCHARF
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected])
JIM HENDLER
Affiliation:
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA (e-mail: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Semantic Web drives toward the use of the Web for interacting with logically interconnected data. Through knowledge models such as Resource Description Framework (RDF), the Semantic Web provides a unifying representation of richly structured data. Adding logic to the Web implies the use of rules to make inferences, choose courses of action, and answer questions. This logic must be powerful enough to describe complex properties of objects but not so powerful that agents can be tricked by being asked to consider a paradox. The Web has several characteristics that can lead to problems when existing logics are used, in particular, the inconsistencies that inevitably arise due to the openness of the Web, where anyone can assert anything. N3Logic is a logic that allows rules to be expressed in a Web environment. It extends RDF with syntax for nested graphs and quantified variables and with predicates for implication and accessing resources on the Web, and functions including cryptographic, string, math. The main goal of N3Logic is to be a minimal extension to the RDF data model such that the same language can be used for logic and data. In this paper, we describe N3Logic and illustrate through examples why it is an appropriate logic for the Web.

Keywords

LogicWebSemantic WebScoped negationQuotingRDFN3
Type
Regular Papers
Information
Theory and Practice of Logic Programming , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , May 2008 , pp. 249 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

The Official Python Programming Language Web site: http://www.python.org/.Google Scholar
Adida, B. and Birbeck, M. 2006. RDF/A Primer 1.0. Embedding RDF in XHTML. W3C Working Draft. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/.Google Scholar
Altheim, M., Anderson, B., Hayes, P., Menzel, C., Sowa, J. F., and Tammet, T. 2005. SCL: Simple Common Logic. http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes/CL/SCL2004.html.Google Scholar
Appel, A. W. and Felten, E. W. 1999. Proof-carrying authentication. In 6th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Kent Ridge Digital Labs, Singapore.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baader, F., Calvanese, D., McGuinness, D., Nardi, D., and Patel-Schneider, P., Eds. 2003. The Description Logic Handbook. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Beckett, D. 2006. Turtle—Terse RDF triple language. http://www.dajobe.org/2004/01/turtle/.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T. 1980. ENQUIRE V 1.1 manual. http://www.w3.org/History/1980/Enquire/.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T. 1998. Notation 3 (N3) A readable RDF syntax. http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3.html.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T. 2000. Cwm: General-purpose data processor for the Semantic Web. http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/doc/cwm.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T. 2005. Primer: Getting into RDF and Semantic Web using N3. http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T. 2006. N3 BNF. http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/grammar/n3-report.html.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T. and Connolly, D. 2004. Delta: An ontology for the distribution of differences between RDF graphs. http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Diff.Google Scholar
Brickley, D. and Miller, L. 1999. Friend of a friend (foaf) project. http://www.foaf-project.org/.Google Scholar
Carroll, J. J. and Klyne, G. 2004. Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Syntax. Tech. Rep. http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-concepts-20040210/, W3C. February.Google Scholar
Dumbill, E. 2002. Finding friends with XML and RDF. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-foaf.html.Google Scholar
Foundation, O. OpenID 2007. http://openid.net/.Google Scholar
Gallaire, H. and Minker, J., Eds. 1978. Logic and Data Bases. Perseus Publishing, Boulder, CO, USA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genesereth, M. R. 1998. Knowledge interchange format. Draft proposed American National Standard (dpANS). NCITS.T2/98-004. http://logic.stanford.edu/kif/dpans.html.Google Scholar
Hazaël-Massieux, D. and Connolly, D. 2005. Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL), W3C team submission. http://www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/grddl/.Google Scholar
Jacobs, I. and Walsh, N. 2004. The Architecture of the World Wide Web. W3C recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/.Google Scholar
Kagal, L., Berners-Lee, T., Connolly, D., and Weitzner, D. 2006. Using Semantic Web technologies for open policy management on the Web. In 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Kalyanpur, A., Parsia, B., Sirin, E., Cuenca-Grau, B., and Hendler, J. 2005. Swoop: A “Web” ontology editing browser. Journal of Web Semantics 4 (2), 144–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolovski, V., Katz, Y., Hendler, J., Weitzner, D., and Berners-Lee, T. 2005. Towards a policy-aware Web. In Semantic Web and Policy Workshop at the 4th International Semantic Web Conference. Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Parsia, B., Katz, Y., and Clark, K. 2005. Pychinko: Rete-based RDF friendly rule engine. http://www.mindswap.org/katz/pychinko/.Google Scholar
Roo, J. D. 2005. Euler proof mechanism. http://www.agfa.com/w3c/euler/.Google Scholar
Shapiro, S. Fall 2005. Classical logic. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zalta, E. N., Ed.Google Scholar
Steele, G. L. and Sussman, G. J. Scheme 1975. http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/projects/scheme/.Google Scholar