Semantic Web services, processes and applications

Tim Berners-Lee developed, in 1989, the basic tools required by the Web as we currently know it: the Hypertext Markup Language – HTML; the Hypertext Transfer Protocol – HTTP; and a system for locating objects on the Web, the Universal Resource Locator – URL. Twelve years later1, with a fully functional Web, Berners-Lee published an original article, with the challenging proposal of a “Semantic Web” (Berners-Lee 2001). According to his proposal, the Semantic Web would be an extension of the current one, in which information would be given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. Thus the current Web, basically comprised of documents presented by computers and read by man, would also include data and information that would automatically be handled by agents and utilities. Back then, Berners-Lee (2001) argued that advancements in the Semantic Web would require the development of a language able to express data and data reasoning rules, in addition to enabling the any knowledge representation system to be exported to the Web. Up to that time, two key technologies for the achievement of the Semantic Web had been developed: the eXtensible Markup Language – XML, and the specifications family Resource Description Framework – RDF, the latter intended for the description or modeling of information implemented in Web resources. USA, Chapman & Hall/ CRC, 2007