From semantic web to expressive software specifications: a modeling languages spectrum

Many researchers at W3C currently focus on developing the next generation of the Web --- the Semantic Web. The development of the Web ontology languages, RDF, OWL and SWRL, is reminiscent of the early development of system specification languages in software engineering communities. Indeed, from the expressiveness point of view, Web ontology languages are subsets of Alloy, UML/OCL, VDM, Z and Object-Z. One can futher predict that the modeling languages for capturing the behaviours of the Semantic Web Services and Agents can be drawn from the rich collections of software dynamic modeling techniques, i.e., state machines, process algebra and integrated design methods. This tutorial will present a concise Modeling Languages Spectrum that includes a few key representative modeling languages ranging from simple static Web Ontology modeling techniques to expressive dynamic integrated modeling techniques. Comparisons and transformations between those languages will be discussed. Furthermore, based on transformation approaches, the latest research results on applying software modeling techniques and tools to the Semantic Web domain will be also demonstrated.