Relation elements for the semantic web

Abstract

The investigation into the intrinsic nature of relations has led to the development of the Relation Element theory. At present, there is no significant initiative to comprehensively describe the intrinsic nature of relations in ontological representations for the Semantic Web. The use of relation elements can describe the nature of relations in knowledge domains beyond the capabilities of currently popular knowledge representation paradigms for the Semantic Web such as OWL and DAML. With this in mind, this paper presents an implementation of the relation element theory for the Semantic Web using the reification feature of RDF/RDFS. The reasons for the inability to use DAML or OWL for defining relation elements are discussed with possible solutions. Finally, some of the possible benefits of using relation elements to define the intrinsic nature of relations for Semantic Web applications are also proposed and demonstrated in this paper. © Springer - Verlag 2004.