=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-514/paper-11
|storemode=property
|title=GNOWSYS-mode: An Emacs based Text Editor for Semantic and Structured Document Editing
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-514/paper12.pdf
|volume=Vol-514
}}
==GNOWSYS-mode: An Emacs based Text Editor for Semantic and Structured Document Editing==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-514/paper12.pdf
GNOWSYS-mode: An Emacs based Text Editor
for Semantic and Structured Document Editing
Divya Sinha, Alpesh Gajbe, Rajiv Nair, Ganesh Gajre, Nagarjuna G.
Gnowledge Lab, Homi Bhabha Centre, TIFR, Mumbai, India
Abstract. Keeping the requirements of the semantic web in mind we
have developed a pure text based collaborative editing environment to
create, update and manage knowledge networks and structured docu-
ments. It works as a client to the GNOWSYS server. GNOWSYS (Gnowl-
edge Networking and Organizing System) is a frame based triple-store
supporting version control, publishing and managing multiple ontologies
along with instances.
1 Introduction
The semantic web community is seriously investigating several approaches of
creating, updating and managing semantic web, of which managing ontologies is
of prime concern. To name a few frameworks and implementations: Client-Server
framwork[1],[2] wikimedia based, software based version control[3] and through-
the-web[4]. We present yet another client-server model, where the client is a
well known, robust, widely used, extensible text editor, Emacs.[5] The problem
of change management for growing knowledge networks is handled by a frame
based triple-store called GNOWSYS (Gnowledge Networking and Organizing
System)1 .
GNOWSYS is a specification and an implementation for a generic distributed
network based memory/knowledge management. GNOWSYS processes all the
RDF triples and reorganizes the information contained in the triples as a node
and its neighbourhood (NBH). The subject, predicate and object of all RDF
triples are considered as nodes with unique URI. When laid as a graph, the
linked nodes of any given node constitutes the NBH. The server uses Graphviz
[6] to visualize each node and it’s NBH. Importing from and exporting into
RDF-N3, and importing from OWL is possible. Exporting into OWL will be
supported very soon.
2 Special Versioning Features of GNOWSYS
When users add triples, the data is preprocessed to create unique SSID (snapshot
ID) for each node. When new triples assert links to an existing node, a new
snapshot of the node gets created. The asserted attributes and relations of each
1
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnowsys/
CEUR
ceur-ws.org
Workshop ISSN 1613-0073
Proceedings
node form a frame (a node with its NBH), which is stored persistently. Version
number, timestamp, contributor ID, history, fields changed help to track changes.
GNOWSYS supports non-linear evolution (branching), which occurs when a
contributor alters an older version instead of the latest.
An ontology is a node that holds together all the triples describing it. Thus,
multiple ontologies or new versions of the same ontology can be published. View-
ing and editing of ontologies using gnowsys-mode is being developed.
3 Demonstration
A library of screencasts are uploaded at the gnowledge lab’s site.2 Here we list
a few of them suggesting the link between the GNOWSYS specific vocabulary
and the standard vocabulary of OWL. Please click on the hyperlinks to access
the online resources.
– Adding AttributeTypes (Datatype Properties)
– Adding Relationtypes (Object Properties)
– Adding Instances and Attributes
– Adding Relations
– Searching and viewing the graphs
– Exporting to RDF/N3
– Version Management
Acknowledgement: The work is supported by the XI Plan Project of the
Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, the GNU project, and Google for
granting the Google Summer of Code 2009 scholarship to Divya (who is the main
author of the code for GNOWSYS-mode).
References
1. Noy, N., Chugh, A., Liu, W., Musen, M.: A framework for ontology evolution in
collaborative environments. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4273 (2006) 544
2. Tudorache, T., Noy, N., Musen, M.: Collaborative Protégé: Enabling Community-
based Authoring of Ontologies. In: International Semantic Web Conference (Posters
& Demos). (2008)
3. Smith, B., Ashburner, M., Rosse, C., Bard, J., Bug, W., Ceusters, W., Goldberg,
L., Eilbeck, K., Ireland, A., Mungall, C., et al.: The OBO Foundry: coordinated
evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integration. Nature biotechnology
25 (2007) 1251–1255
4. Farquhar, A., Fikes, R., Rice, J.: The ontolingua server: A tool for collaborative
ontology construction. International journal of human-computer studies (1996)
5. Stallman, R.M.: Emacs the extensible, customizable self-documenting display editor.
In: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN SIGOA symposium on Text manipulation,
New York, NY, USA, ACM (1981) 147–156
6. Ellson, J., Gansner, E., Koutsofios, L., North, S., Woodhull, G.: Graphviz-open
source graph drawing tools. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (2002) 483–484
2
http://lab.gnowledge.org/download/gnowsys-mode-screencasts/.