Semantic Publish-Subscribe Server Using OWL Reasoning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing publish-subscribe systems lack expressivity in matching events and subscriptions, fail to utilize reasoning or domain knowledge, and face scalability issues with large volumes of events and subscriptions.
Innovation Solution
A semantic publish-subscribe system using Web Ontology Language (OWL) graph patterns and description logic reasoners to expand events and match them with subscriptions, employing a linked-chains structure and chain ordering algorithm for efficient matching.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional topic-based or content-based filtering criteria are used, then the system is simple to implement, but the expressivity of subscription interests and event labeling is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the parameter representation from simple attribute-value pairs to OWL graph patterns with semantic annotations. This allows subscriptions and events to be labeled with rich semantic descriptors that capture complex relationships and meanings, significantly improving expressivity while maintaining manageable complexity through standardized ontology formats.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces OWL ontologies as an intermediary layer between the publish-subscribe system and the semantic content. These ontologies provide a standardized vocabulary and reasoning framework that enables expressive semantic labeling without requiring complex custom processing logic in the core system, thus improving expressivity while controlling complexity.
2Measurement precision
If semantic matching with reasoning is implemented, then the system can identify semantically relevant events, but the processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs semantic reasoning and event expansion in advance, before the actual matching process. By pre-computing the semantic implications of events using OWL reasoners and storing expanded event representations, the system achieves high matching accuracy without incurring reasoning overhead during real-time event processing, thus reducing processing time while maintaining precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent divides the matching process into separate stages: semantic expansion of events, indexing of expanded events, and actual matching against subscriptions. This segmentation allows computationally intensive reasoning operations to be performed offline or asynchronously, while the online matching process operates on pre-processed data, thereby maintaining high accuracy while reducing real-time processing time.
3Reliability
If the system processes all subscriptions for every event, then complete matching is ensured, but scalability deteriorates with large volumes of events and subscriptions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates inverted indexes of expanded events before processing incoming events. This preliminary indexing organizes the subscription space in advance, allowing the system to quickly identify which subscriptions are relevant to an incoming event by checking the index rather than evaluating all subscriptions. This ensures matching completeness while dramatically improving scalability to handle large volumes of events and subscriptions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and stores the semantic structure of expanded events in an inverted index, separating this information from the full subscription evaluation process. During event processing, only the relevant indexed information is retrieved and matched, rather than processing all subscriptions in full detail. This extraction approach maintains complete matching while reducing the computational burden to improve scalability.
Data Source
AI summary
A semantic publish-subscribe system, including: a plurality of subscribers; a plurality of publishers; and a server that receives and stores subscriptions that are described in web ontology language (OWL) graph patterns from the plurality of subscribers and that receives events that are described in semantic graphs formed by OWL assertions from the plurality of publishers, wherein when the server receives an event from a publisher, the server expands the OWL assertions of the event using a reasoner to produce an expanded event, the server matches the expanded event to a subscription, and then, the server notifies a subscriber whose interest matches the event.