Applying the Semantic Web to Manage Knowledge on the Grid

Geodise [2] uses a toolbox of Grid enabled Matlab functions as building blocks on which higher-level problem solving workflows can be built. The aim is to help domain engineers utilize the Grid and engineering design search packages to yield optimized designs more efficiently. In order to capture the knowledge needed to describe the functions & workflows so that they may be best reused by other less experienced engineers we have developed a layered semantic infrastructure. A generic knowledge development and management environment (OntoView) that is used to develop an ontology encapsulating the semantics of the functions and workflows, and that underpins the domain specific components. These include: an annotation mechanism used to associate concepts with functions (Function Annotator); a semantic retrieval mechanism and GUI that allows engineers to locate suitable functions based on a list of ontology-driven searching criteria; and a GUI-based function advisor that uses the functions’ semantic information in order to help function configuration and recommend semantically compatible candidates for function assembly and workflow composition (Domain Script Editor and Workflow Construction Advisor). This paper describes this infrastructure, which we plan to extend to include the semantic reuse of workflows as well as functions.