Keynotes

(in alphabetical order)

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Diego Calvanese
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

 

Title: Mapping Patterns for Virtual Knowledge Graphs 

 

Abstract: Recently, semantic technologies have been successfully deployed to overcome the typical difficulties in accessing and integrating data stored in different kinds of legacy sources. In particular, knowledge graphs are being used as a mechanism to provide a uniform representation of heterogeneous information.  Such graphs represent data in the RDF format, complemented by an ontology, and can be queried using the standard SPARQL language.  We consider the Virtual Knowledge Graph (VKG) paradigm, where the graph is exposed virtually by means of declarative mappings that specify how to populate ontology classes and properties in terms of suitable queries over the data sources.  The form of mappings impacts both semantic correctness and efficiency of query answering, and their proper design is a critical factor.  In the talk, we illustrate the principles underlying the VKG approach to data access and integration, and we present recent results on mapping patterns to support different activities related to the design and management of mappings for VKGs.

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Bio: Diego Calvanese (http://www.inf.unibz.it/~calvanese/) is a full professor at the Research Centre for Knowledge and Data (KRDB), Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy), where he leads the Intelligent Integration and Access to Data (In2Data) research group. He is the Director of the Smart Data Factory (SDF) technology transfer lab of the Faculty of Computer Science at NOI Techpark in Bolzano.  He is also Wallenberg Guest Professor in Artificial Intelligence for Data Management at Umeå University (Sweden).  His research interests concern foundational and applied aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Databases, notably formalisms for knowledge representation and reasoning, Virtual Knowledge Graphs for data management and integration, Description Logics, Semantic Web, and modeling and verification of data-aware processes. He is the author of more than 350 refereed publications, including ones in the most prestigious venues in Artificial Intelligence and Databases, with 33000 citations and an h-index of 72, according to Google Scholar. He is a Fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI) and a Fellow of the ACM.  He is the ideator and a co-founder of Ontopic, the first spin-off of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, founded in 2019, and developing solutions and technologies for data management and integration based on Virtual Knowledge Graphs.

 

 

Sven Helmer

University of Zurich, Switzerland

 

Title: Knowledge Engineering for Cultural Heritage: Finding the Thread (Andean Style)

 

Abstract: Andean textiles are products of one of the richest, most ancient and continuous weaving traditions in the world. Understanding the knowledge and practice of textile production as a form of cultural heritage is
particularly relevant in the Andean context due to the erosion of these traditions. In the talk, I will sketch the challenges faced and the insights gained during two interdisciplinary research projects: first, on how to elicit the knowledge of cultural heritage domain experts and represent that information in the form of an OWL ontology, and second, on how to make digitized textile patterns accessible via sophisticated retrieval techniques. However, many interesting knowledge engineering problems still remain to be discovered in the area of Andean textiles and, more generally, cultural heritage.

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Bio: Sven Helmer is a senior researcher in the Department of Informatics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, after holding positions as Associate Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, and as Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom. He acquired a PhD from the University of Mannheim, Germany, an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and also spent some time as a visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg. He has taught and is teaching courses on data science, databases, and information security; his research interests include database systems, cloud computing, Raspberry Pis, query optimization, route planning, complex event detection, as well as interdisciplinary research in the areas of information systems and ethnography. He has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.