Inference Web

[gusl]

http://inference-web.org/

The Inference Web is a Semantic Web based knowledge provenance infrastructure that supports interoperable explanations of sources, assumptions, learned information, and answers as an enabler for trust.

* Provenance - if users (humans and agents) are to use and integrate data from unknown, uncertain, or multiple sources, they need provenance metadata for evaluation
* Interoperability - more systems are using varied sources and multiple information manipulation engines, thus increasing interoperability requirements
* Explanation/Justification - if information has been manipulated (i.e., by sound deduction or by heuristic processes), information manipulation trace information should be available
* Trust - if some sources are more trustworthy than others, trust ratings are desired

The Inference Web consists of two important components:

* Proof Markup Language (PML) Ontology - Semantic Web based representation for exchanging explanations including
o provenance information - annotating the sources of knowledge
o justification information - annotating the steps for deriving the conclusions or executing workflows
o trust information - annotating trustworthiness assertions about knowledge and sources
* IW Toolkit - Web-based and standalone tools that facilitate human users to browse, debug, explain, and abstract the knowledge encoded in PML.