The exploitation of theoretical results in knowledge representation, language standardization by W3C and data publication initiatives such as Linked Open Data have given a level of concreteness to the field of ontology research. In light of these recent outcomes, ontology development has also found its way to the forefront, benefiting from years of R&D on development tools. Semi-Automatic Ontology Development: Processes and Resources includes state-of-the-art research results aimed at the automation of ontology development processes and the reuse of external resources becoming a reality, thus being of interest for a wide and diversified community of users. This book provides a thorough overview on the current efforts on this subject and suggests common directions for interested researchers and practitioners.
Maria Teresa Pazienza is currently full Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Roma "Tor Vergata," where she founded dedicated curricula on AI both at degree and doctoral levels. She coordinates research and development activities on Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Representation and Management, and Natural Language Processing at the Department of Enterprise Engineering, where she founded the ART Laboratory in 1988. Her areas of expertise include education, research, system development, and user applications of AI technologies (natural language processing, information extraction, conceptual knowledge engineering, applied ontologies, knowledge-based systems, linguistic resources production, linguistic agents, semantic Web). She is author/co-author of more than 150 scientific publications. Professor Pazienza cooperates with several research groups, international institutions, and companies for NLP research and application programs. In the context of European consortia/projects, she has been (and currently is) responsible for the activities carried out at the University of Roma "Tor Vergata." She is reviewer and evaluator for the European Community, for the Danish Council for Strategic Research, for the Science Foundation Ireland, for Chile Superior Council of the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development, and for the Italian Ministry of University. In 2010 she received the IBM Faculty Award. She is on the editorial board of a few international journals (Journal of Terminology, Cognitive Processing, and Applied Ontology), in the scientific committee of CERTIA (academic consortium for cognitive science and applied AI technologies), and participates in the scientific committees of several international conferences on AI. Professor Pazienza is director of the Unit of Roma Tor Vergata University for CINI Consortium, and is in the Steering Committee of ESA (European Space Agency), ESRIN, and Roma Tor Vergata University Convention.
Armando Stellato obtained a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Rome, Tor Vergata, with a thesis on "Alignment and Mediation of Distributed Information Sources in the Semantic Web" and is working, since 2005, as a Research Associate at the ART Research group of the University of Tor Vergata. He is author of more than 50 publications in conferences and journals in the fields of Semantic Web, Natural Language Processing, and other related fields and has been in the program committee of many academic events. Currently his main interests cover Architecture Design for Knowledge-Based Systems, Management of Knowledge Elicitation Processes, and Onto-Linguistic Interfaces. He is also consultant at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations as a Semantic Architect, and he is working on all aspects (vocabulary design, publication on Linked Open Data, evolution of FAO software for collaborative RDF management known as VocBench) related to the maintenance and publication of FAO RDF vocabularies and resources such as AGROVOC, Biotech, and Journal Authority Data.
