Conference on Semantics in Healthcare and Life Sciences (CSHALS)

Keynote Speaker - Dr. Rinke Hoekstra

Rinke Hoekstra, PhD
Knowledge Representation & Reasoning Group
VU University Amsterdam
Leibniz Center for Law, University of Amsterdam 
Netherlands

Presentation Title:
The Knowledge Reengineering Bottleneck

>>Presentation (.pdf)

Abstract: Knowledge engineering upholds a longstanding tradition that emphasizes methodological issues associated with the acquisition and representation of knowledge in some (formal) language. This focus on methodology implies an ex ante approach: "think before you act". The rapid increase of linked data poses new challenges for knowledge engineering, and the Semantic Web project as a whole. Although the dream of unhindered knowledge reuse is a technical reality, it has come at the cost of control. Semantic web content can no longer be assumed to have been produced in a controlled task-independent environment. When reused, Semantic Web content needs to be remoulded, refiltered and recurated for a new task. Traditional ex ante methodologies do not provide any guidelines for this ex post knowledge reengineering; forcing developers to resort to ad hoc measures and manual labour: the knowledge reengineering bottleneck.

Biography: Rinke Hoekstra is a researcher at the Knowledge Representation & Reasoning group of the VU University Amsterdam and at the Leibniz Center for Law of the University of Amsterdam, where he received his Ph.D. on the topic of ontology representation and design patterns. Rinke's main area of research is knowledge representation and engineering, specifically ontologies, the semantic web and linked data. He spends most of his time applying this technology to law and government information, and recently forayed into the domains of science and the humanities.

Rinke was a member of the OWL Working Group that developed OWL 2, and the eGov Interest Group of the W3C, and is editorial board member of the Semantic Web journal. He was program chair of OWLED 2009, and served on several program committees for conferences on AI and Law, and Semantic Web. Rinke is the main author of the LKIF Core ontology of basic legal concepts, and one of the initial developers of the MetaLex XML format for legal sources.