Mathieu d’Aquin

Mathieu d'AquinI am a research fellow at the Knowledge Media institute (KMi) of the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. The major common point between all my research activities is the Semantic Web, and especially methods and tools to build intelligent applications relying on formalised knowledge distributed online. I have especially been involved in the development of the Watson Semantic Web search engine, and in many applications of its APIs.

As part of several projects, I have worked on many aspects of building and exploiting the Semantic Web, including ontology building, ontology modularization, ontology matching, ontology evolution, ontology publication, etc. More recently, I have been working on aspects related to the use of semantic technologies and the Semantic Web for monitoring and managing online personal information (see for example the UCIAD project and the DATAMI application).

A major part of my activities also concerns contributing and leading activities around applying linked data technologies and principles for the Open University, and the education sector in general. These activities are carried-out through the LinkedUp project, as well as through developing and exploiting the data.open.ac.uk platform.

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Research Topics

  • Infrastructures for building Semantic Web applications, especially research arround the Watson and Cupboard systems, and in general, related to ontology and semantic data repositories and Semantic Web search engines
  • Ontology lifecycle, regrouping many aspects, in particular on ontology modularization, ontology matching, ontology evolution and ontology evaluation. Many of these aspects where studied as part of the NeOn project, with implementations in the NeOn Toolkit ontology engineering environement
  • Semantic Web studies, which exploits large collections of ontologies and semantic documents, such as the one of Watson, to better understand the way knowledge is structured, organized and distributed online. This includes looking both at technological aspects such as the use of ontological languages, as well as higher level elements, including the evolution of ontologies, agreement and disagreement between ontologies and their modularity.
  • Linked data workflows and applications for education and research, especially as part of the LUCERO project, I am looking at technological and organisational solutions to the integration of linked data practices to expose educational and research content. This includes in particular to build applications opportunistically exploiting links within and outside the local data to improve access to the data and its usage for students and researchers. See data.open.ac.uk, LinkedUniversities.org and LinkedUp
  • Online personal information management, privacy and Web lifelogging, where I am looking at how semantic technologies can be used to support Web users in monitoring, making sense and controlling their exchange of personal information online. See for example the DATAMI application and the UCIAD project.
  • Semantic technologies for medical applications, as part of my PhD obtained in 2005, where I studied the use of Description Logics, OWL, Case-Based Reasoning, multi-viewpoint representations, Distributed Description Logics and fuzzy logics to support the decision making process related to the treatment of cancer.
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Recent Projects

  • LinkedUp (Partner PI). European Support Action which aims to push forward technologies for the exploitation and management of heterogeneous and distributed Web Data, to support the delivery of personalised, data-intensive educational services.
  • DATAMI (project director). Development of an application providing a personal, semantic web history dashboard, based on collecting and analyzing the Web traffic generated by a user through their online activities.
  • UCIAD (project director). Looking at the technological, organizational and privacy related challenges related to providing a user-centric view over activity data.
  • Lucero (project director). Leading the set up of the linked data infrastructure for the Open University and applications of this infrastructure to improve access to and exploitation of information resources for students and researchers.
  • SmartProducts (member). Activities around the application of semantic technologies embedded in small and mobile devices. Especially contribution to the benchmarking of related tools and their adaption on such devices. Concrete applications to be realised with industrial partners.
  • NeOn (participant and member of the executive management board). Active developments in the areas of ontology modularization, ontology selection, ontology reuse, ontology matching and infrastructures for semantic applications. Numerous collaborations with various European partners of the project.
  • Open Knowledge. Short contribution, participating in the integration of the systems developed locally with the infrastructure developed by the project, and investigating some aspects of the notion of cautious knowledge sharing.
  • Knowledge Web. As part of my PhD, participated in the research around ontology modularization, ontology matching and reasoning with multiple viewpoints.
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Teaching

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