A Pythonic Functional Approach for Semantic Data Harmonisation in the ILIAD Project

TL;DR

The paper introduces a Python-based functional framework that simplifies semantic data harmonisation for environmental data, making it accessible to data scientists without deep Web ontology expertise.

Contribution

It presents a novel Pythonic library approach that encodes ontology design patterns, enabling seamless RDF generation and data harmonisation in the ILIAD project.

Findings

The approach improves data scientists' ability to participate in data harmonisation.

It effectively encodes OIM design patterns across multiple abstraction levels.

Demonstrated successful application in the ILIAD Aquaculture pilot.

Abstract

Semantic data harmonisation is a central requirement in the ILIAD project, where heterogeneous environmental data must be harmonised according to the Ocean Information Model (OIM), a modular family of ontologies for enabling the implementation of interoperable Digital Twins of the Ocean. Existing approaches to Semantic Data Harmonisation, such as RML and OTTR, offer valuable abstractions but require extensive knowledge of the technical intricacies of the OIM and the Semantic Web standards, including namespaces, IRIs, OWL constructors, and ontology design patterns. Furthermore, RML and OTTR oblige practitioners to learn specialised syntaxes and dedicated tooling. Data scientists in ILIAD have found these approaches overly cumbersome and have therefore expressed the need for a solution that abstracts away these technical details while remaining seamlessly integrated into their Python-based environments. To address these requirements, we have developed a Pythonic functional approach to semantic data harmonisation that enables users to produce correct RDF through simple function calls. The functions, structured as Python libraries, encode the design patterns of the OIM and are organised across multiple levels of abstraction. Low-level functions directly expose OWL and RDF syntax, mid-level functions encapsulate ontology design patterns, and high-level domain-specific functions orchestrate data harmonisation tasks by invoking mid-level functions. According to feedback from ILIAD data scientists, this approach satisfies their requirements and substantially enhances their ability to participate in harmonisation activities. In this paper, we present the details of our Pythonic functional approach to semantic data harmonisation and demonstrate its applicability within the ILIAD Aquaculture pilot.