The DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) was the name of a US funding program at the US

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

(DARPA) started in 1999 by then-Program Manager

James Hendler James Alexander Hendler (born April 2, 1957) is an artificial intelligence researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, United States, and one of the originators of the Semantic Web. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administra ...

, and later run by Murray Burke, Mark Greaves and Michael Pagels. The program focused on the creation of machine-readable representations for the Web. One of the Investigators working on the program was

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

. Working with the program managers and other participants, Tim helped shape the effort to create technologies and demonstrations for what is now called the

Semantic Web The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable. To enable the encoding o ...

, leading in turn to the growth of

knowledge graph In knowledge representation and reasoning, a knowledge graph is a knowledge base that uses a Graph (discrete mathematics), graph-structured data model or topology to represent and operate on data. Knowledge graphs are often used to store interl ...

technology. A primary outcome of the DAML program was the DAML language, an

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

markup language A markup language is a Encoding, text-encoding system which specifies the structure and formatting of a document and potentially the relationships among its parts. Markup can control the display of a document or enrich its content to facilitate au ...

based on RDF. This language was followed by an extension entitled

DAML+OIL The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies. Ontologies are a formal way to describe taxonomies and classification networks, essentially defining the structure of knowledge for vario ...

which included researchers outside of the DARPA program in the design. The 2002 submission of the DAML+OIL language to the

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

(W3C) captures the work done by DAML contractors and the EU/

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

ad hoc Joint Committee on Agent Markup Languages. This submission was the starting point for the language (later called

OWL Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

) to be developed by W3C's web ontology

working group A working group is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. Such groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdisciplinary collab ...

, WebOnt. DAML+OIL was a syntax, layered on RDF and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

, that could be used to describe sets of facts making up an

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

. DAML+OIL had its roots in three main languages - DAML, as described above,

OIL An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

(Ontology Inference Layer) and

SHOE A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. Though the human foot can adapt to varied terrains and climate conditions, it is vulnerable, and shoes provide protection. Form was originally tied to function, but ...

, an earlier US research project. A major innovation of the languages was to use RDF and XML for a basis, and to use RDF namespaces to organize and assist with the integration of arbitrarily many different and incompatible ontologies. Articulation ontologies can link these competing ontologies through codification of analogous subsets in a

neutral point of view Neutral or neutrality may refer to: Mathematics and natural science Biology * Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity Chemistry and physics * Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...

, as is done in the

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

. Current ontology research derived in part from DAML is leading toward the expression of ontologies and rules for reasoning and

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

. Much of the work in DAML has now been incorporated into

RDF Schema RDF Schema (Resource Description Framework Schema, variously abbreviated as RDFS, , RDF-S, or RDF/S) is a set of classes with certain properties using the RDF extensible knowledge representation data model, providing basic elements for the descr ...

, the

and their successor languages and technologies including schema.org

External links

About DAMLW3C Web Ontology (WebOnt) Working Group (OWL) (Closed)Submission request to the World Wide Web Consortium: DAML+OIL Web Ontology Language
Markup languages Knowledge representation languages Semantic Web

See also

External links