C. Maria Keet
Research
Dr. C. Maria KeetSenior Lecturer
School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Westville Campus (block H1)
Durban
South Africa
Tel: (+27) 031 260 1035
Fax: (+27) 031 260 7001
Home: www.meteck.org
Blog: keet blog
email: keet at ukzn.ac.za
CV and publications
1. Research interests and activities
2. Seminars and presentations
3. Organisational activities, reviewing etc
4. Teaching and tutorials
1a. Research Interests
- Logic-based knowledge representation, focussed on representing biological knowledge (biological reality)
- conceptual modelling & ontology languages (Description Logics (& OWL), Object-Role Modeling, etc.)
- relations in (bio-)ontologies, such as parthood and other part-whole relations
- Granularity
- Ontology development
- Biological data characteristics
1b. Research Activities
The main thread across my research activities is ontology, ontologies, logic, and conceptual data modelling. They are divided into three paragraphs for presentation convenience, and a final paragraph on participation in funded projects.
Granularity
The development of a formal theory of granularity (TOG), my PhD thesis topic, covers subtopics such as mereology, indistinguishability, types of granularity, abstraction and expansion, and formal ontology. With the thesis completed, the focus is shifting toward its application in/with modularization, ontologies (elaborating on chapter 5 of the thesis), formal conceptual data models, developing an ontology of granularity (an extension of chapter 2 of the thesis), elaborating on part-whole relations (mainly with Alessandro Artale and Nicola Guarino), and exploring its relation with rough sets.
CS and logic-based bio-ontologies
In this strand of investigation, I consider automated reasoning for formal (FOL, DL and OWL-ized) bio-ontologies, formal properties of relations in bio-ontologies (e.g. part-of and transformation-of), ontology engineering, and biological data characteristics. Some of those CS & bio problems feed into the granularity research activities so as to solve real problems. In addition, I was involved in OBDA testing with bio-ontologies and bio-databases for the EU FP6 FET TONES Project and I coordinated and contributed to an extension of this work to achieve in silico hypothesis testing using the horizontal gene transfer database (HGT-DB) as case study (with Mark van Passel, Santi Garcia-Vallve, Werner Nutt, Diego Calvanese, Mariano Rodriguez, and Giorgio Stefanoni)
Formal and ontology-driven conceptual data modeling
Automated reasoning over conceptual data models that have a formalization in Description Logics in the background, mainly focussed on the DLR flavours and properties of Object-Role Modeling languages and various extensions, such as formal temporal conceptual data modelling. One of the application scenarios for the TOG is to add most of it to formal conceptual data models and/or to the language (and then also to, say, OWL 2). I am the PI on the South African side of the DST/MINCyT-funded bi-lateral South Africa/Argentina Joint Science and Technology Research cooperation project with Argentina, entitled Ontology-driven unification of conceptual data modelling languages, with Pablo Fillottrani at Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahia Blanca, as Argentinian PI. In addition, I was involved in the project "Technologies for Conceptual Modelling and Intelligent Query Formulation" between the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy (coordinator Enrico Franconi) and the Meraka Institute at CSIR in Pretoria South Africa (coordinator Thomas Meyer), 2008-2012.
Participation in funded projects
- Principal Investigator of the project entitled Ontology-driven unification of conceptual data modelling languages of the bi-lateral "South Africa / Argentina Joint Science and Technology Research" funded by SA's Department of Science and Technology and Argentina's MINCyT, with as co-PI in Argentina Pablo Fillottrani, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahia Blanca, Argentina. Project duration: 2012-2014.
- Participation (external expert, as ontologist) in the EU PF7 collaborative project e-LICO: An e-Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research in Data Mining and Data-Intensive Science. Project duration: 2009-2012.
- Participation (researcher) in the Marie Curie action funded by the EC under ICT Call 3 FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IRSES on a Network for Enabling Networked Knowledge (NET2). Project duration: 2010-2012.
- Participation (researcher) in the Italy-South Africa collaboration project Technologies for Conceptual Modelling and Intelligent Query Formulation, within the Executive Programme of Scientific and Technological Co-Operation between the Italian Republic and Republic of South Africa 2008-2010.
- Participation (tester and report writing) in the EU FP6 FET TONES Project (nr FP6-7603) concerning Ontology-Based Data Access for databases in the subject domain of people with disabilities and of horizontal gene transfer. Project duration: 2006-2008.
2. Seminars and Presentations
Invited talks
- Semantic Computing with the WONDER System: Implementation, Challenges and Opportunities for Curriculum Development. School of Computing, University of South Africa, South Africa, 8 September 2010.
- Engineering rough ontologies. School of Computing, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August 2010.
- Temporal Constraints on Part-Whole Relations. Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas, La Habana, Cuba, 20 April 2010.
- Desarrollo de ontologías como un nivel de abstracción de las bases de datos relacionales. Department of Computation, Universidad de la Habana, Cuba, 19 April 2010.
- Representing and Reasoning over a Taxonomy of Part-Whole Relations. 10 September 2009, DERI Galway, Ireland.
- Specifying and coordinating abstractions by taking advantage of granularity. Complex Systems & Artificial Intelligence Research Centre, DISCo, University of Milano-Bicocca, 28 April 2009, Milan, Italy.
- Games tegen terrorisme en voor conflict-oplossing--Speltheoretische onderhandelingen met coalities van gekwetste groepen en de regering. Gaming for War or Peace: ICT voor Wereldvrede Symposium, Stichting Vredescentrum Eindhoven (Peace Center Eindhoven), 4 November 2008, Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
- A formal Comparison of conceptual data modeling languages--a prelude to intelligent CASE tools. Knowledge Systems Group, Meraka Institute, CSIR, Pretoria, South Africa, July 17 2008.
- A theory of granularity. Agromatica, Instituto de Ciencia Animal, 21 May 2008, San Jose de las Lajas, Habana, Cuba.
- On modelling and formally representing granularity. Fondazione Bruno Kessler (ITC-IRST), 3 December 2007, Trento, Italy.
- Europeanization of education. International Workshop on the Impact of EU Education Policy and Educational System Reforms on Youth and Society, 29/30 March 2006, Brussels, Belgium. keynote speech
- Using bio-ontologies in RDBMSs for querying granular information. Bioinformatics, Ontologies and databases Seminar day, 13 February 2006, LBD, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. extended abstract
- Data and ontology integration issues in the biosciences. Seminar given on 23-8-2004 at the Micro-Array Department, Integrative Bioinformatics Unit, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- Toward an ontology-driven unifying metamodel for UML class diagrams, EER, and ORM2. Presentation given at the Ontology and Conceptual Modelling Workshop, Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa, d.d. 15-16 Nov, 2012.
- Ontology-driven formal conceptual data modelling for biological data analysis. Presentation given at the Research Session of the Masters Artificial Intelligence spring School 2011 (MAIS'11), Durban, South Africa, d.d. 27 Sept., 2011.
- Ontology engineering with rough concepts and vague instances. KRDB Lunch Seminar, 15 June 2010.
- Comparing and unifying industry-grade conceptual data modelling languages. KRDB Lunch Seminar, 2 December 2008.
- Some logical and ontological aspects of part-whole relations. KRDB Lunch Seminar 19 February 2008.
- Current characteristics and historical perspective on 'CS and IT with/for Biology'. Presentation given on 20 October 2005 at the KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. An introductory overview for the thematical Seminar Series CS and IT with/for Biology.
- Factors affecting ontology development in ecology. Presentation given on 1 July 2005 at the KRDB Research Centre, Free university of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.
- Ontologising Bioscience: a niche. Presentation given on 1 July 2004 at the Laboratory of Applied Ontology, Trento, Italy.
- Development of ontologies for the sciences. ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Trento, Italy, 10 March 2004.
- Talks of accepted papers at conferences and workshops: Interjoven04, MIE05, DILS05, ORM05, KWEPSY06, WSPI06, GrC06, ORM06, OWLED07, SeS07, AI*IA07, DL07, GrC07, DL08, WORM08, EMMSAD08, KR08, OWLED08, Geomatics09, RST09, GrC09, MTSR09, ORM09, AI*IA09, DL10, EKAW10, ORM10, ESWC11, AFRICON11, SAICSIT'11, ESWC'12, EKAW'12, SAARMSTE'13.
- Program Committee member of:
- 27th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AI and the Web track AAAI'13
- 2nd International Workshop on Debugging Ontologies and Ontology Mappings WoDOOM'13
- Second International Workshop on Uncertainty in Description Logics UniDL'12;
- 9th Extended Semantic Web Conference ESWC'12;
- 6th International Conference on Rough Sets and Knowledge Technology RSKT'11;
- 6th IEEE International Conference on Granular Computing GrC'11, GrC'12;
- 5th International Workshop on Modular Ontologies WoMO'11;
- International Conference on Biomedical Ontology ICBO'11, ICBO'12; ICBO'13;
- Metadata & Semantics Research Conference, Special Track on Agriculture, Food & the Environment MTSR'10, MTSR'12;
- International Workshop on Fact-Oriented Modeling ORM'10;
- Australasian Ontology Workshop AOW'09, AOW'10, AOW'11; AOW'12;
- International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development KEOD'09, KEOD'10;
- Semantic Web Applications and Tools for the Life Sciences SWAT4LS'08, SWAT4LS'09, SWAT4LS'10, SWAT4LS'11;
- Knowledge Representation Ontology Workshop KROW'08;
- Int. Workshop Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Workshop 2008;
- Int. Workshop Network Tools and Applications in Biology 2007 NETTAB'07;
- Int. Workshop on Engineering Semantic Agent Systems ESAS'06, ESAS'07, ESAS'08, ESAS'09;
- Reviewing for journals:
- Applied Ontology;
- BMC Bioinformatics;
- Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience;
- Data & Knowledge Engineering;
- Environmental Modelling & Software;
- Fundamenta Informaticae;
- IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems;
- IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering;
- Information Sciences;
- Int. J. of Approximate Reasoning;
- International Studies in the Philosophy of Science;
- Journal Of Biomedical Semantics;
- Knowledge Management Research & Practice;
- South African Computer Journal
- Delegated reviewing: J. Artifical Intelligence in Medicine and conferences (ODBASE'05, CBMS'06, ODBASE'06, ESWC'07, ESWC'08, JELIA'08, ESWC'09, IJCAI'09, KR'10), and workshops (ESSLLI'09 student session, DL'08, ECDM'08), external reviewer REWERSE deliverable.
- Program Committee co-Chair of the KRDB PhD Workshop, 11 May 2007, KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
- Organisation of the Masters Artificial Intelligence spring School 2011 (MAIS'11), Durban, South Africa, 26-30 Sept. 2011.
- Coordinator KRDB Seminars. Oct. '07 - March '10.
- Organiser CS and IT with/for Biology, Seminar Series at the KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Oct-Dec 2005. (co-oragnised with Enrico Franconi)
- Co-organiser KRDB Seminar Series 2006, KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. (main organiser Rosella Gennari)
- Member of the School Board of the School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science (February 2012-present)
- Member of the School's Higher Degrees and Research Committee (March 2012-present)
- Library Liaison for the School of Computer Science (June 2011-present)
- PhD students representative Computer Science Faculty at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy (Nov. '06 - Dec. '07); see also the FUB CS PhD students website.
- Student representative (as member of the PSF student party) in the Faculty-cum-University Council, Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands (Sept. '94 - Sept. '95)
4. Teaching
Teaching at UKZN:
- Ontologies and Knowledge Bases (COMP720, previously COMP718). 16 credits BSc in CS Honours course, 2011, 2012, semester 1; 2013 semester 2; Lecturer, including course development.
- Database Systems [link to CS Moodle page] (COMP306), 16 credits, 3rd year BSc in CS module, UKZN, 2012, 2013, semester 1; Lecturer.
- Computing for Natural Scientists (COMP106), 16 credits, semester 2, 2013; Lecturer.
- Theory of Computation [link to CS Moodle page] (COMP314). 16 credits 3rd year undergraduate core module, UKZN, 2nd semester 2011, 2012; Lecturer, including course development.
- Top-down Ontology Development. Guest Lecture of the Ontology and Knowledge Based Systems fourth year (honours) course, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, d.d. 17-18 August 2010.
- Introduction to ontology engineering, with emphasis on Semantic Web Technologies as part of the Masters Ontology Winter School 2010, 16-30 July, Meraka Institute, South Africa; Lecturer; includes course development and teaching (15+7 hours lectures and labs).
- Introduction to Ontology Engineering: Foundations and applications, 5-15 July 2010, Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas, Cuba; Lecturer; includes course development and teaching (20+10 hours lectures and labs).
- Comprehensive introduction to ontology engineering, 5-16 April 2010, MSc-level, 30 hours, Universidad de la Habana, Cuba; Lecturer; includes course development, teaching, and labs.
- Semantic Web Technologies (2009/2010, MSc-level, 4 ECTS; course code 72010, part of the European Masters in Computational Logic), Lecturer. Course websites with the details of the lectures: the first part by Jos de Bruijn and second part by me.
- Logic (2007/2008, BSc-level, 4 ECTS; course code 70014, BSc-level). Exercises and supplementary material.
- Representing and reasoning over a taxonomy of part-whole relations. Mini Ontology Winter School (MOWS 2008), Knowledge System Group, Meraka Institute, 1-11 July 2008, Pretoria, South Africa. A shorter version was presented at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, on August 6, 2008.
- Semantic Web for the Life Sciences. Guest lecture d.d. 23-5-2007 as part of the course 'Semantic Web Technologies' (course code: 70175, MSc-level), Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.
- Introduction to part-whole relations: mereology, conceptual modelling and mathematical aspects. Tutorial given on 23-10-2006 at the KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.
- ORM introduction. Seminar given on 27-4-2004 at the Laboratory of Applied Ontology, Trento, and Free University Bolzano/Bozen, Italy.
- Students' theses supervision at all levels
- BSc & MSc exam commission membership (at UKZN, FUB, and EPFL/LBD)
Information on earlier education
This has been moved to a separte page, here, and contains summaries of, and links to, the PhD, MSc, MA, and BSc(hons) theses and papers resulting from them.
For comments:
send an email to keet at ukzn dot ac dot za.