Abstract
Many ICT applications and services, including those from the Semantic Web, rely on the Web for the exchange of data. This includes expensive server and network infrastructures. Most rural areas of developing countries are not reached by the Web and its possibilities, while at the same time the ability to share knowledge has been identified as a key enabler for development. To make widespread knowledge sharing possible in these rural areas, the notion of the Web has to be downscaled based on the specific low-resource infrastructure in place. In this paper, we introduce SPARQL over SMS, a solution for Web-like exchange of RDF data over cellular networks in which HTTP is substituted by SMS. We motivate and validate this through two use cases in West Africa. We present the design and implementation of the solution, along with a data compression method that combines generic compression strategies and strategies that use Semantic Web specific features to reduce the size of RDF before it is transferred over the low-bandwidth cellular network.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
http://www.kasadaka.com. “Kasadaka” roughly translates to “Talking Box” in a number of Ghanaian languages.
- 2.
As of November 2015 http://www.internetworldstats.com.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Based on the encoding used: 8-bit supports 140 characters, 7-bit up to 160 characters.
- 6.
Such as a Raspberry Pi computer: https://www.raspberrypi.org.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
The used Turtle serializer adds RDF, RDFS, XSD and XML prefixes by default.
- 12.
Including YAGO, FOAF, and SKOS. Based on http://prefix.cc/popular/all.
- 13.
- 14.
https://github.com/onnovalkering/sparql-over-sms, available as open source.
- 15.
- 16.
A clone of the store is available at http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/radiomarche.
- 17.
- 18.
For Mali, we assume an average cost of 20CFA = 0.035USD per SMS http://www.orangemali.com/2/particuliers/28/34/les-prepayes-113.html (accessed April 2016). For Ghana, we assume 0.055GH = 0.014USD per SMS http://support.vodafone.com.gh/customer/portal/articles/1823814-sms (accessed April 2016).
References
de Boer, V., De Leenheer, P., Bon, A., Gyan, N.B., van Aart, C., Guéret, C., Tuyp, W., Boyera, S., Allen, M., Akkermans, H.: RadioMarché: distributed voice- and web-interfaced market information systems under rural conditions. In: Ralyté, J., Franch, X., Brinkkemper, S., Wrycza, S. (eds.) CAiSE 2012. LNCS, vol. 7328, pp. 518–532. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
de Boer, V., Gyan, N.B., Bon, A., Tuyp, W., van Aart, C., Akkermans, H.: A dialogue with linked data: voice-based access to market data in the Sahel. In: Semantic Web (2013)
Charlaganov, M., Cudré-Mauroux, P., Dinu, C., Guéret, C., Grund, M., Macicas, T.: The Entity Registry System: Implementing 5-Star Linked Data Without the Web. arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.3357 (2013)
Fernández, J.D., Martínez-Prieto, M.A., Gutiérrez, C., Polleres, A., Arias, M.: Binary RDF representation for publication and exchange (HDT). Web Semant.: Sci. Serv. Agents World Wide Web 19, 22–41 (2013)
Gray, J., Chong, W., Barclay, T., Szalay, A., Vandenberg, J.: TeraScale SneakerNet: Using Inexpensive Disks for Backup, Archiving, and Data Exchange. arXiv preprint cs/0208011 (2002)
Guéret, C., Schlobach, S., De Boer, V., Bon, A., Akkermans, H.: Is data sharing the privilege of a few? Bringing linked data to those without the Web. In: ISWC 2011 Outrageous Ideas Track, pp. 1–4 (2011). Best Paper Award
Gyan, N.B.: The web, speech technologies and rural development in West Africa: an ICT4D approach. Ph.D. thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2016)
Heeks, R.: ICT4D 2.0: the next phase of applying ICT for international development. Computer 41(6), 26–33 (2008)
Käbisch, S., Peintner, D., Anicic, D.: Standardized and efficient RDF encoding for constrained embedded networks. In: Gandon, F., Sabou, M., Sack, H., d’Amato, C., Cudré-Mauroux, P., Zimmermann, A. (eds.) ESWC 2015. LNCS, vol. 9088, pp. 437–452. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-18818-8_27
Medhi, I., Ratan, A., Toyama, K.: Mobile-banking adoption and usage by low-literate, low-income users in the developing world. In: Aykin, N. (ed.) IDGD 2009. LNCS, vol. 5623, pp. 485–494. Springer, Heidelberg (2009). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-02767-3_54
Pentland, A., Fletcher, R., Hasson, A.: DakNet: rethinking connectivity in developing nations. Computer 37(1), 78–83 (2004). http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MC.2004.1260729
Rietveld, L., Beek, W., Schlobach, S.: LOD lab: experiments at LOD scale. In: Arenas, M., et al. (eds.) ISWC 2015. LNCS, vol. 9367, pp. 339–355. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-25010-6_23
Verborgh, R., Vander Sande, M., Colpaert, P., Coppens, S., Mannens, E., Van de Walle, R.: Web-scale querying through linked data fragments. In: LDOW (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Valkering, O., de Boer, V., Lô, G., Blankendaal, R., Schlobach, S. (2016). The Semantic Web in an SMS. In: Blomqvist, E., Ciancarini, P., Poggi, F., Vitali, F. (eds) Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. EKAW 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10024. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49004-5_45
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49004-5_45
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49003-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49004-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)