In this post I have taken a closer look at the classification of scientific disciplines in OpenAlex, a recently developed database of scientific works. The topics classification has been entirely generated computationally using a mix of citation clustering techniques and LLM-based labeling. The results, although not always so precise, are definitely worth exploring further.

RDFLib (homepage) is a solid and comprehensive RDF programming kit for Python. In a previous post, I discussed the Pythonic options currently available for doing semantic web programming. After more in-depth testing, I realized that RDFLib is the most accessible and complete of them all (in fact, many of the available libraries are based on RDFLib's APIs). So here we go: in this post I'm providing an overview of some of the things you can do with this library.

I'll be working in Osaka for three months on ontologizing a couple of datasets with the help of Riichiro Mizoguchi. This means that I'll have enough time to revise various notions about ontology engineering during this period. Here's a first and fundamental one, regarding the difference between ontologies and data models: