Research statement

The research area I am working on is related to the application of database, artificial intelligence, and semantic technologies to concrete problems in information systems design and maintenance, in data integration, intelligent access, analysis and restructuring of big data. This subject area is quite vast, and involves both theoretical and applicative skills: the appropriate balance between these two aspects can provide a unique added value to the research area. My goal is to let practitioners to apply foundational results, and push theoreticians to understand the complex nature of the real issues. This can be achieved together with a research group which has a critical mass to include a variety of perspectives in the entire range from theory to practice. The interdisciplinary aspects of this research area are also crucial: together with the theory vs practice aspect, these are system aspects, methodological aspects, interaction and communication aspects, usability aspects, complexity aspects, correctness aspects, efficiency aspects, deployability aspects.
The KRDB Research Centre for Knowledge and Data at the Faculty of Engineering of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano was founded by me in 2002, and it aims at being an international centre of excellence in basic and applied research on KRDB technologies and at proposing to selected enterprises innovative ideas and technologies based on the research developed in the centre.

  Find more in my curriculum vitæ.

 

• My interests are in:
  • Description Logics,
  • Knowledge Representation,
  • Foundations of Databases,
  • Knowledge Representation and Databases,
    • Ontologies and Conceptual Modelling,
    • Temporal Logics and Temporal Databases,
    • Multi-dimensional Data Models,
    • Information Access and Integration,
    • Peer-to-Peer Database Systems,
  • Computational Logics,
  • Artificial Intelligence,
  • Natural Language Semantics.

News

  Information on the research projects I am currently working on can be found in the FranconiSpace restricted access area.
 

• Research quality evaluation (VQR) by the Italian Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research (ANVUR):
  • (2011-2014) Our Faculty of Computer Science is the fourth best in research Italian computer science department (INF/01).
    I got the mark high for all publications.
  • (2004-2010) Our Faculty of Computer Science is the second best in research Italian computer science department (INF/01).
    I got the mark 3 out of 3 for all publications.
• The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019 (in cooperation with Elsevier):
  • The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the ninth world’s best small university.
  • The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the second best young Italian university.
  • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano ranks in the 126–150 range in the world.
  • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the 21^st best Computer Science department in the world for citations.
  • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the fourth best Italian computer science department.
  • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the best for international outlook Italian computer science department.
  • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the best for citations Italian computer science department.
    • Among the top 10 most cited scientists in the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 3 are from the KRDB centre.
    • Among the top 10 most cited scientists in our Faculty of Computer Science, 7 are from the KRDB centre.

Publications

  A list of my relevant publications is available on-line.
 

• My Erdös number is 4.
• Bibliometric ranking:
  • My h-index is 42.
  • (2019) I am the 7th most cited scientist at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
  • (2019) I have the 31st best h-index among all Italian computer scientists in Italy.

Teaching

  Information on the courses I am teaching can be found in the FranconiSpace restricted access area.
 

• Director at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano of the European Masters Program in Computational Logic, an international distributed Master of Science course, in cooperation with the Technische Universität Dresden, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the Technische Universität Wien.
• I prepared the material for an introductory online course in Description Logics. The material includes slides for 6 modules: A review of Computational Logics, Structural Description Logics, Propositional Description Logics, Description Logics and Knowledge Bases, Description Logics and Logics, Description Logics and Databases.

Research Activities

• Principal investigator of the applied research project “Intelligent Reasoner for Fact Based Models” funded by the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) of the European Space Agency (ESA).
• Principal investigator of the applied research project “Augmented Marketing” funded by a major software company.
• Principal investigator of the applied research project “Legal Opinion Generator” funded by a startup.
• Principal investigator of the applied research project “Smart Data Integration 4.0” funded by the a startup.
• Principal investigator of the applied research project “Semantic modelling and semantic interoperability” funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
• Principal investigator of the CNR (Italian National Research Council) research project “Business Process Engineering” (BPE)
• Principal Investigator in the European People Marie Curie action on a Network for Enabling Networked Knowledge (NET2).
• Principal Investigator in the European large-scale integrating project (IP) on ONTOlogies meet business RULEs (ONTORULE).
• Principal Investigator in the European IST Network of Excellence on Realizing the Semantic Web (KnowledgeWeb).
• Principal Investigator in the European IST Network of Excellence on Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprises Applications and Software (InterOp).
• Corresponding member of the European IST Network of Excellence on Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics (Rewerse).
• Co-investigator of the European FET basic research project Thinking ONtologiES (TONES).
• Principal Investigator of the European IST RTD project SEmantic Webs and AgentS in Integrated Economies (SeWAsIE).
• Member of the European IST Network of Excellence on Computational Logic (CoLogNET).
• Co-investigator of the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project in the Distributed Information Management (DIM) programme Source Integration and Revelation Facilities in Distributed Knowledge-based Query Processing (TAMBIS-II).
• Principal Investigator of the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB).
• Principal Investigator in the European ESPRIT Long Term Research project Foundations of Data Warehouse Quality (DWQ).
• Head of the SemInt project, studying the foundations of semantic interoperability and data integration.
• Head of the ORMiE project, studying and developing a reasoning plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio.
• Head of the Quelo project, developing a tool for Semantics-driven Information Access.
• Head of the iCOM project, developing a tool for Intelligent Conceptual Modelling.
• Head of the coDBz project, studying and developing a Peer Database Management System.

Research Community Activities

  Information on the events I am currently organising can be found in the FranconiSpace restricted access area.
 

2023

• Member of the program committee of the 42nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2023), to be held in Lisbon Portugal, November 2023.

2021

• Member of the senior program committee of the 30th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2021), to be held in Montreal Canada, August 2021.

2020

• Member of the senior program committee of the 29th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2020), to be held in Yokohama, Japan, 11-17 July 2020.

2019

• Member of the program committee of the IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering (IEEE AIKE 2019), to be held on June 3-5, 2019 in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy.
• Member of the program committee of the 6th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2019), to be held in Bari, Italy, on 13-15 November 2019.
• Member of the senior program committee of the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2019), to be held in August 10-16, 2019, Macao, China.
• Member of the program committee of the 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2019), to be held January 27 - February 1 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
• Member of the program committee of the 32nd International Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2019), to be held in Oslo, Norway on 18-21 June 2019.

2018

• Member of the senior program committee of the 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2018), to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, 13-19 July 2018.
• Member of the senior program committee of the 27th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2018), held in Torino, Italy on 22-26 October 2018.

2017

• Member of the program committee of the 16th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2017), to be held in Wien (Austria), 21-25 October 2017.
• Member of the senior program committee of the 26th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2017), to be held in Melbourne (Australia), 19-25 August 2017.
• Member of the program committee of the 36th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER-2017), to be held in Valencia (Spain), on 6th-9th November 2017.
• Co-chair of the program committee of the 1st International Joint Conference on Semantic Rules and Reasoning (RuleML-RR 2017), to be held in London (UK), 12-15 June 2017.

2016

• In the program committee of the 2016 ACM Principles of Database Systems (PODS-2016) Conference, to be held in San Francisco, USA, on June 26th - July 1st, 2016.

2015

• Invited keynote speaker at the Brazilian Ontology Research Seminar (ONTOBRAS), held on September 8th to 11th, 2015 in São Paulo, Brazil.
• In the program committee of the 29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-15), held on January 2529, 2015, in Austin Texas, USA.
• In the program committee of the 14th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2015), to be held on October 11-15, 2015, in Betlehem PA, USA.

2014

• Co-chair the KRDB research school on Foundations and Challenges of Change in Ontologies and Databases, held on 29-31 January 2014, in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.
• Co-chair of the International Workshop on Fact-Oriented Modeling (ORM 2014), held in Bolzano, Italy, 22-23 September 2014.
• In the program committee of the 29th Convegno Italiano di Logica Computazionale (CILC-2014), held in Torino, Italy, 16-18 June 2014.
• In the program committee of the 27th International Description Logics workshop (DL-2014), held on 1720 July 2014, in Vienna.
• In the program committee of the 21st European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-2014), held in Prague, Czech Republic, 18-22 August 2014.
• In the program committee of the 13th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2014), to be held on October 19-23, 2015, in Riva del Garda, Italy.

2013

• In the program committee of the 12th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2013), held in Sydney, Australia, 21- 25 October 2013.
• In the senior program committee of the 23rd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2013), held in Beijing, China from August 3-9, 2013.

2012

• Keynote speaker at the 2nd European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC) Summer School, held in Crete May 21st to May 26th 2012.
• In the program committee of the 11th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2012), held in Boston, USA, 11-15 November 2012.
• I co-chair the Dagstuhl Seminar on Foundations and Challenges of Change and Evolution in Ontologies, to be held in Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany, 28 September - 2 November 2012.
• In the program committee of the 25th International Description Logics workshop (DL-2012), held in Rome, Italy, from June 7 to June 10, 2012.
• In the program committee of the 20th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems (SEBD-2012), held in Venice, Italy, 24-27 June 2012.

2011

• In the program committee of the 10th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2011), held in Koblenz, Germany, 23-27 October 2011.
• Invited to give a lectio magistralis on Description Logics at the AILA Summer School, held in Gargnano del Garda, Italy, 22-27 August 2011.
• In the program committee of the 24th International Description Logics workshop (DL-2011), held in Barcelona, Spain, 13-16 July 2011.
• In the program committee of the 19th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems (SEBD-2011), held in Maratea, Italy, 26-29 June 2011.
• In the program committee of the 2011 SIGMOD conference on databases (SIGMOD-2011), held in Athens, Greece, 12-16 June 2011.
• Giving five lectures on Description Logics at the 3rd International ALP/GULP Spring School on Computational Logic (ISCL-2011), held in Bertinoro, Italy, 10-15 April 2011.

2010

• I chair the 3rd KRDB school on Trends in the Web of Data (KRDBs-2010), held in Brixen-Bressanone (near Bozen-Bolzano), Italy, 17-18 September 2010.
• In the program committee of the 9th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2010), held in Shangai, China, 7-11 November 2010.
• In the program committee of the 12th International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-2010), held in Toronto, Canada, 9-13 May 2010.
• In the program committee of the 23rd International Description Logics workshop (DL-2010), held in Waterloo, Canada, 4-7 May 2010.

2009

• In the program committee of the 32nd Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI-2009), held in Paderborn, Germany, 15-18 September 2009.
• In the program committee of the 21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2009), held in Pasadena CA, USA, 11-17 July 2009.
• In the program committee of the 17th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems (SEBD-2009), to be held in Camogli, Genova, Italy, 21-24 June 2009.
• In the program committee of the Workshop on Controlled Natural Language (CNL-2009), to be held in Marettimo Island, Italy, 8-10 June 2009.
• In the program committee of the Alberto Mendelzon Workshop on Foundations of Data Management (AMW-2009), held in Arequipa, Peru, May 12--15, 2009.
• In the program committee of the 25th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE-2009), held in Shanghai, China, March 29 - April 4, 2009.

2008

• In the program committee of the Logic in Databases workshop (LID-2008), held in Rome, Italy, 19-20 May 2008.
• In the program committee of the 5th European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC-2008), held in Tenerife, Spain, 1-5 June 2008.
• In the program committee of the 20th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI-2008) for the Logic and Computation area, held in Hamburg, Germany, 4-15 August 2008.
• Invited speaker on "Data access and integration with global constraints: why is it hard?" at both the 4th Workshop on Ontologies-based Techniques for DataBases in Information Systems and Knowledge Systems (ODBIS-2008) and the International Workshop on New Trends in Information Integration (NTII-2008), held in Auckland, New Zealand, 23 August 2008.
• Giving a tutorial on "Ontologies and Databases: myths and challenges" at the 34th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB-2008), held in Auckland, New Zealand, 23-28 August 2008; (slides).
• In the program committee of the 11th Intl. Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-2008), held in Sydney, Australia, 16-19 September 2008.
• Invited speaker at the Knowledge Representation Ontology Workshop (KROW-2008), held in Sydney, Australia, 17 September 2008.

2007

• Invited speaker at the 3rd workshop on Logic and MultiAgent Systems (LAMAS-2007), held at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, 15-16 February 2007.
• General chair of the 4th Annual European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC-2007), held in Innsbruck, Austria, June 2007.
• Co-chair of the 2007 International Description Logics workshop (DL-2007), held in Brixen-Bressanone BZ, Italy, June 2007.
• In the program committee of the 4th Semantic Web and Databases Workshop (SWDB-2007), held in Vienna, Austria, September 2007.
• Keynote speaker at the 26th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER-2007), held in Auckland, New Zealand, 5-9 November 2007; slides.

2006

• In the program committee of the International Workshop on Inconsistency and Incompleteness in Databases (IIDB-2006), held in Munich, Germany, 26 March 2006.
• In the program committee of the 2006 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL'2006), held in the Lake District, UK, 30 May-1 June 2006.
• In the program committee of the 10th International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-2006), held in the Lake District, UK, 2-5 June 2006.
• Chair of the 2nd International Workshop on Exchange and Integration of Data (EID-2006), held in Brixen-Bressanone, Italy, 9-11 June 2006.
• In the program committee of the 3rd European Semantic Web Conference (ESWS-2006) held in Budva, Montenegro, on 11-14 June 2006.
• In the program committee of the 14th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems (SEBD-2006) held in Portonuovo AN, Italy, on 18-21 June 2006.
• Invited speaker at the 25th ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS-2006) held in Chicago IL, on 26-28 June 2006; slides.
• In the program committee of the 21st National (USA) Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2006), held in Boston, USA, 16-20 July 2006.
• In the program committee of the 2nd Summer School on Reasoning Web (Reasoning Web 2006), held in Lisbon, Portugal, 4-8 September 2006.
• In the program committee of the European Conference on Logics in Artificial Intelligence (JELIA-2006), held in Liverpool, UK, 13-15 September 2006.
• Co-chair of the program committee of the International Conference on Rules and Rule Markup Languages for the Semantic Web (RuleML-2006), held in Athens GA, USA, 9-10 November 2006.
• In the program committee of the 7th ACM International Workshop on Web Information and Data Management (WIDM-2006), held in Bremen, Germany, 10 November 2006.
• Treasurer of the European Association for Semantic Web Education (EASE).

2005

• In the program committee of the 14th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW-2005) for the Semantic Web area; the conference will be held in Chiba, Japan, 10-14 May 2005.
• Chair of the organising committee of the 13th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems (SEBD-2005); the conference will be held in Brixen-Bressanone, Italy, 20-22 June 2005.
• In the program committee of the 12th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME-2005), held in Burlington, Vermont, USA, 23-25 June 2005.
• In the program committee of the International Workshop on Principles and Practice of Semantic Web Reasoning (PPSWR'05), held in Dagstuhl, Germany, 11-16 September 2005.
• In the program committee of the International Conference on Ontologies, Databases and Applications of SEmantics (ODBASE'05), held in Cyprus, 31 October - 4 November 2005.
• In the program committee of the 3rd International Workshop on Regulatory Ontologies (WORM'05), held in Cyprus, 31 October - 4 November 2005.
• In the program committee of the International Workshop on OWL: Experiences and Directions, held in Galway, Ireland, 11-12 November 2005.
• In the program committee of the International Workshop on Methods for Modalities (M4M'05), held in Berlin, Germany, 1-2 December 2005.
• In the program committee and giving a tutorial at the 2nd Italian Semantic Web Workshop Semantic Web Workshop (SWAP'05), held in Trento, Italy, 15-16 December 2005.
• Becomes member of the editorial board of the AAAI Press, which co-publishes books with MIT Press.
• Becomes member of the editorial board of the Repository of the European Association for Semantic Web Education (REASE).

2004

• Co-chair of the Dagstuhl Seminar on Logic Based Information Agents held in Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany, on 18-24 April 2004.
• In the program committee of the 1st European Semantic Web Symposium (ESWS-2004) held in Heraklion, Greece, on 10-12 May 2004.
• In the program committee of the 13th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2004) for the Semantic Web area; the conference will be held in New York (US) May 17-22, 2004.
• In the program committee of the 2004 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL'2004), held in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, June 6-8, 2004.
• In the program committee of the 11th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME-2004), held in Caen, France in July 2004.
• Becomes member of the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Logic (JAL), published by Elsevier.
• In the program committee of the 2nd Workshop on Principles and Practice of Semantic Web Reasoning (PPSWR-2004), held in St. Malo, France, 6-10 September 2004.
• In the program committee of the Workshop on The Model-Driven Semantic Web: Enabling Knowledge Representation and MDA; Technologies to Work Together (MDSW-2004), held in Monterey CA, USA, 20-24 September 2004.

2003

• In the program committee of the Italian National Database Conference (SEBD-2003), held in Cosenza, Italy, 24-27 June 2003.
• In the program committee of the joint 10th international symposium on "Temporal Representation and Reasoning" and 4th International Conference on Temporal Logic (TIME-ICTL-2003), held in Cairns, Queensland, Australia on July 8-10, 2003.
• Invited speaker at the Workshop on Logic-based Methods for Information Integration held in Vienna, Austria, on 23 August 2003.
• Co-chair the 2003 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL'2003), held on September 5-7, 2003 in Rome, Italy.
• In the program committee of the 5th International Workshop on Design and Management of Data Warehouses (DMDW'2003), held on September 8, 2003, in conjunction with the 29th International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB 2003), in Berlin, Germany.
• In the program committee of the 10th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB'2003), held in Hamburg, Germany , September 15-18, 2003.
• In the program committee of the 3rd workshop on Methods for Modalities (M4M-3), held on September 22-23, 2003, in Nancy, France.
• In the program committee of the Int. Conf. on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (LPAR'2003), held on September 22-26, 2003, in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• In the program committee of the XXIII International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC'2003) held in Chillan, Chile, on 3-8 November 2003.
• In the program committee of the 2nd CoLogNET-ElsNET Symposium on Questions and Answers: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives held in Amsterdam, NL, on 18 December 2003.

2002

• In the program committee of the workshop on Formal Ontology, Knowledge Representation and Intelligent Systems for the World Wide Web (SemWeb@KR02), held in Tolouse (France), 19-20 April 2002, colocated with KR-2002.
• In the program committee of the 9th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB-2002), held in Toulouse (France), 21 April 2002, colocated with KR-2002.
• Giving a tutorial on Description Logics for Conceptual Design, Information Access, and Ontology Integration: Research Trends at the 1st International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2002), held in Chia, Sardinia (Italy), 9-12th June 2002.
• Co-chair of the organising committee of the 9th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME-2002), held in Manchester (UK), 4-6 July 2002.
• In the program committee of the British National Conference on Databases (BNCOD-2002), held in Sheffield (UK), 17-19 July 2002.
• In the program committee of the 18th American National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2002), held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 28 July - 1 August 2002.
• In the program committee of the Workshop on Foundations for the Semantic Web, held at the European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI-2002), August 5-16, 2002, Trento Italy.
• In the program committee of the Workshop on Ontologies for multi-agent systems, held at the 13th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW-2002), Siguenza (Spain), 1-4 October 2002.
• In the program committee of the Second International Workshop on Evolution and Change in Data Management (ECDM-2002), held in Tampere, Finland, 11 October 2002, in conjunction with the 21st International Conference on Conceptual Modelling - ER 2002.
• Invited speaker at Fifth International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems (FQAS-2002), held in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 27 - 29, 2002.

2001

• Chair of the International Workshop on "Foundations of Models for Information Integration" (FMII-2001), the 10th workshop in the series Foundations of Models and Languages for Data and Objects (FMLDO), held in Viterbo, near Rome (Italy), 16-18 September 2001, in conjunction with VLDB 2001.
• In the program committee of the 8th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB-2001), held in Rome (Italy), September 15, 2001, in conjunction with VLDB 2001.
• Invited speaker at the 2nd Methods for Modalities Workshop (M4M-2), Amsterdam, 29-30 November 2001, on Description Logics for Information Modelling and Access.

2000

• Co-editor of the special issue on Methods for Modalities of the Logic Journal of the IGPL, vol. 8, no. 3, May 2000, Oxford University Press.
• Chair of the programme committee of the 12th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI-2000), held in Birmingham (UK), August 6-18, 2000, organized in co-operation with the European Network of Excellence in Computational Logic (COMPULOG-NET).
• In the program committee of the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-2000), held in Berlin, August 20-25, 2000.
• In the program committee of the 7th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB-2000), held in Berlin (Germany), August 21-22, 2000, in conjunction with ECAI-2000 and DL-2000. In 1999, co-chair (together with M. Kifer) of the 6th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB'99).
• Invited speaker at the 8th International Conference on Conceptual Structures (ICCS-2000) on "Conceptual Modelling with Description Logic".
• Invited speaker at the Information Integration Workshop at CERN on "Ontology-driven Information Integration" (June 19th, 2000); you may see the video webcast of the talk.