Course: Evolution and reactivity for the web

Abstract. The Web and the Semantic Web, as we see it, can be un-derstood as a “living organism ” combining autonomously evolving data sources, each of them possibly reacting to events it perceives. Rather than a Web of data sources, we envisage a Web of Information Systems, where each such system, besides being capable of gathering information (querying persistent data, as well as “listening ” to volatile data such as occurring events), is capable of updating persistent data, communicating the changes, requesting changes of persistent data in other systems, and being able to react to requests from other systems. The dynamic char-acter of such a Web requires declarative languages and mechanisms for specifying the evolution of the data. In this course we will talk about foundations of evolution and reactive languages in general, and will then concentrate on some specific issues posed by evolution and reactivity in the Web and in the Semantic Web.