Context and Joins in the Semantic Web

Databases for the life sciences, especially those associated with bioinformatics, are currently very large and complex, and there is every reason to expect that they will continue to increase in size and complexity in the future. Processing such massive databases requires high performance and scalability. Modern distributed relational databases can provide the necessary performance and scalability, but at the cost of using a different logical foundation for the data. While the Semantic Web has been successfully applied to many domains of the life sciences, it has some limitations that could impede further progress in its use, especially with respect to performance and scalability. This position paper discusses two features that would make the Semantic Web more compatible with high performance databases without changing its logical foundations. The two features are a notion of context and the ability to specify joins. This paper discusses these features in more detail as well as suggesting how they could be incorporated into the Semantic Web.