Re: Semantic web for life sciences: vision vs. reality

Greg --

Your note is most interesting.

At 02:35 PM 9/28/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>All I can really do is create a
>mapping rule that the protein class in both ontolgies are
>equal. However I can go further and create mapping rules that will
>ultimately merge the data. For example use the unificationXref data
>(DB, ID) as inverse functional properties. But in that case why bother
>with the semantic web at all ? Data warehousing or any one of a number
>of technologies that use ad-hoc data mapping rules would do fine.
>
>The answer is again, because the semantic web (combined with AI
>techniques) will hopefully be a general scalable solution to merging
>data, reasoning over data and learning from data.
>
>So how to get there ?

Here are two thoughts about how to get some of the way there.

(A)  Make sure that the data mapping rules are in executable English.  This 
can be done at a useful level [1] while avoiding the "AI-complete" natural 
language understanding problem.  The approach allows the extraction of 
English explanations at the scientific level, rather than at the programmer 
level.

(B)  When it's not practical to use data mapping rules, use self 
documenting English messages to communicate between systems [2].

This may sound somewhat visionary also, but there's a system online at the 
site below that allows one to do (A), using a browser.  Public, shared use 
of the system is free.

I hope this makes sense.  I'll be glad to try to explain it better.

Thanks in advance for comments.

                         -- Adrian

[1]
http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/FeaReferenceModelOntology1.agent
http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/GeneSequenceOntology3.agent
http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/MedMine2.agent
http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/OntologyInterop2.agent
http://www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/MergeOntologies1.agent


[2]  http://www.w3.org/2004/12/rules-ws/paper/19



INTERNET BUSINESS LOGIC (R)
The Model is the Application (TM)

Online at www.reengineeringllc.com

Adrian Walker
Reengineering
PO Box 1412
Bristol
CT 06011-1412 USA

Phone: USA 860 583 9677
Cell:    USA  860 830 2085
Fax:    USA  860 314 1029

Received on Wednesday, 28 September 2005 19:03:36 UTC