Re: blog: semantic dissonance in uniprot

On 29 Mar 2009, at 16:48, Oliver Ruebenacker wrote:
>     Hello Pat, All,
[snip]
>
>
>  Perhaps the question should read: What would you advice to some one
> who wants to build an ontology to describe pathways for Systems
> Biology purposes?

My first advice would be to develop a clear set of requirements,  
perhaps in terms of the ASK/TELL paradigm,  for the role of the  
ontology in typical Systems Biology applications you are trying to  
support.

Classic applications of (description logic based) ontologies include  
terminology development (e.g., see the caImages site), form management  
(see Galen), and data integration and navigation (see Tambis).

If your applications resemble these (or other standard applications)  
then it's easy to give a wealth of advice, methodologically and  
technically. If your application is radically different, then more  
work has to be done to understand the application requirements.

Cheers,
Bijan