Clarification Re: AW: DBpedia 3.2 release, including DBpedia Ontology and RDF links to Freebase

Kingsley Idehen wrote:
> [SNIP]
>
> If the Web is becoming a real Graph Model Distributed Database were 
> the Entities in the Database are defined formally via a Data 
> Dictionary, the utility of Domain and Range should be self-describing 
> and obvious. For starters, higher level user interaction solution 
> pursuits will benefit immensely from exploitation of domain, range, 
> and other aspects of OWL.
Should have read:
If the Web is becoming a real Graph Model Distributed Database were the 
Entities in the Database are defined formally via *loosely bound Data 
Dictionaries*, the utility of Domain and Range should be self-describing 
and obvious. For starters, higher level user interaction solution 
pursuits will benefit immensely from exploitation of domain, range, and 
other aspects of OWL.

The association between DBpedia individuals and UMBEL, OpenCyc, and Yago 
is an example of the above which exists today.

Also take a peek at the following via http://dbpedia.org/sparql or 
http://dbpedia.org/isparql:

define input:same-as "Yes" 
select ?tp where { 
<http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwKl8z5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA> a 
?tp }


The query shows how the loose binding of OpenCyc, UMBEL, and Yago can be 
used explore DBpedia down a plethora of paths. And this is before 
delving into leveraging the data dictionaries for higher level UI.


Kingsley
>
>
>
>
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> Kingsley
>> Cheers
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: semantic-web-request@w3.org [mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org] Im
>> Auftrag von Hugh Glaser
>> Gesendet: Montag, 17. November 2008 23:33
>> An: Richard Cyganiak
>> Cc: public-lod@w3.org; Semantic Web;
>> dbpedia-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net
>> Betreff: Re: DBpedia 3.2 release, including DBpedia Ontology and RDF 
>> links
>> to Freebase
>>
>>
>> Very nicely put, Richard.
>> We are opening up the discussion here of when to define one's own and 
>> when
>> to (re-)use from elsewhere.
>> I am a bit uncomfortable with the idea of "you should use a:b from c 
>> and d:e
>> from f and g:h from i..."
>> It makes for a fragmented view of my data, and might encourage me to use
>> things that do not capture exactly what I mean, as well as introducing
>> dependencies with things that might change, but over which I have no
>> control.
>> So far better to use ontologies of type (b) where appropriate, and 
>> define my
>> own of type (a), which will (hopefully) be nicely constructed, and 
>> easier to
>> understand as smallish artefacts that can be looked at as a whole.
>> Of course, this means we need to crack the infrastructure that does 
>> dynamic
>> ontology mapping, etc.
>> Mind you, unless we have the need, we are less likely to do so.
>> I also think that the comments about the restrictions being a 
>> characteristic
>> of the dataset for type (a), but more like comments on the world for 
>> type
>> (b) are pretty good.
>> Hugh
>>
>> On 17/11/2008 20:09, "Richard Cyganiak" <richard@cyganiak.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> John,
>>
>> Here's an observation from a bystander ...
>>
>> On 17 Nov 2008, at 17:17, John Goodwin wrote:
>> <snip>
>>  
>>> This is also a good example of where (IMHO) the domain was perhaps
>>> over specified. For example all sorts of things could have
>>> publishers, and not the ones listed here. I worry that if you reuse
>>> DBpedia "publisher" elsewhere you could get some undesired inferences.
>>>     
>>
>> But are the DBpedia classes *intended* for re-use elsewhere? Or do
>> they simply express restrictions that apply *within DBpedia*?
>>
>> I think that in general it is useful to distinguish between two
>> different kinds of ontologies:
>>
>> a) Ontologies that express restrictions that are present in a certain
>> dataset. They simply express what's there in the data. In this sense,
>> they are like database schemas: If "Publisher" has a range of
>> "Person", then it means that the publisher *in this particular
>> dataset* is always a person. That's not an assertion about the world,
>> it's an assertion about the dataset. These ontologies are usually not
>> very re-usable.
>>
>> b) Ontologies that are intended as a "lingua franca" for data exchange
>> between different applications. They are designed for broad re-use,
>> and thus usually do not add many restrictions. In this sense, they are
>> more like controlled vocabularies of terms. Dublin Core is probably
>> the prototypical example, and FOAF is another good one. They usually
>> don't allow as many interesting inferences.
>>
>> I think that these two kinds of ontologies have very different
>> requirements. Ontologies that are designed for one of these roles are
>> quite useless if used for the other job. Ontologies that have not been
>> designed for either of these two roles usually fail at both.
>>
>> Returning to DBpedia, my impression is that the DBpedia ontology is
>> intended mostly for the first role. Maybe it should be understood more
>> as a schema for the DBpedia dataset, and not so much as a re-usable
>> set of terms for use outside of the Wikipedia context. (I might be
>> wrong, I was not involved in its creation.)
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>   
>
>


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 17:09:12 UTC