Re: telco this Friday, 15:00 (CET)

Unfortunately I am having a non-skippable meeting every Friday afternoon in last weeks, sorry :(
I antiticipate my positions here:

On Jul 18, 2013, at 8:50:17 AM , Philipp Cimiano <cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> first of all, this is a gentle reminder that we will have our regular telco this Friday at 15:00 (CET). I am quite happy that this time slot seems to suit many people.
> 
> There have been some final issues raised that we need to settle. I try to summarize them here (apologies for my bad response time in the last days, other things have kept me busy!). I think we are at a point were we have the issues on the table and simply need to vote on them. I think the most important ones are the following three (I list some other minor issues below)
> 
> 1) Strong vs. weak linking
> 
> Guido has recommended that we do not create formal links to other models, e.g. by equivalentClass or subClassOf axioms, but we use "weak" and "informal" links through rdfs:comment and the like.
> From a SW perspective, this approach is non-orthodox I think. The whole SW is about formalization. Informal links can not be used by machines to align datasets, do distributed querying etc. Informal links in this sense are only documentation and for human inspection and reasoning. This is exactly what the SW wants to avoid, i.e. that we always have to appeal to intuition of people ;-)
> I do not have a very strong position on this issue, but if some of us would still give a few cents for the SW idea, then we should go for a more formal and thus stronger linking. Just my two cents.

I agree with Philipp. Some purists tend to see any wild or unpredictable use of formal axioms as an invasion or inaccuracy, but I totally disagree with them: even if sometimes wrong or broken, it's better to have formal semantics on the streets, instead of only in an ideal pure world. Getting formal semantics in the wild makes it more empirical and richer, rather than dirty.

> 
> 2) Lexical Entry rdf:subClassOf semio:Expression?
> 
> We all agree that Lexical Entries are lemmas and thus essentialy types that can be instantiated in a text, thus becoming a token informally speaking.
> I have no strong position here as well. If Also says that types in this sense can also be semio:Expressions then I am fine.

Good :)

> 
> 3) Formalization of range of "reference"
> 
> We all agree that reference can have owl:Class, owl:Individual or owl:Property (object and datatype as range).
> Aldo/Armando have brought in the possiblity of also owl:Ontology to be in the range. I do not see the need for the latter honestly. Of course, there can be ontologies that axiomatize single sentences, but then the lexical entry does not "denote" or "reference" the whole ontology but one class or property in that ontology which is axiomatized using a number of helper classes and axioms.
> 
> We can formalize the range, fine. But let's assume that people mis-use our model, they will for sure! They might use all sort of things as "references". We would then infer that these things are owl:Class OR owl:Individual OR owl:Propery OR owl:Ontology.
> First, this inference is quite useless in my view as we are still left with uncertainty about the specific status of the entity in question. Second, this might have unwanted implications, possibly leading to inconsistencies.
> I do think that we should follow here the principle of "graceful degradation" in the sense that the system wil not break if you mis-use it a bit. Actually, to close the cycle, I just that this same argument could be used to argue against more formal links in general (see my point 1). I apologie for this inconsistency in my thinking. I wish I could indeed always consistent with myself ;-)

Indeed I do not understand well your position ;) Maybe you suggest not to include owl:Ontology in the official range, but that we should take for granted some "misuse" that would take actual ontologies as objects in that range as not really dangerous.

I'd be more explicit: if people are told that owl:Class OR owl:Individual OR owl:Propery OR owl:Ontology are in that range, they may find it easier to use. In fact, even if we exclude owl:Ontology from the range, they would still be left with uncertainty about the specific status of the entity in question (individual, class, or property).

> 
> On the telco on Friday, I will call for votes on these three isuess, allowing anyone to summarize their position at the beginning of the discussion of each of these points.

Since absent, I cast my votes here: 

(1) Yes to strong linking
(2) Yes to aligning lexical entries as expressions (even if of a "type" variety, as many others are)
(3) Yes to include owl:Ontology as possible range of ontolex:reference

Ciao
Aldo

> 
> An email summarizing other minor issues will follow:
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Philipp.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Prof. Dr. Philipp Cimiano
> Semantic Computing Group
> Excellence Cluster - Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC)
> University of Bielefeld
> 
> Phone: +49 521 106 12249
> Fax: +49 521 106 12412
> Mail: cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de
> 
> Room H-127
> Morgenbreede 39
> 33615 Bielefeld
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 18 July 2013 11:12:31 UTC