- From: Jack Park <jack.park@sri.com>
- Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:16:36 -0700
- To: w3c semweb hcls <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org>
- CC: kc28@email.med.yale.edu, "'Tim Clark'" <twclark@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu>
In cross-language data integration, it may be a simple matter of using a multitude of language-scoped labels in an ontology. Another approach that has been mentioned on this list many moons back by the late Bill Bugg was that of applying topic maps to the federation of heterogeneous resources, including disparate ontologies that don't easily merge, and data sets. Bill was referring to some of my work. Topic maps provide the ability to apply as many different names to some entity as necessary for all participants to successfully locate what they seek. At the same time, topic maps can federate each entity with external comments, dialogues (such as this email message), bookmarks (tags) and relationships with other entities. Jack Xiaoshu Wang wrote: > Huajun Chen@Zhejiang University wrote: >> Another challenge is cross-language data integration, which is actually a >> job that ontology should do. >> > I honestly disagree. Ontology is about the semantics of *being* but that > of symbols. It doesn't matter if how "gene" is called, named, or > written. It symbolize the same objective entities. A URI such as > http://www.example.com is not written in English. It is just a bunch of > symbols. Let's not introduce linguistic issues into data integration, > which already have a lot of issues. > > Xiaoshu Wang >> Best wishes, huajun >> >> -----邮件原件----- >> 发件人: public-semweb-lifesci-request@w3.org >> [mailto:public-semweb-lifesci-request@w3.org] 代表 Matthias Samwald >> 发送时间: 2008年5月26日 21:22 >> 收件人: kc28@email.med.yale.edu; Tim Clark >> 抄送: M. Scott Marshall; public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org >> 主题: Re: KB note >> >> >> >>> Speaking of national boundaries, I wonder if alternative medicine (e.g., >>> herbal >>> medicine) would also be of interest to this community. For example, >>> Huperzine >>> is a drug derived from the herb Huperzia serrata. I also wonder if there >>> are >>> hypotheses regarding the study of herbs in the possible treatment of >>> neurological diseases. >>> >> I would also be very motivated to help in this kind of research. >> Specifically, Huperzine A would be a very interesting use-case for our >> developments. It is a herbal compound with a history in folk medicine and is >> >> available OTC in most countries, yet it rivals the effectiveness of >> currently leading Alzheimer medications such as Tacrine. It also has a dual >> mode of action that does not only involve acetylcholinesterase inhibition, >> but also modulation of the NMDA receptor. The implications of this for the >> treatment of Alzheimer's are still a rather hot topic. >> >> The integration of knowledge from traditional medicine, plant >> taxonomy/phylogeny/biochemistry and receptor binding databases (PDSP Ki >> database, IUPHAR) could lead to the identification of some extremely novel >> therapeutic strategies. Finding candidate molecules in such a way might be >> much more effective than weeding through libraries of compounds generated by >> >> combinatorial synthesis etc. The challenge lies in the integration of some >> very heterogenous datasets that come from vastly different disciplines, >> which is exactly the field of research where Semantic Web technologies are >> most effective. >> >> I guess the major problem for this kind of research is that there are no >> funding programmes that span China, the US and Asia... >> >> Cheers, >> Matthias Samwald >> >> DERI Galway, Ireland // Semantic Web Company, Austria >> http://www.deri.ie/ >> http://www.semantic-web.at/ >> >> >> >> >> >>
Received on Wednesday, 28 May 2008 17:17:48 UTC