Re: [OEP,ALL] Potential topics for OEP notes

All

I think I agree with Natasha on priorities.  Clearly

* Closure axioms - a very short note but essential
* Numbers and numeric ranges - badly needed 
* String values - names etc. Also badly needed
* Other datatype properties - priority? 
* Transitive properties and part-of -
    I suggest this as a two part note, the first high priority, the second much lower. 
        Part 1: Transitive properties and one simple part-of relation plus
                    the note that for many purposes we want "Thing or is_part_of Thing" because
                    we don't have reflexive relations.

                    Postscript that part-of is not containment, attachment, membership, etc and comes in different flavours to
                    be covered in a separate note.
        Part 2: A simple example schema for different kinds of parthood, containment, location,
                membership, etc. showing the use of the property hierarchy.  Were I to do it,
		I would adapt the scheme in http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~rector/ontologies/simple-top-bio/

I am happy to take the lead on  part-wholes Part 1 and closure axioms but it would have to be over end Dec early Jan.  (Closure axioms I might try to get done sooner, if I get the tutorial finished.  It should take an afternoon for the first draft or less.)




Regards

Alan


Natasha Noy wrote:

> Chris, Alan, OEP-ers,
>
> What is the target audience for our notes? I know that we don't have
> any practical way of answering this question, but we have to make an
> educated guess. My guess is as good as anyone's, but my feeling is that
> there are a lot more people looking for notes on very simple stuff
> rather than something large and more complicated, as many things in
> Chris's list are. Of course it's much more interesting for _us_ to
> write notes on non-trivial stuff, but I am not sure we'll be getting
> more people on board with these. If people are struggling with getting
> even very simple things right in developing their ontologies (as many
> on the protege-owl list are, for instance), they won't be very much
> interested in many different types of part-of or an ontology of time.
> And these are the people who we probably need to help if we want to
> have the critical mass of content on the SW.
>
> Of course, having all the notes that Chris has suggested would be good,
> but I am not sure many of them take higher priority than some simpler
> ones:
>
> - Numeric ranges -- really, really need this one!
> - Closing axioms -- without that, classifiers would seldom produce
> anything useful and if anyone wants to promote the DL abilities of OWL
> (admittedly, I am not one of those people :), you need to tell people
> how to get even simple things work. Alan has tons of these, in addition
> to closing axioms
> - Simple note on units and measures. This came up at one of the recent
> telecons: suppose I have an ontology on units (presented in a different
> WG note or just something I have), how do I represent the fact that
> John's height is 6 feet (and 180 cm) in OWL? I think this is different
> from the note that Chris was referring to.
> - Part of -- I am all for producing a simple version of partOf that
> Evan suggested first.
>
> These are all much more light-weight (and less fun to write :) than the
> ones Chris suggested. It doesn't have to be either/or, but we'll
> probably have to set some priorities, given the limited resources that
> we have.
>
> Natasha
>
> On Oct 11, 2004, at 1:13 AM, Alan Rector wrote:
>
> >  Chris, All
> >
> >  Can I add something like -
> >
> >  a) options for using Ontologies in applications - whether in OWL or
> > RDF - this is the thing the SWBP  really has to crack. Picking up
> > where Classes as Values left off.  I am not sure where pointers to
> > specific tricks with current technology fit in, but in the
> > "deployment" part of SWBP&D I think many people would welcome a list
> > of tool combinations that were known to work, however time limited
> > that list will inevitably be.  I am certainly not in a position to
> > produce such a list; I don't think the list per se is really part of
> > OEP, but we need someplace where we coordinate the principles the
> > notes with practice..
> >
> >  b) When to use a reasoner and normalisation.
> >
> >  c) I am not sure whether it is a note, but it is worth pointing
> > people at 'common pitfalls'. One contribution towards that is
> >
> >
> >  Other comments below...
> >
> >
> >
> >  Christopher Welty wrote:
> >
> >  ...
> > The partOf relation.  There really isn't that much that can be "said"
> > in OWL (and therefore less in RDF) regarding the typical
> > axiomatizations of partOf, but knowing the different kinds of partOf
> > relations and what they are supposed to mean would be useful.  I'm
> > hoping that some subset of Nicola, Alan, and I can take the lead on
> > this one, but I also see the need for a couple of notes here, so I
> > think this needs further discussion.  For example Deborah expressed
> > interest in a simpler note (less ambitious but quicker turnaround) on
> > geographical containment.
> >  I am happy to take a major role in this, but not until after 6 Dec
> > (ISWC plus a major week-long teaching stint - some of which will
> > include material on partonomy.)  I shall also be writing a paper on
> > the topic or probably two.
> >
> >  On the other hand, partonomy is a big topic.   The trick is to keep
> > it simple for the simple cases. I suggest that we need at least two
> > kinds of notes or note fragments.
> >
> >  1)    Notes laying out the classic distinctions, pointing to the the
> > literature on merology, and pointing out things like that most users
> > of partonomy probably want something that is time specific - X is a
> > part of Y at some implied time T (the type is a part of the car now,
> > but it may not be after the tyre has been changed) - or normative (Xs
> > are considered parts of Ys).  You need one or the other to avoid
> > getting into issues about amputated fingers, cat's tails, etc.  Also I
> > think we have to say that this area is far from settled so we are
> > giving guidance on workable principles plus caveats for controversies.
> >
> >  2)    Implementation mechanisms. Transitive properties for simple
> > things. SEP triples are related trickse..
> >
> >      RegionOfFrance = France or restriction(is_geographical_region_of
> > someValuesFrom(France))]
> >
> >  property hierarchies showing different relations between containment,
> > location and partonomy.
> >
> >  3) Also warnings that with current classifiers (possibly excepting
> > FaCT++ but we aren't sure yet) large ontologies containing extensive
> > networks linked by both has_part and is_part_of (or any other
> > transitive relation and its inverse) are potentially combinatorially
> > explosive.  If anybody does try to use a classifier it is
> > disconcerting to see what seemed to work for a toy run indefinitely
> > for something real.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  Units and measures.  There has been some work on this, including in
> > Cyc, Tom Gruber's ontology in Ontolingua, and Helena Sofia-Pinto did a
> > nice one for the old SUO effort.  Evan was interested in this and it
> > certainly makes sense to have someone at NIST do it.
> >
> > Subjects.  The notion of what a subject "is" and what the "subjectOf"
> > relation means can be quite confusing.  I have done a lot of work on
> > this and am willing to take this one on, however I will want to do one
> > at a time.
> >
> > Time.  Jerry Hobbs has done a very thorough job putting together a
> > consensus ontology of time based on a lot of existing time ontologies,
> > most of which draw from the Allen calculus.  The ontology is expressed
> > in FOL (KIF), but there are (necessarily simplified) DAML+OIL and OWL
> > ("OWL-Time") versions  available.  Jerry has expressed interest in
> > seeing this as a W3C note.
> >  I'd be very interested in seeing this.
> >
> >
> >  Fluents.  Closely tied to the notion of time is being able to say
> > that a binary property "holds" for a time. e.g. one may want to say
> > that "Chris is a member of the W3C from Sept, 2004 - Sept 2005".  A
> > property like memberOf is a fluent because it can be said to hold at a
> > time (this is not strictly a correct definition, but it will
> > suffice).  While OWL-Time let's you represent a time interval like
> > "Sept, 2004-Sept, 2005", it remains neutral wrt what happens at or
> > during such a time interval.  The typical move in FOL is to use a
> > function or add an argument to the predicate, e.g. memberOf(Chris,
> > W3C, time-interval-1), however clearly we can't do that in OWL or RDF,
> > since we are limited to binary predicates.  One solution is to go for
> > full reification of fluents, as in the exsiting not on n-ary
> > relations, however there are some other choices.  I'm hoping I can get
> > Pat Hayes and Richard Fikes to work with me on this one.
> >  An important distinction for the medical community is whether it is
> > the fluent that is reified or the observation of the fluent, i.e.
> > whether we have
> >
> >  (X as observed by O at time T) is_member_of Group or
> >
> >    X is_member_of (Group at time T)
> >
> >  The first is the way to describe a log book of observations such as
> > the medical record; the second is probably more important for models
> > of language phenomena such as the classic "The King of France".
> >
> >  The other alternative which fits closely with some indexed notions of
> > parthood such as barry Smith's, is
> >
> >     X (is_member_of at_time t) Group.
> >
> >  but that involves reifying 'is_member_of'
> >
> >
> >  On the side of "ontology engineering":
> >
> > Ontology 101 tutorial specifically for OWL/RDF.
> >  I'd hope that some of the pizza tutorial material could get into
> > this, or perhaps beside it.
> > There is an interesting comparison - I am not sure it is for a best
> > practice note - that the pizzas and wines require different paradigms,
> > or at least different emphasis.  Pizzas are primarily about
> > construction - pizzas have someValuesFrom topping.  Wines are
> > primarily about exclusion - CarbernetSavignon is made only
> > (allValuesFrom) CarbernetSauvignonGrapes.
> >
> >
> >  I think a note to help orient people on the role OWL and RDF in
> > semantic integration is critical, I get pinged on that regularly.  I
> > lot of people think OWL is the silver bullet for semantic integration
> > (I suggested at ISWC last year that semantic integration is a
> > mountain, not a werewolf, and OWL is, at best, a small silver chisel).
> > There was just a Dagstuhl symposium on this subject in general (i.e.
> > not specific to OWL), and special issues of AI Magazine and Sigmod
> > record coming out as well.  I hope Natasha and/or MikeU will take the
> > lead on such a note.
> >
> >
> >  People who know what "ontology" and "semantics" actually mean (in the
> > much larger world outside of computer science), often ask why the two
> > have become nearly synonymous on the semantic web.  Personally, I
> > think its a fair question and a short note on why we're so confused
> > would be worthwhile.  Maybe this goes in another task force (wasn't
> > there a clean up the mess we've made task force?)
> >
> > We're open to other suggestions.
> >
> > -Chris (OEP co-co)
> >
> > Dr. Christopher A. Welty, Knowledge Structures Group
> > IBM Watson Research Center, 19 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY  10532
> > USA
> > Voice: +1 914.784.7055,  IBM T/L: 863.7055, Fax: +1 914.784.7455
> > Email: welty@watson.ibm.com, Web:
> > http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty/
> >
> > --
> > Alan L Rector
> > Professor of Medical Informatics
> > Department of Computer Science
> > University of Manchester
> > Manchester M13 9PL, UK
> > TEL: +44-161-275-6188/6149/7183
> >  FAX: +44-161-275-6236/6204
> > Room: 2.88a, Kilburn Building
> > email: rector@cs.man.ac.uk
> >  web: www.cs.man.ac.uk/mig
> >          www.opengalen.org
> >          www.clinical-escience.org
> >          www.co-ode.org
> >

--
Alan L Rector
Professor of Medical Informatics
Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL, UK
TEL: +44-161-275-6188/6149/7183
FAX: +44-161-275-6236/6204
Room: 2.88a, Kilburn Building
email: rector@cs.man.ac.uk
web: www.cs.man.ac.uk/mig
        www.opengalen.org
        www.clinical-escience.org
        www.co-ode.org

Received on Tuesday, 12 October 2004 09:06:48 UTC