Re: [OEP] Semantic Interoperability/Integration Note

Uschold, Michael F wrote:
> Here is an outline draft for discussion at today's telecon.
> 
>  <<SemanticII-v4.htm>> 
> Mike

Mike--

This note is a good start to an important subject.  One comment that 
immediately came to mind when I read it was the following:  At the end 
of section 3 is the bullet:

>     * /More expressive rules and constructs for mappings/: some of the
>       mappings between ontologies required for interoperability between
>       them may require constructs that go beyond the expressiveness of
>       RDF and OWL, such as operations on numbers and strings, @@ another
>       example here
> 

This is certainly true, but in some cases those same constructs are 
useful *within* an ontology, rather than just in mapping between them. 
An example that immediately came to mind (because I've been working with 
it recently) is Body Mass Index.  The NCI defines this as "a general 
indicator of the body fat an individual is carrying based upon the ratio 
of weight to height".  However, other definitions of this concept (e.g., 
there's one in the NCI's Common Data Element browser) sometimes include 
a specific formula to be used in computing this quantity (patient body 
weight in kilograms divided by the square of his/her height in meters). 
   Similar examples are far from rare (depending, of course, on the 
ontology).

--Frank

Received on Monday, 19 September 2005 20:28:28 UTC