Re: Rich semantics and expressiveness

Hans --

You wrote...Can anybody enlighten me, at least by pointing to some useful
links?

There has been some related discussion on

    http://colab.cim3.net/forum/cuo-wg/2007-02/index.html

IMHO, that discussion explores the problem, but does not point to a likely
solution, because of the concerns you raised.

Again IMHO, the most hopeful approach to the problem is to raise the
interoperability concerns to the level of executable English.  Only then
will folks be able to bridge the "semantics" embedded in diverse data
intensive applications.  After all, in non-SW situations, the way in which
systems are harmonized after things like a corporate merger, is for people
to discuss the semantics in English (or Dutch, etc).  That leads to
documents that are handed to programmers, who interpret the semantics as
best they can.  A better way is to bridge the semantic gap by making the
English findings executable, and hence testable over sample data.

As you may know, [1,2,3] explore this further.

There will be a presentation and phone in discussion about this on Thursday
8th of March.  The discussion is open to all, anywhere in the world.  The
language will be English.  The link is

     ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2007_03_08

 Apologies to folks who have seen all this before.

                                           -- Adrian

[1]  www.semantic-conference.com/program/sessions/S2.html

[2]  Internet Business Logic
      A Wiki for Executable Open Vocabulary English
      Online at www.reengineeringllc.com    Shared use is free

[3]
www.reengineeringllc.com/A_Wiki_for_Business_Rules_in_Open_Vocabulary_Executable_English.pdf

Adrian Walker
Reengineering


On 3/3/07, Hans Teijgeler <hans.teijgeler@quicknet.nl> wrote:
>
>  Folks,
>
> In this context I would like to bring up something that keeps puzzling me.
>
> The W3C Semantic Web Activity Statement [1] starts with:
>
> "The goal of the Semantic Web initiative is as broad as that of the Web:
> to create a universal medium for the exchange of data. It is envisaged to
> smoothly interconnect personal information management, enterprise
> application integration, and the global sharing of commercial, scientific
> and cultural data. Facilities to put machine-understandable data on the Web
> are quickly becoming a high priority for many organizations, individuals and
> communities."
>
> This is great, and it is what we strive for. But it is puzzling how this
> can ever be achieved without a universal, generic, data-driven model and
> standard data to drive that model. What I see happening is that everybody
> can and often does invent instances of owl:Class and owl:ObjectProperty
> on-the-fly, and then seems to expect that DL will be the band-aid that
> solves all integration problems. In order to assist the reasoners all sorts
> of qualifications are added (re OWL1.1), but to me it seems that when this
> is done, actually a (rather private) data model is created again.
>
> Above statement envisages the "smooth interconnection" of a plethora of
> totally different application domains. That is wise, because we live in one
> integrated universe (domain), and nobody can dictate where one subdomain
> stops and the other begins. Hence the need for a universal model as a common
> denominator. But it is striking that the word "interconnection" was
> used, rather than "integration". Interconnection reminds me of EAI [2], so
> hub-based or point-to-point, where Semantic Web integration (as I understand
> it) involves a web-based distributed data base.
>
> Keeping in mind that, as I wrote before in this thread, application
> systems store a lot of implicit data (or actually don't store them), the
> direct mapping of their data to the SW formats will cause more problems than
> its solves. They are based on their own proprietary data model, and these
> are unintelligible for other, equally proprietary, data models.
>
> The thing puzzling me is how the SW community can see what I cannot see,
> and that is how on earth you can achieve what your Activity Statement says,
> without such a standard generic data model and derived standard reference
> data (taxonomy and ontology). But perhaps not many SW-ers bother about the
> need of universal integration, and are happily operating within their own
> subdomain, such as FOAF.
>
> Can anybody enlighten me, at least by pointing to some useful links?
>
> Regards,
> Hans
>
> PS The above does not mean that I have no faith in the SW. On the
> contrary, I preach the SW gospel. But I just want to understand where it is
> moving to.
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Application_Integration
>
> ____________________
> OntoConsult
> Hans Teijgeler
> ISO 15926 specialist
> Netherlands
> +31-72-509 2005
> www.InfowebML.ws <http://www.infowebml.ws/>
> hans.teijgeler@quicknet.nl
>
>
>
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