- From: Markus Krötzsch <markus.kroetzsch@comlab.ox.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 06:54:36 +0100
- To: Michael F Uschold <uschold@gmail.com>
- CC: antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr, semantic-web@w3.org
On 19/05/11 20:40, Michael F Uschold wrote: > I just tried the simple Eagle example in Topbraid Composer. The tool > prevents me from entering Eagle both as a class and as an instance of > Species, but I can do it manually in a text file, upload it and the > SPARQL works as intended. > > However, is it pure SPARQL, no OWL inferencing. So this happens > independently of any OWL 2 DL entailment regime. Besides David's earlier mail on Composer, I am pretty sure that Protege supports punning as well. Current DL reasoners usually have no problem handling this feature. > > I'll have to go poke arodn a bit more to see what if anything the OWL 2 > DL entailment regime buys me in this context. A more recent, OWL-centric publication on meta-modelling came to my mind now: Birte Glimm, Sebastian Rudolph, Johanna Völker: Integrated Metamodeling and Diagnosis in OWL 2 ISWC 2010, http://www.aifb.kit.edu/web/Inproceedings3124 This is a more comprehensive discussion of the meta-modelling features that one can practically express in OWL 2, both directly and indirectly. Cheers, Markus > On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Michael F Uschold <uschold@gmail.com > <mailto:uschold@gmail.com>> wrote: > > ON the Eagle Example: > > :Species a owl:Class . > :Eagle a :Species, a owl:Class ; > rdfs:subClassOf :Animal . > :billy a :Eagle . > > This is valid OWL 2 DL. > > Then, with a SPARQL 1.1 query with OWL 2 DL entailment regime, I > can get > the pairs <species,individualmemberofthespecies>: > > SELECT ?species, ?member WHERE { > ?species a :Species . > ?member a ?species . > } > > > > Yes, this is allowed. > > So if this returns ?species as Eagle and ?member as Billy, then > SPARQL must not know it is only a pun. It thinks the two are the > same. Maybe it is just a syntactic link with little or no semantic > import.Intriguing. I'll have to try this out. > > This is a bit better than I thought. Thanks for the clarification. > > > On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Markus Krötzsch > <markus.kroetzsch@comlab.ox.ac.uk > <mailto:markus.kroetzsch@comlab.ox.ac.uk>> wrote: > > On 19/05/11 18:58, Antoine Zimmermann wrote: > > First, thanks to you Michael and Markus for your replies. > > Now, Michael, > > <snip> > > > > Fortunately, OWL 2 now allows a useful form of > simple meta-modelling > now, > so that you can indeed have meta classes and use > classes as subjects and > objects of properties. > > > The logical inferences that OWL 2 DL tools draw from > this are limited, > but > > may still be more than what any particular OWL 2 > Full reasoner would > give > you (depends on the OWL 2 Full reasoner you have -- > I am not aware of > much > implementation work there beyond OWL 2 RL). > > > Hmm, I know there is some limited punning, but these are > two different > things, not one thing appearing in two different places. > The inference is > very limited. > > > What Markus says here I guess is that, in spite of the > limitations of > the punning mechanism, a full-fledged OWL 2 DL reasoners > will likely > infer more things than *currently existing* incomplete OWL > Full reasoners. > > > Right. We know that there cannot be a tool that computes all > consequences of OWL with "proper" meta modelling, and we also > know that some forms of meta modelling can even lead to > intricate inconsistencies that make the whole ontology language > paradoxical (PF Patel-Schneider's paper "Building the Semantic > Web Tower from RDF Straw" alludes to this issue). So it seems > that a tool that obtains all consequences of plain OWL > constructs, and that can still handle some meta modelling is not > such a bad choice, even if it is called "OWL DL reasoner" ;-) > > > > > I don't think there is a way to nicely handle the > species example where > Species is a class with instance Eagle with instances > being individual > eagles. > > > No problem: > > :Species a owl:Class . > :Eagle a :Species, a owl:Class ; > rdfs:subClassOf :Animal . > :billy a :Eagle . > > This is valid OWL 2 DL. > > Then, with a SPARQL 1.1 query with OWL 2 DL entailment > regime, I can get > the pairs <species,individualmemberofthespecies>: > > SELECT ?species, ?member WHERE { > ?species a :Species . > ?member a ?species . > } > > > Yes, this is allowed. > > > > > I also do not think there is a robust solution to the > classes as values > problem. > > > What do you mean by "classes as values problem"? > > > An insightful discussion of meta modelling semantics > -- the one of > OWL 2 DL > (punning) and a stronger one -- is found in the paper: > > Boris Motik. On the Properties of Metamodeling in > OWL. Journal of > Logic and > Computation, 17(4):617–637, 2007. > > > Thanks, I just had a look. It is intersting, and geared > more for the > theorist than the practitioner. Do you know of a more > practice-focused > paper that gives examples of what you can and cannot do > with OWL2 > metamodelling, compared to OWL-Full? > > > Indeed, this paper is more on the logical side of the > discussion, though I still found it quite accessible. > Especially, it has some examples of consequences that one looses > under the weak meta modelling of OWL 2. > > I am not aware of a treatment of this issue that is using OWL or > RDF terminology. This may not make it easier to understand, > since the issues of metamodelling are often complicated by > nature -- the straw tower paper mentioned above uses the RDF > data model but still requires some thought to understand the key > issues raised there. > > > > > A big advantage of OWL 2 DL in this respect is that > it makes it legal to > state such meta-knowledge without violating any > constraints of the > language. > The OWL Full semantics may still formally lead to > more consequences, > but in > practice what matters is how many of the total > consequence any tool will > actually give. So the DL approach could be a good > compromise > (especially to > "make meaning clear" beyond purely logical/formal > aspects). > > > I'm not sure what you mean by "make meaning clear" as a > good DL > compromise. > The example from that paper is the need to represent > Eagle as an instance > of Species so you can e.g. say it is on the engangered > list. DL forces > you > to represent Eagle as an as an individual that can not > ever have any > instances. But this is patently untrue -- to that > extent, it obfusticates > meaning. If OWL2 metamodellign lets me do this, I'll be > surprised and > delighted. > > > Punning means that you can use the URI of an individual in > place of the > URI of a class. Therefore, :Eagle, as a class, can have > instances (like > :billy above) and as an individual it can belong to a class > (like > :Species). However, :Eagle-the-individual is different from > :Eagle-the-class, although they share the same identifier. > > > Exactly. This is of course a cheap form of meta modelling, but > it seems that it goes a surprisingly long way in practice. Many > use cases are really about modelling several "layers" of the > domain of interest, but have only little interaction between > these layers. Here is an example where one would see the limitation: > > Assume you have Eagle and Hawk as classes, and you have an > individual Tweety who is said to have the species Eagle, and to > have the species Hawk (as individuals). Assume further that > there is a cardinality restriction that requires "has species" > to be functional. Then implicitly we derive that Eagle and Hawk > are the same individuals. With punning, nothing else happens. > With "true" meta modelling, the classes Eagle and Hawk would > also be inferred to be the same, with all the consequences that > this could have. > > I am not sure if this is a practically relevant limitation. > > Cheers, > > Markus > > > > > I think the more important case where ontologies go > beyond OWL DL is > due to > the structural constraints related to transitivity > and property > chains (e.g. > it is easy to get forbidden cycles in property chain > dependencies). > But the > interesting difference to the earlier meta-modelling > limitations of > OWL 1 DL > is that in these cases, the semantics of OWL DL is > in principle still > meaningful and well-defined in its common > first-order logic > framework. It is > simply known that computing consequences of this > semantics becomes > undecidable, and thus the decidability-loving DL > tools reject the inputs > right away. > > But again anybody who would venture to implement OWL > Full reasoning > could > also look into "OWL DL reasoning for ontologies > violating the structural > restrictions." This task might be easier to solve in > practice since one > could probably reuse existing algorithms and tools > to solve part of the > problem. It is also part of ongoing research to > weaken the structural > restrictions further, so one already knows of > complete algorithms > that could > achieve this in some cases that OWL DL excludes. > > Also note that "FULL" and "DL" now refer to > syntactic languages only. > The > semantic distinction is now made between "direct > semantics" and > "RDF-based > semantics". This helps a bit to avoid confusion > between syntax and > semantics. So my last remark was about finding ways > to evaluate (more > of) > OWL 2 FULL under direct semantics. > > Cheers, > > Markus > > > I have no hard evidence, but I feel certain that > there are plenty of > cases when the penalties of OWL Full are on > balance small enough > compared to the gains of expressive convenience > and clarity of OWL > Full. > > I would love to see someone look into this. I > would love it if someone > tried to create a reasoner that handled OWL Full > as efficiently as > possible. > > Notice how many responses you got to this > message in the past few > weeks? > That may reflect how much people in the > community care about OWL Full! > > Michael > > Michael > > On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 1:05 AM, Antoine Zimmermann > <antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr > <mailto:antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr> > <mailto:antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr > <mailto:antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr>>> wrote: > > Dear all, > > > I'm looking for scientific publications related > to OWL Full. I'm > interested in the following kind of work: > - reasoning with OWL Full; > - modelling ontologies in OWL Full; > - properties of OWL Full, or relationships > between OWL Full and > other formalisms. > > I've found some papers about modelling existing > ontologies in OWL > (for instance, modelling a UML spec or a > frame-based ontology in > OWL) which happen to fall into OWL Full, but > nothing about modelling > OWL Full ontologies by design. I found very > little about reasoning > in OWL Full (with the notable exception of [1], > which also relates > OWL reasoning to OOP). > But the vast majority of papers mentioning OWL > Full present it as > the language that must be avoided at all cost > (usually saying "if we > do that, we are in OWL Full" implying "if we do > that, we're screwed!"). > > Thanks in advance for your pointers. > > > [1] Seiji Koide and Hideaki Takeda. OWL-Full > Reasoning from an > Object Oriented Perspective. In R. Mizoguchi, Z. > Shi, and F. > Giunchiglia (Eds.): ASWC 2006, LNCS 4185, pp. > 263–277, 2006. > Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006. > > > Regards, > -- > Antoine Zimmermann > Researcher at: > Laboratoire d'InfoRmatique en Image et Systèmes > d'information > Database Group > 7 Avenue Jean Capelle > 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex > France > Tel: +33(0)4 72 43 61 74 > <tel:%2B33%280%294%2072%2043%2061%2074><tel:%2B33%280%294%2072%2043%2061%2074> > - > Fax: +33(0)4 72 43 87 13 > <tel:%2B33%280%294%2072%2043%2087%2013><tel:%2B33%280%294%2072%2043%2087%2013> > > Lecturer at: > Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon > 20 Avenue Albert Einstein > 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex > France > antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr > <mailto:antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr><mailto: > antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr > <mailto:antoine.zimmermann@insa-lyon.fr>> > > http://zimmer.aprilfoolsreview.com/ > > > > > -- > Michael Uschold, PhD > Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts > LinkedIn: http://tr.im/limfu > Skype, Twitter: UscholdM > > > > -- > Dr. Markus Krötzsch > Oxford University Computing Laboratory > Room 306, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QD, UK > +44 (0)1865 283529 > <tel:%2B44%20%280%291865%20283529> http://korrekt.org/ > > > > > > > > > -- > Dr. Markus Krötzsch > Oxford University Computing Laboratory > Room 306, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QD, UK > +44 (0)1865 283529 <tel:%2B44%20%280%291865%20283529> > http://korrekt.org/ > > > > > -- > Michael Uschold, PhD > Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts > LinkedIn: http://tr.im/limfu > Skype, Twitter: UscholdM > > > > > -- > Michael Uschold, PhD > Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts > LinkedIn: http://tr.im/limfu > Skype, Twitter: UscholdM > -- Dr. Markus Krötzsch Oxford University Computing Laboratory Room 306, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QD, UK +44 (0)1865 283529 http://korrekt.org/
Received on Tuesday, 24 May 2011 05:55:11 UTC