DAML/RDF and CC/PP (Was -- Re: Validation in CC/PP)

  Hi Mark,
         RDF does give some more semantics compared to raw XML or XML 
schema. You are, however, correct in asserting that if we really want to 
use a semantically rich representation then DAML+OIL (I believe the 
www-ont group is proposing to call it OWL -- Ontology Web Language) is 
probably the correct choice. DAML+OIL has well grounded semantics -- for 
instance a group at Stanford has provided axiomatic semantics using KIF 
for DAML+OIL. DAML+OIL also provides richer constructs than RDF, for 
instance it will let us express cardinality (this device has n screens), 
disjointedness (this is an iPAQ 3875 which is not the same as Jornada), 
or even Union (iPAQ 3875, iPAQ 3870 are all iPAQs). The latter for 
example could explicitly provide device categories -- you have presented 
your recent work on that here, and we had a paper about it at an ICDCS 
Workshop last year.

  As an aside, we are one of the groups in DARPAs DAML program, and have 
created DAML ontologies for service discovery and composition in mobile 
(infrastructure and ad-hoc) networks. While these are different from 
CC/PP profiles, some of the things they talk about (device capability 
for instance) are common. Similary there is a DAML-S effort from 
Stanford. If folks are interested, they can find our ontologies at
  http://www.daml.org/ . For description of our research efforts, check 
out http://research.ebiquity.org/
								Anupam


Butler, Mark wrote:

> Hi Tayeb

> 
> What exactly are the "semantic advantages" of RDF?
> 
> Recently I've been reading John Sowa's book on Knowledge Representation. In
> my opinion there is currently a misunderstanding that if we use RDF we
> automatically adopt a well founded semantics. This is simply not true:
> simply using RDF does not influence the semantics of data in any way as
> semantics are determined by observers i.e. how the RDF model maps on to the
> real world (in fact, there is a extreme position that says computers CAN
> ONLY process syntatic structures - for more details see John Searle's
> Chinese Room scenario[3]). The Model Theory for RDF has helped matters, but
> I don't see that the model theory is particularly helpful for CC/PP as CC/PP
> has it's own (unfortunately implicit) intepretation of what is meant by a
> CC/PP profile. 
> 
> Furthermore IMHO RDF is a rather confusing starting point for establishing
> well founded semantics as it operates below the ontology level i.e. RDF may
> be regarded as "machine code" for knowledge representation as there are a
> lot of similarities between RDF and conceptual graphs, a method of mapping
> different ontology representations onto a common framework developed by John
> Sowa[1]. Ideally we should be working at a higher level of abstraction e.g
> using DAML+OIL[2] as a basis for knowledge representation rather than RDF. 
> 
> For more details see
> 
> [1] Sowa, J. F. Knowledge Representation, Brooks/Cole, 2000. ISBN:
> 0-534-94965
> 
> [2] About DAML, http://www.daml.org/about.html
> 
> [3] Chinese Room arguement, http://www.ptproject.ilstu.edu/pt/chinovrv.htm
> 
> 
>>The problem is in XML serialization of RDF. 
>>Why don't we think to adopt another XML serialization of RDF for
>>CC/PP, or for general purposes? 
>>
> 
> Currently it is very difficult to introduce changes to CC/PP i) because we
> (the CC/PP Working Group) are constrained by the charter ii) we are at a
> stage in the process where it is not possible for people to submit comments.
> We are currently trying to move the CC/PP structure and vocabulary document
> to candidate rec, to overcome problem ii) but I would like to see problem i)
> addressed as soon as possible. 
> 
> regards
> 
> Mark H. Butler, PhD
> Research Scientist                HP Labs Bristol
> mark-h_butler@hp.com
> Internet: http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/marbut/
> 
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 6 June 2002 08:24:32 UTC