RE: Mapping between different knowledge sources

Dave, thanks for the helpful references.

If anyone else wants to read the VLDB paper, it is available here
http://research.microsoft.com/~philbe/VLDBJ-Dec2001.pdf

Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Reynolds [mailto:der@hplb.hpl.hp.com]
> Sent: 25 March 2003 10:31
> To: Butler, Mark
> Cc: 'simile@cally.hpl.hp.com'; 'www-rdf-dspace@w3.org'
> Subject: Re: Mapping between different knowledge sources
> 
> 
> Another group that is active in both evaluation of ontologies 
> and ontology
> translation issues is in U. Madrid, see [1] for example.
> 
> However, a lot of this work is coming from the knowledge 
> representation
> perspective and the modeling of complex natural systems, for 
> example in
> bioinformatics. To me, a lot of semantic web applications 
> will be in artificial
> domains of the sort where tools like UML and ER modeling get 
> applied. In that
> case there is quite a bit of evidence that schema translation 
> is possible and a
> substantial body of work on semi-automatic identification of 
> the correspondences
> between such schemas. See the review at [2] for example.
> 
> I'd guess that the Simile ontology translation problems are 
> likely to fall into
> two groups. Firstly, there are the sorts of structure mapping 
> problems found in
> the database world of [2]. Second, there is the issue of 
> mapping between
> Thesaurus terms that arises in the digital library field. For 
> the latter there
> has been some work, e.g. MetaNet [3], and is an important 
> work package in SWAD-E
> project [4] (Rutherford-Appleton laboratory) which we are 
> also involved in.
> 
> Dave
> 
> [1] Asunción Gómez-Pérez, "Evaluation of Ontologies", Int J. 
> Intelligent
> Systems, 2001
> 
> [2] Erhard Rahm and Philip A. Bernstein, "A survey of 
> approaches to automatic
> schema matching", VLDB Journal: Very Large Data Bases, 10(4), 2001.
> 
> [3] http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v01/i08/Hunter/
> 
> [4] 
> http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/plan/workpackages/live/esw-wp-8.html
> 
> "Butler, Mark" wrote:
> > 
> > Apologies in advance as this is skipping on from the use 
> cases, but it seems
> > to me one of the key questions in SIMILE (and the semantic 
> web) is whether
> > it is possible to interoperate between multiple 
> vocabularies. Interestingly
> > quite a bit of work has been done on this before - as I 
> have mentioned the
> > KRAFT project between BT PLC and Liverpool, Aberdeen and Cardiff
> > Universities considered this problem.
> > http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~apreece/Research/KRAFT.html
> > KRAFT stands for Knowledge Re-use and Fusion / Transformation
> > 
> > This section from "Ontological Structures for Knowledge 
> Sharing" M J R
> > Shave,
> > www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~mshave/NRIN+.ps
> > <http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~mshave/NRIN+.ps
> > seems particularly relevant:
> > 
> > "The specification of mapping functions is clearly a key task in the
> > construction of a KRAFT network. Knowledge sources can 
> differ in their
> > content (their data and its structure), their paradigm (the 
> modelling
> > convention used, such as an object oriented database or a 
> knowledge base),
> > their representational language (such as predicate 
> calculus, or frames), and
> > their ontology.
> > 
> > The resolution of each of these differences presents problems, but
> > ontological mapping is in many ways the hardest task, if 
> only because it is
> > the least well understood. Considerable attention has been 
> devoted in the
> > KRAFT project to identifying and classifying the ways in 
> which differences
> > between ontologies can occur, and how such mismatches can 
> be resolved. In
> > the simplest cases differences can be caused by synonyms 
> (`client' and
> > `customer' often have the same meaning), by homonyms (a 
> `crest' can be a
> > badge, or the top of a wave or hill), or by differences in 
> underlying
> > assumptions (`pass' and `fail' are familiar concepts but 
> have widely varying
> > interpretations). Other mismatches are more complex and 
> less straightforward
> > to resolve.
> > 
> > Two broad categories of mismatch have been recognised. 
> Conceptualisation
> > mismatches result from differences in the categories or 
> data structures
> > used. Explication mismatches result from the definitions 
> used, which may
> > differ in their terminology, their formulae, or the 
> concepts which they are
> > defining. Some examples are:
> > 
> > Ontology 1 uses the classes mammals, birds
> > Ontology 2 uses the classes carnivores, herbivores
> > A class conceptualisation mismatch
> > 
> > Ontology 1 uses the relation hascomponent
> > Ontology 2 uses the relation ismadeof
> > [eg The pair {house, brick} meets either ontology, but 
> {house,roof} fits
> > only the first]
> > A relation conceptualisation mismatch
> > 
> > Ontology 1 : ship (X) < seagoing (X) ^ large (X)
> > Ontology 2 : vessel (X) < seagoing (X) ^ large (X)
> > A term explication mismatch
> > 
> > Ontology 1 : ship (X) < seagoing (X) ^ large (X)
> > Ontology 2 : vessel (X) < floating (X) ^ big (X)
> > A term and formula explication mismatch
> > 
> > Ontology 1 : ship (X) < seagoing (X) ^ large (X)
> > Ontology 2 : whale (X) < seagoing (X) ^ large (X)
> > A concept and term explication mismatch
> > A detailed discussion of these issues can be found in [8].
> > 
> > [8] P R S Visser, D M Jones, T J M Bench-Capon and M J R 
> Shave, "An Analysis
> > of Ontology Mistmatches: Heterogeneity versus 
> Interoperability", AAAI Spring
> > Symposium of Ontological Engineering, California 1997
> > 
> > br
> > 
> > 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 Tuesday, 25 March 2003 05:36:11 UTC