Open source ontology registry/repository

Hi,

The open-source ontology registry/repository is a great idea. I am
thinking about it for some time. The way I envision it is to have a sort
of Ontology SourceForge that would provide collaborative tools to
develop ontology (versioning maintenance, search tool, editing tool,
reasoner, validator, semantic wiki, etc...). Such a web service would
provide a tremendous momentum to the SW activities. I am wondering if
W3C may be the right place to do this...

Best regards
 
Stephane Fellah
Senior Software Engineer
 
PCI Geomatics
490, Boulevard St Joseph
Hull, Quebec
Canada J8Y 3Y7
Tel: 1 819 770 0022 Ext. 223
Fax 1 819 770 0098
Visit our web site:  www.pcigeomatics.com
 


-----Original Message-----
From: ewallace@cme.nist.gov [mailto:ewallace@cme.nist.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 5:18 PM
To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
Cc: Stephane Fellah
Subject: re: Engineering Mathematics ontology in OWL


* This was originally posted to the webont list.  I move it here
*
* because this is a more appropriate forum for this sort of discussion.
*

"Stephane Fellah" <fellah@pcigeomatics.com> asked:
>
>I am interested to develop ontologies for Engineering mathematics. So 
>far, the best model I have found is the one developed by KSL Stanford 
>in OntoLingua (EngMath ontologies). Is anyone aware of some activities 
>porting this ontologies in OWL ? The ontology has been developed in 
>LISP and KIF ? Is it completely portable in OWL or do I need some 
>extensions in OWL such as OWL Rule Language ? The link to EngMath is at

>: http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/knowledge-sharing/papers/engmath.html.
>If no activities is done for this, I think it may be useful to develop 
>it as an open-source ontology. What would be the best approach to 
>initiate such a project as open-source  ? Do  other ontologies exist 
>for engineering mathematics ?

An OWL version of such an ontology would be a "good thing."  Discussions
a while back on these lists, revealed that the XML derived semantics for
integers and floats in RDF are not what is wanted for such engineering
uses such as measured values.  Developing an open-source OWL-based
engineering math ontology is also a timely idea as there has recently
been talk of some 
of the high profile promoters of the semantic web directly supporting an

open-source ontology registry/repository.

For Semantic Web styled models in this area, have a look at David Leal's
work 
on an RDF(S) vocacabulary for quantities and units[1].  This reuses work
that 
was done as part of the ISO STEP standardization effort to support
information 
exchange of (manufactured) product data.  CIM/XML[2] may also include
models 
for units and measured values, although again these would be in RDFS.
CIM is a power industry standard and their control systems associate
somewhat richer metadata with measured values.

Evan K. Wallace
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
NIST
ewallace@nist.gov

[1]
http://www.scadaonweb.com/publications/units/2/NOTE-units-2002-05-07.htm
l
[2] http://www.langdale.com.au/CIMXML/

Received on Friday, 31 October 2003 11:46:01 UTC