Re: peer-to-peer was Re: Distributed querying on the semantic web


From: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
To: <james.lynn@hp.com>
Cc: <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 4:16 AM
Subject: Re: peer-to-peer was Re: Distributed querying on the semantic web

James wrote: 

[snip]

> > How about a hybrid of (2) and (3). One would have the option of availing
> > themselves of "the beauty of (3)" while referring to centralized
> > definitions as appropriate or convenient. Isn't this what we do in
> > technical writing? We make up our own definitions when truly neccesary
> > but find it convenient and efficient to make use of definitions from
> > previously published papers. 

Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:

> I've always advocate this approach.  In fact, I believe that the vast
> majority of applications/services/agents/... will indeed use the
> information provided by a term's coiner.
> 
> I also believe that there already is sufficient machinery in the Semantic
> Web to support a combination of (2) and (3), namely owl:imports.  Yes, I
> would like something better, perhaps to allow for publishers of information
> to provide sub-document groupings of information.  Bijan Parsia and I have
> a poster paper at WWW2004 on this topic, available at
> http://www-db.research.bell-labs.com/user/pfps/publications/meaning.pdf

> (unless you read this message soon after it is posted, in which case the
> slow web publishing mechanisms I have may not have got around to noticing
> it).

I fully agree with you on the "Meaning and the Semantic Web". I prefer the combination (2) and (3), say,

2+: terms decentralized, meanings per term centralized "somewhat".


BTW, I have a poster paper (co-authored  by Zhiqiang Gao) "Interpreting Distributed Ontologies" at WWW2004 on this topic. It proposes two concepts, "agreement on vocabulary provenance" and "commitment relationship" among (multi-)ontologies, to facilitate the meaning sharing of URI among ontologies.

As pointed in your paper, it would also be useful to import only specific portions of documents. In another paper "Distributed Ontologies with Vocabulary Provenance and Consent Relationship", which is submitted to ISWC2004, I proposed a mechanism, called consentment relationship, to facilitate the meaning sharing of relevant parts of ontology (or an OWL document). However, the proposed mechanism does not  need to specify the  portions of documents, it does need to specify with which names (or URIreferences) your ontology consents to another one. By so doing, the relevant parts of the other ontology, i.e. the assertions involving no other names than the ones specified, are true in your ontology. In other words, the relevant parts are "imported".

Any comment is welcome!

 
> Peter F. Patel-Schneider
> Bell Labs Research
> 
> 


Yuzhong Qu
Southeast University

Received on Sunday, 25 April 2004 09:46:06 UTC