Re: COLLECT: updated summary Dec 14

I have one further one to add from Agentcities:

6. Evening Organiser
Service location, retrieval and synthesis from various different service
types (cinemas, restaurants, transportation) and classes (provider, finder,
reviewer and rater); service composition across multiple service types.


Jonathan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Guus Schreiber" <schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl>
To: <nmg@ecs.soton.ac.uk>; "Stephen Buswell," <StephenB@stilo.com>; "Smith,
Michael K." <michael.smith@eds.com>
Cc: "WebOnt WG" <www-webont-wg@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, 14 December 2001 8:31 am
Subject: COLLECT: updated summary Dec 14


> Colleagues,
>
> I have updated the collection-management area summary with the use-case
> descriptions I got from Stephen and Nick (see end of message). Please
> send me your feedback on this first cut.
>
> I think we already have quite a diverse and representative collection of
> use cases. I have tried to generalize somewhat from each use case:
>
> 1. Endangered species:
> Structured scientific descriptions: there are many of these collections
> on the web, describing animals, plants, diseases, etc.
>
> 2. EDS website management
> Knowledge management and organization for large companies, both for
> internal use and for external presentation to customers
>
> 3. Aerospace data modelling
> Engineering catalogs: many other examples, see also Ruediger Klein's
> email, IMAT project on indexing technical manuals, etc. Is there a link
> with the STEP world (e.g. the "application protocols")? We could learn
> from their representation problems in Express.
>
> 4. Antique furniture image collection
> art-image catalogs: every museum and art collection with some self
> respect seems to be working on this. There are also musea cooperating in
> "virtual museum" projects (e.g. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam).
>
> 5. Open hypermedia
> Navigating document collections for (virtual) organizations; this use
> case in some sense a similar flavor as (2).
>
> Did we miss out an important category?
> If you can, please also provide as much as possible concrete "challenge
> problems" arising from the use cases.
>
> Greetings, Guus
>
> [I'll be teaching a Ph.D. course next week, so my email processing will
> be a bit slow at times]
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> USE-CASE AREA: Collection Management
>
> Guus Schreiber (editor)
> Version: 14 december, 2001
>
> MEMBERS:
> Stephen Buswell <StephenB@stilo.com>
> Nicholas Gibbins <nmg@ecs.soton.ac.uk>,
> Guus Schreiber <schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl>,
> Michael K. Smith <michael.smith@eds.com>
>
>
> General structure of the use-case area description
> - definition/scope of the area: tasks, typical domains, users
> - links to other areas
> - resulting list of language requirements arising from use cases
> - 3-5 detailed use-case descriptions
>
> ---------------------------
> SCOPE AND DEFINITION
> ---------------------------
>
> Characteristics:
> * Large data/text/image/multimedia/website sets with a common
> theme/context/focus
> * fixed set of items in archive/collection
> * can be very large set => scalability issues
> * typically domain specific, therefore linked to (traditional) work on
> domain standards
> * focus is on metadata => link to traditional metadata
>
> Collection-management subtasks:
> * item indexing/annotation/classification
> * collection updates
> * collection search
> * often involves default reasoning
>
>
> ---------------------------
> LINKS TO OTHER AREAS/ISSUES/TASKS
> ---------------------------
>
> 1. Virtual catalogs
>
> Examples:
> - virtual museum (several projects)
> - product search/comparison sites (e.g., Lynn Stein's book
> identification, Mike Dean's hotels)
> .
> There is a clear link jere to the "interoperability" area. Virtual
> catalogs typically requires ontology-mapping stuff. Also, it makes the
> collection management task different as less assumptions can be made
> about the collection (e.g., its size).
>
> 2. Service catalogs
>
> These are mentioned in a number of use cases. With respect to the
> declarative aspects of service description and search, there is a
> clear link between "web services" and this area. <to be worked out>
>
> 3. Presentation generation
>
> Semantically annotated catalogs are an ideal substrate for
> (context-specific) generation of presentations c.q. web pages. Example:
> dynamic
> configuration of a web page for browsers of an art catalog, showing
> related texts and images.
>
> Example:
> - work Lynda Hardman (CWI, Amsterdam)
> - open hypermedia?!: generation of links based on ontologies (Nick
> Gibbins, Southampton)
>
> 4. Conceptual search
>
> In conceptual search we would like to view the whole web as one indexed
> catalog. This seems to be a bridge too far at the moment, given the
> problems we still have a domain-specific catalogs. A realistic
> scenario for the short-term conceptual search is a two-step process:
> 1. use an Open-Directory like mechanism to constrain your search to an
> area which hopefully provides some archives/catalogs
> 2. use the semantic search engines of the catalogs to find an answer to
> your query.
>
> 5. Content standards
>
> Due to the domain specificity of catalogs, many of them require a
> clear link with domain standards/vocabularies (existing or under
> development). These domain standards were typically developed to
> support manual indexing.
>
> Also, more general resources such as WordNet are being used.
>
>
> ---------------------------
> RESULTING LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS
> ---------------------------
>
> Some preliminary examples (numbers refer to use cases below):
> - default knowledge / default reasoning (1, 2, 4)
> - constraints (2, 3, 4)
> - consistency rules (3)
> - some notion of aggregation (3, 4)
> - statements at class and at instance level (2, 3, 4)
> - (WebOnt representation of thesauri / domain standards: AAT, TGN,
> WordNet) (1, 4)
>
>
> ---------------------------
> USE-CASE DESCRIPTIONS
> ---------------------------
>
> 1. Arkive: catalog of endangered species descriptions
> Contributor: Jeremy Carrol, HP
>
> <cut&paste of Jeremy's email>
>
> The arkive project is creating a multimedial database consisiting of
> a record for each endangered species.
>
> The database aims at completeness, with enough appropriate information
> for each species.
>
> The database is accessed through a web site and targetted at users at
> all levels of expertise: ranging from school children through to
> domain expert.
>
> The key functions of ontological knowledge are:
> + to allow consistent organization of each species record
> + to provide a means for ensuring that each species record is
>   sufficiently detailed, and includes examples of each important
>   behaviour.
> + to help with query across the database
>
> Other functions where ontological knowledge maybe useful include
> organising annotations and providence of knowledge.
>
> We note that:
> - despite the relevant science having had about two centuries of
>   debate there is no universal agreement about appropriate
>   ontologies for full and adequate species descriptions.
> - the number of species suggests that globally a federated solution
>   is needed. The British participants have funding to make records
>   of all British species, and the top N globally endangered species.
>   The long-term plan would be to have people world-wide contributing
>   records for their local species. This is likely to exacerbate the
>   lack of agreement about the underlying ontologies.
>
>
>   TASK:
> Organising, and commisioning multimedia records of
> endangered species.
>
>   EXAMPLE DOMAIN:
> multimedia records of endangered species.
>
>   TYPICAL USERS:
> 1: scientist making a specific record.
> 2: manager commissioning new records.
> 3: scientist querying DB through web-site
> 4: school child querying DB through web-site
>
>   ONTOLOGY SAMPLES:
> I will need to get back to my informant for better data.
> I rapidly get out of my depth biologically in this point
> in the presentations I have seen.
>
> Currently they use about ten master record-templates for the
> different top-level categories.
> For example, there is typically no "locomotion" field for
> plants, but it is of interest for animals.
>
> These top-level categories are necessarily insufficient in
> that they cover (only) the general types of behaviour.
> Any unique or rare behaviour of a species is:
>  + important to include in the record
>  + not in the top-level category
> also such behaviours are subject to scientific debate.
> (A concrete example was to do with birds that pick up
> poisionous insects in their beaks and rub them against their
> feathers. It is contentious whether they do this:
> + to get high
> + to kill off parasites in their feathers
> The name you use for the behaviour depends on your judgement
> on its motivation; which may well depend on your political persuasion.)
>
> There are also some behaviours whcih have multiple different
> names that are synonymous.
>
> Default inheritance is important. The well known penguins issue:
>    living things don't fly
>    birds         do    fly
>    penguins      don't fly
>
> This can be addressed when first creating a record, when default
> values can be filled in, to be changed if necessary, or more
> dynamically.
>
> It is important to relate the category information back to
> multiple (partially inconsistent) taxonomies in the field.
>
>
>   WEBONT REQUIREMENTS
>
> Hard to say - there are a range of knowledge base requirements,
> which ones actually belong to the ontological subsystem is
> problematic.
>
> - Hierarchical classes with inheritance of properties,
>   default values, etc. Probably single inheritance would
>   suffice.
> - Providence: to distinguish facts that are in the
>   specific record, from later annotations by experts or
>   non-experts, from inherited facts etc.
> - Query support. Query may be guided by category information,
>   and possibly by falsehoods (e.g. "whales are fish" may be
>   useful to help small children search, who might otherwise
>   conclude there are no whales in the DB)
>   Mixed mode query - both free text and category information.
> - Multiple synonymous labels for properties and values.
>   Theasural support.
> - Ability to extend ontology on the fly, in a distributed
>   fashion. (Experts adding framework to describe the special
>   behaviour of their species).
>
>
> 2. EDS web page landfill
> Contribitor: Miker Smith, EDS
>
> TASK: Organizing a massive web page land-fill into hierarchical
> categories
> in support of corporate communication and corporate memory.
>
> EXAMPLE DOMAIN: External press releases, product offerings and case
> studies,
> corporate procedures, internal product briefings and comparisons, white
> papers, and offering process descriptions.
>
> TYPICAL USER: Salesperson looking for sales collateral relevant to a
> client's expressed interest.  Technical person looking for pockets of
> specific technical  expertise and detailed past experience.
>
> ONTOLOGY SAMPLES: Document type hierarchy: Press release <- press
> release
> covering financial details <- press release detailing SEC filings ....
> Solution descriptions that include part-whole relations and constraints
> covering software, hardware, and communication compatibility.
>
> WEBONT REQUIREMENTS:  Defaults and constraints.  Language neutral
> representation.  Instances distinct from classes.
>
> We need a clean interface between Web Ontologies and more mainstream
> business and manufacturing XML standards.
>
>
> 3. Aerospace Engineering Data Modelling
> Contributor: Stephen Buswell, Stilo
>
> TASK: Organizing a large body of aerospace engineering documentation
>  into cross-linked hierarchical categories
> in support of corporate communication and corporate memory.
>
> EXAMPLE DOMAIN: Aircraft design documentation; manufacturing process
> documentation; testing process documentation; maintenance documentation;
> illustrations
>
> TYPICAL USER: Maintenance engineer looking for all information relating
> to a particular part (eg. 'wing-spar').  Design engineer looking at
> constraints on re-use of a particular sub-assembly.
>
> ONTOLOGY SAMPLES: Document type hierarchy:
> Document <- Design Document <- Sub-assembly design doc ....
> Component type heirarchy:
> ManufacturingComponent <- wings-spar
>
> Solution descriptions that include part-whole relations
> [wing-spar ispartof wing-assembly]
>  and constraints
> [wing-spar.length < wing.length]
>  and relations
> [this.document.this-picture illustrates wing-spar]
>  and instances
> [A380 isinstance of Aircraft]
>
> WEBONT REQUIREMENTS:  Defaults and constraints.  Language neutral
> representation.  Instances distinct from classes.
>
> We need a clean interface between Web Ontologies and more mainstream
> business and manufacturing XML standards.
>
>
> 4. Art-image collections
> Contributor: Guus Schreiber, Ibrow / University of Amsterdam
>
> TASK: searching a digital image collection
>
> EXAMPLE DOMAIN: museum collection of images of antique furniture
>
> TYPICAL USER: lay person with some basic knowledge of the domain,
> looking for some piece of antique
>
> ONTOLOGY SAMPLES:
>
> The basis of our ontology is formed by the Art and Architecture
> Thesaurus (AAT) [1] constructed by the Getty Foundation, which
> provides a highly structured hierarchy of some 120.000 terms to
> describe art objects (art categories, materials, styles, color,
> ....). We also have a description template for antique furniture based
> on the VRA 3.0 standard [2], which is basically a refinement of Dublin
> Core for art-image annotation
>
> Let's for the moment assume we can represent AAT and VRA in
> WebOnt. For effective search support we need to add domain knowledge
> to this ontology.  This knowledge typically takes the form of
> inter-slot constraints within the image description template. One
> example:
>
>   style/period = "Late Georgian"
>   =>
>   culture = "British" AND
>   date.created = 1760, 1811
>
> [Style/period, culture and date.created are all VRA data elements
> defined as slots for our art-object description template.]
>
> We could not define this constraint in RDFS and (a little to our
> surprise)
> we saw no way of expressing it in DAML+OIL either (we could have
> misread the spec, we would be glad to be proven wrong).
>
> This type of semantical information is essential to show added value
> of semantic annotations.
>
> WEBONT REQUIREMENTS
> possibility to define inter-slot constraints of a class
>
>
>
> [1] The Art and Architecture Thesaurus
>     http://shiva.pub.getty.edu.
>
> [2] Visual Resources Association~Standards Committee.
>     VRA core categories, version 3.0.
>     Technical report, Visual Resources Association, July 2000.
>     http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/~staffaw3/vra/vracore3.htm.
>
>
> 5. Conceptual Open Hypermedia
> Contributor: Nick Gibbins, University of Southampton
>
> TASK:
>     Providing an overlay of hypertext links onto a corpus (a linkbase)
>     in order to improve navigation by browsing through the corpus.
>
> EXAMPLE DOMAIN:
>     Organisational and research documents generated by an academic
>     institution.
>
> TYPICAL USERS:
>
>     1. novice user who needs further explanation of terms in documents
>        (eg. information on people mentioned in documents)
>     2. experienced user who knows rough location of desired
>        information and is prepared to browse to find it
>     3. experienced user annotating documents (associating terms in
>        documents with ontology entities), so allowing new links to be
>        created
>
> ONTOLOGY SAMPLES:
>
>     The ontology is based in part on Dublin Core (describing
>     bibliographic metadata), but also requires some representation of
>     the content of the documents (departmental board minutes, grant
>     applications, etc) in order to describe their contents (or rather,
>     those entities which are referred to in their contents).
>
> WEBONT REQUIREMENTS:
>
>     referring to instances (eg. people) by means of their properties
>
>     composition of relations
>      - required to specify certain types of links (eg. a link to the
>        homepage of the author of a document)
>
>     ability to define lexical terms which commonly denote entities
>      - for example, the lexical term "Nick Gibbins" is commonly used
>        to refer to the person with email address nmg@ecs.soton.ac.uk
>      - denotation of these terms is not necessarily static.
>        for example, the lexical term "head of department" refers to
>        different individuals based on the context in which it is used
>        (publication date of the document in which the term appears)
>
>     provenance
>      - no explicit author of links, but provenance of links is that of
>        the facts from which they are constructed
>
>
> --
> A. Th. Schreiber, SWI, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15
> NL-1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Tel: +31 20 525 6793
> Fax: +31 20 525 6896; E-mail: schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl
> WWW: http://www.swi.psy.uva.nl/usr/Schreiber/home.html
>

Received on Monday, 17 December 2001 11:05:40 UTC