ppy/EarthScienceOntolog-s04_chat-transcript_unedited_20121101a.txt --------- Chat transcript from room: ontolog_20121101 2012-11-01 GMT-07:00 [time-stamps in PDT] --------- [09:10] PeterYim: Welcome to the = EarthScienceOntolog: Panel Session-4 - Thu 2012-11-01 = Mini-Series Theme: An Earth Science Ontology Dialog ("EarthScienceOntolog") Session Topic: A Review of Ontologies for Earth Sciences Session Co-chairs: * Dr. DaliaVaranka (USGS) and Dr. MarkSchildhauer (NCEAS, UCSB) Panelists: * Dr. LuisBermudez (OGC) - "Use of Ontologies within the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)" * Dr. BoyanBrodaric (Geological Survey of Canada) - "Toward an integrated surface and subsurface water ontology" * Dr. NormanMorrison (U of Manchester, UK) - "The Environment Ontology: What sort of a place was it?" * Dr. ThomasHuang (JPL/NASA) - "From Modeling the Earth to Terrain Simulation" * Dr. MarkSchildhauer (UC Santa Barbara) - "Where do we go from here with Earth and Environmental Science Ontologies?" (a joint work by MarkSchildhauer & BenAdams) Logistics: * Refer to details on session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_11_01 * (if you haven't already done so) please click on "settings" (top center) and morph from "anonymous" to your RealName * Mute control: *7 to un-mute ... *6 to mute * Can't find Skype Dial pad? ** for Windows Skype users: Can't find Skype Dial pad? ... it's under the "Call" dropdown menu as "Show Dial pad" ** for Linux Skype users: please stay with (or downgrade to) Skype version 2.x for now (as a Dial pad seems to be missing on Linux-based Skype v4.x for skype-calls.) == Proceedings: == [09:14] anonymous morphed into BrunoEmond [09:20] anonymous morphed into DeborahNichols [09:21] anonymous morphed into BenAdams [09:25] anonymous1 morphed into CeciliaZanniMerk [09:28] anonymous1 morphed into TomTinsley [09:30] anonymous1 morphed into JoelSachs [09:30] anonymous2 morphed into GenhanChen [09:32] Dan morphed into DanDong [09:32] anonymous2 morphed into FranLightsom [09:32] anonymous1 morphed into LuisBermudez [09:32] NormanMorrison morphed into NormanMorrison [09:32] anonymous4 morphed into DaliaVaranka [09:32] anonymous5 morphed into BoyanBrodaric [09:32] anonymous3 morphed into TorstenHahmann [09:32] DeborahNichols morphed into DeborahLNichols [09:33] anonymous morphed into MarshallXMa [09:34] anonymous1 morphed into HilmarLapp [09:35] anonymous morphed into SemirSarajlic [09:35] anonymous1 morphed into Uma [09:36] anonymous2 morphed into JoelBender [09:38] anonymous1 morphed into KrzysztofJanowicz [09:38] anonymous2 morphed into AlexSorokine [09:38] SemirSarajlic morphed into SemirSarajlic [09:40] anonymous morphed into DeborahMacPherson [09:40] anonymous1 morphed into DeborahMcGuinness [09:41] anonymous morphed into YanLiu [09:43] anonymous morphed into Whitenack [09:40] PeterYim: == DaliaVaranka opening the session with the intro slides ... [09:41] List of members: AlexSorokine, AlexShkotin, Ben Adams, BobbinTeegarden, BobSmith, Boyan Brodaric, BrunoEmond, CeciliaZanniMerk, ChuckWard, DaliaVaranka, DanDong, DavidValentine, Deborah McGuinness, DeborahLNichols, DeborahMacPherson, FrankOlken, FranLightsom, GaryBergCross, Genhan Chen, HilmarLapp, JoelSachs, JoelBender, KenBaclawski, KrzysztofJanowicz, LuisBermudez, MarkSchildhauer, MarshallXMa, NormanMorrison, PeterYim, ScottHills, SemirSarajlic, TerryLongstreth, ToddSchneider, TomTinsley, TorstenHahmann, Uma, vnc2, YanLiu [09:44] PeterYim: == LuisBermudez presenting ... [09:46] PeterYim: whoever posted into the box next to the "hand" button, please re-post into the editing box on the left of the "send" button [09:47] PeterYim: your question: "is there chat support ..." - the answer is, the in-session chat-support is right here; after the session, the conversation can continue - see: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_11_01#nid3HA5 [09:47] anonymous morphed into CarlosRueda [09:48] anonymous morphed into KrishnaSinha [09:48] anonymous1 morphed into Cyber-ShARE [09:51] NormanMorrison: Out of interest, is there a twitter hashtag in use for the session ... [ PeterYim: not yet, Norman ] [09:53] ToddSchneider: Luis, does OGC recommend use of, or alignment to, a foundational ontology to facilitate interoperability or integration? [10:15] LuisBermudez: Hi Todd. OGC doesn't currently recommended alignment to a foundational ontology. The only related OGC standard (recommendation) is GeoSPARQL. My sense is that we cannot call it a foundational ontology. [10:17] ToddSchneider: Luis, is OGC considering such a recommendation? I'm sure it would help, eventually:) [10:20] LuisBermudez: Todd, I will take your recommendation back to OGC. [10:04] PeterYim: @LuizBermudez - what open "use license" is used (by default) on OGC's open Intellectual Properties (IP's) [10:20] LuisBermudez: Peter, OGC IP document is here: http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=32268 [10:08] PeterYim: == BoyanBrodaric presenting ... [10:10] anonymous morphed into ThomasHuang [10:14] anonymous morphed into DougFoxvog [10:29] KrishnaSinha: KrishnaSinha :Boyan, is it possible to extend this to oceans? Are there any obvious links? [10:31] BoyanBrodaric: Krishna---we haven't looked at oceans, but my sense is that at least some of it is directly applicable. Boyan [10:28] PeterYim: == NormanMorrison presenting ... [10:31] GaryBergCross: For people interested in working more on semantics of a container idea it is a topic at the Nov 28-30 workshop at USGS in Reston VA see http://vocamp.org/wiki/GeoVoCampSOCoP2012 [10:38] TorstenHahmann: Krisha, I guess it depends on what exactly you want to model. For example reefs or underwater ridges (as Norman is talking about) could be modeled similarly using certain kinds of voids (hollows) based on containment. [10:47] NormanMorrison: Torsten, Boyan & Krishna, yes, it was encouraging to see that we have independently adopted the same formalism of (voids) holes and containment. [10:50] MarkSchildhauer: interesting to know, though, whether these formalisms are identical or merely similar [11:02] TorstenHahmann: Mark, I totally agree that this is a key question. Norman: in that regard, to what extent is Envo formalized? Is it restricted to a IS-A taxonomy right now? That's what I found on the website you mentioned (in the download section). [11:00] BoyanBrodaric: Norman---the conceptual convergence is nice to see. Do you use BFO for the hole/containment schema, or did you enhance BFO in that direction? My look at BFO in this respect is that it has some hooks that need fleshing out. [11:11] NormanMorrison: Torsten: Yes, EnvO does leverage it's concepts and relations from BFO. There is an 'EnvO2' in the pipeline that will do so more rigourously. [11:08] GaryBergCross: The connection to BFO suggests that EnvO leverages its concepts and relations. [10:44] GaryBergCross: @Norman does EnvO cover the idea of a site as in ecological site or other types of sites? [10:55] NormanMorrison: @Gary yes we have sites represented in EnvO, but I would say this is an area that is not that well covered. We also incorporate a number of Biome classification systems that are non orthogonal. This is certainly an area that would benefit from further work. [11:01] GaryBergCross: @Norman Thank you. Perhaps we can exchange ideas about this later. Site is a topic at the Nov 28-30 workshop at USGS in Reston VA see http://vocamp.org/wiki/GeoVoCampSOCoP2012 [10:45] PeterYim: @Norman (& all) - your slides are now updated (in particular the garble on slide#6 is now gone) [10:45] PeterYim: == ThomasHuang presenting ... [11:07] PeterYim: == MarkSchildhauer presenting ... [11:11] AlexShkotin: What about this authority http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/definition? [11:11] PeterYim: @Mark, Ben & All - ref. your slides #3 & 4 - there is an ongoing effort under the Open Ontology Repository (OOR) initiative, that makes an attempt to build a federated network of those who are running ontology repositories, so that there can be a "logical" go-to place to access them, and where other value-added services can be applied ... among the repositories, some of those of interest to this group like MMISW-ORR, SOCoP-OOR, ORNL-DAAC, BioPortal, etc. are also on board there - see: http://oor.net/ [11:16] PeterYim: the OOR effort welcomes participation of projects that are running ontology repository ("open" ones, especially) ... join us! [11:20] PeterYim: == Q&A and Open Discussion now ... [11:21] GaryBergCross: Note VoCamps in spirit do try to research existing vocabularies. Then build on these refining and extending these as part of the effort. [11:21] anonymous morphed into MyunghwaHwang [11:22] anonymous1 morphed into AlexMirzaoff [11:23] AlexSorokine: to Boyan: how do you treat granularity in relation to your concept of gaps and voids? [11:36] TorstenHahmann: as follow-up to Boyan answer to Alex's question [11:23]: I suppose you meant granularity of voids? we currently only distinguish two levels of granularity: the object level (physical objects) and the matter level. Those we formalized in the FOIS paper (2012). It is a simplified version of the DOLCE concept of constituency. [11:24] anonymous morphed into RamonaWalls [11:23] TorstenHahmann: Btw, the ontologies Boyan and I developed will be available next week in the COLORE ontology repository (one of the OOR Peter was referring to) available at http://code.google.com/p/colore/ [11:24] GaryBergCross: @Torsten, so these are formalized in common logic? [11:24] TorstenHahmann: @Gary: yes. [11:24] MarkSchildhauer: thanks, Boyan... [11:25] MichaelGruninger: It will be important to explicitly use the axioms of the ontologies so that we can show that the commonalities are more than an intuitive similarity. [11:26] MichaelGruninger: Identical concepts in two ontologies would mean that from the axioms alone we can entail the axioms satisfied by one concept can be entailed by the axioms satisfied by the other ontology, together with specifications of the mappings [11:27] TorstenHahmann: @Gary: for clarification: the DOLCE ontology that Boyan presented is generated from the Common Logic ontology, it obviously only captures only a subset of what we formalized in Common Logic [11:28] GaryBergCross: @MichaelGruninger So yours and Torsten's work on spatial ontologies is an example where you have done this type of mapping and close look at axioms. Right? [11:30] MichaelGruninger: @Gary: Exactly. The challenges posed by today's speakers is to identify all of the different ontologies that people are working on, and to figure out what the possible mappings could be [11:28] MarkSchildhauer: http://obofoundry.org [11:31] MarkSchildhauer: http://oor.net [11:28] AlexShkotin: @Mark, it looks like we need to create a formal theory one for every particular science? [11:30] MarkSchildhauer: @alex-- I see more a need for common design principles in ontology construction *across* disciplines, and shared concepts wherever possible [11:33] BoyanBrodaric: @Alex---the degree of formality will be use-governed; for some purposes high formality it might not be necessary. But, to leverage reasoning it would be desirable. [11:35] AlexShkotin: @Mark, it looks like common sense knowledge formalization. Like Ernst Davis. [11:34] KrishnaSinha: MarkSchildhauer---I think developing a general ontology based solely on vocabulary is difficult to accomplish. I dont see how non specialists with respect to a given discipline could even begin to discover data.. We need something beyond just terms [11:43] MarkSchildhauer: @Krishna-- agreed; but well-defined terms developed by experts, and currently housed in thesauri like the AGI example you pointed out to us, can be borrowed and embedded where appropriate in richer constructs? That's what I was intending, sorry it wasn't clear. [11:33] CeciliaZanniMerk: Michael and Torsten, can I have a link or some biblio on your spatial ontologies ? [11:37] TorstenHahmann: @Cecilia: sure, what format would you like? They are buried in the really long bibliography of my thesis. [11:40] CeciliaZanniMerk: Torsten, if you could send me some articles, it would be great ... merk [at] unistra.fr [11:39] CeciliaZanniMerk: Torsten, OWL and PDF will be fine ... :-D) OWL to play with, PDF to understand ... ... we have just begun to work on an urban ontology for remote sensing, and the spatial relationships are one of the key aspects [11:43] TorstenHahmann: @cecilia: I can email you a pdf. [11:43] CeciliaZanniMerk: @torsten : thanks ! it would be great ! [11:34] NormanMorrison: On this topic MIREOT (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term): http://obi-ontology.org/page/MIREOT [11:34] NormanMorrison: RamonaWalls (who's online now) knows more about this [11:36] DougFoxvog: @Michael, I think we can distinguish theories from definitional ontologies. If that is done, then different theories with different axioms could be defined, so that two terms from different ontologies can be accepted as identical concepts, even though the axioms defined for one (with one theory) are not necessarily entailed by the axioms of the other (defined with a different theory). [11:36] DougFoxvog: This entails reifying the different theories in different theory ontologies. [11:38] TorstenHahmann: @Luis: is there any effort to formalize the semantics of the GeoSPARQL concepts any further? [11:44] LuisBermudez: @Torsten. The GeoSPARQL semantics are already formalized in OWL http://www.opengis.net/ont/geosparql. [11:46] TorstenHahmann: @Luis: I meant to formalize it beyond what is already there. In particular whether to formalize the descriptions of each concepts that are currently in English, for example statements like: Exists if the subject SpatialObject spatially contains the object SpatialObject. DE-9IM: T*****FF* [11:37] PeterYim: -- (conference call) session ended: 11:37am PDT -- [11:37] MarkSchildhauer: oops-- sorry Joel. Good point- we didn't have time to go into the usage of these ontologies, in terms of semantic annotation and mediation! [11:40] MarkSchildhauer: @joel-- for example, one typical application of an ontology term would be, via annotation, asserting that some data value or column in a data set "IS" a (set of) instances of that term. [11:40] PeterYim: @Joel ... would you post your question here (we can leave the chat-room going for a few more minutes) or put that out to the community for further discussion - see: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_11_01#nid3HA5 [11:40] NormanMorrison: Thanks again to the organisers. As a first timer to the Ontolog session I found this to be an excellent forum and certainly hope to join future discussions. @Joel - next time perhaps... :-) [11:41] CeciliaZanniMerk: I agree with Norman ... it was my first time also, and i've really appreciated the quality of the presentations and of the discussions ... thanks a lot ! [11:41] List of attendees: AlexMirzaoff, AlexShkotin, AlexSorokine, BenAdams, BobSmith, BobbinTeegarden, BoyanBrodaric, BrunoEmond, BrunoEmond, CarlosRueda, CeciliaZanniMerk, ChuckWard, Cyber-ShARE, DaliaVaranka, DanDong, DavidValentine, USCD/SDSC, DeborahNichols, DeborahMcGuinness, DeborahLNichols, DeborahMacPherson, DougFoxvog, FranLightsom, FrankOlken, GaryBergCross, GenhanChen, JoelSachs, JoelBender, KenBaclawski, KrzysztofJanowicz, LuisBermudez, MarkSchildhauer, MarshallXMa, MichaelGruninger, MyunghwaHwang, NancyWiegand, NormanMorrison, PeterYim, RamonaWalls, ScottHills, SemirSarajlic, TerryLongstreth, ThomasHuang, ToddSchneider, TomTinsley, TorstenHahmann, Uma, Whitenack, YanLiu, HilmarLapp, KrishnaSinha, vnc2 [12:00] PeterYim: closing chat-room now! ---------