chat-transcript_20100316c_unedited.txt anonymous morphed into Matt Matt morphed into MattHettinger anonymous morphed into doug foxvog MikeBennett: Could some ask that questione be repeated please, I can't hear them at all Simon Spero: Gavagai? Simon Spero: Undetached ontology parts PeterYim: . Welcome to the Ontolog Post Summit Symposium Meeting - Sharing and Integrating Ontologies - Tue 2010.03.16 * Convener: Dr. JohnSowa (Vivomind Intelligence) * Title: "Sharing and Integrating Ontologies" Please refer to details on the session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_03_16 . PeterYim: my apologies about the mess with the chat-room links MikeBennett: I was beginning ot wonder if I was in the wrong room - thanks Peter! MikeBennett: Re the last question (things which exist by virtue of being specified): one way in which meaning is grounded in the business world is in legal systems. Simon Spero: http://www.w3.org/2007/03/RdfRDB/ AmandaVizedom: The point on the current slide (titled "Consistency Check") is important. IME, most folks developing ontologies to handle examples and/or instance-level data resist explicit representation of instance-level examples, thereby losing this resource for testing... AmandaVizedom: I'm referring specifically to projects in which the ontologies are used for semantic metadata, for example, and the bulk of data remain in RDBs or other data sources. Here, there is principled reason to keep the instances out of the ontology being developed ... MikeBennett: @Amanda this is a very good point. One thing I hope to see developed later in this conversation is the distinction between projects where the instance data is RDF/OWL individuals and projects where the instance data is database instance data. So many issues require different treatment inthe two scenarios IMHO AmandaVizedom: However, there is good reason to ontologize the examples (some sample data, some sample messages, some sample service payloads). It's fine to do it in a distinct ontology, for example, using import or inheritance mechanisms to make the ontology under development usable within the example ontology. Now you've got something to do some meaningful testing on. Simon Spero: We're getting deep in to Quineland here; I'd settle for non-monotonicity. doug foxvog: @Amanda Sample data can be placed in a model that uses a theory. Multiple models can use the same theory, with the only difference being the instance data. doug foxvog: It is a good idea to keep instance data out of theory ontolgies, imho. doug foxvog: Some instances can be useful in theories. E.g., the Earth in a geographical theory, or a legal code for a theory about how law applies to certain aspects of society. MikeBennett: @Doug there will always be a need for certain instances in most class-level ontologies (e.g. the USA, ISO etc.), but that's distinct from the sample data question, which I agree is an important one AmandaVizedom: @Mike Yes, I agree. In fact, this relates to our previous discussion of training suitability to project. Much SemWeb-oriented training tends to assume that the instance data is RDF/OWL, and to teach specific approaches (some elements of which we've discussed in last 2 days, e.g. DL, no 2nd-order classes, no properties relating classes (as opposed to their instances), etc.... MikeBennett: @Amanda - yes, to many sem-webbers the OWL/RDF web /is/ the uiverse of semantics. People need to hear what John's saying about databases. All new, trendy movements assume a green field site; the rest of us have to work with real world problems. Simon Spero: The original web 0.9 took off because it integrated with all the data that was already out there on the net Simon Spero: It was a few years before http overtook gopher by traffic volume Simon Spero: @Amanda, @Mike: the big problem with teaching OWL to people who know OOP is that suddenly there's only monotonic inheritance AmandaVizedom: @Mike However, many interoperability-driven projects, including mine and I think yours, do not fit this. Rather, there are legacy data sources, not to be converted any time soon, if ever, and the ontology is providing the explicit semantics absent from those sources (via markup or indexing or wrapped services or...). For very good reasons, the sample data shouldn't be in these ontologies. But we miss a much needed means of machine- or machine-assisted validation by not also, separately, ontologizing some instance level data to serve as a test bed. Simon Spero: @Mike, @amanda: the link I posted earlier is to a W3 workshop on mapping from RDF to RDBMSes MikeBennett: @Amanda - indeed so. Some of the bright young things in financial services want to "do" trendy SemWeb stuff, but most of them have real problems to solve. Since there's no merit in having instance data in two places, it only makes sense for the ontology to be a business concptual model within a model driven stack of artefacts. But the test question is an interesting one, thanks for flagging that up. Simon Spero: @myself - and RDBMS -> RDF MikeBennett: @Simon interesting link, it might help with some of the places where users of our ontology are looking at ways to use it in solving real data problems. Simon Spero: Mike: Best way to convince people that they don't want a jumbo triple store is to let them build one Simon Spero: Nothing like a giga-tuple table to slap some sense into the resistant MikeBennett: @Simon re monotonic inheritance that explains why one sees ontologies with a single hierarchy. I think there are interesting data mapping issues that require multiple inheritance in the ontology mapping to distinct single inheritance data models across the organization or supply chain. MikeBennett: @Simon Simon Spero: Mike: multi is ok, but people want to override, because that's what they do when programming AmandaVizedom: ...By doing so, we not only enable the kind of single-ontology checking John described, but loads of potential additional testing, including testing of the implications of particular alignments of ontologies, when such are needed for federated search, for example. Test those alignments over test beds of ontologized instance-level examples that stand in for the heterogeneous sources you aim to make interoperable. anonymous morphed into AliHashemi Simon Spero: Word & Object says we can't AliHashemi: Sorry for being super late, was in a meeting till now... MikeBennett: We're on Slide 10 (the 3D 4D question as an example of different theories) MikeBennett: This makes a lot of sense. I think in 4D anyway and was completely blindsided by the fact that there are 3D theorists with their own peculiar definitions for continuants and the like. AliHashemi: (thanks) Simon Spero: Perdurphiles MikeBennett: It should be possible to frame a definition for "Continuant" which corresponds to what John calls the Interface view - what it actually is, rather than how a 3D or 4D geek defines it Simon Spero: Are there individual rabbits, or are there just disconnected chunks of the unique Rabbit AliHashemi: One comment about Slide 7 -- the lattice need not be a tree. There can be more than one parent, and more than one root for any applied snippet of the "lattice of theories" AliHashemi: I suppose the emphasized word is _like_ a tree MikeBennett: MikeBennett: THat's re the questioner suggesting that these theorists come up with some real axioms fo rtheir stuff doug foxvog: "Connected" in 3D and 4D have different definitions. The axioms do not conflict unless they are using terms with inconsistant meanings. doug foxvog: Equating in 3D and 4D also have different meanings. MikeBennett: Surely once we look at real axioms, one workaround that drops right out of real world data is that there is a thing which exists over a period of time (howswoever modeled), and that thing has a number of states and transitions between those states (again, howsoever modeled). doug foxvog: @Mike: what is considered to be a "thing" is a mental definition. MikeBennett: @Doug surely the theorists aren't getting hung up on words just because some words may have different meanings? MikeBennett: @Doug good point Simon Spero: Can we sum this up as saying hooray for empiricism? Simon Spero: If there words could have two meanings, there would have been a sign on the dooor. MikeBennett: @Simon: Philosophy Department (or is it?) Simon Spero: Enterprise architecture is basically enterprise archaeology Simon Spero: Or forensic para-consistent epistemology : What the f*ck were they thinking? Simon Spero: BTW, DICOM has 11 values for sex: ftp://medical.nema.org/medical/dicom/final/cp373_ft.pdf Simon Spero: Medical imaging quantised gender theory, because it had to AmandaVizedom: IMHO, it would be of significant value were some research ontologists (i.e., those for whom doing what follows would count as fulfilling the expectations of their positions, vs. those for whom applied projects dominate) would pony-up with those axioms and proofs. Here's why: groups of applied ontologists sometimes get into interminable debates, running years at times, over which of two logically equivalent high-level representation approaches to use. In absence of agreement, they also end up using each sometimes. Some will argue for equivalence and the practical importance of picking one and moving on, but without the proof, this is rarely persuasive. MikeBennett: @Amanda re our earlier (my email is down just now): Another twitter response has @MikeHypercube methinks: "..Ontologies play a vital role in the broad Semantic Web Project vision, the burgeoning Web of Linked Data .." Simon Spero: What's the #tag? MikeBennett: @Simon in fact the world's first "non gender" person was declared in Aus in the last couple of days. Cue database confusion. Simon Spero: Mike: Gender != Sex MikeBennett: :Simon The #tag for Linked Data is #linkeddata if that's what you're asking (apologies if not) Simon Spero: Oh - that tag doug foxvog: "We have reality" -- that's a theory. We have an "interface" to what we consider to be reality. doug foxvog: Hopefully, there is some sort of agreement as to what "reality" is. AmandaVizedom: I could make a list ... but I won't. [Note re: Summit topic -- this would be nice to cover in teaching as well: recognizing logically equivalent, or probably logically equivalent, modeling approaches, and making choices -- either pragmatically or arbitrarily! MikeBennett: I think that there is a real case for a repository that identifies industry-led standards (at a semantic level, where such exist), so that one can start to integrate the lattice of actual, owned theories that are out threre. MikeBennett: With provenance metadata MikeBennett: Unified ontology? Simon Spero: THere's a workshop on ontology repositories at eswc in corfu this year PeterYim: The "Sahred and Integrated Ontologies (SIO)" initiative is born! AmandaVizedom: @Mike +1 PeterYim: thanks everyone PeterYim: -- session ended 5:30pm -- MikeBennett: Thanks Peter. PeterYim: HUGE Thanks to *John* and All