Ontolog Invited Speaker Presentation - Mr. Aldo Gangemi & Dr. Valentina Presutti - Thu 2009.02.05    (1O1X)

Conference Call Details    (1SPX)

Attendees    (1SR0)

Agenda & Proceedings:    (1SR9)

http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/AldoGangemi-ValentinaPresutti_20090205/Aldo_20090205.jpg . . . . . . . . http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/AldoGangemi-ValentinaPresutti_20090205/Vale_20090205.jpg    (1SRW)

          [Mr. Aldo Gangemi]                        [Dr. Valentina Presutti]    (1SRX)

Ontologies are fundamental elements for making sense and allowing reuse of the huge amount of structured data that is being published on the (Semantic) Web. Their design is not a trivial task, as well as to teach and learn them. In this talk we describe ontology design patterns with an associated method, called eXtreme Design, and show why they can help easing the mentioned tasks. Furthermore, we point out additional benefits emerging from their application. We also present an associated initiative, ontologydesignpatterns.org, a web portal based on SemanticMediaWiki technology, aimed at collecting ontology design patterns as well as good practices and good ontologies, and at supporting their discussion, evaluation, and reuse. The certification procedure of ontologydesignpatterns.org is performed by means of Evaluation WikiFlow, a SemanticMediaWiki extension that we have developed for supporting evaluation workflows.    (1SPP)

Aldo Gangemi graduated in philosophy, and then worked in medical informatics, knowledge engineering, and semantic technologies, including the Semantic Web. He's senior researcher at the CNR Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technology in Rome, and head of the newly formed Semantic Technology Lab. He also co-founded the Laboratory for Applied Ontology.    (1SPR)

His work in ontology engineering dates back to 1992, when pioneering the application of ontologies to knowledge organization systems in biomedicine. His current research focuses on pattern-based ontology design, collaborative modeling, hybridation of NLP, lexical and semantic resources, and metamodels for heterogeneous knowledge integration.    (1SPS)

He has published more than 100 refereed articles in proceedings of international conferences, journals, and books, and has been involved in several projects funded by the European Union, governmental organizations, and industrial companies (either as research partner or consultant), e.g. in the seminal ontology-related projects Galen, WonderWeb, OntoWeb, Metokis, and the Eureka project IKF. The STLab is currently a partner in the EU projects NeOn, IKS, and BONy, and coordinates the CNR research programmes Semantic IntraWeb and Historical Knowledge Representation.    (1SPT)

He has organized several conferences and workshops, and regularly tutors in PhD courses and international schools. He's one of the designers of DOLCE foundational ontology, and currently maintains the OWL versions and extensions. He also started the ontologydesignpatterns.org initiative.    (1SPU)

Valentina Presutti received her PhD in Computer Science in 2006 at the University of Bologna (Italy). Currently, she is a researcher at the Semantic Technology Laboratory of the National Research Council (CNR) in Rome. She is one of the key researchers in the EU funded projects NeOn and IKS, and she started the ontologydesignpatterns.org initiative, which she actively participates in as one of the editors in chief. She has published in international journals/conferences/workshops on topics such as Semantic Web and ontology design.    (1SPV)

She also teaches software engineering at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", and works as consultant for private as well as public organizations. Her research interests include Semantic Web, ontology design, collaborative knowledge/content management, and ontology-based software engineering.    (1SPW)

Questions, Answers & Discussion:    (1SRQ)

Transcript of the online chat during the session: (slightly edited for clarity)    (1T4D)

 VNC2: Welcome to the Ontolog Invited Speaker Presentation - Mr. Aldo Gangemi & Dr. Valentina Presutti - Thu 2009.02.05    (1T4E)
 * Invited Speakers: Mr. AldoGangemi & Dr. ValentinaPresutti (STLab, ISTC-CNR, Rome, Italy)    (1T4F)
 * Title: "Pattern-based Ontology Design"    (1T4G)
 anonymous morphed into aldo    (1T4H)
 PeterYim: Hi Aldo    (1T4I)
 aldo: Hi Peter, I'm trying the system    (1T4J)
 aldo: the total call time is 90 minutes, right?    (1T4K)
 aldo: should we present in 60 minutes?    (1T4L)
 anonymous morphed into Valentina    (1T4M)
 Valentina: Hi    (1T4N)
 PeterYim: Hi Valentina    (1T4O)
 PeterYim: Aldo and Val, ... the total call is ~90 minutes ... we can be slightly flexible. 
           We have the conference bridge for 120 minutes, but then, you probably don't get 
           to really start you talk until about 15 minutes into the session. ... I know you 
           have 77 slides to go through, so, take your time, and make sure we have some time 
           at the end for Q&A and discussion    (1T4P)
 aldo: ok, I will probably skip some slides if time becomes tight    (1T4Q)
 PeterYim: your call ... (I won't hurry you!)    (1T4R)
 anonymous morphed into BrianLowe    (1T4S)
 anonymous morphed into Jon Corson-Rikert    (1T4T)
 anonymous1 morphed into RexBrooks    (1T4U)
 anonymous2 morphed into TaniaTudorache    (1T4V)
 anonymous morphed into Shamod    (1T4W)
 Tom Russ morphed into ThomasRuss    (1T4X)
 aldo morphed into AldoGangemi    (1T4Y)
 anonymous morphed into BettinaSchimanski    (1T4Z)
 Valentina morphed into ValentinaPresutti    (1T50)
 ValentinaPresutti: codo light ontology: http://ontologydesignpatterns.org/cpont/codo/codolight.owl 
                    ... I'll add some of these links to the top of session page.    (1T51)
 BettinaSchimanski: Unfortunately I will have to leave early. Thank you for speaking and I will
                    be sure to come back to hopefully catch the recording and parts I missed.    (1T52)
 ValentinaPresutti: Thanks Bettina, thanks for attending    (1T53)
 PeterYim: we will be posting a recording of the session later (as we have always done)    (1T54)
 GaryBergCross: It would seem that ODPs are assembled out of some standard parts.  Is there a 
                commitment to a foundational ontology such as DOLCE?    (1T55)
 ValentinaPresutti: No there's not such a commitment. By the way DOLCE is a good and used ontology, 
                    hence we have extracted some patterns from it    (1T56)
 anonymous2 morphed into John Bottoms    (1T57)
 ValentinaPresutti: In principle every "good" ontology is a good candidate as a source of content patterns    (1T58)
 anonymous1 morphed into FrankOlken    (1T59)
 FrankOlken: Just testing, as it appears that there are no new messages recently .....    (1T5A)
 PeterYim: still working, Frank!    (1T5B)
 AmandaVizedom: just got cut off of call!    (1T5C)
 AmandaVizedom: sigh.    (1T5D)
 AmandaVizedom: I'll type my question.    (1T5E)
 PeterYim: please    (1T5F)
 DougHolmes: There are a number of different analytic positions in ontology engineering [e.g. 3d vs 4d]; 
             do you expect to, or do you think its necessary to "situate" particular patterns within a position? 
             That is, note something like  "This pattern is appropriate in a 4d ontology..."    (1T5G)
 GaryBergCross: Has any work been done in geospatial patterns?    (1T5H)
 anonymous1 morphed into RaviSharma    (1T5I)
 AmandaVizedom: Idea: given collaboration tools that hide the ontological guts (e.g., TopBraid Ensemble) 
                there is still great difficulty in enabling SMEs, or even junior ontologists, to model real, 
                practice-grounded concepts and relationships. I'm seeing the ODP approach as having great 
                potential to help here.  In my work context, we have a team of mixed-seniority ontologists 
                (needing means of methodological synchronization) *and* teams of SMEs whose contextualized 
                ontologies need to be built, without their needing to become ontologists. I see a shared 
                ODP library as of great potential use at both levels.    (1T5J)
 AmandaVizedom: I'm particularly interested because I've tried to approach this in terms of 
                "ontology templates" or similar frames of my own making, with at best mixed success 
                -- I think ODP may provide some of the missing intuitions. It's not easy to implement 
                use via existing tools, but with momentum, there's no technical barrier to it, I think. 
                Do you agree?    (1T5K)
 AldoGangemi: Yes, there are no technical barriers I think, it's just about having a good grasp at 
              how practical ontologies can be built successfully ... unfortunately, what happened 
              in the past is that the implementors of ontology design tools were stuck into the 
              logical way of organizing even the interface or the interaction components    (1T5L)
 AmandaVizedom: Thanks to both of you - great presentation and very exciting work!    (1T5M)
 AmandaVizedom: My request for a portal account is in.    (1T5N)
 TaniaTudorache: Thank you very much for the interesting talk!    (1T5O)
 John Bottoms: Thank you for sharing your experience and expertise with us.    (1T5P)
 PeterYim: Thank you, Aldo & Valentina, for a great presentation ... and thanks to everyone for 
           your participation. Bye!    (1T5Q)
 -- end of transcript --    (1T5R)

Audio Recording of this Session    (1SRH)