ppy/UoM_chat-transcript_20090924e_edited.txt '''IM Chat Transcript captured during the session:''' ... ''(lightly edited for clarity)'' VNC2: Welcome to the Ontolog Panel Discussion: Strawman for a UoM_Ontology_Standard - Thu 24-Sep-2009 * Session Chair: Dr. FrankOlken (NSF) & Mr. DavidPrice (Eurostep) * Panelists: (21AD) o Mr. DavidLeal -- "An initial organization of some concepts defined within the VIM (International Vocabulary of Metrology)" o Dr. JamesMasters -- "QUDT: An OWL Ontology for Measurable Quantities, Units, Dimension Systems, and Dimensional Data Types" o Dr. GuntherSchadow -- "Unified Code for Units of Measure (UCUM)" o Mr. EdwardBarkmeyer -- "A standard ontology for Units of Measure -- Status: 24 Sept 2009" VNC2: please refer to session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2009_09_24 anonymous morphed into PeterYim anonymous1 morphed into DavidPrice anonymous morphed into MatthewWest anonymous morphed into KurtConrad anonymous morphed into MarkLinehan anonymous1 morphed into StuartTurner anonymous2 morphed into BrandNiemann anonymous1 morphed into PavithraKenjige anonymous1 morphed into MarkLin anonymous2 morphed into FrankOlken PatHayes: Peter, I will have to bow out in 30 mins for another meeting, but will get back ASAP. - Pat Hayes. anonymous1 morphed into ChipMasters anonymous morphed into henson graves anonymous morphed into RexBrooks anonymous morphed into KurtConrad anonymous morphed into GuntherSchadow EdBarkmeyer: Generic quantity is a property of an unspecified thing that has a value; Particular quantity is a property of a specific thing anonymous morphed into BobbinTeegarden MatthewWest: David L.: What is the difference between a Particular Quantity and a Magnitude of Quantity? RaviSharma: measure is defined differently in David's slides? MikeBennett: It seems to me that each of these boxes should have a written definition behind them, to ground the meaning in natural language terms, to clarify what these are when we try to interpret how they relate to one another. EdBarkmeyer: Please, not "measure" for "generic quantity" -- a measure(ment) is what you get by measuring RaviSharma: it is not the same as Frank just meant. RaviSharma: i agree with Ed RexBrooks: If you download the slide deck, there is much more detail and subsequent elaboration than the few slides shown. FrankOlken: I understand particular quantity to be Frank Olken's waist size, generic quantity to be waist size, EdBarkmeyer: To Mike B, David's model document has definitions, mostly taken directly from the VIM text, but this is an area in which the VIM is ambiguous RexBrooks: like class and instance? RaviSharma: Rex - I did download but that is what measure there means as Ed describes it FrankOlken: and kind of quantity to be length (as an example) RexBrooks: True, I was just commenting that there is much more to it than what was shown. MikeBennett: @Ed, thanks. That would hopefully capture the meanings that were being asked after here. RaviSharma: Chip - You have lot more in terms of context setting before you can talk of terms and meaning a particular Vocabulary as compared to say a satellite that does not have humans or life support systems? FrankOlken: Another example from previous presentation, height, length, depth are all generic quantities, where kind of quantity is length, particular quantity is height of a specific piece of furniture. DavidLeal: Matthew: I think a member of magnitude of quantity is an equivalence class. Hence "1.3 m" is the equivalence class of all point pairs that have that separation. In this case, a particular quantity is a particular point pair. RaviSharma: Chip - tuples do not have to be always in Powers of, but a set of units in the same sysytem generally interrelatable (counterexample would be (centimeters, feet, hectare)? FrankOlken: QUDT does not seem to have generic quantities, only kind of quantity and particular quantity. MatthewWest: David L.: OK, but then what is the distinction between that and a particular quantity. Looks rather like a trope to me. DavidLeal: Probably this is reasonable. Often the different "generic quantities" are handled as relationships. Hence waist size is a relationship between person an length. EdBarkmeyer: Do you define "standard uncertainty"? DavidLeal: Matthew: It does. This is why I want to work on it. If "1.3 m" is a class of point pairs and "1.3 kg" is a class of quantities of matter, we have got rid of it. MatthewWest: Afraid I have to go now. FrankOlken: Peter, Can I mute my phone? how? DavidPrice: *2 mutes a phone DavidPrice: *3 unmutes FrankOlken: Thanks. I just muted my phone - I can not control the noise level here. GuntherSchadow: Peter, I know you don't like it but I'm afraid I have to dial in with Skype, I just connected, but still in my meeting. PeterYim: @Gunther ... ChipMasters is going into the last couple of his last slide now ... how soon can you call in? GuntherSchadow: I am on MikeBennett: Gunther, ith Skype make sure Skype has the focus, then the *3 should work anonymous1 morphed into JoeCollins RaviSharma: Chip - thanks - you may want to send email on tuples query above, thanks for your response. FrankOlken: Dr. Masters: I believe that vector magnitude should be an integer not a float. Do you have example? RaviSharma: Vector is a continuous value hence depending on the measure of units, a fraction for each dimension of vector, similarly for tensor. EdBarkmeyer: Note: a "rational" power (based on a polynomial expansion) is not a "float"; i.e., the exact ratio of two integers. I suspect that the only fractional power commonly in use is square root (1/2). MikeBennett: So, are there standard Roman equivalents for each of those greek letters e.g. you have u for mu. PavithraKenjige: Peter, I can not open Dr GuntherSchadow's slides.. but i was able to open other slides.. PavithraKenjige: Can other people open Dr. Gunther's slides? DavidPrice: I can open the PDF file I dowbloaded MikeBennett: @Pavithra it is a 12 megabtyte file, I can open on a fast line PavithraKenjige: ok, thanks RaviSharma: What is meant by commensurable - is it defined anywhere? RaviSharma: Dr. Schadow -Who are the users of UCUM medical, clinical, logistics, equipment, procedures of medical tretment, phrmaceutical, etc? RaviSharma: Dr. Schadow - how could we understand the semantic algeraic concepts, are these set of tuples of related measures, units used in a particular medical community? FrankOlken: Gunther, I agree with EdBarkmeyer. algebraic dimensional equivalence is not the same as comparability ! There is also the issue of interval FrankOlken: measures vs. coordinates. ChipMasters: Frank: Coulomb's Law states that the force exerted between two charged particles is proportional to the square of the distance between them; i.e. if F denotes force, Q for electric charge, L - length, M - mass, T - time, we can state a weaker form of Coulomb's Law as a proportionality (where '~' denotes 'proportional to') F ~ Q^2 L^-2 Replace F with its expression in base quantity kinds (L, M, T) F = L^1 M^1 T^-2 Then solve for Q to get Q ~ L^3/2 M^1/2 T^-1 So in CGS the dimension vector for electric charge is (3/2, 1/2, -1) PatHayes: Can anyone give an example of what Ed is talking about? Differnt Q kinds with the same ISO units? PatHayes: cgm units MikeBennett: @Pat - torque versus energy is a better example I believe PatHayes: OK, thanks. PeterYim: we will need to address the UCUM IPR issue at some point ( ... perhaps we could start a dialog about it now) ... I'm proposing that the UCUM folks consider (following the IEEE model) allowing the use of UCUM by the UoM_Ontology_Standard working group with the understanding that it will be given an "open" license iff UoM_Ontology_Standard makes it to International Standard (which the group will decide to pursue) ... the understanding also goes the other way, i.e. if UoM_Ontology_Standard does not make it to International Standard, yu still keep your proprietary rights. FrankOlken: We are now at 2 hours into the teleconference. We were shooting to wrap this up in 2.5 hours. PatHayes: Hmm, but Mike, UCUM has angle as a basic unity. Doesn't that resolve the energy/torque example? Are there any others? MikeBennett: I think it does. My understanding was that that's what that exchange was about, but I think dimensions / angles are part of the answer and are handled in one std but not the other. If I understand this correctly. PeterYim: @EdBarkmeyer & PatHayes - ref. Ed's slide#4 ... should the FOL language of choice be CLIF or CLIF+IKL? PatHayes: @peter, regarding IKL. It should be CLIF, because 1. IKL expressiveness isnt likely to be relevant here 2. IKL is not yet standardized 3. (recent unpublished work) IKL is reducible to CLIF in any case. PeterYim: @PatHayes ... thank you for the enlightening answer RaviSharma: ED- Chip-Does SPIN allow full ontology using- SPARQL is that equivalent to OWL usage? ChipMasters: Ravi: Let's discuss SPIN offline, since it is off topic for this discussion. You can reach me at cmasters [at] topquadrant.com. Please send your email and I will respond with more information about SPIN. RaviSharma: ravisharma [at] comcast.net PavithraKenjige: I can do it.. who is going to fund it? PeterYim: @DavidLeal - further to Ed's slide#7 ... let's work offline, and dedicate a page for the "strawman" DavidLeal: Peter: Good anonymous morphed into LinZhang LinZhang: Hi, Peter ... How long time has the meeting been going? Thanks! PeterYim: @LinZhang - Hi Forest, this has been on for about 2Hr 20 min now LinZhang: @Peter - Thanks a lot for update the attendees list. FrankOlken: Ed, I think that we should think about using some sort of issue management system (bug tracker ...) once we try to move forward on a standard. JoelBender: BAH! I just lost all telephone traffic off campus. RaviSharma: Ed thanks for a ver yconcise presentation. FrankOlken: I also think we should develop the standard directly in XHTML. PatHayes: Ed, amen to that last point -- That going from an agreed consensus (even when we get to that) to a final standard is a LOT of work. PeterYim: Frank ... please document your point about "tracking" on the chat ... RaviSharma: Ed, are we going to interrelate different units of measure in an ontology that defines how many types of relations different type JoelBender: If we are going to be using UML graphs in our documents, I am interested in finding a plain text language that can be used to exchange UML models and be consistently rendered. I and found http://www.umlgraph.org/, are there others? EdBarkmeyer: Joel, there is an OMG standard for textual representation of UML, and I believe it has several implementations. (There is as yet no standard for exchanging UML diagrams.) FrankOlken: I think we will also need to ensure that there is a need to have some sort of authorative online server for the ontology. FrankOlken: I agree on the need to differentiate between coordinates and interval masures. FrankOlken: I favor restricting our agenda to "physical units". Currency can be done later. RaviSharma: Mike Bennett: Thanks for the comment, for ODM you may want to contact Evan Wallace or Elisa Kendall . MikeBennett: @ Frank - if and only if the wider framework fdoesn't somehow preclude that. I think David's point on the voice right now aplies: people need to be able to add their own units from their own spaces. FrankOlken: I favor the use of OWL 2 Full or CLIF for formal specification. MikeBennett: UML - ontological impliucations are unclear if we use informal UML. If we use ODM, the semantics are clearer. FrankOlken: I also think we should be able to support customary units, but initial focus should be on SI and perhaps some bastard FrankOlken: quasi metric units such as mg/ml. RaviSharma: Mike - I agree MikeBennett: @Ravi - I'm using (adapted) ODM already. I've spoken with Elisa at length on this. PatHayes: It is easy to forget to lower ones hand. DavidLeal: I think that Ed's summary in natural language of the four types of "quantity", which is loosely derived from the UML diagrams, is the best starting point for a formal ontology. This part at least can probably be represented in OWL. FrankOlken: Ed, I may have a little more time to work on this this fiscal year. PatHayes: Regarding restricting ourselves to SI and doing currency later: big risk of settling on a neat but limited framework that does not extend. UCUM is a very good example. DavidPrice: I share Peter Yim's concerns in his current comments. Any ontology this effort produces must be freely available on the Web with no limits on its use. MikeBennett: @Pat exactly my point. If we get it right it won't be a problem. If we don't, I'm stuck. FrankOlken: Pat, I understand, but am worried about mission creep and our ability to finish in a timely fashion. EdBarkmeyer: Frank, I may have less. We have new management at two levels, and I don't know what our brief will be. RexBrooks: I think the IPR discussion is probably something that will take several discussion sessions. MikeBennett: @Frank - fixing something later because it's broken takes longer than getting the overall framework and context right in the first go. PatHayes: @Frank, I think we can be sufficiently general without undue creep DavidLeal: There is a view that currencies are commodities not units. MikeBennett: @David. They are. Actually they are contracts of a kind. But things are measured in them. Hence the need to get the framework right at the most general level. PatHayes: @Mike: you may be able to tweak them. MikeBennett: @Pat good point. PeterYim: Frank announces: for the Friday 30-Oct-2009 workshop at NSF, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, USA (Washington DC "Ballston" metro station) FrankOlken: the Oct. 30 meeting will be in Room 1235 at National Science Foundation in Arlington VA. We need participants to preregister to get badges, and to bring photo IDs, e.g., either driver's licenses or passports (foreign nationals). I will provide the email address for a contact person about badges. MikeBennett: Bother, I've just booked flights in and out of North America, leaving Friday morning. PeterYim: from EdBarkmeyer: we'll need volunteers ... and a management call too (in short order) RaviSharma: Thanks everyone DavidLeal: Good night PeterYim: Thanks everyone ... great session! ... bye bye and out!