Fyi ... (forwarding a email thread that has just emerged at the
[ontolog-forum] list);
... maybe someone on your list could be interested in the conversation. (01)
Regards. =ppy
-- (02)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Leal <david.leal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 5:11 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Open Energy Information (WAS: Re:
Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping)
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (03)
Dear All, (04)
I agree with Duane's comments. The calculation of embedded CO2 is very
complicated, and the ontology/semantic web community has a key part of the
solution. (05)
The problem is that the supply chains for most products are very long. For
example the CO2 calculations for an electronic product have to include the
mineral extraction to make the special steels, to make the machine tools, to
grind the glass in the optical instruments, which make the masks, etc.. For
this reason a standard in this area, BSI PAS 2050, excludes capital goods
from embedded CO2 calculations. So the calculation of the embedded CO2 in a
holiday includes the jet fuel burned during the flight, but not the fuel
needed to make the aeroplane. (06)
The reason for the difficulty is simple - a manufacturer or supplier knows
about direct inputs, and direct outputs to waste disposal and re-cycling,
but nothing about what happens further up the supply chain, or further down
the disposal/re-cyclying chain. As a result, it would cost a
manufacturer/supplier a lot of time and money to produce an accurate
estimate of the embedded CO2 in a product. (07)
A possible solution involves publication of information about inputs and
outputs by each organization within a supply chain (including the
disposal/re-cycling chain). Each organization would publish only what it
knows - direct inputs and outputs. The CO2 emissions embedded within a
product are then produced by software which navigates the published
information about the supply chain as a whole. (08)
In order to enable this to happen, standard ontologies are needed:
- to represent product structure;
- to represent the inputs and outputs from processes. (09)
There is another problem - security. The details of product structure, the
inputs and outputs from processes, and the organizations from which supplies
are obtained, are absolutely commercially confidential. The resulting
assessment of embedded CO2 may be commercially embarrasing, but is not
confidential in the same way. Hence there are two parts to implementing a
solution:
- standards ontologies which can describe a supply chain; and
- a network of non-disclosure agreements with environmental auditors which
will allow their software to navigate supply chain information published on
the Web to produce accurate figures for embedded CO2. (010)
Such a network would not involve everybody, and so there would have to be
C02 estimates for non-participating organizations. The estimates could be
provided by data bases such as the EU Platform on LCA
<http://lct.jrc.ec.europa.eu/eplca>. If these estimates were sufficiently
conservative, then there would be an incentive to join the network. (011)
Best regards,
David (012)
============================================================
David Leal
CAESAR Systems Limited
registered office: 29 Somertrees Avenue, Lee, London SE12 0BS
registered in England no. 2422371
tel: +44 (0)20 8857 1095
mob: +44 (0)77 0702 6926
e-mail: david.leal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web site: http://www.caesarsystems.co.uk
============================================================ (013)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Duane Nickull <dnickull@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:32 PM
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Open Energy Information (WAS: Re: Foundation
ontology, CYC, and Mapping)
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (014)
Mills: (015)
> Mills wrote:
> "Let me give a practical near-term example. The Open Energy Information
> initiative sponsored by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
> seeks to establish a global energy information commons based on linked open
> data and data commons principles".... (016)
Are you involved in this? Very cool! I have been thinking for a long time
about the various arguments used for ³green² initiatives such as ³buy
locally² and have really felt that the lack of some sort of shared metrics
for determining what ³green² really means is allowing marketeers to hijack
the term. Here is an example. (017)
Many people tell you to ³buy locally². On some sliding scale though, buying
locally grown tomatoes becomes more likely more energy consuming that
importing from other areas. The various factors that would affect this are
almost too numerous to think about. Here is a short list: (018)
* the energy required to grow food year round in green houses in northern
climates vs. using natural sunlight.
* the energy used to move the food (plus how is was produced. An electric
train powered by wind carrying Californian avocados to Canada might be
better than propane powered Canadian greenhouses).
* The energy used by the farm/producer (including the living arrangements
with employees, fuel and equipment used, shipments of fertilizer etc.).
* The distribution network and itıs challenges (refrigeration, freezing,
storage time...)
* The use of manual vs automated labor
* more... (019)
The idea came to me as I was shopping and was looking at Apples and my wife
and I were trying to decide which Apples to buy. It would be nice if every
food item was clearly labeled with something like ³This piece of fruit used
XXX of YYY units of energy to be on this shelf². There are units of energy
that would be appropriate measuring metrics such as Kilojoules/calories. (020)
In order to do this, there would have to be a formal model for energy
calculations. Most of the data is already known in terms of how much fuel
the transporters/farms purchase plus the utilities various buildings use.
Seems like a good place for some data commons principles. (021)
I started working on such a model but have had little time to complete it.
I was going to see if someone from the David Suzuki foundation here in town
might be interested in pursuing this. (022)
Duane
---
Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Architecture -
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/
My TV Show - http://tv.adobe.com/show/duanes-world/
My Blog http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
My Band http://22ndcenturyofficial.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com/duanechaos (023)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mills Davis <lmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 8:30 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping
To: John Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (024)
John,
I'm encouraged by the direction of this discussion thread. Especially,
I think that your advocacy of a lattice or hierarchy of ontologies is
a good one if we can agree on conventions for instantiating sibling
ontologies, ontologies that are more general, ones that more
specialized, as well as rules for identity and provenance of versions.
It seems that these same conventions should apply well when someone
maps two or more ontologies together creating a knowledge fabric,
which is a new instance that should have its own identity and
provenance.
I feel some urgency that the Ontolog community should come together on
these issues, especially now that increasing amounts of information
are being exposed on the web as linked data. To date most of the
emphasis (e.g., TBL's rules for publishing linked data) has been on
getting more data available on the web. However, linked data is not
the same as connected data, where value can increase (beyond what
webscale search engines are able to do already) with the density of
relationships. For this to happen communities need policies,
practices, and tooling to help manage and curate emerging fabrics and
data spaces.
Let me give a practical near-term example. The Open Energy Information
initiative sponsored by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) seeks to establish a global energy information commons based on
linked open data and data commons principles. The initiative has
support from multiple government organizations, institutions, industry
players in the US, north america, europe, etc., Its mission is to
aggregate, organize, and provide open access to the world's
information about renewable energy, to help catalyze and accelerate
the development and transition of world economies to a sustainable
energy future.
Currently, NREL is wrestling with the issue of how best to approach
data quality, and what principles, policies, practices and web-based
tooling they should advocate and bring to the global energy community.
Data quality and data sharing is hardly a new issue. There is a lot
that is known, and ample literature exists dealing with related
topics. However, what is new is the emergence of semantic web based
approaches, the need for collaboration across diverse communities, and
web scale information and sharing. These require some rethinking of
policies; a new formulation of best practices for data management,
data quality and information sharing; and some new tooling.
My challenge to the Ontolog community is to come together to provide
some practical guidance for how (global) communities such as this one
can best approach the management of networked data, data fabrics, and
data sharing.
Mills (025)
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