Monica Martin wrote Wed, 12 Jun 2002 15:31:47 -0700: (01)
Also see this correlation between semantics and ontology as it relates
to web services, and as it relates to XML. (02)
Monica (03)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bhaugen
> Sent: Tue 6/11/2002 11:41 AM
> To: John Yunker; brian.hayes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Monica Martin; Kit
> K. KO; Larissa Leybovich; 'Bill McCarthy'; Paul R. Levine
> Cc: Jim Clark; Klaus-Dieter Naujok; dave welsh
> Subject: Re: Preliminary UMM Chapter 8 with REA
>
>
>
> Below is an example of why it is important to
> get the REA business semantics right.
> The UMM BCP metamodel + REA
> is the best and most complete ontology
> for the semantic business web.
>
> http://www.xmlhack.com/read.php?item=1682
>
> The halls and meeting rooms at the XML Web Services One
> conference in
> San Jose were abuzz with discussion of RDF technology, and the
> keynote
> presentation by Willaim Ruh, Sr. VP of Professional Services at
> Software
> AG, focused on the importance of semantic Web technologies to
> the future
> of Web services.
>
> Throughout the conference both speakers and attendees were
> discussing
> RDF and showing themselves knowledgeable of the technology, and
> even
> higher-level ones such as DAML+OIL. In what might be a surprise
> to some,
> at least two prominent sessions by Microsoft speakers made
> significant
> mention of RDF and its possible role in Web services. Don Box
> mentioned
> it in his keynote on Web services technologies and Karsten
> Januszewski
> mentioned it in his session on UDDI in .NET.
>
> In Ruh's keynote, entitled "Semantic Web - A Good Vision, But
> How to Get
> There?", Ruh plumbed these ideas further, from a business rather
> than
> technical point of view.
>
> In an interesting and clever twist, Ruh held up the US dollar
> bill as
> the perfect exemplar for what semantic Web technologies should
> ensure.
> He pointed out that it is:
>
> self-describing
> hard to forge
> convertible
> issued by a trusted authority
> a world-wide standard
> easy to understand
> machine readable
> Ruh stressed that the Semantic Web is not a new Web but an
> extension of
> the existing one. He also clarified that it is about allowing
> machines
> to comprehend semantic documents and data, and not about
> understanding
> natural human speech and writing. He stressed that the Semantic
> Web need
> not be a rehash of classic (and some would say discredited) AI.
>
> Ruh said that the Semantic Web involves structured markup,
> metadata and
> "knowledge about knowledge". He said the cornerstones are
> ontologies,
> RDF and XML, in that order, top to bottom, as a layer cake. He
> defined
> an ontology as a document that formally defines the
> relationships
> between terms.
>
> Ruh did mention several factors that could impair the Semantic
> Web. He
> pointed out that we produce 1 exabyte of digital information
> each year,
> and that most of it is not marked up as structured documents. He
> also
> pointed out that understanding and buy-in to the cornerstone
> technologies of the Semantic Web seemed to stop at XML in too
> many
> organizations. Finally, he said that most projects, programming
> time is
> wasted because of impedance mismatches between code and the
> concepts
> underlying the code. He called out a tendency for people to try
> to
> separate data from applications from business process, saying
> this is
> wrong-headed and costs a lot of problems in IT, especially for
> integration.
>
> At this point Ruh asked how many people in the room had known of
> RDF
> before attending the conference. A bit less than half the nearly
> 200
> present raised their hands. Ruh acknowledged that the high
> proportion
> surprised, but pleased him.
>
> Ruh pointed out that RDF and Ontologies support making business
> processes work better, and combine more smoothly with data and
> applications. He claimed that "XML document[s are] the
> foundation for
> process-centric architectures" and showed how XML integrates
> data,
> metadata, process, linking and applications. He pointed out how
> the
> document view of Web services takes advantage of this power
> better than
> the view of Web services as a bunch of discrete, procedural
> APIs.
>
> Finally, Ruh gave a list excerpting from the many vertical
> industry
> initiatives working on basic ontologies based on XML, including
> automotive, chemical and petroleum exchanges, retail, finance,
> furnishing, health care, telecommunications, insurance and
> e-commerce.
> He also discussed how the architecture he advocates might be
> implemented
> using XML server and broker technology, and gave an example of
> how
> Software AG used this approach in deploying their Tamino XML
> products
> for DaimlerChrysler.
>
>
> (04)
--
An archive of the [ubl-ontolog] postings can be found
at http://ubl.cim3.org/lists/ubl-ontolog/ (05)
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