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Re: [ontolog-forum] A "common basis"

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Cassidy, Patrick J." <pcassidy@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2007 14:26:50 -0400
Message-id: <6ACD6742E291AF459206FFF2897764BE01881A3A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Chris, John, et al:
   I think that a perfectly feasible "common basis" for
interoperability and integration of multiple ontologies is a foundation
ontology structured as a "conceptual defining vocabulary" that contains
all the concepts that are necessary and sufficient to specify the
meanings of any other more specialized concepts, using subclasses,
relations, functions, and axioms all of whose constant terms are either
(1) contained in the foundation ontology or (2) themselves specifiable
(recursively, if necessary) by terms in the foundation ontology.  The
foundation will of course be expandable to include any primitive
concept representations that are found to be needed as new specialized
terms have their meanings specified using the foundation ontology (and
its extensions specified recursively by it).  It should be possible to
include anything that anyone wants in it - no need for police here.
Whether it will be necessary to include logically inconsistent elements
in the foundation ontology is not clear yet; if so, a sequestering
mechanism would be needed to be clear what the consequence is of
adopting a representation  inconsistent with the default (defined by
majority vote for those who couldn't care less about the finer points
of the standard).  Naturally, different contexts and belief systems
need to be able to be represented, in their own contexts.    (01)

It is unlikely that any standard of any kind whatsoever would be
accepted by "everyone" but that is not necessary.  To have an effective
standard for information interchange, it is only necessary to have a
large enough user base so that third party vendors can make money
building interfaces to make using it easy, and building applications
that illustrate the utility of the standard.    (02)

The feasibility is strongly suggested by the fact that such a principle
has already been used for over twenty years by some dictionary vendors,
who use a controlled "defining vocabulary" with which to define all the
words (ca 100,000) in their dictionaries.  Linguistic definitions of
specialized terms will often use words not in the base 2000-word
defining vocabulary, but the undefined words can themselves be defined
by the base defining vocabulary.  I did a test using the Longman's
defining vocabulary and defined 500 words (including 'DNA') not in the
base vocabulary and found that all of the definitions could be grounded
(recursively, as explained) on the base defining vocabulary, with the
need to add only two new words to the defining vocabulary itself
('dimension' and 'participant').  A simple utility that will allow you
to test a definition against either the base controlled vocabulary
(baseCV) or the supplemented vocabulary containing additional words
defined with respect to the baseCV can be downloaded at:    (03)

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/reference/ControlledVocabul
ary/checkdefs.zip    (04)

  Since the words serve as labels for concepts, it is reasonable to
expect that a similar process will allow identification of a core of
foundation (primitive) concepts whose meanings are specified in
relation to each other in a foundation ontology, and to use that
foundation ontology to specify the meanings of more specialized
concepts.  The size of such a "conceptual defining vocabulary" is not
known; I expect it to be at least 4000 concepts, and perhaps 6 to 10
thousand.  It's a question for experiment, not debate.    (05)

  This specific use of a foundation ontology has yet to be proven
feasible, and it is one of the tasks I hope to be able to spend time on
in the near future.  I want to have the foundation ontology aligned
with the linguistic defining vocabulary so that definitions in ordinary
English will be automatically translatable into the ontological
specification.  I have expanded the COSMO ontology from the
ONTACWG/COSMO effort, and created a merged foundation ontology from the
most basic elements of OpenCyc and SUMO and BFO and added in a few
other concept representations, but it is still at an early stage.
There are about 3000 classes and 300 relations, and it is currently in
OWL.  The definitive version will have to be in a more expressive FOL
language, possibly KIF, when properly developed.  The current OWL
version is available in the folder:    (06)

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/reference/COSMO-ontology/     (07)

The ontology is undergoing constant revision and the version number
will be part of the file name.      (08)

I will post a more detailed description of the project to the ontolog
and ONTACWG lists within the week.  Anyone who has any opinions on the
topic is encouraged to make constructive suggestions, about structure
or methodology.  A project like this is more likely to succeed if it
has multiple participants with different needs and views.  It may never
succeed if not, at some point, funded adequately to permit serious time
from many participants.    (09)

As Chris says, finding the common basis ontology is a really difficult
problem, but one that I think should be given a serious try before
anyone claims that it is not possible.  One also needs to distinguish
technical adequacy from social acceptability - two different issues,
both important.    (010)

Pat    (011)

Patrick Cassidy
CNTR-MITRE
260 Industrial Way West
Eatontown NJ 07724
Eatontown: 732-578-6340
Cell: 908-565-4053
pcassidy@xxxxxxxxx    (012)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Christopher Menzel
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 12:34 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] A "common basis"
> 
> On May 2, 2007, at 9:39 AM, Patrick Durusau wrote:
> > ...
> > I attended a presentation on the use of ontologies at NASA and the    (013)

> > speaker took great pains to point out that a single 
> ontology (well,  
> > multiple ontologies but with mappings to a single master ontology)    (014)

> > was a prerequisite to success. When I asked if it wasn't possible  
> > to have mappings between multiple ontologies that did not share a  
> > common basis, he said that was possible, but that it was a  
> > difficult problem.
> 
> Holy smoke!  The last 20 years would suggest it's the other way  
> round:  It is (perhaps) possible to have a common basis for mapping  
> between multiple ontologies, but it is a (really) difficult 
> problem!   
> What did this guy have in mind as a "common basis"?  If all the  
> speaker meant was some sort of overarching reference model in well- 
> circumscribed domain, then ok.  But it sounds like he or she had  
> something more comprehensive in mind.
> 
> -chris
> 
>  
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>     (015)

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