As used in the OBO Foundry, orthogonality is better first understood
on a term by term basis. Adding a term that is trivially redundant
with another one, by denoting the same thing, is the first thing to
avoid. Less trivially, if there is a way to logically define the new
terms in terms of existing ones, then not doing so leads to a
situation where two users might denote the same thing in two
unconnected ways: Using the new term, or using the compound of
existing terms. This is also to be avoided, if possible. (01)
The reason to avoid these situations is that one typically uses an
ontology to mediate queries and it is desirable to have any query
return all relevant answers. Having two ways to say the same thing
means that the user needs to know both ways to ask the question, and
this puts a higher burden on learning and using the ontology. (02)
Generalizing to orthogonality between ontologies, we'd understand two
ontologies as being orthogonal if no term in one is orthogonal to the
other ontology, in the senses above. (03)
-Alan
(preparing to take cover ;-) (04)
On Mar 4, 2008, at 8:42 AM, Bill Andersen wrote: (05)
> It's a category error to apply the notion of orthogonality to
> ontologies since ontologies are not vectors.
>
> More informally speaking, there may be some sort of linguistic-based
> heuristic notion you're after but you'd have to say what that might be
> and what you want to do with it.
>
> Bill Andersen
> Ontology Works, Inc.
> 3600 O'Donnell Street, Suite 600
> Baltimore, MD 21224
> +1.410.675.1204 (w)
> +1.410.675.1201 (f)
> +1.443.858.6444 (m)
>
>
> On Mar 4, 2008, at 5:31 AM, "Alexander Garcia Castro"
> <alexgarciac@xxxxxxxxx
>> wrote:
>
>> Hopefully this is not so out of focus. I am looking for a definition
>> for orthogonality. When are ontologies orthogonal? Any body who can
>> recommend me some good papers about orthogonal ontologies? Is there
>> a measure for orthogonality?
>>
>>
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