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Re: [ontolog-forum] what is open ontology?

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:13:18 +0100
Message-id: <c09b00eb0804270413l67259a8fic971a0c9a28605e7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
v glad you see my point Alex,
possibly yes to all or so, given enough thinking, perhaps
p    (01)

On 4/27/08, Alexander Garcia Castro <alexgarciac@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> I can understand the importance of knowing the sources of information that
> were used to develop the ontology. Shouldn't these be part of the annotation
> of the ontology? For instance, when developing ontologies one source of
> information are human experts, they give evidence and supporting material
> –books, papers, white papers, use cases, personal representations of the
> "this is what I mean".  But classes in an ontology may have, and this is
> usually the case, more than one source of information, and the source, as I
> have already mentioned, may come in different formats. Shouldn't these
> sources of information as well as their corresponding representations be
> part of the annotation for classes and properties?  By the same token one
> would have a summary for the whole ontology, have human experts been
> involved? Is this an ontology derived from texts? Is there any software
> using the ontology? If so is there a URL for this software?
>
>
>
> This may facilitate the actual evaluation process, because will make it
> easier for the conceptual verification of the ontology, either by one
> external expert or by a group of experts. This may also facilitate the
> evolution of the ontology, as well as its reusability, because in this way
> others, who were not involved in the development of the ontology, may find
> it easier to understand the rational behind the actual structure of the is_a
> hierarchy, and the whys for the object properties.
>
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 12:39 AM, <paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Wacek,
> >
> > I am interested in the definitions and various interpretations of
> > 'source' vs 'source code' or other that people come up with
> >
> > However, in some of my earlier write ups on the notion of OO (open
> > ontology), I say that 'source' should be declared, I mean 'source of
> > knowledge', which is an additional  type of 'source' that I think
> > should be addressed for the purpose of this discussion
> >
> > The source of knowledge is very important for ontology. Say for
> > example  in a medical ontology, ontological facts are derived from a
> > given 'belief systems' and according to the accepted BOK (body of
> > knowledge) and or text books that are considered 'the bible' in that
> > domain, by a given school of thought. If we compile a medical ontology
> > taking into account chinese medicine textbooks, we end up with an
> > entirely different ontology, and so forth.
> >
> > So when presented with a 'medical ontology', I would like to know from
> > which source of knowledge the ontological facts are derived from, so
> > that I can put them into the appropriate 'perspective'
> >
> > Same applies to any ontology. This would enable the user to validate,
> > verify, compare, cross reference etc, ontological assertions,  instead
> > of expecting  'usesr' to take the ontology at face value and 'as
> > given'.
> >
> > Paola DM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Wacek Kusnierczyk
> > <Waclaw.Marcin.Kusnierczyk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > John F. Sowa wrote:
> > >  > Pat,
> > >  >
> > >  > I would claim that an ontology could be open in the
> > >  > same sense that programs can be open.
> > >  >
> > >  > PH> I don't think it makes sense to refer to an ontology
> > >  >  > as being open (or not).
> > >  >
> > >  > Although an ontology is not likely to be compiled to
> > >  > executable machine code, it can be converted to internal
> > >  > representations that are humanly unreadable.  For example,
> > >  > some would regard OWL as having that property.  But OWL can
> > >  > be translated back to more readable notations, if desired.
> > >  >
> > >  > However, anyone who wanted to keep the knowledge representation
> > >  > proprietary -- including the ontology, axioms, etc. -- could
> > >  > certainly do so by compiling them to some proprietary form.
> > >  >
> > >  > There could be many reasons for doing such a compilation.
> > >  > RDF and OWL, for example, are extremely verbose, and many
> > >  > systems compile them to more efficient forms for processing.
> > >  > If those internal forms are kept proprietary, the effect
> > >  > would be to keep the ontology as "closed" as any program.
> > >  >
> > >  >
> > >  There is also the issue of what is to be understood as 'source'.  An
> > >  ontology in, e.g., OWL can be considered as the result of a compilation
> > >  from sources such as experimental evidence or prior expert knowledge.
> > >  Now, if you can get (and read) only the OWL encoding of the ontology,
> > >  but not the sources used during the compilation, it is obviously not
> > >  open source even though the final code is accessible.
> > >
> > >  Contrarily, if 'source' is to mean the final encoding (e.g., an OWL
> > >  file), then all software you can run is open source, since its source
> (=
> > >  the binaries according to this view) is readable, otherwise you would
> > >  not be able to run it.  So it would not make sense to call any software
> > >  'open source' at all.
> > >
> > >  vQ
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Paola Di Maio
> > School of IT
> > www.mfu.ac.th
> > *********************************************
> >
> >
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> --
> Alexander Garcia
> http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/75943.html
>
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>    (02)


-- 
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
*********************************************    (03)

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