> Pat
>
> Patrick Cassidy
> MICRA, Inc.
> 908-561-3416
> cell: 908-565-4053
>
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
ontolog-forum-
>>
bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ron Wheeler
>> Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 11:21 AM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Web shortcomings [was Re: ANN:
>> GoodRelations - The Web Ontology for E-Commerce]
>>
>> Very clear and to the point response.
>>
>> I am not sure that structured English is absolutely required.
>> A GUI that allows the SME to create a new instance of an object and
>> link
>> that to other instances of objects as well as specify the properties of
>> the instance and links to external references is probably all the SME
>> needs for a basic system.
>>
>> If this allows searching and navigating through the ontology to select
>> the objects and instances, in a convenient way, that should meet most
>> of
>> the needs.
>>
>> In general, I think that the academic side should have only limited
>> responsibility for the filling up of the ontologies. This is the role
>> of
>> the IBMs, Suns, General Motors, Pentagon, Artifact Softwares, etc. Once
>> the research community decides on a good architecture to represent the
>> reality of a situation or set of entities, it is up to those who have a
>> business or economic reason care about this should pay to have the
>> details added.
>>
>> What they decide to contribute back to the overall community will be
>> based on their need to share the cost of maintenance and their
>> understanding of the value of having their particular view of a part of
>> the universe adopted as a "standard" weighed against the loss of a
>> proprietary asset.
>> This is the basis of the open source movement. Some academic and vanity
>> products get created but the big open source packages have corporate
>> support when the corporations best interest is served by sharing.
>> Where it is not, the extensions to open source ontologies will be
>> retained as proprietary to the creator and they will get any benefit
>> and
>> have to pay all the costs.
>>
>> In my case, if I come up with an ontology for the process industries, I
>> will have to decide if it serves our best interests to release this and
>> hope that the big companies adopt it (and pay us to extend it or apply
>> it) or to keep it private and resell it to clients one at a time. Not a
>> simple decision to make but not hard to understand.
>>
>>
>> Knowledge engineering work is very much like instructional design
>> work.
>> Someone gives you a stack of manuals, drawing, equipment specs and
>> manuals and provides you with access to the engineers, maintenance
>> supervisors and operations supervisors. You take these and figure out
>> how to teach someone all about the process and what they need to know
>> to
>> do their job safely and effectively.
>> Coming up with a framework and basic principles that drive the ontology
>> will require input from academic sources (here, books, articles, paid
>> research, etc) as well the traditional resources listed above.
>>
>> I also do not expect to get all of it right the first time.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have been a consultant long enough to appreciate the joke: "A
>> consultant is someone who borrows you watch, tells you what time it is
>> and keeps your watch."
>>
>> It is very infrequent that you get to tell a client something of great
>> importance, that they did not already know.
>> Often, your greatest value is in helping them see an issue in the right
>> context.
>> If you are good at consulting, you often just give them someone who
>> cares about their problem(for $$$) and gives them someone at their
>> level
>> to discuss the issue until the choices and action items become clear.
>>
>> We certainly do not pretend to know anything about the chemistry or
>> physics or engineering of process plants. We are very good at
>> organizing
>> information and presenting it back to the client in a way that they can
>> judge whether we understand it or not. We also have some experience
>> which helps put their priorities and operation issues in perspective.
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>> Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
>>
>>> Ron Wheeler wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I am not sure that ontology can be applied to high value projects
>>>> without some elements of AI.
>>>>
>>> I always assumed that "axiomatic ontology" was one branch of AI.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I am looking for intelligent agents (that are not humans - which I
>>>> think, implies artificial) that can draw actionable conclusions in
>>>> complex situations faster than humans.
>>>>
>>> I think that is the general idea in knowledge engineering. And it
>>> also applies to the Semantic Web. The idea is to allow the engine to
>>> discard the chaff in the Google results and present you with only the
>>> grain.
>>>
>>>
>>>> The other side of the equation is the tool sets that make it easy
>>>>
>> for
>>
>>>> a SME (Subject Matter Expert) to transfer his or her understanding
>>>>
>> of
>>
>>>> the universe into a model.
>>>>
>>> There is work going on in that area, but it is definitely not ready
>>> for prime time. There are 5 or 6 "structured English" projects, but
>>> they don't really help the domain expert become a modeler, which is a
>>> skill. And there is the automated text analysis work, which keeps
>>> getting better and better, but still isn't good. (Natural language
>>>
>> is
>>
>>> just too messy. It is amazing that we ever understand one another.)
>>> The hybrid approach starts with a "sketch ontology" of the domain,
>>>
>> and
>>
>>> then uses either the expert or the text to refine it.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I failed to realize that the gaining of PhDs was the only goal in
>>>> life. (Too much time spent in the real world!)
>>>>
>>> That is really a Catch-22. Much of the government grant money goes
>>>
>> to
>>
>>> academic institutions. Most of the research, and almost all of the
>>> product, of academic institutions is done with student labor.
>>>
>> Capable
>>
>>> students are willing to perform the labors of Hercules for a
>>>
>> pittance,
>>
>>> as long as it leads to a degree in a few years. Degrees are granted
>>> for advancing the knowledge base of the science. If a reputable
>>> institution takes the money to build an ontology, it can't find a
>>> competent student to do the work, because it can't give a degree for
>>> recording existing knowledge. So the ontology work has to be coupled
>>> with some ostensible technological advance, and the latter becomes
>>>
>> the
>>
>>> dominant theme of the work (and usually vitiates any value there may
>>> have been in the ontology). The only way the work actually gets done
>>> is under some other umbrella: the student is given the task of
>>> building the Augean stables ontology, "as a learning experience",
>>> before he will be allowed to do the exciting work that will lead to
>>> his advanced degree.
>>>
>>>
>>>> The SME has the job of building the model of a fair amount of the
>>>> universe.
>>>> This SME might only have a high school education or junior college
>>>> degree but he is the guy most knowledgeable about the relationship
>>>> between valve 295 and the rest of the universe.
>>>> His knowledge may save a petrochemical plant as much money in one
>>>>
>> day
>>
>>>> as a PhD makes in a lifetime and may save many more lives.
>>>>
>>> And all that is required is a skilled knowledge engineer (with or
>>> without Ph.D.) who gets to talk to the SME, can find out that valve
>>> 295 is significant, can determine from that conversation how it is
>>> related to the rest of the plant universe, and can properly add that
>>> knowledge to the ontology.
>>>
>>> I am reminded of the senior manager who asked why no one in his
>>> organization had made the model we presented. Voice from the back of
>>> the room: "Because it's nobody's <expletive> job to know how, and
>>> nobody's <expletive> job to do it."
>>>
>>> There is always a reason why certain things don't happen (and another
>>> well-known substance does).
>>>
>>> -Ed
>>>
>>>
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