All those points about how traditional standards are developed are valid,
but a foundation ontology for semantic interoperability is not like a
traditional standard. It's orders of magnitude more complex. There are
already several possible starting points - Cyc is the most highly developed,
but has been badly hindered by its commercial origin and continuing lack of
full openness in development. The fact that nothing has gained traction in
over ten years should be an indicator that a new initiative is needed. To
me the obvious thing to try is to get together a large group of ontology
developers and users and find a common *basis* (the foundation ontology) for
creating logical representations of the meanings in all of the concepts that
that group is interested in. Such a project would cost over 5 million
dollars, and such a project has never been funded - even though the benefits
of success would dwarf the cost of development. When that tactic has been
tried and fails to get a large and growing user community, then and only
then would I look for alternative methods that would be invariably more
costly, slower and less likely to achieve the optimal solution. Whatever is
developed by the starting project can evolve and adapt just as well -
probably better, having been carefully thought out at the basic level - as
anything mashed together by a less organized project. Acceptance in the
commercial field would follow after non-commercial development and
applications have shown its usefulness. Possibly the closest analogy would
be the Linux operating system, where the core was developed by one person
and is maintained by a tightly organized group. But even Linux is simpler
than a foundation ontology.
One consideration that seems to be ignored by those who are waiting for
some standard to evolve from an unorganized collaborative process is that
there is a very large cost in lost opportunity for every day the adoption of
the standard is delayed. The cost of just the lack of interoperability of
relational databases in the US has been estimated at over 100 billion
dollars per year. The current lost opportunity cost for one hour would pay
for a project to try to reach such an agreement. The benefits are so
enormous that I think that *every* plausible tactic to achieve agreement on
a foundation ontology should be funded. This notion doesn't seem to have
been accepted yet by any funding agency. Waiting for something to somehow
appear by a process that has never produced any comparably complex artifact
is not in my estimation a cost-effective tactic. (01)
Pat (02)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (03)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ron Wheeler
> Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 6:26 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Web shortcomings [was Re: ANN:
> GoodRelations - The Web Ontology for E-Commerce]
>
> Patrick Cassidy wrote:
> > Ron,
> > Concerning one of your points:
> > [RW] >
> >
> >> 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.
> >>
> >>
> > It is important to distinguish the *Foundation ontology*, which I
> believe
> > should contain all the concept representations needed to create (by
> > combination) representations of any specialized concept, and the
> specialized
> > ontologies that are used in specific applications. The former can be
> used
> > to enable interoperability, and are more useful as they gain more
> users; the
> > latter can be as idiosyncratic and individual as the application
> requires.
> > For the foundation ontology, the academic community is more likely
> to
> > have useful ideas than any commercial organization driven by short-
> term and
> > specialized needs.
> > Foundation ontologies are likely to be less ambiguous and
> therefore more
> > useful if they include multiple example instances of the entities
> that they
> > represent. This would require at least some degree of "filling up".
> >
>
> My understanding is that most of the "best" standards have come about
> through a consensus between the major commercial players with the
> active
> (frequently funded) participation of the academic community.
> I am not sure that all of the commercial interest in standards building
> can be termed as "short-term".
>
> My own feeling about a Foundation ontology is that, like any standard,
> it needs widespread acceptance and usage in the commercial world to
> warrant acceptance by a standards body.
>
> The construction of a "standard" and the acceptance of a "standard" is
> a
> long process and often many are proposed before one is generally
> accepted.
> I am old enough to recall using many "networking standards" that had
> large followings (2780/3780, DecNet, SNA, DARPANET, Novell, etc.)
> before being swept away by TCP/IP. It took about 30 years and many
> academic and commercial proposals that looked like winners died slow
> and
> agonizing deaths. Their deaths paved the way for the Internet.
>
> I suspect that the same will be true of "foundation ontologies". Many
> will be proposed and a few will be accepted. We may be luckier in this
> case since the Internet, the open source movement and forums like this,
> will likely speed up the process.
>
>
> Ron
>
>
> > 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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