Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology

[Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Alex

 

 

may be we should discuss terms (words) and definitions for upper concepts (categories),

as for me "thing" is not very good:

being used from "before 12-th century" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/something

it has too many meaning, so which one(?) do you mean?

may be #3a?

 

[MW] Yes it has a number of usages, but at least one of them is appropriate, so it is not an inappropriate term to use.

 

have a look at other candidates (in order of appearence in English):

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/something

Date: before 12th century

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/being[1]

Date: before 14th century
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entity

Date: 1596

for me "something that has separate and distinct existence and objective or conceptual reality" see #2 at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entity

sounds promising.

 

[MW] I agree entity is the main alternative candidate. It has fewer usages too. However, it often turns up as a reserved term (in data modelling languages for example). It is also a more esoteric term than thing.

 

Alex

 

PS by the way about "river"

 

at http://rdl.rdlfacade.org/data?info=http%3A%2F%2Frdl.rdlfacade.org%2Fdata%23R10822778420

 

they put in description field a definition from Oxford dictionary - good idea.

 

[MW] This of course is from the public ISO 15926 Reference Data Library. You will note that it is free to use, despite being an ISO standard. We had to do a lot of negotiation to get standards as databases freely available. This looks like it is using the Facade interface (defined in ISO 15926-7) which is a way of publishing data so that it can be retrieved by anyone on the web. This is the kind of technology that could be used by standards organizations to publish the ontological aspects of their standards for use by others. You will see that one of the attributes provided is its identifying URI. Obviously this is a web interface, but you can also access the data from the facade using standard web calls.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West                           

Information  Junction

Tel: +44 560 302 3685

Mobile: +44 750 3385279

matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/

 

This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No. 6632177.

Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE.

 

 

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (01)