This approach is most likely to attract funding.
The fallout from the Sub-prime mess is likely to be massive reporting
requirements and an ontology with tools that makes it possible for a
regulator to "understand" the reports submitted and automatically make
inferences about who is getting into trouble is going to require smart
systems.
These reporting requirements are likely to require an updating of some
of the standards that govern the transmission of financial information
and this may provide an additional entry point for ontology into the
discussion. (01)
Another hot area is fraud detection in the governance of the stimulus
package. It may be too late to control the current expenditure but the
ongoing monitoring of government contracts would seem to be a place
where a standards-based ontology would be helpful.
I have heard that the current budget has $350 million allocated for
fraud detection ($80 to $150 billion budgeted to be fraudulently spent).
It should be possible to fund part of the Ontology Project out of this.
Even if the project can not deliver during this stimulus package, the
government will continue to spend huge sums of money forever and
reducing fraud by even a small percent reduction in the current 15% of
the total budget thought to be fraud or misspending, in a typical year,
will pay for ontologists to discuss angel choerography forever. (02)
Ron (03)
Mike Bennett wrote:
> I've been thinking about this. I wasn't clear if everyone meant the same
> thing by FO initially or not, but it's good to see some convergence of
> thinking. Here are my thoughts:
>
> Whether you call it a framework on which to hang terms in different
> ontologies, or a foundation ontology or whatever, I think there are some
> top layers that are fundamental enough to try and relate to, though
> there may be issues with some of these as well (noted below).
>
> Starting with John's KR lattice top layers, I would say the following
> are useful or invaluable, along with some additional stuff:
>
> Independent/Relative/Mediating
> Concrete/Abstract
> Continuant/Occurrent
>
> but with the following notes:
>
> Independent / Relative / Mediating - these are pretty fundamental to the
> nature of any definition of anything. These terms have a recognised
> intellectual pedigree and can be understood by any business person who
> is not an ontology specialist, once explained. Everything thca can be
> defined must be one (and only one) of these.
>
> Concrete / Abstract - there are some possible pitfalls around what it
> meant by abstract, for example a debt is not an abstract concept, but it
> may only exist electronically or on paper - so concrete things needing
> to have mass would cut across this. With some thought, this layer could
> be defined to support most classes of Thing though I think. Maybe I'm
> over optimistic.
>
> Continuant / Occurrent - I have found this very valuable in partitioning
> concepts, expecially modelling terms for processes, activities like
> payment and so on. Howevr, Continuant has embedded within it some
> ontological commitment as to what would be considered continuant for
> that ontology, and this will vary from one ontology to another (consider
> a geological ontology versus a real time market data feed). A 4D view
> would resolve that issue but would not support all those ontologies
> which take a 3D view. Again I am optimistic that this could be tractable
> somehow.
>
> Then there are things like part v assembly, sets (groups, collections
> etc) and members (or is Member a relative thing?), and also time, units
> etc.
>
> However in general I think it would be good to try and have some kind of
> framework whereby the things at the top of most application-specific
> ontologies could be mapped to some foundational level that took care of
> these basic dimensions of meaning. That's one thing.
>
> Another, very important point I think, is that we should put aside any
> idea of coming up with some ontology based on or useful for human
> experience and language in the first instance. What's needed now, and
> where the money is, is something that deals with meaning for businesses.
> A business is a much simpler creature than a human, and has much simpler
> sensory inputs (legal, financial, reputational, risk etc.). Therefore
> the simplest concepts at the top of almost any useful domain ontology
> would be a lot simpler than for a dictionary based project. These would
> also be more amenable to pulling together into some common foundation I
> think. I think the same thinking can be applied to buildings, science
> and so on. Model the semantic network of the problem domain, not that of
> a human.
>
> This leads onto another important point: Use the standards. It sounds
> like we all agree on that. Standards bodies have already developed terms
> for real, useful applications in every imaginable domain. If something
> isn't in a standard, I don't imagine anyone in the real world is going
> to need it any time soon.
>
> I'd like to put forward an idea from Ronald Stamper's work, but perhaps
> in different words: every class of thing in a useful public ontology
> should have a clearly defined provenance. This is not there in OWL, but
> I would want to see an ontology metamodel which requires and enforces
> provenance. This gets us away from the scenario where terms in an
> ontology are developed by some clever ontologist, and puts us in in a
> place where all meaningful terms are visibly originated from some well
> attested standards body.
>
> As far as businesses are concerned (and therefore finance and others),
> there are some basic things needed at the top, which local ontology
> terms would almost certainly need to specialise (ours certainly do),
> such as legal terms and basic financial terms - these should not be
> replicated within individual domain ontologies that derive meanings that
> are legal, financial etc. XBRL covers the financial stuff, though there
> are terms specific to the filing of reports that would not be so
> fundamental. I'm not aware of a legal one but there must be standards
> for the terms themselves. Legal reality is very much where meaning comes
> from in business. Then there's units, geography and so on.
>
> Similarly existing ontologies like FOAF have terms that are fundamental
> in a lot of application domains, and people usually know to use them,
> but some framework which makes that more self-evident would be valuable.
>
> I don't know if any of that is contentious (if so, please do contend!)
> but this is all stuff I've had to create temporarily while waiting to
> find useful existing stuff, with the exception of XBRL where the only
> problem was getting a good ontological view of it.
>
> The outcome would be a useful framework within which existing,
> creditable standards bodies could re-cast their material at a business
> semantics level, based on what they have had to put in XML and other
> message or database formats (often laboriously and sometimes with
> errors). A service first and foremost to standards bodies. Ontology
> would be the tool, not the goal, as far as they are concerned.
>
> As I said at the Ontology Summit, I'm happy to put some effort into this.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Mike
>
> Azamat wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>> In establishing the International Group (Body) for Ontology and Semantic
>> Standards, it might be practical to follow an open world assumption: any
>> corporation or individual who can contribute an ontology content of wide
>> interest is a possible member of the group. Here is the example of such
>> possible members, registered the co-sponsors of the OntologySummit 2009,
>> http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2009:
>> a.. Accuracy&Aesthetics (DeborahMacPherson)
>> b.. BBN (MikeDean)
>> c.. Bremen Ontology Research Group
>> d.. CAESAR Systems Limited (DavidLeal)
>> e.. CIM3 (PeterYim)
>> f.. Cycorp (DougLenat)
>> g.. DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute (StefanDecker)
>> h.. ECCMA - Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (PeterBenson)
>> i.. EDM Council - Enterprise Data Management Council (MikeBennett)
>> j.. EIS - EIS Encyclopedic Intelligent Systems Ltd (Cyprus, EU,
>> AzamatAbdoullaev)
>> k.. Entsiklopedicheskiye Intellektualniye Systemy (Russia,
>> AzamatAbdoullaev)
>> l.. EPISTLE - European Process Industries STEP Technical Liaison
>> Executive, the consortium responsible for the development of ISO 15926
>> (MatthewWest)
>> m.. Eurostep (NigelShaw, DavidPrice)
>> n.. IBM Research (ChrisWelty)
>> o.. Information Junction (MatthewWest)
>> p.. IRSC (RexBrooks)
>> q.. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 N 1498 - ISO 24707 Common Logic (CL)
>> r.. ISO TC 184/SC4 (HowardMason, DavidPrice, DavidLeal)
>> s.. ISO TC 184 SC 4 JWG8 - the ISO working group that developed the ISO
>> 18629 Process Specification Language (PSL) standard (MichaelGruninger)
>> t.. The Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Michigan State
>> University (BillMcCarthy)
>> u.. MITRE (LeoObrst, PatCassidy)
>> v.. NCBO - The National Center for Biomedical Ontology (MarkMusen)
>> w.. NCOR - (US) National Center for Ontological Research (BarrySmith &
>> MarkMusen)
>> x.. The NeOn project (EnricoMotta, AldoGangemi, PeterHaase)
>> y.. NIST - (US) National Institute of Standards and Technology (SteveRay,
>> SimonFrechette, MarkCarlisle, EvanWallace, FabianNeuhaus)
>> z.. NLM, NIH - (US) National Library of Medicine of the National Institute
>> of Health (OlivierBodenreider)
>> aa.. The College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern
>> University (LarryFinkelstein, KenBaclawski)
>> ab.. OAGi - Open Applications Group (DavidConnelly)
>> ac.. OASIS - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
>> Standards (LaurentLiscia, PeterBrown, JamieClark, et al.)
>> ad.. OASIS Semantic Support for Electronic Business Document
>> Interoperability (SET) Technical Committee (AsumanDogac)
>> ae.. OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee (JonBosak
>> & TimMcGrath)
>> af.. OMG - Object Management Group (RichardMarkSoley, ElisaKendall,
>> EvanWallace)
>> ag.. Ontolog (PeterYim, LeoObrst, KurtConrad)
>> ah.. Pensive.eu (PeterBrown)
>> ai.. POSC Caesar (NilsSandsmark)
>> aj.. The Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research (BMIR)
>> (MarkMusen, TrishWhetzel)
>> ak.. STI International (RudiStuder) (1U9D)
>> al.. Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University (ChrisMenzel)
>> am.. University of Toronto (MichaelGruninger)
>> an.. W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (IvanHerman & Ian Jacobs)
>> As the recent case shows, sooner or later, some astute people may impose
>> some "core contology" as a conceptual standard. It would be right to do such
>> big things openly and timely.
>> Azamat Abdoullaev
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Dave McComb" <mccomb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Cc: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "John F. Sowa"
>> <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 11:33 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology Project Organization:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> We'd be happy to contribute gist, a minamlist UO that we have used on
>>> several client projects, and is reasonably "shaken down" it's 130
>>> classes, and 86 properties, maybe more axiomized than suggested, but
>>> most of the axioms are pretty solid.
>>>
>>> We have a couple of known changes we want to make so depending on your
>>> timing it may be better to wait a couple of weeks
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On May 13, 2009, at 1:59 PM, "Azamat" <abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> JS: "Any consistent ontology that anyone has ever found useful for any
>>>> purpose should be in the hierarchy. Many talented people have
>>>> contributed
>>>> to those efforts, and their products are being used. ...Any
>>>> repository for
>>>> ontologies must accommodate *all* useful versions. It must also show
>>>> migration paths (generalizations, specializations,and lateral
>>>> variations)
>>>> from one useful theory to another by means of the common core."
>>>> Agree. But we need to form a common core now. I doubt that you can
>>>> organize
>>>> all the ontology content holders even within a month, mental inertia
>>>> is
>>>> worse than physical inertia. Anybody could join at any stage latter,
>>>> or when
>>>> he/she thinks ready.
>>>>
>>>> JS: "Something like that will be necessary. But if you bring the
>>>> big boys
>>>> in too soon, they will take it over and appoint a committee of their
>>>> own
>>>> "experts" to manage it."
>>>> That's might be so. Then we have to keep the standard ontology
>>>> project as
>>>> long as possible as a open international enterprise, mostly relying
>>>> on our
>>>> own effort, skill, initiative, leadeship, and intelligence.
>>>>
>>>> JS: " Since this idea has been developed through ontolog forum, we
>>>> should
>>>> continue our association with ontolog forum and continue discussions
>>>> here.
>>>> Peter Yim and others have done a lot of hard work to establish this
>>>> forum
>>>> and the related activities. That is a great advantage."
>>>> Generally, agree. But the idea started as SUO, did it? Never mind. As
>>>> Matthew observed a chosen official URL could be tightly linked to the
>>>> Ontolog Forum's URL. But its mostly important to head off the
>>>> confusion of
>>>> ontologies at the Tower of Ontology, when identities lost and
>>>> distinctions
>>>> blended. This special initiative is better have its special place on
>>>> the
>>>> Web.
>>>>
>>>> JS: "But I agree that hosting the results of the efforts on a web
>>>> site with
>>>> the name standardontology.org would be a very big plus."
>>>> If there are no any principal objections from other potential
>>>> members, we
>>>> could consider the domain name under the public ownreship of the
>>>> Group.
>>>> http://www.standardontology.org
>>>>
>>>> JS: "It would also be useful to establish a non-profit organization
>>>> with the
>>>> same (or similar name) that could accept nontaxable donations."
>>>> Right. Is any principal objection against its designation as:
>>>> International
>>>> Group for Ontology and Semantic Standards (IGOSS)?
>>>> Please suggestions or corrections or confirmations.
>>>>
>>>> JS: "But it is also important to get some useful technical material
>>>> to post
>>>> on the web site before bringing in large numbers of members --
>>>> especially
>>>> corporate members."
>>>> Again, agree. As a start, I am ready to post the SOS (Standard
>>>> Ontology
>>>> System): Top Classes and Meanings, as a sample of initial
>>>> contribution to
>>>> the common core. Any other concrete suggestions? Patrick, a core
>>>> COSMO to
>>>> start? Or they come later? Thanks.
>>>> Azamat Abdoullaev
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 4:54 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology Project Organization:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Ali and Azamat,
>>>>>
>>>>> AH> Just for posterity -- I don't mean to deprecate the idea of
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> foundation ontologies. They are very useful. My intuition is
>>>>>> just highly sceptical that a (useful / expressive) unique one
>>>>>> exists. By all means though, in the spirit of scientific
>>>>>> discovery people ought to investigate it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> I share your concerns. Any ontology with detailed axioms will
>>>>> be incompatible with many legitimate uses that require different
>>>>> axioms for one application or another. For example, if we put
>>>>> all the well established laws of physics into one giant theory,
>>>>> it would be inconsistent with every branch of engineering, since
>>>>> they all make different approximations for different purposes.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other hand, if you took the common generalization of
>>>>> all those engineering applications, you would have a theory
>>>>> that contained very few axioms. It would be little more
>>>>> than a systematic terminology plus the various relationships
>>>>> among units of measure for all the physical quantities. Yet
>>>>> that generalization could be very useful for many purposes.
>>>>>
>>>>> For those reasons, I believe that the common generalization
>>>>> of all the foundation ontologies will have very few axioms.
>>>>> It will primarily consist of type-subtype and part-whole
>>>>> relations that are true by definition. Immediately below
>>>>> that level will be several branches for different kinds of
>>>>> specializations. One of the branches would be "pure" physics,
>>>>> which would be too precise and too detailed for most practical
>>>>> applications. Other branches would contain any systems of
>>>>> conventions and approximations that anyone might find useful.
>>>>>
>>>>> AA> Indeed, for last two decades there have been developed
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> high-class ontology content, both upper levels and domain
>>>>>> ontologies, standing in a pressing need of an integrative
>>>>>> framework. A minus, hope insignificant, a good willing
>>>>>> of all the upper ontology content holders and the project
>>>>>> leaders: CYC, OBO Foundry, DOLCE, West' ISO 15926, NeOn, etc;
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Please drop the word 'minus'. Any consistent ontology that
>>>>> anyone has ever found useful for any purpose should be in the
>>>>> hierarchy. Many talented people have contributed to those
>>>>> efforts, and their products are being used.
>>>>>
>>>>> Remember that IBM beat Univac primarily because IBM supported
>>>>> a smooth migration path from punch-card methods to modern computers.
>>>>> Any repository for ontologies must accommodate *all* useful versions.
>>>>> It must also show migration paths (generalizations, specializations,
>>>>> and lateral variations) from one useful theory to another by means
>>>>> of the common core.
>>>>>
>>>>> AA> To define the strategic goal of the Project: standard
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> ontology framework? unified modeling framework? ontology
>>>>>> and semantic standards? semantic interoperability? open
>>>>>> ontology library?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> All of those are legitimate uses, and they should be supported.
>>>>> The core of the hierarchy should be open and free, but it should
>>>>> contain links to proprietary ontologies of any kind.
>>>>>
>>>>> AA> To establish a legal entity: International Group (Body, Panel)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> for Ontology and Semantic Standards (IGOSS) or (IBOSS), including
>>>>>> members, corporate and individual, from USA, EU, and Russia.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Something like that will be necessary. But if you bring the
>>>>> big boys in too soon, they will take it over and appoint a
>>>>> committee of their own "experts" to manage it.
>>>>>
>>>>> AA> To establish a special web portal, like wisely done by the
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> OBO Foundry. I am ready to share a domain taken:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.standardontology.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> That is certainly a good domain name.
>>>>>
>>>>> Since this idea has been developed through ontolog forum, we should
>>>>> continue our association with ontolog forum and continue discussions
>>>>> here. Peter Yim and others have done a lot of hard work to establish
>>>>> this forum and the related activities. That is a great advantage.
>>>>>
>>>>> But I agree that hosting the results of the efforts on a web site
>>>>> with the name standardontology.org would be a very big plus. It
>>>>> would also be useful to establish a non-profit organization with
>>>>> the same (or similar name) that could accept nontaxable donations.
>>>>>
>>>>> But it is also important to get some useful technical material
>>>>> to post on the web site before bringing in large numbers of
>>>>> members -- especially corporate members.
>>>>>
>>>>> John
>>>>>
>>>>>
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> (04)
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