Why not use the OMG's ODM profile? That allows you to have actual OWL
notation in a UML model. (01)
We've done this with the EDM Council Semantics Repository, but with the
addition that I've aliased OWL terms into English terms like Simple
Fact, Relationship Fact and so on. With hindsight I'd probably clean
this up by having a specific additional profile of OWL extensions. (02)
Mike (03)
Ian Bailey wrote:
>
> We hit this issue in the IDEAS project. We found that if you use the
> profiling mechanism in UML, you can constrain the way it is used. This
> allows us to develop something that:
>
> a) Looks like a data model
>
> b) Has the flexibility of an ontology
>
> c) Has the rigour of an ontology
>
> We have found that working with pictures is a lot easier than
> deciphering formal logic or working with tree-based tools (ontologies
> are “webby” by nature, and quickly outgrow the limitations of tree
> browsers).
>
> If the modellers stick to using the profile...and they use it
> properly...the UML model acts as our master ontology representation.
> >From it, we can auto-generate XML formats (e.g. RDF, OWL),
> persistence implementations (e.g. RDBMS DDL) and publication formats
> such as HTML or Excel.
>
> The trick is to bind the UML stereotypes in the profile to the ontic
> categories of your ontology. In IDEAS we have <<Individual>>, <<Type>>
> and <<Tuple>> as the main stereotypes, along with some of the key
> tuples such as <<typeInstance>>, <<superSubtype>>, <<wholePart>>, etc.
> What this means is that we’re using the stereotype as a shortcut
> type-instance relationship – i.e. the box in the model stereotyped as
> <<Individual>> is an instance of the type Individual. This is very
> similar to the shortcut used in RDFS and OWL where the XML tag name
> can represent the type of the element.
>
> There are some examples of it at http://ideasgroup.org/foundation/
>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> Ian Bailey
>
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>
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> *From:* ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Godfrey
> Rust
> *Sent:* 22 June 2009 23:03
> *To:* [ontolog-forum]
> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] FW: Fundamental questions about
> ontology use andreuse
>
> Thanks Sean for a clear positioning which I would endorse: in the
> domains we work in I have found the approach that "an ontology is a
> smart, flexible data model" gives people a place they can be
> comfortable working from. It means, though, that the ontology you are
> using has to be presentable to non-ontologists or logicians as a
> coherent data model in a form that they can see is an interpretation
> of their business or domain, and that's part of John's "making the
> box" problem, because not much attention has been paid to that to date.
>
> Godfrey
>
> Godfrey Rust
> Chief Data Architect
> Rightscom/Ontologyx
> Linton House LG01
> 164/180 Union Street, London SE1 0LH
> www.rightscom.com <http://www.rightscom.com>
> Direct +20 8579 8655
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>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Sean Barker" <sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
>
> To: "Ontolog-Forum-Bounces" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
>
> Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 9:23 PM
>
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] FW: Fundamental questions about ontology use
> andreuse
>
>
>
> John,
>
> There is a certain amount of doubt in the businesses I work for as to
> whether ontologies are anything more than hype. The approach I take is to
> say the following:
>
> 1) An ontology is a type of data model. It differs from a conventional
> data
> model in that it is written in logic.
>
> 2) In conventional data models, the model is embodied as special purpose
> code that has to be created specifically for the model. With an ontology,
> one uses a general purpose reasoner that works directly from the logic
> representation.
>
> 3) If you want to interoperate between two systems with different data
> models, you need to create a mapping between them. With conventional
> models,
> this mapping must be turned into special purpose mapping code, whereas
> with
> an ontology, the mapping is also written in logic, and so the same general
> purpose reasoner can be used.
>
> 4) The advantage of ontologies is therefore that the model and the
> mappings
> are data for a general purpose reasoner, rather than requiring the
> generation of special purpose code. This makes it easier to maintain
> interfaces, since the updates can be sent out as data rather than code
> patches. (Assume here that there may be many hundreds of systems that
> carry
> the interface).
>
> The business advantage of an ontology over a conventional data model is
> therefore likely to be in the costs of maintaining interfaces.
>
> Note: The biggest cost of an ontology is confirming its grounding -
> that is,
> confirming that the data means what you think it means. A failure to
> do that
> may mean that the systems may need to be closed down for two or three days
> to recover them to a safe state - for example, in one data exchange,
> importing bad data could have stopped 5,000 people working for two or
> three
> days (say £2-3 million per day). Since most of the data I deal with is
> high
> value, there is a high risk if you get it wrong - which means working
> closed
> worlds so that you can trust the data sources.
>
> The question is not, "Why do we need ontologies", since there are
> plenty of
> ways to do the same thing without ontologies. Rather, the question is, can
> we do what we want to do in a cheaper, more reliable way?
>
> The biggest challenge is to make ontologies interesting, in the sense that
> they reveal the ideas driving their usage. In the teaching of mathematics,
> at least at the higher levels, the function of proof is to reveal the
> mathematical ideas used, rather than merely confirm a fact. At the
> moment, I
> don't know how to do that in an ontology - it was bad enough in formal
> specifications. Rather, we are looking at how to do the things we want
> in a
> conventional (though not very conventional) data model, and once we
> know how
> they work, transforming them to an ontology.
>
> Sean Barker
> Bristol, uk
>
>
>
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