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[ontolog-forum] Ontologies as social mediators (was: Ontology developmen

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Schoening, James R Mr CIV USA AMC" <James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:11:53 +0200
Message-id: <6C5A90354C1E49CE94C3CC144D33B096@Dev>
Paola, Doug, Jim, Andreas, Bill, Ferenc, and all,    (01)

I can't help jumping on this bandwagon too, as Bill calls it. 
(And that's not so surprising seeing that my project's name and 
slogan is "Ride The Mainstream!" ... for we are aiming to help 
focus, harness and strengthen the same human forces.)    (02)

An interesting fellow-rider is also Howard Mason with his proposed 
TC charter for the Units of Measure group which he has posted at:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UoM_Ontology_Standard_OASIS_TC_Charter_Draft,    (03)

from which this is extracted:    (04)

> Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology Standard (QUOMOS)
>
> (1)(b) A statement of purpose, including a definition of the 
> problem to be solved.
>
> Ontologies allow the explicit specification of the multiple 
> possible meanings of concepts so that people can recognize 
> commonalities and differences in the semantics of the concepts 
> that they use.    (05)

Here I really must applaud that introduction to the whole 
statement of purpose!  Note the key starting-point:  the social 
scene of concord and discord which we have to accept and face if 
our conceptual analyses (John Sowa's apt phrase) and syntheses 
(here aka "ontologies") are to be effective.    (06)

The theme is of course perennial, and it has particular 
manifestations in Information Systems.  For example, here I take 
up the angle of Ralph Johnson, the main author of the "Gang of 
Four"'s classic book, "Design Patterns", which in 1995 perhaps 
represented the high tide of the pattern movement.  His paper, 
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/johnson.html, for the OOPSLA'96 
Business Object Design and Implementation Workshop, 
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/index.html, opened with these 
two paragraphs, rather prophetic of our present ontology scene if 
for "object" or "class" we substitute "ontology":    (07)

> For business objects to be reusable, they must be at the right 
> level of abstraction. Classes like Customer and Invoice will not 
> be very reusable because they are too specific, and each company 
> will have its own version of them. On the other hand, classes 
> like Business Object and Business Transaction are too general. 
> We don't need another general-purpose object model.
>
> Reusable business objects will have to thread the gap between 
> solutions that are too specific and too general. There will not 
> be a single model of business objects. Instead, there will be a 
> set of specialized models that work together. The important 
> research problems are to figure out the models that are needed, 
> to define each one, and to learn how they can be used together.    (08)

Then my response to that paper, 
http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/johnspot.html, opened with my 
own take on some of his words, under the heading "Reconciling 
diffference and similiarity":    (09)

> Your opening sentence is certainly true:
>
> > For business objects to be reusable, they must be at the right 
> > level of abstraction.
>
> Then under your heading "Different Models" you correctly 
> emphasize some of the real and difficult problems lying in wait 
> for anyone foolish enough to try to provide for the degree of 
> commonality between needs that would make reusability feasible.
>
> Finally (in your last sentence), you seem to adopt a very 
> cautious though obviously practical approach:
>
> > How to make different models interact will be one of the more 
> > interesting and important research problems in this field, 
> > because I am convinced that there will be many specialized 
> > models for business objects, and they will have to interact.
>
> Well, here is that person foolish enough to try (as I said in my 
> paper [http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla96/spottisw.html] and 
> faq): I am asserting precisely that you _can_ have your cake and 
> eat it!  You _can_ have full relativity (difference) plus fine 
> reusability (similarity).    (010)

My assertions are still very applicable to objects and classes, 
and of course to ontologies.  Note how Johnson's opening sentence,    (011)

> For business objects to be reusable, they must be at the right 
> level of abstraction.    (012)

finds resonance with my insistence on the importance of levels of 
abstraction, e.g. as I introduced that whole issue in the 2nd 
instalment of my "MACK basics" series, from this point in it, 
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-02/msg00291.html#nid016, 
up to this sentence at the end of this paragraph in it, 
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-02/msg00291.html#nid023 
(The issue is further explored in the same thread) :    (013)

> I would however like to record at this point that the MRCL, or 
> Most Refined Common Level, between two situations will be the 
> basis of many miracles which ordinary people-users will perform 
> on a daily basis.    (014)

And there of course I was alluding to the role of "ontologies as 
social mediators" as I have re-dubbed this thread.    (015)

Ferenc has most aptly pointed us to Schopenhauer's take on that 
grand but frustrating and often tragic exercise.  In provisional 
answer to those likewise-classic phenomena, I draw attention to my 
usual Homeric perspective, e.g. as I set it out in my previous 
Ontolog post, specifically in these paragraphs in it:    (016)

http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2009-10/msg00269.html#nid010
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2009-10/msg00269.html#nid013.    (017)

Perhaps the view of Scylla and Charybdis, and its relevance to our 
topic that is most apposite here, is that of this table from 1997, 
on the ubiquity of the theme:    (018)

http://jeffsutherland.com/oopsla97/SpottiswoodeByndBO.html#table.    (019)

(Its Yeats quote, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst 
are full of passionate intensity." is well complemented by 
Bertrand Russell's "The trouble with the world is that the stupid 
are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.")    (020)

The rest of that 1997 paper, relevantly entitled "Beyond Business 
Objects", expands a bit on how our technical undertaking might 
bear on broader human and social matters.    (021)

That is enough on the subject from me for now, but I leave you 
with the promise (or threat...) of a possibly forthcoming post 
from me.  It concerns the top-down/bottom-up perspective which Jim 
Schoening has recently - and most relevantly, I believe - wondered 
about in our ontological context.  (That was on the SUO list on 13 
November.)  I think that that perspective might rather usefully 
help throw further publicly-understandable light on this "Ride The 
Mainstream!" project, especially bearing on constructive action in 
the social domain, that is, where "semantics" in our technical 
sense must best approximate what people usually understand by it.    (022)

Christopher    (023)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Burkett, William [USA]" <burkett_william@xxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method    (024)


I'll jump on this bandwagon, too, concerning the social dimension 
of ontologies and ontology development; it's an important and 
underserved (imo) area of exploration.  In fact, I'll expand it by 
pointing out that human languages (natural languages as well as 
artificial languages) are socially-constructed mechanisms.  The 
meaning of languages is a kind of "social contract" (apologies to 
Rousseau) that is continually being tuned, corrected, and 
re-negotiated.  Data, schemas, and ontologies are all languages of 
which this is true.  The key, imo, is finding a way to make the 
re-negotiation of meaning in the SW quick and easy.    (025)

Bill    (026)



-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tolk, 
Andreas
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:45 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method    (027)

I also agree with this point of view.
Ontologies are a great way to understand such differences in 
conceptualization, in particular as they are formal specifications 
of conceptualizations. I like the work of Wache on how to build 
federations from such different conceptual views on a problem. The 
two papers I normally recommend are H. Wache, T. Vogele, U. 
Visser, H. Stuckenschmidt, G. Schuster, H. Neumann, and S. Hübner, 
"Ontology-based Integration of Information -- a Survey of Existing 
Approaches," Proceedings of the IJCAI-Workshop Ontologies and 
Information Sharing, Seattle, WA: 2001, pp. 108-117 and H. Wache, 
"Towards Rule-Based Context Transformation in Mediators," in 
Proceedings of the International Workshop on Engineering Federated 
Information Systems (EFIS), 1999, pp. 107-122.
One of the main advantages of ontological approaches is that they 
make such differences explicit and make them applicable to 
engineering solutions as well. The mediation between viewpoints to 
avoid conceptual misalignments of contributions to an overarching 
solution is something we see everywhere popping up, be it service 
oriented architecture and model based developments.
Best wishes
Andreas
==================== ;-)
Andreas Tolk, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA, USA    (028)




-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim 
Rhyne
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 2:36 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method    (029)

Hi Doug,
I very much agree with your point of view. A good many of the 
difficulties
encountered in projects that I have consulted on are rooted in
misunderstanding
and hidden agendas. The ontology is not just a technical tool, it 
is also a
social
and organizational tool.
One of the challenges of this approach, however, is the need for 
multiple
ontologies and a way to link them semantically. The different 
segments of a
large enterprise will develop individual terms and phrases that 
they use to
communicate within the segment. In my experience, there is little 
hope of
getting all segments to agree on a single set of terms. But, it 
appears to
be
often possible to get agreement on a mapping and sharing of 
concepts,
provided
there is a crisp and unambiguous definition of the concepts.
There is a small amount of technical work in the area of shared 
ontologies
and
ontology mapping that I am familiar with. Can you and others on 
this forum
Suggest additional sources?
Thanks,
Jim Rhyne
Software Renovation Consulting    (030)

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Doug 
McDavid
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 3:55 AM
To: paoladimaio10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method    (031)

Hi Paola --    (032)

I'd like to pick up on your point about the social aspects of this
field.  Over the years, I have gravitated more over to the social
system aspect of enterprise, and I feel strongly that precision of
language, and understanding of language distinctions, is a 
critical
element of lubricating the social side of enterprise (better
understanding, disambiguation to everyone's relief, semantic 
boundary
objects that allow different disciplines and practices to work
together, etc.).    (033)

I haven't found much appetite for this kind of discussion on this
particular list.   I follow the discussions here quite closely,
because I think ontology has the potential to become an important 
wave
of future development of business systems.  I would probably be 
making
more than the occasional contribution if there were more interest 
in
these social aspects.  Maybe someone receiving this knows of a
discussion going on elsewhere.  I admit I haven't done due 
diligence
on Ning, LinkedIn, Google Groups, etc.    (034)

If there's any interest at all, I could be encouraged to do some
diligence, and possibly set up a discussion group on this topic.    (035)

Thanks for your thoughts!    (036)

Doug    (037)

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 2:27 AM, Paola Di Maio 
<paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> John
>
>>
>> I think that *ideology* is the main obstacle that has strangled
>> innovation in the SW.
>
> what I noticed is that much of the thinking (setting aside the 
> ideology
> point) is done by computer scientists
> while in my view sw challenges are not striclty CS per se
>
> Information Management dont particularly count as scientist 
> either,
>
> On top of that 'social 'science is not taken into account
>
> a bit like having a team of only civil engineers, and no 
> architects/
> planners
>
> while its' true that infrastructure is really really important, 
> we would
not
> want our cities to be
> run and governed solely by plumbers and electricians
>
>
>
>>
>> If anybody whispers that JSON might be better
>> than RDF, the SW thought police immediately exile them from the 
>> empire.
>
> do you have evidence to that effect?
>
>
>
> But just compare two groups that both started at Stanford around 
> the
same
> time:
>
> Agreed that comparing google with protege to measure success of 
> the latter
> does not seem fair
> its a different ball game, isnt it ?:-)
>
>
>
>
> PDM
>
>
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>    (038)



--     (039)

Doug McDavid
dougmcdavid@xxxxxxxxx
916-549-4600    (040)

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