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Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Enterprise Architecture - Interoperability?

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "doug foxvog" <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 19:28:43 -0400 (EDT)
Message-id: <55537.71.163.21.40.1283988523.squirrel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Wed, September 8, 2010 19:16, Pavithra said:
> I have a simpler solutions with same term and multiple meanings..    (01)

> In this particular case,   I would separate the term that has ambiguous
> meaning  and use  an additional clause to affirm the meaning.    For
> example for American English  if the  word = Gas and Substance_state =
> liquid  then I would  use it the same way as gasoline and patrol.   But if
> the word = gas and substance_state = gas ..  I would treat it as the term
> gas as in Oxygen.    (02)

On text generation, this can be useful.  But on text interpretation,
one might not know the substance state.    (03)

> But I just think people should disqualify using the word Gas for Patrol so
> we do not go on building the vocabulary like gas-tank, etc etc  around
> such ambiguous terms.    (04)

For generating controlled vocabularies, this is a good idea.  For
interpreting free text -- or terms already existing in enterprise
programs, it may not be possible.    (05)

-- doug f    (06)

> Regards,
> Pavithra Kenjige
>
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 9/8/10, doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Enterprise Architecture -
> Interoperability?
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 5:12 PM
>
> On Wed, September 8, 2010 13:04, Pavithra said:
>> Doug,
>> Thanks for the detail explanation of how such concepts are resolved in
>> Cyc.  I agree when Ontology is developed using controled and well
>> defined
>> terms,  it should help.
>>
>> But Web is full of user developed/ filled content.  
>
> Which is why a Semantic Web needs ontologies of terms with fixed meanings.
>
>> My issue was more like term "Gas" as in gasoline and petrol  vs Gas as
>> in
>> Oxygen and Nitrogen  in the same country, along with different
>> countries.
>> One is a derived usage where as other is the actual term.
>
> These seem to me to be NLP issues, not ontological issues.  Be that as it
> may, I'd say that both "Gas"es are actual terms.  Similarly, "oxygen" and
> "nitrogen" are words for both elements and binary compounds which are
> gasses at standard temperature and pressure.
>
>> Your example AmericanEnglishNT  would have these two words with total
>> different meaning.  Because here we do use the word Gas as in Oxygen and
>> Nitrogen.    If you do not know the meaning of the word,  how would you
>> solve it?
>
> I assume you mean that i don't know which of a set of meanings to select
> when doing NLP.  I would solve the problem as follows:
> * Create several contexts for different sets of selected meanings of
> terms.
> * If the dialect (British, American, Australian, ...) is known, restrict
>   possible meanings to those in that dialect's context.
> * Generate assertions matching the NL statements using predicates with
>   type-restricted arguments.
> * Reject interpretations that would make the generated assertion invalid.
>   E.g.
>   Oxygen is a gas.  The party was a gas.  I filled my Prius with gas.
>   The first denotation for Gas-TheWord would be used for sentence 1.
>   The fifth denotation for Gas-TheWord would be used for sentence 2.
>   The second denotation for Gas-TheWord(in Am.EnglishMt) would be for 3.
>
>> Along with URI reference, there is URN  (Unified Reference Name) which
>> should give more of a granular reference.   However is that effective? 
>> Does  it solve the above example of multiple meanings? 
>
> So long as the different otological terms have different URIs, there are
> no multiple meanings of the ontological terms.  It is an NLP issue to map
> the English terms (with multiple meanings) to the correct ontological
> term.
>
>> When I worked for Citigroup,  we had to defined country context - for
>> money, language, conversion factors etc for systems..   I am not saying
>> it
>> is new, but it is interesting in terms of Semantic Web and Semantic
>> Interoperability and all the new technologies.
>
> The country context was useful because the data were using did not
> specify their units used.  The contexts gave you that information.
>
> -- doug
>
>
>> Regards,
>> Pavithra
>>
>> --- On Tue, 9/7/10, doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> From: doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Enterprise Architecture -
>> Interoperability?
>> To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Date: Tuesday, September 7, 2010, 5:10 PM
>>
>> One problem that often occurs in discussing computer ontologies is the
>> conflation of words, terms in an ontology, and the things represented
>> by those words and terms.  If one stops to think, it is clear that these
>> are different things.
>>
>> Words have conjugations, declinations, derivations, plurals,
>> pronunciations, spellings, and meanings.  Terms in an ontology do not
>> have linguistic properties.  The things represented by the words and
>> ontological terms may have have physical properties, which the other
>> two types of object don't have.
>>
>> To discuss meanings of words and terms in ontologies, it is necessary
>> to carefully distinguish these three classes of things.
>>
>> On Mon, September 6, 2010 10:29, Pavithra said:
>>> ...
>>> Semantic interoperability is new and mature ontology development model
>>> would help create that.  But there are always words that are used with
>>> different semantics based on context, culture, environment.    
>>
>> Semantic interoperability should not be based on words, but on defined
>> terms with fixed definitions.  In computer languages it isn't an issue
>> that reserved words (object, method, ...) have different meanings in
>> other contexts.  Terms in ontologies should be similarly be treated
>> as reserved words and thus be unambiguous.
>>
>> The combination of a specified ontology with a specified term in the
>> ontology has a unique meaning.  A different ontology which has a term
>> with the same name should cause no problems so long as the ontology
>> which is used when the term is referenced is clear.
>>
>> URIs provide such unambiguity by having a leading part which indicates
>> the ontology & a final part which indicates the name of a term within
>> that ontology.  Languages which use name spaces have a method of
>> indicating the name space (representing the ontology) connected to the
>> name within that name space.  These can be translated into URIs by
>> appending the term name to the URI representing the name space.
>>
>>> In America
>>> a gas tank holds gas which is liquid..  ( yeah gas derived from the
>>> word
>>> gasoline for the word petrol. ) 
>>
>> It is the *word* "gasoline" which is used in the US for the substance
>> denoted (in the UK & Ireland) by the *word* "petrol".  Of course the
>> word "petrol" is derived from the word "petroleum" -- but in a different
>> fashion that the physical petrol is derived from physical petroleum. 8)#
>>
>>> But if you use the web in another
>>> country  one is looking at  gas, which has totally different properties
>>> then liquid.  I mean where is it defined that gas = petrol?  
>>
>> If you are referring to the meaning of the words, the question could be
>> more clearly phrased: "where is it defined that the meanings of the
>> words spelled "gas" and "petrol" are the same?
>>
>> In Cyc, six statements map the words spelled "gas", "gasoline", and
>> "petrol" to the concept of gasoline, three mapping the text strings
>> to conceptual entities called words, and three providing denotations of
>> the two words which are the same.
>>
>> in the context EnglishMt:
>> (denotation Gasoline-TheWord 1 MassNoun GasolineFuel).
>> (massNumber Gasoline-TheWord "gasoline").
>>
>> in the context AmericanEnglishMt:
>> (denotation Gas-TheWord 2 MassNoun GasolineFuel).
>> (massNumber Gas-TheWord "gas").
>>
>> in the context BritishEnglishMt:
>> (denotation Petrol-TheWord 1 MassNoun GasolineFuel).
>> (massNumber Petrol-TheWord "petrol").
>>
>> In the context BritishEnglishMt (or contexts which inherit it) Cyc
>> can conclude that the words spelled "petrol" and "gasoline" can each
>> refer to the same thing.  This is because BritishEnglishMt inherits
>> EnglishMt.  Likewiae, in AmericanEngishMt (which also inherits
>> EnglishMt)
>> Cyc can conclude that the words spelled "gas" and "gasoline" can each
>> refer to the same thing.
>>
>> However, to conclude that "gas" and "petrol" refer to the same thing,
>> Cyc would have to be in a context which inherits both AmericanEnglishMt
>> and BritishEnglishMt.  Such a context should not be used in language
>> processing.
>>
>>> Then there
>>> are same words that are used in different cultures and different
>>> languages..  
>>
>> Similarly, the mapping of words and meanings should be defined in
>> contexts particular to the appropriate culture and/or language.
>>
>>> There are some proposed solutions -  an Ontology repository that tracks
>>> semantics to use it to harmonize meanings could help to resolve such
>>> semantic difference.     
>>
>> It appears that you are referring to using ontologies for natural
>> language
>> processing and understanding here.
>>
>>> The same solutions would work for Semantic web too..
>>
>> If full URIs were used on the Semantic Web, it would not be an issue
>> since the different meanings of terms would use different URIs.
>>
>>>  However at present the concept of Linked data seems more at URI and
>>> URL level.. kind of at object level rather than words and things. 
>>
>> As discussed at the beginning, words and things are at two very
>> different
>> levels.  And computer ontology terms for describing them is a third
>> distinct level.
>>
>> -- doug f
>>
>>> ( I am
>>> not sure , I am trying say the granularity could be different). which
>>> is
>>> again structural level. 
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Pavithra
>>
>> ============================================================doug foxvog 
>>  
>> doug@xxxxxxxxxx   http://ProgressiveAustin.org
>>
>> "I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
>> initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
>>     - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
>> ==========================================================>
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>
>
> ============================================================doug foxvog   
> doug@xxxxxxxxxx   http://ProgressiveAustin.org
>
> "I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
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>    (07)


=============================================================
doug foxvog    doug@xxxxxxxxxx   http://ProgressiveAustin.org    (08)

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
    - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
=============================================================    (09)


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