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Re: [ontolog-forum] Fact Guru, Controlled NLs, and OOR

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "doug foxvog" <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:07:38 -0400 (EDT)
Message-id: <63431.70.110.17.10.1301519258.squirrel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Wed, March 30, 2011 16:41, Obrst, Leo J. said:
> Thanks, Chris. Yes, I admit we should aspire to 1 term - many referents,
> but with potentially ambiguous/synonymous terms (especially when they are
> phrases), it will be many-to-many, since there may be many ways to refer
> to the same concept, just as there may be many ways to refer to many
> concepts.    (01)

Within a single defined terminology the mapping should be one-to-one.
With NL it is many-to-many.    (02)

When using multiple defined terminologies, the mapping would be many-to-one
for concepts that are represented in multiple ontologies.  When using
ontologies, if the full name of an ontological term includes a unique
reference to the ontology, then the issue of many-to-many would not
arise.  If one carelessly uses terms from multiple ontologies without
designating which ontology the term comes from, one is back to
many-to-many.    (03)

A term in an ontology can designate a word in a natural language --
one just need distinguish between the ontological term and the word
designated.  The ontology can then define referents and forms of the
word.  E.g., in Cyc:
  inMt: EnglishLanguageMt.
  (isa Bank-TheWord EnglishWord)
  (singular Bank-TheWord "bank")
  (infinitive Bank-TheWord "bank")
  (denotation Bank-TheWord CommonNoun 1 BankOrganization)
  (denotation Bank-TheWord CommonNoun 2 BankBuilding) ...
  (denotation Bank-TheWord CommonNoun 4 Bank_Topographical)
  (denotation Bank-TheWord Verb 1 Banking) ...
Cyc has default rules for determining plurals, conjugations, and tensed
versions of words -- along with ways of specifying irregular forms so
that the default rules would not be triggered when inappropriate.  Also
note that this is contextual, so that in the context of another language,
the text string "bank" would be the orthography for a different word,
and that word's denotations need not have any relation with the English
denotations for Bank-TheWord.    (04)

-- doug foxvog    (05)

> E.g., notoriously, "timed flies", perhaps "criminal lawyers", "half-empty
> tanks", "half-full tanks", etc.
>
> Thanks,
> Leo    (06)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris
> Partridge
> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 3:50 PM
> To: '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fact Guru, Controlled NLs, and OOR
>
> Hi Leo,
>
>> And note that there is not a 1-1 relationship between terms and
>> concepts, but a many-many, depending on the language and of course the
>> ontology.
>
> Depends on what you think of as the term. If you have an
> utterance/inscription view, it is one-many.
>
> Chris
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Obrst, Leo J.
>> Sent: 30 March 2011 20:17
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fact Guru, Controlled NLs, and OOR
>>
>> The way to distinguish terminology and ontology is that you use terms
> (natural
>> language words, phrases) to refer to "concepts" (ideas, referents,
> categories,
>> etc.) So the former is semantics, i.e., ways of referring (quite often
> just lexical
>> semantics, but you can imagine a phrase "gasoline tank" or "steel
> crankshaft,
>> corroded and discarded"), the latter is ontology, i.e., what is referred
> to,
>> typically real world objects or categories.
>>
>> You may also use a term as a label for a concept, which is fine if you
> understand
>> the distinction, but the concept could be labeled KDKJKDLK123 in the
> ontology
>> and that really is just as valid, if perverse (though you cannot
>> interpret
> it
>> semantically as an English speaker unless you see the term in the
> terminology
>> that refers to it). And note that there is not a 1-1 relationship
>> between
> terms and
>> concepts, but a many-many, depending on the language and of course the
>> ontology.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Leo
>> _____________________________________________
>> Dr. Leo Obrst        The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
>> lobrst@xxxxxxxxx     Information Discovery & Understanding, Command &
>> Control Center
>> Voice: 703-983-6770  7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
>> Fax: 703-983-1379    McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Bennett
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 1:07 PM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fact Guru, Controlled NLs, and OOR
>>
>> We made a point of not including words / lexical terms as ontology
> objects, i.e.
>> no use of OWL Equivalent Class.
>>
>> As Mike Atkin puts it, people will argue forever about the meaning of a
> word,
>> but will soon reach consensus on the concepts themselves. To include
>> those
> in
>> the ontology actually makes the ontology harder to explain to business
>> stakeholders.
>>
>> Also does that mean you have two separate theories of meaning within the
>> same model? How do you distinguish those e.g. is there is some obvious
> visual
>> distinction between the sets of terms that come under the two theories?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> On 30/03/2011 17:49, Matthew West wrote:
>> > Dear Mike,
>> >
>> > One of the things we did in ISO 15926 was to distinguish logical
>> > terms/concepts/meanings from their representation by words/lexical
>> > terms/phrases, but treating the lexical terms as first class objects
>> > in the ontology itself, rather than things outside it.
>> >
>> > Regards
>> >
>> > Matthew West
>> > Information  Junction
>> > Tel: +44 1489 880185
>> > Mobile: +44 750 3385279
>> > Skype: dr.matthew.west
>> > matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
>> > 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.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>> >> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Bennett
>> >> Sent: 30 March 2011 16:50
>> >> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> >> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fact Guru, Controlled NLs, and OOR
>> >>
>> >> That does sound interesting. I had a sort of "Aha" moment last week
>> >> when we were talking about synonyms and heteronyms at an OMG / EDM
>> >> Council event. It struck me that an ontology has formal definitions
>> >> of concepts with synonyms, whereas a terminology is a set of words,
>> >> with one or more meanings per word, and therefore has heteronyms.
>> >> That's why for instance we have no concept of heteronym in our
>> >> ontology. Nor (for similar reasons) do we have homonyms.
>> >>
>> >> No doubt for most people that's this week's glimpse into the obvious,
>> >> but it made things come clear for me - ontologies and terminologies
>> >> are complementary but different, so any tool that formally relates
>> >> one to the other has to be good.
>> >>
>> >> Mike
>> >>
>> >> On 30/03/2011 15:05, John F. Sowa wrote:
>> >>> We have discussed the relationships between ontologies and
>> >> terminologies
>> >>> in many email threads.  Some people blur the distinction by saying
>> >> that
>> >>> their terminologies are ontologies, and others make a sharp
>> >> distinction
>> >>> between them.  But one point is clear:  the people who use
>> >> applications
>> >>> only see terminologies, and the developers need to relate ontologies
>> >>> to terminologies.
>> >>>
>> >>> A few weeks ago, I sent a note that mentioned Fact Guru by Doug
>> >>> Skuce as tool that could help bridge the gap between terminologies
>> >>> and ontologies.  In particular, FG could simplify the task of
>> >>> mapping the terms of an terminology to the more formal ontology.
>> >>> After the development of the ontology, FG could be used to display
>> >>> either or both, side by side.  For the Open Ontology Repository, FG
>> >>> could be useful, but only if the software were available as open
> source.
>> >>>
>> >>> Therefore, I had a discussion with Doug about the possibility of
>> >>> releasing the Fact Guru software as open source under the LGPL.
>> >>> Doug agreed, and he is also planning to attend the Ontology Summit
>> >>> on April 18.  He would be happy to discuss the use of FG with anyone
>> >>> who may be interested.  On the cc list above, I added the email for
>> >>> Doug Skuce and for John Talbot, who did most of the implementation.
>> >>>
>> >>> In the links below, note the wide range of sophistication of the
>> >>> possible applications.  The Animals example was implemented by
>> >>> Doug's 9-year-old daughter as a school project.  The SUMO example
>> >>> was downloaded from the actual SUMO ontology.  For each term in
>> >>> SUMO, FG shows both the English-like text and the axioms written in
>> >>> KIF.
>> >>>
>> >>> John Sowa
>> >>>
>> >>> -------- Original Message --------
>> >>> Subject: Fact Guru
>> >>> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:31:05 -0500
>> >>> From: John F. Sowa<sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >>> To: [ontolog-forum]<ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >>> CC: Doug Skuce<drskuce@xxxxxxxxx>
>> >>>
>> >>> I was talking with an old friend, Doug Skuce, who taught AI and
>> >>> knowledge engineering at the University of Ottawa for many years.
>> >>> He and his students and colleagues have developed some software that
>> >>> could be valuable for designing and supporting ontologies.
>> >>>
>> >>> In the late 80s he developed a knowledge acquisition tool called
>> >>> CODE (Conceptually Oriented Development Environment) in Smalltalk.
>> >>> Since CODE did not run on the web, he designed a new version called
>> >>> Fact Guru in the late 90s.  FG can be used to organize a knowledge
>> >>> base of any kind and present it in a highly readable way;
>> >>>
>> >>>       http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~tcl/factguru1/FactGuru.pdf
>> >>>
>> >>> Following is a blurb from the web site:
>> >>>
>> >>>       With Fact Guru you can improve understanding by:
>> >>>
>> >>>         * storing facts grouped by subject in a highly structured
>> >>>           knowledge base.
>> >>>
>> >>>         * searching the knowledge base to find just the fact you
>> >>> need
>> >>>
>> >>>         * comparing subjects to see a comparison matrix of
>> >>> differences
>> >>>
>> >>>         * viewing subjects as a graph to see relationships between
>> >> them
>> >>> For a beginner's example that uses only English, see the knowledge
>> >>> base of Canadian Animals, which was implemented by Doug's nine year
>> >>> old daughter.  Click on any animal name to find a collection of
>> >>> information about it:
>> >>>
>> >>>       http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~tcl/factguru1/animals/index.html
>> >>>
>> >>> More important for ontology is the use of Fact Guru to import,
>> >>> organize, and display the top-level ontology of SUMO:
>> >>>
>> >>>       http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~tcl/factguru1/sumo/index.html
>> >>>
>> >>> For an example of a knowledge base about a technical subject, see
>> >>> the Fact Guru KB about the Java programming language, which Doug
>> >>> used for teaching a course on Java:
>> >>>
>> >>>       http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~tcl/factguru1/java/index.html
>> >>>
>> >>> This KB is important for two reasons:  (1) it is cross linked to an
>> >>> associated HTML document about Java; and (2) it is written in a
>> >>> version of controlled English called ClearTalk.
>> >>>
>> >>> Doug is currently working with some programmers who are
>> >>> reimplementing Fact Guru with the Drupal content management software
>> >>> in order to organize and relate multiple knowledge bases.  This
>> >>> could be useful for the Open Ontology Repository.
>> >>>
>> >>> I thought that participants in Ontolog Forum might express their
>> >>> wish list about features that would be useful for supporting
>> >>> ontologies and their applications.
>> >>>
>> >>> John Sowa
>> >>>
>> >>>
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>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Mike Bennett
>> >> Director
>> >> Hypercube Ltd.
>> >> 89 Worship Street
>> >> London EC2A 2BF
>> >> Tel: +44 (0) 20 7917 9522
>> >> Mob: +44 (0) 7721 420 730
>> >> www.hypercube.co.uk
>> >> Registered in England and Wales No. 2461068
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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>>
>> --
>> Mike Bennett
>> Director
>> Hypercube Ltd.
>> 89 Worship Street
>> London EC2A 2BF
>> Tel: +44 (0) 20 7917 9522
>> Mob: +44 (0) 7721 420 730
>> www.hypercube.co.uk
>> Registered in England and Wales No. 2461068
>>
>>
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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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