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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 17:40:42 -0400 (EDT)
Message-id: <63446.70.110.17.10.1301521242.squirrel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Wed, March 30, 2011 17:09, Adrian Walker said:    (01)

> Not just a tower of turtles all the way down, but an exponentially wider
> downward growing pyramid of turtles!    (:-)    (02)

Sorry, each turtle has multiple turtles on its back.  So the tower does
not grow exponentially.  Similarly, it is almost certain that you did not
have a thousand different great^8 grandparents, or a million great^18
grandparents.  It is 100% certain that you did not have over a billion
great^28 grandparents or a trillion great^38 grandparents.  Turtles, like
grandparents don't grow exponentially.  8)#    (03)

-- doug foxvog    (04)

>                                    -- Adrian
>
> Internet Business Logic
> A Wiki and SOA Endpoint for Executable Open Vocabulary English Q/A over
> SQL
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>
> Adrian Walker
> Reengineering
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Ed Barkmeyer <edbark@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Leo Obrst. wrote:
>> > 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.
>> >
>>
>> There is a particularly cute trick in one of the ISO TC37 (Vocabulary
>> and Terminology) standards (ISO 1087-1, I think).  It defines
>> 'designation' as the relationship between an 'expression' (variously
>> called the 'sign' or 'signifier' or 'term') and a 'concept', with the
>> statement: "In the speech community that uses the designation, the
>> signifier refers to the concept and denotes its instances in a world of
>> interest."
>>
>> This is exactly the kind of wording one should expect from a standards
>> body -- it tries to please all the factions by integrating two otherwise
>> distinct definitions.  And some participating expert will tell you,
>> privately, but not in the standard,  that the distinction between
>> 'refers to' and 'denotes' is the difference between 'mention' and 'use',
>> thereby further complicating the issue.  The clarification of one term
>> thus creates four new undefined terms.  In so many words, sorting out
>> the terminology for terminology concepts seems to be a problem for
>> terminologists.   It is turtles all the way down... :-)
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>> > 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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>> >>> forum/
>> >>>
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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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>> >>>
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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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>> >
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>> >
>>
>> --
>> Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
>> National Institute of Standards & Technology
>> Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
>> 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263                Tel: +1 301-975-3528
>> Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263                Cel: +1 240-672-5800
>>
>> "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
>>  and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."
>>
>>
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>
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>    (05)


=============================================================
doug foxvog    doug@xxxxxxxxxx   http://ProgressiveAustin.org    (06)

"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.
=============================================================    (07)


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