Azamat,
I'm not suggesting anything new - this is also along the same lines as
John's "lattice of theories". So then, let's just start communicating
such an approach and doing things that way instead of arguing for the
extremes (total anarchy or draconian control).
-Cory (01)
-----Original Message-----
From: AzamatAbdoullaev [mailto:abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 3:16 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Cc: Cory Casanave
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Relating and Reconciling Ontologies (02)
Cory Casanave wrote:
"Instead consider a "multi hub" approach where we attempt to minimize
the number of reference models but accept that there may be more than
one, even for a single domain. Endpoints (the viewpoint specific schema
and
ontologies) may be grounded in more than one such reference models and
reference models may be partially federated - this provides for
federation where there is ANY reference ontology in common." (03)
It reminds the SW discussion on a Federal Ontology System:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2009Jan/0030.html.
There was suggested:
"One can merge ontologies of different schemes, languages, scope,
degree, granularity in several ways, like the different cultures in a
society:
a) multiculturalism (multi-ontologies, loose and free as birds, like a
bottom-up folksonomy, a people's taxonomy);
b) melting pot (mixing and amalgamating ontologies);
c) Monoculturism (absorbing all numerosity of ontologies into a single
whole);
d) Core culture (Leitkultur, a top-bottom globally federated ontology)."
Azamat Abdoullaev (04)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cory Casanave" <cory-c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Relating and Reconciling Ontologies (05)
> Azamat,
> Re: Given that, I am convinced that to obtain the General Semantic
> Interoperability standard, costing hundreds billions per year, means
to
> develop a single world reference model, in the first place.
>
> [cbc] I must disagree with you on this point. There are ends of the
> spectrum where we have a single universal model on one side and chaos
on
> the other, we are currently closer to the chaos side. While I do
agree
> that we can have general and reusable reference ontologies that serve
to
> bind the many different representations, I don't think we will achieve
> this with a " single world reference model ". Such a universal model
> would require the conception and integration of to many viewpoints and
> theories.
>
> Instead consider a "multi hub" approach where we attempt to minimize
the
> number of reference models but accept that there may be more than one,
> even for a single domain. Endpoints (the viewpoint specific schema
and
> ontologies) may be grounded in more than one such reference models and
> reference models may be partially federated - this provides for
> federation where there is ANY reference ontology in common. This
> would allow for more of an open community leveraging and developing
> reference ontologies where by those that are most successful at being
> reused and federated will grow in authority. It would allow a
community
> to develop their reference ontology and, before or after the fact,
> relate it to other references to improve interoperability.
>
> Such a set of reference ontologies, more loosely coupled, seems to
> better fit with our social systems, capacity to agree and desire for
> local control. It also allows more rapid results in narrow domains.
> What is required for this is the technology and culture for modularity
> and relations between models. I am involved in some of the efforts
you
> reference, such as NIEM, and feel that a more domain focused reference
> ontology with links to schema such as NIEM would provide substantial
> advantage. That is the approach we are pursuing in "SIMF"
>
(http://www.omgwiki.org/architecture-ecosystem/doku.php?id=semantic_info
> rmation_modeling_for_federation_rfp), previously posted.
AA No content: This topic does not exist yet...
>
> Regards,
> Cory Casanave
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> AzamatAbdoullaev
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 1:36 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Relating and Reconciling Ontologies
>
> AA
>> Interoperability is a critical idea needing depth and breadth and
>> common foundation framework.
> JS
>> At that level of detail, we agree. But the framework must support
>> existing systems, future systems, and people at all levels of
> education.
> John,
> We are in accord here.
> But any thing, product, system, service, network, or technology to be
> interoperable must be compatible with the same standard, ideally, with
a
> standard ontology.
> Let me remind some key points mentioned in my last:
> 1. There are nation-level programs as EU Interoperability Framework,
USA
> NIEM, or UK e-GIF.
> 2. Interoperability in general implies common standards,
specifications,
> formats, categorizations and integration, unifying models and
schemas.
> 3. the General Interoperability Framework (GIF) is closely connected
> with a world/domain reference model as a common foundation ontology.
> Take what closely concerns the most of the Forum: the US National
> Information Exchange Model: http://www.niem.gov/. "It is designed to
> develop, disseminate and support enterprise-wide information exchange
> standards and processes that can enable jurisdictions to effectively
> share critical information in emergency situations, as well as support
> the day-to-day operations of agencies throughout the nation."
> Its syntactic operability is to be achieved by using the XML Schema
data
> model, constructs, and methods, seemingly, thus supporting existing
> "legacy systems", across all levels of the government, federal, state
> and local.
> However, the issue of issues how to achieve computatable Semantic
> Interoperability, among any and all communicating entities, legacy
ones
> or not. Seemingly, by developing the GIF implying a fundamental set of
> basic entities and relationships, providing the semantic basis
(meaning
> exchange/interpretation standards and processes) for more specialized
> domains and fields and applications.
> Given that, I am convinced that to obtain the General Semantic
> Interoperability standard, costing hundreds billions per year, means
to
> develop a single world reference model, in the first place.
> Azamat Abdoullaev
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: "Smith, Barry" <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx>; "Azamat"
> <abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:50 PM
> Subject: Relating and Reconciling Ontologies
>
>
>> Barry, Azamat, et al.,
>>
>> The note copied below was addressed to the Ontology Summit list.
>> But it addresses important issues that should be discussed in the
>> wider forum. I presented some related slides there on Tuesday:
>>
>> http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/par.pdf
>>
>> The concluding slide 6 advocated automated methods for relating
>> ontologies to one another and for extracting ontologies from
>> legacy software and from natural language texts. This morning,
>> I added some pointers to suggested readings for further detail.
>>
>> BS
>>> The mappings I know of between ontologies in practical use
>>> (for example between different anatomy ontologies) involve very
>>> costly manual effort, and even then they are still imperfect
>>> (and fragile as the mapped ontologies themselves change).
>>
>> I agree.
>>
>> Even worse, inter-annotator agreement among professionals who use
>> the ontologies (and the related terminologies) is very poor. At
>> the Ontology Summit, I was discussing the issues with a physician
>> who cited a discouraging result: agreement between any two
>> ophthalmologists who assign SNOMED codes to a set of cases is
>> about 60%.
>>
>> The annotators don't even agree with themselves. In the study,
>> the experimenters retested exactly the same ophthalmologists
>> a year later on a subset of exactly the same cases. For each
>> of the "experts", their new answers had about a 60% agreement
>> with their answers the year before.
>>
>> This is the fatal flaw in any system that depends on human experts
>> to link real-world data to formal definitions. Unique identifiers
>> of formal definitions are hopelessly unreliable in any system that
>> depends on human annotators to select an option from a menu.
>>
>> BS
>>> Can John point to examples of practically useful mappings created
>>> and updated automatically through appeal to some sort of Lindenbaum
>>> lattice-based technology?
>>
>> Yes, indeed. Every *correct* alignment of any two ontologies that
>> has ever been done by human or machine is a successful application
>> of the mappings shown in a Lindenbaum lattice.
>>
>> The lattice is actually a very simple structure that can be
>> specified on one page. It is the formal foundation for every
>> method of theory revision or ontology alignment.
>>
>> The lattice is like arithmetic. People were counting on their
>> fingers long before Peano stated his axioms. The theory doesn't
>> say that counting on fingers is bad, but it can distinguish sound
>> methods from flaky ones. Furthermore, it can provide guidelines
>> for designing automated and semi-automated tools that can be
>> much faster and more reliable than finger exercises.
>>
>> AA
>>> Interoperability is a critical idea needing depth and breadth
>>> and common foundation framework.
>>
>> At that level of detail, we agree. But the framework must support
>> existing systems, future systems, and people at all levels of
>> education. (And even experts in one field are novices in others.)
>>
>> 1. There are trillions of dollars of legacy software that run the
>> world economy. It won't be replaced for a long, long time.
>>
>> 2. Anything that replaces a legacy system has to interoperate with
>> it during a long period of transition. In fact, most systems
>> that replace a legacy system build on and extend the implicit
>> ontology in the old system.
>>
>> 3. Anything that depends on people using unique identifiers must
>> address the problem that even experts in a subject can't agree
>> on what codes or categories to assign.
>>
>> John
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Official Communique Feedback Thread
>> Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:39:51 -0400
>> From: Barry Smith
>> To: Ontology Summit 2011 discussion
<ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:50 AM, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>>> AGC
>>>> ... having one single ontology does not solve the problem. actually
>>>> IMHO it does not solve anything. it could probably be a good idea
to
>>>> address the issue of interoperability across ontologies rather than
>>>> pretending to have "one ontology per domain".
>>>
>>> Yes, indeed.
>>>
>>> There are already a huge number of implemented and proposed
> ontologies,
>>> and the largest number of potential ontologies comes from the
> trillions
>>> of dollars of legacy software. The total number is finite, but it
is
>>> sufficiently large that infinity is the only practical upper bound.
>>>
>>> BS
>>>> Who will keep the N-squared mappings up to date, for an N that is
>>>> increasing, if AGC gets his way, without limit? Who will pay for
> this
>>>> ever increasing mapping effort? Who will oversee the mapping
effort?
>>>
>>> The only reasonable solution is to provide automated methods for
>>> discovering the mappings. Adolf Lindenbaum showed how to do that
>>> over 80 years ago -- it's called the Lindenbaum lattice.
>>>
>>> For a brief survey, see Section 6 and 7 of the following paper:
>>>
>>> http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/rolelog.pdf
>>>
>>> John
>>
>> It would be nice, if it worked. But in practice, at least in the
areas
>> with which I am familiar, it doesn't. The mappings I know of between
>> ontologies in practical use (for example between different anatomy
>> ontologies) involve very costly manual effort, and even then they are
>> still imperfect (and fragile as the mapped ontologies themselves
>> change). See e.g. the papers by Bodenreider (who does the best work
in
>> this field) listed here:
>>
>> http://mor.nlm.nih.gov:8000/pubs/offi.html
>>
>> (and especially the items co-authored with Zhang).
>> Can John point to examples of practically useful mappings created and
>> updated automatically through appeal to some sort of Lindenbaum
>> lattice-based technology?
>>
>> BS
>
>
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