That's a good point.
For reference, you might do some basic reading on Cognitive Metaphor Theory
and RDF/OWL implementations that bind namespaces through word substitution
tags. The idea being, I think, that within your namespace, you can say Up is
Down, War is Peace, etc. etc. without interfering with either 'upstream' or
'downstream' ontologies in your work flow. (01)
I believe there are also working groups that have plans on the drawing board
for this capacity to travel all the way up to owl:Thing. (02)
This is but one example of work going on in the 'middle' of the stack. (03)
Don (04)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Eddy
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 11:47 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Relating and Reconciling Ontologies (05)
Jack - (06)
On 2011-04-21, at 5:15 PM, Jack Park wrote: (07)
> Now, you say there are actually some 70 different "labels" (aka name
> strings) for that concept, one of which is "M0101.." (which makes no
> sense to me as a label for a key: sounds more like one of the values
> associated with that key). (08)
I certainly did not intend to imply M0101 is a key other than to some
magical access mechanism into your brain as to what it means. It would be
no more a database key than M9999. (09)
Perfectly logical my Dear Watson. (010)
When you're constrained by Fortran's 6 character names, M0101 is just dandy.
M = masterfile
01 = first segment
02 = first field (011)
The masterfile description was 64 pages long... about 1700 - 1800 data
elements. (012)
The EXACT duplicate of M0101 was MSTR-POL-NO... which I assume is perfectly
obvious... well, to a COBOL programmer, maybe no so much to a CEO or CFO. (013)
I dearly wish I'd been prescient enough to get a list of the other names
just to see what else they had. (014)
The reason for such diversity is essentially the same as today... the
company had built systems, bought systems, bought systems & modified them,
bought other firms, etc. Normal dynamics. Keeping the important data names
in sync was not then, is not now, & never will be a CEOs priority. (015)
But there is a business issue here that the plethora of names definitely
hurts (read: increases operational & understanding costs). How do you go
across all those silos with different labels for the same thing when you
need to know if someone has bought more life insurance from you than you
wish to insure yourselves? (016)
> Ok. Le't assume we are just talking about that key. Lets put it into a
> frame-like representation to see if I got it right.
>
> Frame: rdf:ID = "<some uri>"
> commonLabel: policy number
> otherLabels: M01010, .....
> domain: ....
> range: ..... (017)
Assuming you'd have something like otherLabels: M01010, MSTR-POL-
NO, contract_ID, .... ? When I search for one I find all? (018)
I'm not sure if I'd go with "commonLabel"... there are HUGE issues here in
how & what people remember & use for language. (019)
I clearly remember attempting to discuss the finer points of MSTR- MENSA-FL
(don't ask... it was 6 months of my life) with the SME. He clearly had no
idea what I was talking about. Then he picked up some clue... "Oh... you
mean M0760... now I know what you're talking
about." (My thought... how does one know if M0761 is or is not the
same as or different from M0923?) (020)
Where is that ontological app that I can have on my iPad that will
automagically sync with the 30 year SME to tell me he's thinking
M0760 and let him know my MSTR-MENSA-FL is actually his M0760? (021)
This is where I loose how ontologies provide value... at least to the
care & feeding of legacy systems (the systems that run our lives).
What I hear here is an attempt to find the perfect, correct concept
(name/label in my domain). There is no such thing. (022)
For 20+ years I've watched folks tilt at the "one correct standard
name across the enterprise". Never going to happen. (023)
I posit that we need something that discovers the names/labels in the
context of their native use (my SME having worked with M0760 for 30+
years) & associate them with the other similar/like things. (024)
So far I have not seen any interest in the ontology world for this issue.
Can ontologies be relevant to dealing with legacy systems? (025)
___________________
David Eddy
deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (026)
781-455-0949 (027)
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