Hi John,
Please know that part of the problem is that I'm not formally educated in many of the more technical topics, languages, and standards that are discussed by you and many of the other community members. This leaves me at a severe handicap when it comes to what I can successfully contribute to many of the ongoing conversations. Even with close to 30 years of experience in some very complex engineering and technology areas, I still find my head spinning when I try to follow many of the conversations that go on in this community. This is not a criticism. In fact, being at a point in my career where I spend most of my time teaching what I know rather than learning new and exciting things, I find it all very refreshing… even if frustrating at times, as I feel like I should have paid much more attention to this community. This is not to pretend that I don’t believe I have things to offer. Instead, it is simply a frustration that is tied more to my inability to effectively communicate and interact with the members, using familiar vernacular and standards.
You wrote: "Given those conditions, I would like to know of any free and open (i.e., nonproprietary) technical information about IF4IT?”
To be honest, there isn’t much that is “technical," yet. We’ve been so focused on the publication of things like best practices, templates, models, etc. that sharing “technical” content has been a lower priority, especially since technical solutions can be implemented many different ways with many different technologies. I’ve started by sharing things like D3js based visualization code via GitHub and the hope is that this will grow.
You wrote: “What logic is used to define or reason with these predicates? How could I export their definitions in other logics? Or relate an ontology expressed in IF4IT predicates to other ontologies, databases, or programming/reasoning tools?"
This is where, sadly, I do not understand the conversation. For example, I’m simply not familiar with what it means to “reason with predicates.”
Finally, you wrote: “Since Ontolog Forum is chartered to promote free sharing of info about designing and using ontologies, it's useful to know about the state of the art in developing products. So you could explain what it does, but not as (a) an advertising pitch or (b) a disclosure of proprietary info or trade secrets.”
The Foundation attempts to publish an Ontology that represents the “common enterprise” or what we call our "Enterprise Ontology.” This includes supporting learning and knowledge constructs such as glossaries, frameworks, models, templates, etc. that fall within that Ontology. And, unlike many other institutions that do little to maintain clear and consistent linkages between such things, we work VERY hard at doing so. For example, we go out of our way to ensure that language in our glossary is not only lexicographically consistent but also highly “linked” to other lexicographically related knowledge constructs (other terms, other glossaries, other frameworks, etc.). This representation of the common enterprise is our attempt at an Enterprise Ontology. As is the case with any such endeavor, we have critics and supporters, with far more of the latter than the former. It is those areas that fall within this Enterprise Ontology that we push to be “open and sanctioned.” To summarize, as I did in my response to Peter, “open and sanctioned” simply means that people and enterprises can use such material for themselves but cannot use or represent our brand or our material as their own, nor can they directly profit from such material without explicit consent. We do this to control the “source of truth,” as we’ve found that others often tend to change and twist things to meet their own needs, often confusing others.
In addition to material that’s offered as “open and sanctioned,” we do also have “for profit” offerings, as well. This is where our NOUNZ compiler falls, which is an exercise in data synthesis. The compiler does not do anything that would be considered state of the art. In fact, it uses highly established technology that is now about 25 years old and which you can find in any published Logic Synthesis books and papers. What we do that’s a little different is that, instead of synthesizing the specifications for semiconductor layout and manufacture from sources like 4GL languages, we synthesize HTML representations and visualizations from semistructured data, some of the results being in Semantic form. I believe the more interesting part of the whole exercise is the area of “visualizations" that can be generated from such Semantic structures. As mentioned above, we use standard HTML and D3 to achieve these visualizations.
I hope this helps answer your questions.
My Best,
Frank
--
Frank Guerino, Chairman
The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT)
http://www.if4it.com
1.908.294.5191 (M)
Frank and Peter,
I browsed through the IF4IT site a bit, but I couldn't find any documentation about how it works or what it does.
FG For those interested in Predicate Collections implemented our own working examples that you can take a look at.
I agree with Peter Yim that Ontolog Forum is an open site that promotes a free and open sharing of technical info.
PY by posting about your work and inviting contributions to it here, you may nullify your own licensing restrictions or, at the least, breach our Ontolog Open IPR Policy.
Given those conditions, I would like to know of any free and open (i.e., nonproprietary) technical information about IF4IT?
What logic is used to define or reason with these predicates? How could I export their definitions in other logics? Or relate an ontology expressed in IF4IT predicates to other ontologies, databases, or programming/reasoning tools?
Since Ontolog Forum is chartered to promote free sharing of info about designing and using ontologies, it's useful to know about the state of the art in developing products. So you could explain what it does, but not as (a) an advertising pitch or (b) a disclosure of proprietary info or trade secrets.
John _________________________________________________________________
|