Hi Michael, (01)
Are you aware of the OMV effort? http://ontoware.org/projects/omv/ (02)
It is a "metadata ontology" from the European NeON consortium, but we
(Stanford's NCBO) contributed to it as well. It covers quite a bit of
ground and could be a good starting point, at least for what you call
"Engineering metadata". (03)
Natasha (04)
On Mar 17, 2008, at 2:11 PM, Michael Gruninger wrote: (05)
> Hello everyone,
> here are some intial thoughts on the metadata we would like to use
> to describe ontologies within the repository.
> It is not meant to be comprehensive, just something to get
> discussion going.
>
> I would like to keep the discussion grounded, either in examples of
> ontologies
> or examples of use-case scenarios for the repository.
>
> - michael
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
>
> 1. Purpose of the Ontology Metadata
>
> The metadata for ontologies should support the sharing
> and reuse of ontologies within the repository.
>
> The metadata should allow users to
> - retrieve ontologies for use in domain applications;
> - retrieve ontologies to be integrated with other user ontologies;
> - retrieve ontologies that will be extended to create new user
> ontologies;
> - determine whether or not an ontology can be integrated with
> user ontologies;
> - determine whether a set of ontologies retrieved from the repository
> can be used together;
> - determine whether an ontology in the repository can be partially
> shared.
>
> We can consider logical metadata (logical properties of the ontology
> independent of any implementation or engineering artefact, as well as
> logical relationships between ontologies within the repository)
> and engineering metadata (properties of the ontology as considered
> as an engineering artefact).
>
> The examples used below are not intended to be exhaustive.
> People are encouraged to post additional examples of ontologies.
>
> 2. Logical Metadata
>
> 2.1 Language
> What language used to specify the ontology?
>
> Classification of languages:
> - A formal language has a syntax (logical symbols together with a
> formally
> specified grammar) and a model theory (which specifies the conditions
> under which expressions in the language can be given particular truth
> assignments).
>
> The report "Evaluating Reasoning Systems"
> contains a classification of formal languages used to specify
> ontologies.
>
> - A formalizable language has a syntax, although it does not have
> a model theory.
> EXAMPLES:
> XML and EXPRESS, as seen in the following cases:
> - Topic Maps (XML)
> - folksonomy (XML)
> - ISO 15926 (EXPRESS)
>
> Some ontologies are only specified in natural language:
> - Wordnet
> - taxonomies
> - thesauri
>
> 2.2 Modularity
> Is a particular ontology a monolithic set of axioms, or is it
> composed of a set of smaller modules?
>
> Is each module considered to be a separate ontology within the
> repository? If not, what are the relationships between the modules?
>
> Which modules of an ontology can be used separately?
>
> EXAMPLE:
> a) Catalog of Temporal Theories
> b) The Process Specification Language (PSL,
> http://www.mel.nist.gov/psl/psl-ontology/)
> consists of a set of modules which are extensions of a common core
> theory
> PSL-Core. Metadata for each module specifies which other modules
> must also be included when using the module.
>
> 2.3 Relationships between ontologies
>
> 2.3.1 Entailment
> Is one ontology stronger than another in the sense that
> any sentence in the first ontology entails the sentences in the
> second?
> This would be the case when one ontology can be considered to be a
> weaker version of another ontology within the repository.
>
> EXAMPLE:
> Within the Catalog of Temporal Theories, the before
> is a partial ordering (i.e. it is a transitive antisymmetric reflexive
> relation).
> Since this ontology axiomatizes all of these properties, it entails
> an ontology that only axiomatizes the transitive property, such as
> OWL-Time.
> In other words, OWL-Time is weaker than the first-order theories in
> the Catalog.
>
> 2.3.2 Extension
> An ontology T1 is an extension of another ontology T2 iff
> the set of sentences in T2 contain or entail the sentences in T1.
>
> T1 is a conservative extension of T2 whenever
> every sentence in the lexicon of T1 is provable from T1 iff
> it is provable from T2.
>
> T1 is a nonconservative extension of T2 whenever
> there is a sentence in the lexicon of T1 which is
> provable from T2 but not from T1.
>
> EXAMPLE:
> a) Within the Catalog of Temporal Theories,
> DENSE-LINEAR-POINT and DISCRETE-LINEAR-POINT are both
> nonconservative extensions of LINEAR-POINT.
> Both can prove new properties of the before relation that were
> not provable in LINEAR-POINT.
> b) Within the Catalog of Temporal Theories,
> DURATION is a conservative extension of LINEAR-POINT.
> Every sentence using only the before relation is provable in DURATION
> iff it was provable in LINEAR-POINT.
> c) PSL is a conservative extension of LINEAR-POINT
> Every sentence using only the before relation is provable in PSL
> iff it was provable in LINEAR-POINT.
>
> 2.3.3 Definable Interpretation
> If the ontologies have different sets of primitives and relations,
> is it possible to define the primitives and relations of one ontology
> using the second ontology?
> If so, then it is possible to integrate an existing ontologies even
> though they have different sets of primitives.
>
> EXAMPLE:
> 1. Within the Catalog of Temporal Theories,
> LINEAR-POINT and INTERVAL-MEETING are definable interpretations of
> each
> other.
> 2. Hilbert's Geometry has points,lines, and planes as primitives.
> Tarski's Geometry only has points as primitives.
> Each of these ontologies are definable interpretations of each other.
>
> 2.3.4 Mutual consistency
> Which ontologies are mutually inconsistent?
>
> EXAMPLE:
> a) Within the Catalog of Temporal Theories,
> DENSE-LINEAR-ORDERING is inconsistent with
> DISCRETE-LINEAR-ORDERING, and hence they cannot be combined
> within the same ontology.
>
> 3. Engineering Metadata
> - provenance
> - versioning
> - existing applications of the ontology
> (e.g. interoperability, search, decision support)
> - domain-specificity (e.g. biology, supply chain management,
> manufacturing)
>
> 4. References
>
> Hayes, P. (1996) A Catalog of Temporal Theories,
> Technical Report UIUC-BI-AI-96-01, University of Illinois at
> Urbana-Champaign.
>
> Bock, C., Gruninger, M., Libes, D., Lubell, J., Subrahamian, E. (2006)
> Evaluating Reasoning Systems, NISTIR 7310, National Institute of
> Standards and Technology.
>
>
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