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Re: [ontology-summit] what means SYSTEM and System Praxis?

To: "'Ontology Summit 2011 discussion'" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Ian Bailey" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 20:30:49 -0000
Message-id: <11ff01cbdaab$0d959240$28c0b6c0$@com>
Hi Jack,    (01)

Work has been underway for some time now on a formal ontology for DoDAF,
MODAF, DNDAF, NAF, etc. As you know, these architecture frameworks cover a
certain extent of the systems engineering discipline, but by no means all of
it.     (02)

It's called the IDEAS Group Ontology (www.ideasgroup.org) and has sign-up
from Australian, Canadian, Swedish, UK, and US depts of defence (and NATO
too). There's not much of it in the public domain apart from the foundation
ontology at present.    (03)

Ian Bailey    (04)

-----Original Message-----
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jack Ring
Sent: 04 March 2011 19:44
To: Ontology Summit 2011 discussion
Subject: [ontology-summit] what means SYSTEM and System Praxis?    (05)

After five years of blank stares about the O word and five years of watching
people struggle to devise taxonomies and ISO AP233 translators I finally got
traction.     (06)

The International Council on Systems Engineering has started a Working Group
on System Science which really means figuring out what means System and what
means System Praxis and how the scientific method can preclude the myriad
dumb errors that exist in practically every large system endeavor since the
1980's and whether human capabilities other than rational man can contribute
to the whole thing.    (07)

The impetus comes from observations that societal demands for intervention
systems are accelerating in extent, variety and ambiguity. Meanwhile, the
academic output in number and competency of graduates is less than adequate
and this is compounded by the impending retirement of baby boomers. faster
than we are graduating or otherwise increasing the SE. That means we cannot
sustain even the (estimated) 1.5 million people who do systems engineering
today (although most of them don't  call it that).    (08)

My estimate is that we must discover a strategy for whole systems
modeling/designing at 10-fold better productivity and innovation than today.
One objective is to increase the level of language [Halstead] of SE
practitioners by 10X. Current thrusts such as UML, SysML, etc. are woefully
unresponsive. Ontologies may help.     (09)

First effort is to gain interoperability among SE practitioners at the
language level. The strategy is not to seek one standard but to use computer
power to enable the resolution of 'nyms' for respective tribes (for
instance, we may become clear about the degree of semantic equivalence
between design and model).    (010)

We are starting with domain-oriented participants and concept mapping. Not
surprisingly, gaining clarity about system is about as fuzzy and defining
love.     (011)

Intending to follow up with local language ontologies and a set of
transformers that mediate the local languages.     (012)

I suspect that when we get a primitive example this Fall the potential
effect of real ontologies on systems engineering people will reveal the
prospects for real SE. This should serve to trigger several funds flows for
real ontology designers.    (013)

Any advice or "we've already done that' would be greatly appreciated.    (014)

Onward,
Jack Ring    (015)

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