I have recently written a paragraph summarizing "why (OWL) ontologies?" for a
customer. It tries to address some of the points that Henson raises below. (01)
Here it is with the identifying text removed: (02)
Xxx requires the analysis, communication, comparison and [alignment] of
[concepts] within and across authoritative tiers, addressing broad (high-level)
to specific (low-level) enterprise environments. These requirements
necessitate the creation of formal, semantically enabled models [of the
concepts], and their identifying and supporting properties, relationships and
individuals. Providing both a formal encoding and semantic richness allows
normalization of the definitions (intent) and provides the ability to
aggregate, compare, and reason over the [concepts]. These tasks and
requirements are well-aligned to the goals and capabilities of an
ontology-based approach. Ontologies, defined using W3C's OWL, can be created,
stored and reasoned over using COTS tooling. In addition, many complementary
supporting ontologies can be immediately imported, aligned and reused (such as
the provenance and time/event ontologies from W3C, an ISO-3166 country ontology
at downlode.org, and specific domain ontologies such as Xxx). Even if existing
data is not in an ontological format, but is perhaps stored as a relational
database, there is existing tooling to convert this data to an RDF encoding.
(Taking this approach removes the need to use complex staging tables to mediate
database information.) Using an OWL ontology as the basis for the Xxx Model
allows the formalization of not only the core concepts (...) but also puts
strong focus on the relationships between these concepts and the definition of
formal-logic-based restrictions, facts/axioms, and rules. Using COTS OWL
reasoners, logical analyses of the consistency, completeness and minimal set
definitions are straightforward, along with the ability to align concepts and
infer new data based on logical expressions and if/then (Horn) rules.
Communication of a standardized, ontological, machine-understandable format [to
environment-specific] translation agents will produce consistent, traceable and
auditable definitions for specific end-point implementations. (03)
Andrea Westerinen
| SAIC - CISBU | Sr Technical Expert | westerinena@xxxxxxxx
|<mailto:westerinena@xxxxxxxx> | bb 425-281-3611 (04)
________________________________ (05)
From: henson graves [mailto:henson.graves@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Fri 1/20/2012 9:00 AM
To: 'Ontology Summit 2011 discussion'
Cc: 'Matthew West'
Subject: [ontology-summit] Summit Engineering Tracks (06)
The track co-champions are soliciting input, participation, and references
for the two tracks on engineering of large systems and the resulting
engineered systems. (07)
My interest for the engineering tracks is to establish dialog in the Summit
not only to identify engineering problems for which ontology can offer
solutions. But to go beyond that to dialog on what ontology results and
methodology can be applied and look at use cases for its application. Many
people in the industry of developing and using engineered systems are aware
that ontology may provide value to many of their problems and issues. But
the industry position is what ontology technology can help, how do we use
it, what are the benefits, and what will it cost. At least this has always
been the management response when I have taken proposals regarding ontology
forward in industry. (08)
If this did not go to the general interest list, someone give me a pointer
to the right one. (09)
- Henson Graves (010)
<<winmail.dat>>
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