Hello all, (01)
I have been following this conversation with interest because my company
creates documentation and learning materials for complex systems (oil refinery
assets, telecommunications routing and switching gear). (02)
We are trying to grapple with a way that the system engineers create knowledge
representations of their systems and data models and then be able to link those
specifications to product features that then get turned into information
products. This way, when a data property gets changed, a feature is added or
dropped, we can more easily adjust our information product deliverables rather
then re-reading Word document specification documents. (03)
Since our information is created in OASIS DITA XML, RDF and OWL seem to be
attractive mechanisms. The difficulty is that we can create knowledge models
suitable for publishing information, but the system engineers are not using
this toolset. Getting them on-board is our missing link. (04)
One of questions is do we extend OWL right to the engineers, or let them use
their current modelling tools and try to map to OWL. (05)
We do not have a complete answer, but a decade for user adoption phase-in is a
bit disheartening. (06)
Bradley Shoebottom
Information Architect - R&D, Innovatia Inc.
Tel: (506) 674-5439 | Skype: bradleyshoebottom | Toll-Free: 1-800-363-3358
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting
bradley.shoebottom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx | www.innovatia.net | Follow us on Twitter (07)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Price
Sent: March-07-12 6:51 AM
To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] INCOSE Ontology Action Group, onto SysML/UML (08)
On 3/6/2012 6:08 PM, henson graves wrote:
> David,
> As you know human artifacts turn out to be useful for purposes which their
> designers never imagined or intended, in this case I am speaking of both UML
> and OWL. (09)
Yes, but they often turn out not to be inappropriate for other purposes too. (010)
>
> The basis for my experiment was that I wanted to see how suitable UML/SysML
> was for chemistry and biomedical applications. I am aware of how OWL and
> extensions have been used in this arena. My take away from the experiment of
> building a water molecule in SysML is that UML is very suitable for these
> applications. The experiment also helped me pinpoint where UML/SysML lacked
> DL expressivity that is really needed in UML/SysML. (011)
I doubt that any chemical engineer would think UML suitable for building
a water molecule - and that's the crux of my comment. They already have
far better tools for doing that kind of thing. (012)
>
> Regarding OWL it sounds like you also have the view that it is for use only
> by ontologists to do whatever they do and by software engineers, but not
> system engineers. Indeed many OWLites may think this way. My earliest
> interest in OWL, following your lead, was to find out if OWL could be used
> for engineering purposes. The answer is that it makes good sense, but there
> are some limitations. The initial result of this inquire is a paper with
> Ian Horrocks, entitled Application of OWL 1.1 to Systems Engineering. Pros
> and cons are discussed. (013)
I do think OWL is plumbing wrt engineering applications. There may be a
few places where it can be used more-or-less directly but they seem to
be few and far between. My 2006 paper did show an interesting use case
but I've struggled to find many more - and I owe you a call on that
topic, a a re-reading of your paper. (014)
>
> Back to the water molecule it is very interesting to compare the results in
> both languages. Both results are partial due to limitations on both
> languages. My reason for doing the experiment was exactly to sort out these
> issues, not advocate for one religion or the other. I hope, based on these
> comments, you can understand why I would do the experiment. Am I free to
> quote that you cannot imagine why I would do such an experiment when I
> publish the paper. (015)
What I think you may have shown is that the meta-model of UML is capable
of representing some, but not all, of the data required to represent a
water molecule, as is OWL - and that's a useful result as far as the
representational capabilities/limitations of these two languages.
Perhaps I've misunderstood, but suggesting that UML/SysML as a
*notation* are useful to chemists does not seem to me to be what you've
shown - and feel free to quote me on that:-) (016)
Cheers,
David (017)
>
> I don't think that your proposed comparison is the correct one.
>
> - Henson
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Price
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 5:01 AM
> To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] INCOSE Ontology Action Group, onto SysML/UML
>
> On 3/6/2012 4:10 AM, John F. Sowa wrote:
>> On 3/5/2012 3:36 PM, henson graves wrote:
>>> I personally have tasked two
>>> engineers with similar capability to build a model of the molecule
>>> Water in SysML and in OWL. Take a guess about the results. Also guess
>>> how well it can be done in either of these languages or other candidates.
> I don't understand why one would do that. SysML is a tool designed for use
> by systems engineers, not chemists, and OWL is a language for use by
> ontologists and software developers. A more accurate comparison would be to
> have them design something 'engineery' in SysML vs SQL or the SysML
> meta-model or OWL. Few, if any, systems engineering applications would
> present OWL to an engineer as OWL.
>
>> I'm sure that engineers can learn UML or SysML much faster and use it
>> more effectively and more accurately than OWL. But since you did the
>> experiment, I'd like to hear any further details you observed. Did
>> you write a report about them?
>>
>> And I'd also like to hear the opinions of the engineers about which
>> tool(s) they would prefer to use and why.
> 'Engineers' is far too general a term to answer this question.
> Mechanical engineers want to see 3D solid models, EEs want to see circuit
> diagrams, stress or thermal engineers want to see colorful visualizations
> that highlight problem areas, product management/maintenance engineers want
> to see tree-like breakdowns of products and related processes, chemical
> engineers want to see compound structure diagrams, etc.
>
> OWL is just plumbing no discipline engineer would ever see, unless your
> discipline happens to be ontology/software engineering and so you're working
> directly with the pipes.
>
>>> I personally am convinced that HOL in the form of type theory will
> eventually
>>> win out, but this is pretty much irrelevant to putting a stake in the
> ground
>>> with respect to achieving tech transfer. As you have stated start
> wherever
>>> you want, as long as where you start can be given a formal semantics.
>> I agree. But I would avoid using the term "win out" with respect to any
>> particular notation.
>>
>> As I said before, I believe that semantic systems need to support
>> "anything and everything". That would include the Semantic Web tools
>> and many different variations of graphic and linear notations. Then
>> people with different backgrounds can view the common semantics in
>> their preferred notations, and they can use notations that are tailored
>> to their requirements.
> Exactly! Users of an onotology-based application, be it based in OWL or
> HOL, would likely never have that fact made visible to them. We should
> remember that ontologies are the tail, not the dog, and the goal is to
> provide a way for software projects to produce better, more semantically
> accurate applications. It's the applications that typically bring
> business value though, not the ontology.
>
> Cheers,
> David
>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
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