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Re: [ontology-summit] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations

To: Ontology Summit 2013 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Alan Rector <rector@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:26:37 +0000
Message-id: <5350B66C-251A-426C-B1CC-7D84F9F86EE6@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
John, All    (01)

On 13 Feb 2013, at 15:56, John F Sowa wrote:    (02)

> 
> Summary: The distinctions an ontology requires are determined by its
> purpose.  Making distinctions that are irrelevant to the purpose can
> decrease its generality and interoperability.  Therefore, the quality
> of an ontology should be measured by its *relevant* distinctions.
> 
> John    (03)

Amen.      (04)

I missed the presentations, sadly, but will look forward to the audio recording 
when available.  My own thoughts echo Johns    (05)

… and I might add for, that the decisions depend on the consequences for those 
applications, which can often be expressed in terms of what sort of questions 
the system is supposed to answer.    (06)

Ultimately, assuming we are building ontologies in order to build better 
information systems, then the ontology must contain the entities about which we 
wish to hold information.    (07)

Eg If the system is purely historical, whether the future is linear or 
branching is irrelevant.   If a system must answer questions about hypotheses, 
then hypothetical entities are almost certain to be required.  If most of the 
entities are abstract - e.g. intellectual property - then non-material entities 
will be required.  If experiments, protocols, plans, etc. are an important part 
of the information, then a means of representing plans and their relation to 
the actual events that are said to follow or deviate from them will be 
required, … …    (08)

...additional points in response to the slides but in ignorance of the 
conversation...    (09)

It seems to me that there is an important missing level in the hierarchies so 
far described -- "upper domain ontologies" -- the major categories in this 
particular domain - that probably needs to be designed or at least sketched in 
conjunction with any top ontology and which is very much a part of the 
architecture.  If you look at biomedical ontologies outside of OBOFoundry, the 
"upper domain ontology" is often fairly well specified, but the upper ontology 
proper is usually not.   In biomedicine, upper domain ontologies usually 
consist of a few tens, possible a few hundred of entities, but the ontology as 
a whole may have tens or even hundreds of thousands.    (010)

A distinction that I am surprised not to see is between first order and higher 
order knowledge. If I say that "Placental mammals are defined as those mammals 
that develop placentas as a means of supporting their embryos", that is a 
statement about all "Placental mammals".  If I say that the distinction between 
"Placental mammals" and "Non-placental mammals" was first made by Wallace, that 
is a statement about the categories. For some systems, such higher order 
knowledge is essential; for others not.     (011)

Finally, again a plea to be explicit about where the ontology - the definitions 
and other necessary information about the entities in the system - ends, and 
broader knowledge representation begins.  This is likely to be an important 
factorisation line in practice.  The technologies that are good for handling 
definitions are not necessarily appropriate or even capable of handling other 
sorts of information - e.g. contingent statements, strengths of association, 
probabilities, if…then… statements, complex pathways, etc. let alone ground 
facts about individuals.     (012)

 Regards    (013)

Alan    (014)

-----------------------
Alan Rector
Professor of Medical Informatics
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL, UK
TEL +44 (0) 161 275 6149/6188
FAX +44 (0) 161 275 6204
www.cs.man.ac.uk/~rector
www.co-ode.org
http://clahrc-gm.nihr.ac.uk/    (015)






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