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Re: [ontology-summit] The tools are not the problem (yet)

To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: David Price <dprice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:39:24 +0000
Message-id: <78F855C3-3EF7-4F2D-9B8C-56A7C8F63FE5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Hans,

The problems that 15926 generate for reasoning have zero to do with OWL, or RDF, for that matter. The problem is that when you say "reasoning" you mean Description Logic. Any representation of terms and assertions that feeds into a DL reasoner will have the same limitations and cannot support everything in 15926. 

However, there's nothing that makes 15926 as OWL be limited to OWL Direct Semantics (as in Part 7/8) except the 15926 community itself.  FWIW we're trying out alternative approaches to 15926 as OWL beyond DL, and all that means is that we have to do our own reasoning (actually largely inference). A 15926 app can't really use off-the-shelf DL reasoners, except in very special circumstances where you really limit what you can express and how.

Cheers,
David

UK +44 7788 561308
US +1 336 283 0606




On 23 Jan 2014, at 09:41, Hans Teijgeler wrote:

Doug,

I have a question to you, and I am in doubt whether it is appropriate to put
that forward in this forum. If inappropriate, please reply in private.

You wrote: "Other computer scientists do not limit methods/routines to
having exactly two arguments.  Of course, they see this box RDFers put
themselves in as counterproductive."

Implementers of ISO 15926 are in that box, they struggle with the seeming
incompatibility of that standard and RDF, because ISO 15926 has the concept
of Relationship:
QUOTE
A relationship is something that one thing has to do with another (see
5.2.11 and Figure 187). In this part of ISO 15926, a relationship is defined
as the classification of an ordered pair. The pair is repeated to record
another relationship. No two relationships of the same classification have
the same pair in the same order. The order enables roles to be assigned to
the related things.
UNQUOTE

Examples:
* Classification with roles classified (shall be a Thing) and classifier
(shall be a Class)
* RelativeLocation with roles located (PossibleIndividual) and locator
(PossibleIndividual)
* Composition with roles part (PossibleIndividual) and whole
(PossibleIndividual)
etc.

We also have ClassOfRelationship, one meta level up, and even
ClassOfClassOfRelationship one more up.

Relationship instances can be addressed by other instances of Relationship,
such as: "this marriage (relationship) is a same-sex marriage
(classification), and it is not approved (relationship) by John Doe"

In the jargon of RDF these Relationships are a kind of 'reified' properties.
In pure RDF, for information storage, we have made a workaround, but when we
want to use OWL for reasoning we seem to have a problem, because this does
not fit in the OWL mould (so some experts claim). Yet to us, representatives
of parties involved in the process industries, the addition of the ISO 15926
meta model to OWL is adding semantic precision.

My question to you is whether or not ISO 15926 Relationships can be treated
as owl:Class, be it that these owl:Classes have two predefined
rdf:Properties. Does that make reasoning impossible?

Regards,
Hans
www.15926.org

PS Oh BTW, we also have MultidimensionalObject, which is an entity type with
a list of 2 - many predicates, but I didn't want to boil the ocean :)

____________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of doug foxvog
Sent: donderdag 23 januari 2014 7:35
To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] The tools are not the problem (yet)

On Tue, January 21, 2014 17:28, John McClure wrote:
[text below; commented on parts here]

   There are two competing notions of the *predicate* in theories of
   grammar

I.e., there are two meanings, and the same word is used for each.

People should realize that such cases are not competing notions of some
thing, but multiple notions, with the unfortunate use of the same label for
the different things.

   The first concerns traditional grammar, which tends to view a
   predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the
   other part being the subject;
   the purpose of the predicate is to modify the subject.

I would disagree with this "purpose" claim.  That isn't what traditional
grammar claims about this notion of "predicate".

   The second derives from work in predicate calculus (predicate logic,
   first order logic)
   and is prominent in modern theories of syntax and grammar. In this
   approach, the predicate of a sentence corresponds mainly to the main
   verb and any auxiliaries that accompany the main verb, whereas the
   arguments of that predicate (e.g. the subject and object noun phrases
   are outside the predicate. [wikipedia

This second meaning is that which we are using in ontologies.  Note that in
this meaning, the predicate "corresponds mainly" to verbs -- is different
from saying that the predicate is a verb.  Here we have gotten away from
natural language and need not be concerned with verbs.  If we choose to
express a statement in a natural language, we can choose to map the
predicate to a (set of) verb(s).

Note also that this definition does not require there to be exactly two
arguments.  There may be one, two, or more.
* S V
* S V O
* S V DO IDO

If (1) rdf:Statement = rdf:subject + rdf:predicate + rdf:object, then
to which of these "competing notions" does rdf:predicate refer?

It is a subset of the second meaning, with exactly two arguments.

If you say
the former, then I maintain the formulation should be (2)
rdf:Statement = rdf:subject + rdf:predicate.

So this is not the meaning.

If you say the latter, then WHERE ARE THE VERBS

As mentioned above, definition 2 predicates *correspond* to verbs -- they
don't need to be verbs.  Therefore i will take your "VERBS" to mean
predicates.

Thus, the VERBS are the binary predicates used in each embedded sentence.
* rdf:about
* rdf:Property
* xml:lang
* rdfs:label
* rdfs:comment
* rdf:resource
* rdfs:domain
* rdfs:range
* rdfs:subPropertyOf

- why do we see predicates defined like
   <rdf:Property rdf:about="&p3p;purposeOptIn">

Because of the syntax used.

why on earth is this thing called a "Statement"?

It is a "Statement" because it is a set of statements that are
interconnected, some being used as arguments to others and some being
implicitly anded.  A sentence diagram for this statement is quite possible,
though complex.

It is a single sentence because the predicate rdf:about relates
"&p3p;purposeOptIn" to a single property which happens to be a set of
properties.

In short, the entire body of predicates defined by the [RDF]
"ontologist community" to-date are fundamentally flawed.

Flawed as a body, yes.  But i suggest this does not mean that each
individual predicate is flawed.  The requirement to use only binary
predicates is the flaw -- it is the hammer that is the chosen tool to solve
every problem.

It's small wonder SMEs look
askance at ontologists and their gee-whiz ideas; in their gut, they
know something is amiss.

Other computer scientists do not limit methods/routines to having exactly
two arguments.  Of course, they see this box RDFers put themselves in as
counterproductive.

(Note: this perspective is completely scoped within the RDF, where
many of us 'practitioners' must wallow, so replies of 'use CycL'
are simply unresponsive to the needs of what, 95% of the people in
this forum.)

I suggest removing the "must".  One might use RDF as a communication
standard, but that does not mean that an processing must be done using it
(other than converting between it and a more accessible form).

Why wallow?

-- doug

=============================
On Tue, January 21, 2014 17:28, John McClure wrote:
John Sowa et al,
<rant>I do agree SMEs' stakeholdership in an ontology is key to what
ails us. But the problem is with the way we create ontologies; until
we grapple with that, "better tools are the answer" is merely lipstick
on a pig. SMEs certainly /should/ recoil at stuff like:

   <rdf:Property rdf:about="&p3p;purposeOptIn">
      <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">purpose(opt in)</rdfs:label>
      <rdfs:comment>
        Data may be used for this purpose only when the user
        affirmatively requests this use.
      </rdfs:comment>
      <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="&p3p;Statement"/>
      <rdfs:range  rdf:resource="&p3p;PurposeClass"/>
      <rdfs:subPropertyOf rdf:resource="&p3p;purpose"/>
   </rdf:Property>

No amount of tools, in my humble opinion, will /ever/ hide this
odiferous _crap_. I strongly suspect that I could pull equally useless
*properties* from whatever ontology is being hoisted on a pedestal,
and effortlessly mock it too. IOW the way we use the RDF is thoroughly
corrupt. Why/how? Here's the nub.

   There are two competing notions of the *predicate* in theories of
   grammar <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar>.^[1]
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_%28grammar%29#cite_note-1>
   The first concerns traditional grammar, which tends to view a
   predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_%28linguistics%29>, the
   other part being the subject
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_%28grammar%29>; the purpose
   of the predicate is to modify the subject. The second derives from
   work in predicate calculus (predicate logic
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_logic>, first order logic)
   and is prominent in modern theories of syntax and grammar. In this
   approach, the predicate of a sentence corresponds mainly to the main
   verb and any auxiliaries that accompany the main verb, whereas the
   arguments <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_argument> of that
   predicate (e.g. the subject and object noun phrases
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_phrase>) are outside the
   predicate. [wikipedia
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_%28grammar%29>]

If (1) rdf:Statement = rdf:subject + rdf:predicate + rdf:object, then
to which of these "competing notions" does rdf:predicate refer? If you
say the former, then I maintain the formulation should be (2)
rdf:Statement = rdf:subject + rdf:predicate. If you say the latter,
then WHERE ARE THE VERBS - why do we see predicates defined like

   <rdf:Property rdf:about="&p3p;purposeOptIn">

And if you were to say neither, then I ask why on earth is this thing
called a "Statement"? Can we not stop making words up that suit
arbitrary purposes?

In short, the entire body of predicates defined by the "ontologist
community" to-date are fundamentally flawed. It's small wonder SMEs
look askance at ontologists and their gee-whiz ideas; in their gut,
they know something is amiss. (Note: this perspective is completely
scoped within the RDF, where many of us 'practitioners' must wallow,
so replies of 'use CycL' are simply unresponsive to the needs of what,
95% of the people in this forum.)

</rant>


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