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

To: "'Ontology Summit 2014 discussion'" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Matthew West" <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:47:47 -0000
Message-id: <01c301cf1dc1$dc83c2f0$958b48d0$@gmail.com>

Dear David,

 

Hi Ed and Matthew,

 

A view from the peanut gallery (i.e. the bowels of projects trying to implement a second, and third 15926-based data integration repository) ...

 

The core of Part 2 is really a modeling language or at best an upper ontology with a particular set of commitments.

[MW>] I would say it is both of those.

That is why people like Ed say it's not an ontology in the everyday sense of the word. Part 2 is more like the W3C OWL standard itself than the W3C Provenance Ontology, for example. So, I see Part 2 is a modeling language that can be the basis for an ontology for process plants held as instances of Part 2. 

[MW>] Agreed, but a 4D ontology of process plants.

 

My evidence for saying that is the fact that when you use Part 2, you do the same tasks as you would in making a normal OWL ontology ... what are my classes, where do they overlap/subsume, what are my relations, what are my properties and their datatypes, etc. So,I actually agree with Ed on this one ... best to treat 15926 Part 2 as a modeling language.

 

Also, because 15926 is dependant on the use of reference *data* and weak on constraint specification, today there is not actually a 15926 ontology at all (in the everyday sense of that word). I think Ed and Matthew are both actually saying that, just in different ways.

[MW>] I agree. You can add limited cardinality constraints, and you may be able to put constraints in templates (I’m not sure, but I hope you can) but it is largely constraint free. This goes back to the purpose, which was data integration, and the experience that constraints generally get in the way of that. We were expecting that the constraints would be in the applications that created the data that you were integrating, so there was no special need to focus on constraints in the integration model itself.

Regards

Matthew

 

Cheers,

David


UK +44 7788 561308

US +1 336 283 0606

 



 

On 30 Jan 2014, at 10:02, Matthew West wrote:



Dear Ed,

Dear Matthew,

What is in Part 2 is not an ontology for process plant information.  It is
an ontology for everything, and therefore an ontology for nothing in
particular.  
[MW>] That is of course untrue. That is, it is indeed an ontology of
everything, and process plant is something, therefore Part 2 is an ontology
of process plant. It is also a very particular ontology. It is not just
something vague.
We did not set out to create an ontology of everything. We just found that
constraining it to anything less meant that we were forever having to change
our models as new areas were brought into scope. In the end we concluded it
was just cheaper to have a mode of everything, because then we would not
need that continual maintenance.

The RDL should be the reference ontology for process plant information.  It
reuses such elements of the Part 2 upper ontology as are useful in
characterizing process plant elements, rather than healthcare elements or
forestry elements, for example.  It is the RDL, not Part 2, that will be
used to convey industrial information.
[MW>] Of course, the RDL is where the specifics lie.

There seems to be a view that the RDL is just a 'vocabulary' to be used with
whatever axioms and facts the individual use requires.  
[MW>] I think that is a mistake, however, the poor quality of some parts of
the RDL means that this is sometimes the best use that can be made. I am
reminded of Robert Adams description of early version of the RDL as a "list
of famous names". One should not underestimate the utility of even this low
level of use. It does at least address the identity issue - we agree to use
this code/name to indicate we are talking about the same thing.

Even so, if the classifiers and properties are carefully defined (so that
reuse is meaningful), some part of those definitions can be formally
axiomatized.  
[MW>] I agree. I'm disappointed more progress has not been made in that
direction.

The important point here is that industry has to agree on what
CentrifugalPump means in terms of structure and possible characterizing
properties.  
[MW>] Quite a lot has actually been done on that, although one of the
conclusions is that different companies actually have different requirements
for data about centrifugal pumps, depending on their internal processes. So
at present, there is a long list of properties a centrifugal pump can have
(there are external standards, e.g. API, you can look at for these), and
different selections of these made by different companies.

The fact that it is a "class of inanimate physical object" (part 2) is not
really very interesting.  
[MW>] Of course. That is just in case you need an entity type you need to
turn into a table to hold the data.

The RDL is the 'vocabulary' in a KR language whose syntax is defined by
n-ary "templates" in Part 4, and the semantics of that language is defined
in terms of Part 2 concepts
[MW>] Sounds about right.
(i.e., at a high-level of abstraction, which is unfortunate for a language
that has no user-defined verbs).
[MW>] I don't understand what you mean by "A language that has no
user-defined verbs". Especially since you can add both classes of
relationship and classes of activity to the "vocabulary" which are normally
in verb form.

Even worse, a "Centrifugal Pump description" is a "functional object" (Part
2), but it may be viewed as a "subclass of" CentrifugalPump and therefore as
an "instance of" "class of class of inanimate physical object".  
[MW>] I really don't know where this comes from. There is no
functional_object entity type in Part 2, there is
functional_physical_object, and class_of_functional_object. Pump is given as
an example of class_of_functional_object.
I would expect "centrifugal pump description" to describe a class of
relationship between some text and the class pump, I have no idea how it
could be considered a subtype of centrifugal pump, because a description of
a pump is not a type of pump.
Please explain further.

This elegant abstraction is so arcane to domain engineers, and to most
domain modelers, that the chance that they will use the Part 2 ideas
correctly is non-existent.  Further, it is utterly irrelevant.  
[MW>] Indeed. It is unfortunate that the entity relationship paradigm
requires data to be an instance of some entity type, and not just allow you
to declare them as subtypes of entity types, but there it is.

What they need to understand is the difference between a CentrifugalPump
(the physical thing) and a CentrifugalPumpDescription (the model element,
the procurement spec),
[MW>] Ah! That's what it means. An unfortunate name, since
SpecifiedCentrifugalPump would be less ambiguous.

because in the industry itself, the term "centrifugal pump" is used for
BOTH!  
[MW>] Of course. Happens all the time, people are good at disambiguation. We
have to tease the different things apart and try to give them names that are
not too offensive, but regular.

And when the RDL introduces a term like Class_of_Centrifugal_Pump when they
mean either of the latter two, it adds to the confusion.  
[MW>] Well this is part of the problem of being regular. The problem is that
it is common place to use the term "pump" when we mean both the set of pumps
(things you can kick) and the set of pump models (that are themselves
classes with member from the previous set of pumps). We have to disambiguate
these two usages, and you are really left with two choices, call the pumps
you can kick pump instances (or something similar) and the pump models and
specifications pump, or call the pumps you can kick pumps and the pump
models and specifications class of pump, or something similar, to
disambiguate them. For better or worse, we went for the latter. One reason
being that if we started the name of things that were classes with
class_of... then you knew what sort of thing you were dealing with, and were
less likely to be confused. Of course whichever choice you make, at least
half the people are unhappy (never mind those who thought it should have
been type instead of class). Regularity in naming has a value in larger
ontologies.

API 610 defines "classes of Centrifugal Pump" typically by impeller
structure, but surely the plant design spec has to provide more information
than that, e.g., required flow rate and d  ischarge pressure, and what
Emerson's catalogue contains is labeled "Centrifugal Pumps".  So the
engineer will be confused if you call the design element or the Emerson
catalogue entry a "class of Centrifugal Pump".  
[MW>] I hope there is a "Pump Model" entry in the class library for that
sort of thing. If not I would advocate its addition.

That is, the terminology derived from the elegant upper ontology model gets
in the way of communicating with the industry experts who will develop the
detailed RDL, and with the software toolsmiths it is designed to serve!
[MW>] It shouldn't. It should not even be seen by most. That is one of the
reasons why you should have layers in an ontology.

Two notes from Matthew's comments below:  

1.  Matthew the experienced systems/knowledge engineer does not see the
commonality between the OMG Model-Driven Architecture, which is about
designing software top-down, and the STEP Architecture, which is about
designing exchange files top-down, because they use different words and have
love affairs with different modeling concepts.  My upper ontology for the
problem space of software design sees them as sufficiently analogous to be
instances of a common paradigm.
MW: OK. So you are railing generally against top down development rather
than specifically OMG's model driven architecture of that.

This difference in perception is exactly the problem that the people who
produce software to support petroleum engineering have with ISO 15926 Part 2
and the template-based language for modeling their domain.  It ain't their
words, and they don't see their concepts.  All of their concepts are in the
RDL.
[MW>] Which is fine, then they should use stuff at the RDL level. I have
never expected software engineers developing CAD systems to suddenly try to
implement their software around data structures based on Part 2. It defines
an integration environment, which may well be virtual, as in the IRING
architecture.

2.  Matthew notes that some successful applications of 15926 have in fact
done the application-specific knowledge engineering and then mapped their
concepts and representations back to ISO 15926 Part 2 and Part 4, the
descriptive process that I agree with.  Unfortunately, the current approach
in the standards activity is prescriptive as to how this is to be done --
the exchange forms are derived by rote from the templates, converting n-ary
verbs to composites of RDF triples.  Any standard KR language already has a
well-defined form for the knowledge captured in that language, but SC4 is
still trying to define one (or more accurately 219 distinct patterns --
their new KR language syntax).  So, I see the standardization process
following a different , and undesirable, pattern, from the one used for
successful interchange.
[MW>] I think that is a misinterpretation of what is happening. There is no
prescription about how things will be done. That is just not what standards
are for, and you know it. Standards are permissive unless they are made
prescriptive in national law. The reality is that some people have decided
that it would be useful to agree a way that it can be done using some
particular technologies. The idea for ISO 15926 is to be promiscuous in this
respect rather than prescriptive. So as alternative technologies come along,
I expect groups of people to come together to work out how best to deploy
that technology to integrate and exchange process plant data.

MW: So my conclusion is, Ed, that you are largely tilting at windmills.

Regards
Matthew

-Ed





-----Original Message-----

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-

summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West

Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 10:01 AM

To: 'Ontology Summit 2014 discussion'

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

 

Dear Ed,

 

 

Well, Matthew, we do seem to agree on the first bullet.  What the

15926 community most needs to do is to make a real ontology for

process plant information, translated "improve the Reference Data

Libraries (RDL)".

Making useful OWL ontologies is either part of that process -- making

a worthwhile reference ontology -- or it isn't, but it is not

ancillary.  The current RDL is a taxonomy, full stop.  And instead of

real DataProperties and ObjectProperties, it has 200 "templates" for

constructing those properties from the 'property classes' in the RDL,

which in turn leads to arguments about what the RDF representation of

instance data should look like.  With OWL models, the RDF instance

representation is well-defined by an existing and widely implemented

standard.  So, choosing ONE suggests itself as the most effective way to

make a Standard!

[MW>] Well the RDL is not supposed to be used on its own. The ontology

is in Part 2, and the RDL provides specialized uses of it, and the

templates pick out particular uses of bits of Part 2 and the RDL. Also

the RDL is not simply a taxonomy, though parts of it may be, sometimes

erroneously.

 

The underlying problem here is the Model-Driven Architecture approach,

as formalized twice in TC184/SC4.  First, you make a two-tier

conceptual model of the space, in a language that is supposed to be

suitable for conceptual models, independent of "platform class"

(object-oriented, relational, tree structure, description logic).  The

top tier is a collection of meaningless abstractions that is supposed

to be the basis for integrating models (in lieu of looking at the

relationships among the model viewpoints and content).  The second

tier is many separate models of useful information in the problem

space, which are forcibly coupled to the worthless top-tier concepts.  

Then you "map" the conceptual model to some implementation form, using

a well- defined rigorous process.  Of course, the implementation forms

are specific to "platform class", and the conceptual models are not

really independent of platform classes, because they have their own

structuring rules, and the modelers h  ave existing prejudices.  So, we

end up with rigorous methods for putting a square peg in a round hole.

[MW>] I'm not sure I recognise this as what I understand by Model

Driven Architecture (which I take to be a series of models,

meta-models and meta- meta models) or even the STEP architecture,

which your description more closely resembles. However, neither the

meta modelling approach of OMG or the STEP architecture approach

applies to ISO 15926. The approach in ISO

15926 arose from precisely looking at the relationships among model

viewpoints and content, and then looking at how they could be integrated.

There are no meaningless abstractions (i.e. just data structures to

which meaning has to be assigned in context, by e.g. mapping tables).

Though there are certainly some very abstract concepts.

For what it is worth the ISO 15926 conceptual architecture is a single

level in which the models, meta-models and meta-meta models all reside

together (hence recent talk of namespaces). The only other thing is

the language in which it is defined, which for part 2 was EXPRESS.

This was not an ideal language for the purpose - since it essentially

forced the split between data model and data - but it is what we had.

When a more appropriate language emerges that can cope with ISO 15926

as a single level, I hope we will migrate to it. OWL shows some promise,

but still had important limitations.

 

A consequence of this approach is that the body spends a lot of time

defining modeling conventions, and even more time defining

architectures, methodologies, and mapping formalisms, none of which

has any direct value to industry.  And the mismatch between the

conceptual structures and the vogue implementation structures creates

ugly exchange forms for otherwise well-defined information concepts.

[MW>] Yes. That does sound like STEP.

 

Coming back to the thrust of the Subject line, I have come to the

conclusion that this process is upside down.  What you want to do is

create a conceptual model ('ontology') for the problem space in some

formal language, and define the XML or RDF or JSON exchange schema for

THAT model.  Then you need a mapping language that explains the

relationship of the chosen exchange form to the conceptual model.  

That is, you DESCRIBE what you DID, rather than PRESCRIBING what you

MUST DO.  (In engineering, this is the "trace" from the design to the

requirements.) The great advantage of this approach is that it allows

engineering choices that are convenient to the implementer community!  

And it can be used to describe other engineering choices made by other

groups defining exchange forms for the same or closely related

concepts.  This is a top-down engineering process that allows for tradeoff

in the product design.

[MW>] That should work in an ISO 15926 environment, and is what, as

far as I know, many people have done. A typical project might take a

look at the RDL and templates for coverage of their domain for simple

reuse, then come up with its own conceptual model, then map it to the

ISO 15926 data model, templates and RDL. Your structures are in principle,

just more templates.

Mapping to Part 2 and the RDL is really part of the analysis, which

will cause questions to be asked about what you really mean, but that

will help the work you have done to be reusable, as well as improve

it. Almost certainly, you will find there are things missing that you

need, (i.e. the mapping will be

incomplete) so you need to add those things (usually to the RDL). The

mapping becomes the formal definition of what you have done. One

result of this, is that any data you create can be mapped through to

the underlying data model for reuse in other schemas where the data

overlaps.

That is how integration happens. Developing Part 11 went somewhat like

that.

 

Way back in the 1980s, the ANSI 3-schema architecture for database

design views the process of design as beginning with viewpoint schemas

for the participating applications.  These schemas are then integrated

(not

federated) into a conceptual schema that relates all the concepts in

the viewpoint schemas.  The resulting conceptual schema is the

relational model of the stored data (the reference ontology).  The

formal viewpoint schemas (external views) are then derived from the

conceptual schema by 'view mappings' that actually transform the

stored data into the organizations demanded by the views (using

"extended relational operators").  The SC4 two-tier modeling mistake

is failing to realize that the process begins with the view schemas

that have direct VALUE to industrial applications, and that the

integrating schema, which allows for new and overlapping applications,

is DERIVED from them.  We have confused the organization of the

results with the organization of the enginee  ring process, and once again

we have canonized an upside-down approach.

[MW>] Obviously I disagree. In ISO 15926 we followed closely the 3

schema approach, to get to the conceptual schema, which we carefully

designed to be extensible. We went through multiple evolutions and

revolutions in developing the conceptual schema over a 10 year period

to achieve something that was reusable, stable and extensible.

 

My biggest problem with 15926 is the amount of religion attached to

these rigorous top-down approaches, and the enormous resource

expenditures on make-work that that religion engenders.

[MW>] If you are employing a top down process, then you are certainly

doing it wrong - unless you really have a green field, and it's a

while since I've seen one of those.

 

The quality of the results suffers seriously from this diversion of

effort.

And I would bet that the so-called 'pre-standardization achievements'

were accomplished using the inverted engineering process that I

describe, each with its own agreement on exchange form.

[MW>] I expect all benefits are achieved in that way. The cycle is

supposed to be that you raid what you can from the larder, and add

back what you found missing for others to use. Reducing reinvention is one

of the benefits.

 

Further, what I see appearing in the implementation community is

projects making their own concept models and their own engineering

choices and then tracing back to the RDL, and the required religious

rites, in annexes.

[MW>] I don't have a problem with that approach. I would hope that

doing the mapping would add some value to the analysis process, rather

than being a tick box exercise - which is of course a waste of space.

If you have done a good mapping, your data is integrable with other

ISO 15926 data when it is required to repurpose it.

 

-Ed

 

P.S.  Yes, I agree that this whole discussion is a holdover from last

year's Summit topic.  You don't get to do top-down engineering for Big

Data.

[MW>] I think the big mistake you are making is assuming that using an

upper ontology necessarily means you are doing top down engineering.

The purpose of an upper ontology (at least in ISO 15926) is so that

you can add more bits that work together to make a greater whole that

can be reused by others. Some discipline is required to make that

virtuous circle work, but it is certainly not top down engineering.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West

Information  Junction

Mobile: +44 750 3385279

Skype: dr.matthew.west

matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/

https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/

This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in

England and Wales No. 6632177.

Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,

Hertfordshire,

SG6 2SU.

 

 

 

--

Edward J. Barkmeyer                     Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx

National Institute of Standards & Technology Systems Integration Division

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263             Work:   +1 301-975-3528

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263             Mobile: +1 240-672-5800

 

"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,  and

have not been reviewed by any Government authority."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-

summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West

Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 3:49 AM

To: 'Ontology Summit 2014 discussion'

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

 

Dear Ed,

That's not what I said, and you know it...

 

It does not follow from success having been achieved that there are

not further opportunities for investment.

 

In particular, ISO 15926 was developed using a previous generation

of languages and technology and we should look at how to move it

forward.

Not that this stops it being used - it was designed to be as

independent

of

the implementation technology as possible.

 

My priorities would be:

 

1. Improve the RDL. There is a lot that is useful there, but also a

lot of

crud

that has crept in - and that is where the pesky details belong.

There are

also

areas where it could usefully be extended. The advantage of work in

this area is that there are no obvious technical barriers (but there

do seem to

be

political ones). There are quick wins here.

 

2. I would encourage development of OWL versions of ISO 15926, but

in particular, improvements to OWL that would make it better suited

to the expressiveness of ISO 15926, and for data integration as well

as

reasoning.

 

3. I would encourage the development of the IRING architecture and

implementations of it. In particular I would be looking for Quad

store technology. ISO 15926 is naturally quad based - a triple plus

an

identifier for

the triple.

 

Whereas much of the costs of moving engineering data through the

plant lifecycle have been removed, there is still plenty of

opportunity to

improve

collaboration through the supply chain, and reduce project

development times (which can be worth $1m/day for larger projects).

 

Specifically, I would be looking for equipment manufacturers to be

publishing

data sheets as ISO 15926 linked data, as well as IRING

implementations to help with collaboration between owners and

contractors in developing requirements, and reviewing designs.

 

And no, I don't think there is a need to standardise how a tool can

implement

a conforming exchange for point to point exchanges. I think that is

a

tactical

matter. I'm not even sure you need that for IRING. What you do need

is an understanding of how to map data from various tools to ISO

15926, and out again, but I don't see how it is appropriate to

standardise how that

mapping

is done since that would be specific to each particular tool.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West

Information  Junction

Mobile: +44 750 3385279

Skype: dr.matthew.west

matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/

https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/

This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in

England and Wales No. 6632177.

Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,

Hertfordshire,

SG6 2SU.

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of

Barkmeyer, Edward J

Sent: 27 January 2014 19:09

To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion

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

 

Matthew,

 

OK.  15926 is highly successful, and there is no need for further

development

of access mechanisms, templates, OWL mappings or any of that stuff,

because the useful stuff is already in wide use in industry.  So

NIST and

the

USA need not invest further effort in the standards work on 15926,

except

in

the development of useful 'reference data libraries', i.e.,

'reference ontologies for process plants'.  How a plant design tool

can implement a conforming exchange using one of those ontologies is

already standardized and widely implemented, right?

 

That is, after 10 years, we have standardized everything we need

except

all

those pesky details that are actually used in designing and building

and operating a process plant.

 

-Ed

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-

summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West

Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 1:22 AM

To: 'Ontology Summit 2014 discussion'

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

 

Dear Ed,

You are indeed rather late to the party.

 

[EJB] I don't think I have seen an industry "success story" about

15926, even for 'peer-to-peer application interfacing'.

 

MW: You certainly won't find them if you do not look. How about:

https://d2024367-a-62cb3a1a-s-

sites.googlegroups.com/site/drmatthewwest/publ

ications/STEPintoTheRealWorld.PDF?attachauth=ANoY7crKMLjBQ-

ztRwf87sQKcy0Tsxz

9GcjcUquJFQl3U-

 

 

r3rlNRPZQq6NCgA0Xr_yq_IXMo_oG144m4jaJXdYuLOD3q5UsI6CD_YXI8Noh

 

 

7We_KilyxzWEwDN9iz0EKYkoIqr_WqVQDjSfzsw3eqgVlf4I81kawZoORdXC0W

0dYNWB2n2w0qdF

PI7i_H6gurmjCiOQ7Rm4VDDdx-

Zdw8kcEhEpuJBojpSZOV_Tn8_jGeMnts83DxVZpnhk4vWQyGDA

cSHR8z1ms&attredirects=0

as just one (pre-standardisation) example of delivering benefits.

There are hundreds of other projects that have used ISO 15926 at

different stages of development in different ways delivering

hundreds of millions of dollars of benefits.

 

But if that has been successful on a useful scale, there is no

need for further work on anything but the scope of the reference

ontology, because the peer-to-peer interfaces now exist.  The fact

is that they don't.  There are no standards for them to implement.

(Actually, ISO

15926-11 is a pretty good standard.  It provides a very accessible

ontology for the concepts in ISO 15288 (systems engineering for

<something>), and a clear mapping from the ontology to an RDF

exchange form for a model population.  The a posteriori Part

4/Part

2 stuff is an

Annex in the back, if anyone cares.

That is the kind of compromise that 15926 needs more of.  And I

think David Price and gang will do something similar in Part 12.)

 

MW: Actually, I think the mistake is thinking that it is the

interface standards that are needed. Getting data out of one

system and into another has never been that big a deal in my

experience.

Pretty much any system has an import mechanism with a plain text

format, and pretty much any system has a reporting system that can

create a file to

more or less arbitrary layout.

Job done. If there are problems, they are easily sorted out using

tools like access and spreadsheets. It helps that most data

waterfalls through a series of systems in the process industries,

rather than there being tight integration with a lot of back and

forth in real time. Those requirements have not surprisingly found

themselves in

integrated systems.

 

MW: Indeed the BIG IDEA in ISO 15926 was having a generic data

model that enables you to say all the sorts of things that are

important, and an extensible reference data library that provides

the specifics to the level of detail required, and to which you

can add anything you need for new domains plus templates that

incorporate those

specifics.

 

MW: The big issue in integration and exchange between systems was

not the exchange format, but the mapping between the different

codes and names different systems used for the same things. The

real achievement of ISO

15926 is indeed the RDL. As far as I know, by now all the major

design packages for the process industries support the use of an

RDL, including tailoring and extensibility. The oil majors at

least that I have had contact with spend time developing their own

RDLs, these being extended subsets of the ISO 15926 RDL, which

they require to be deployed in their asset management systems

across the lifecycle. So for example, I know that Shell has an

appropriate subset of its RDL

embedded in SAP.

 

MW: The big thing here is that this makes the interfacing much

simpler, because the mapping - that was always the expensive and

unreliable bit, has largely been confined to history. That is also

where the big benefits have come from. Largely unreported, because

you don't notice costs you didn't incur that you did not need to

incur if you

did things right.

 

MW: And yes, this is what people have been more recently calling

master data management, we were just working out this was what was

needed in the last century.

 

MW: So what of IRING and other recent developments? There has

certainly always been an ambition for seamless integration in

developing

ISO 15926.

The reality has been that so far the technology has always fallen

short. XML Schema is OK for defining interface formats, but not

integration (not surprising since it is really a document

specification language). OWL has greater promise, but it is

focussed on reasoning and so has restrictions that are at best

inconvenient for data integration, and much of the current

discussion in the ISO

15926 community is how best to work around those limitations.

IRING, facades, and the possible use of triple stores is currently

where the cutting edge is. I think the IRING architecture has

merit in the long

term. I'm not sure we have the technology to implement it yet.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West

Information  Junction

Mobile: +44 750 3385279

Skype: dr.matthew.west

matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/

https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/

This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in

England and Wales No. 6632177.

Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,

Hertfordshire,

SG6 2SU.

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of

Barkmeyer, Edward J

Sent: 24 January 2014 22:57

To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion

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

 

Hans,

 

Further comments intertwined with yours below.

 

 

[HT] I shudder when thinking about how bad your tooth and nail

will be if what is below is apparently seen as mild comments by you.

 

[EJB] If so, then what is sacred in your view is largely

irrelevant in

mine.

I had rather thought that we had a common goal -- successful

interchange of plant data over the lifecycle.

 

this is not only about knowledge engineering; this is about

database engineering using triple stores.  (If integrating RDBs

with triple stores and SPARQL is your goal, you should look at

the stuff Kingsley Idehen is doing.) [HT] On what would YOU base

any knowledge, other than facts about all aspects of the plant,

gathered

during decades?

Not

from LOD I hope.

 

[EJB] I would BASE the knowledge on the repositories of the facts

about all aspects of the plant, gathered during decades.  Our

disagreement is about how we would FURTHER ENGINEER that

knowledge.

 

What EPCs already have ...

What does your would-be triple store have to offer them?

[HT] Ignoring your patronizing last sentence this: I have worked

most of my life in such a large firm, I have been in the

trenches, I have designed the first data bases for engineering

and later the integration of data, resulting in such software.

And so did my colleagues

from other large firms.

But we were faced by the fact that everybody was using something

different with different internal formats and geared to their

(different) work procedures. So when we were entering a joint

venture for a multibillion project we were discussing "your

system or

ours?"

in order to be able to communicate and to satisfy the growing

requirements from the side of the plant owners that they wanted

all information in an integrated fashion. That was why PIEBASE

(UK), USPI

(Netherlands) and PoscCaesar (Norway) we formed, and later

together in EPISTLE (Matthew West et al). So yes, we had our

systems, but these were,

in a globalizing world, silos.

 

[EJB] Yes, and that was 10 years ago.  What came of that?  What

"integrated fashion" did they all agree on and implement?

 

And yes, until now

ISO 15926 is used for peer-to-peer application interfacing,

succesfully as I heard.

 

[EJB] I don't think I have seen an industry "success story" about

15926, even for 'peer-to-peer application interfacing'.  But if

that has been successful on a useful scale, there is no need for

further work on anything but the scope of the reference ontology,

because the peer-to-peer interfaces now exist.  The fact is that they

don't.

There

are no standards for them to implement.

(Actually, ISO 15926-11 is a pretty good standard.  It provides a

very accessible ontology for the concepts in ISO 15288 (systems

engineering for <something>), and a clear mapping from the

ontology to an RDF exchange form for a model population.  The a

posteriori Part 4/Part 2 stuff is an Annex in the back, if anyone

cares.  That is the kind of compromise that 15926 needs more of.  

And I think David Price and gang will do something similar in Part

12.)

 

And as I started this thread: Standardization is finding a

balance between large ego's, commercial politics, short-term

thinking, hard-to-make paradigm shifts, and for the most lack of

funding.

And I might add: the unwillingness to really understand each

other because that

takes time.

 

[EJB] Not to mention the unwillingness to compromise.  "Standards

is politics."

What standards-making should NOT be is academic research.  Except

possibly in W3C, successful standards standardize something very

close to what is currently in wide use, so that implementation is

a marginal cost, and the return is wider market and lower cost of

sale.

Engineers who create new technologies seek patents, not standards.

The lack of wide success with

TC184/SC4 standards can largely be attributed to the creation of

an unnecessarily high cost of implementation, which results from

the adoption of complex mappings from concept to exchange form.

 

The concern is:  can we develop an integrating ontology that can

be used for semantic mediation between the existing schemas, and

provide a useful exchange form based on the integrating ontology?

...

[HT] WE DON'T HAVE an "integrating ontology", other than the

Part

2 data model and the templates derived from that, where the

latters are completely data-driven and representing the smallest

possible chunk of information.

 

[EJB] Umm...  Capturing the concepts needed for particular

information sets ("data driven") is in fact how ontologies are

built.  It helps if there are also "common lower ontologies" --

quantities, time, location, identifiers, etc. -- that can be

reused directly.  The templates and Part 2 lend very little to the

construction of ontologies for exchanging plant data.  Those who

see a value in it are welcome to pursue that value, but they

should not

impose it on others.

As in Part 11, the template mappings can be added as an annex

behind the problem domain ontologies and the specification of

their exchange

form.

 

What is different is that ISO 15926 calls for explicit

information, where most data bases (and documents) carry

implicit information, making shortcuts, that is understandable

for the initiated only, but not for computers. Examples

galore: an attribute of a process boiler: "fluid category", an

attribute of a pressure vessel: "test fluid" and "test

pressure", an attribute of a centrifugal

pump: "impeller diameter", etc, etc.  We are working on "patterns"

that will bridge the gap between implicit and explicit

information

representation.

 

[EJB] Yes, what is different is that you are making an ontology,

not a data model. But the effect is that you are trying to educate

ignorant software engineers and plant engineers in the art of

knowledge engineering.  That is not your job, and it is the SC4

mistake.  The requirement for the glorious standards effort is to

have participating experts with the ability to construct good

formal models in the standard.  Failing that, it is not your job

to try to produce that expertise by teaching the otherwise

experienced domain engineers your trade.  It is necessary to

entice more people with your expertise, or

scale down the project to what you have resources to do well.

You, and those of you who have the background, should be

developing the ontologies from these 'available knowledge'

systems, leveraging the available domain expertise, instead of

trying to create a strict structure in which the neophytes will be

forced to get it right.

They

won't: fools are too ingenious.  And  in the process, you have

created an impediment to participation by expert

modelers.   By comparison, you and/or the participating expert

knowledge

engineers, would make a good model, and sort out the missing

objects and the mis-assigned properties, and you won't need all

the overhead to get that right.

 

[EJB] When an industry group makes an OWL domain model for a small

part of the problem space, the last thing they need is a

requirement to figure how to use the Part 4 templates to express

that model as a derivative of the Part 2 upper ontology.  It is a

waste of their time, and

it is irrelevant to their goal.

That exercise is pure cost, with no clear return.  There is value

to having someone knowledgeable about the related ontology quality

issues read, and recommend improvements to, their model. If you

see some clear return on the investment of developing a template

mapping to Part 2, then you have a motive for doing that, while they

don't.

And ultimately, their data exchange will be mapped to their model,

because that is the model the domain experts understood.  If you

transmogrify that OWL model into a bunch of template instances,

you create an added costly learning curve for their implementers

that has no RoI for them or their sponsors.  The people who see

RoI in the gi ant triple store can develop the technology to

transmogrify the domain ontologies and data for the triple store

purposes, not force the domain modelers and the domain

implementers to be concerned with it.  (In lieu of tooth and nail,

I perceive this to be a compromise

position.)

 

[EJB] By way of defense of my position, I would point out that

after a mere

15 years of working with the god-awful STEP architecture, the

implementers of ISO 10303 concluded that it provided nearly no

assistance in integrating the conforming models of product data

and processes that were made from diverse viewpoints.  That model

architecture added significant cost to the creation of the

exchange standards themselves and even greater cost to the

implementations that had to read the transmogrified data and

convert it back to product information.  The theory that uniform

structures will produce concept integration was proven false in

ISO 10303, and the similar theory will

prove false for ISO 15926, even though you are using RDF instead of

EXPRESS.

In making and integrating ontologies, no set of strictures is a

substitute for the application of knowledge engineering expertise.

 

But their critical path also involves a viable exchange form;

and a clumsy form, born of obsession with triples and upper

ontologies, will interfere with wide adoption.

[HT] Wait and see.

 

[EJB] Quo usque tandem?   There is no profit in saying 15 years later

"I

told you so".

 

-Ed

 

P.S.  I chose to burden the Forum with this email only because I

worry that other well-meaning standards bodies might follow

TC184/SC4's model for the use of ontologies in standards, to their

own

detriment.

(And yeah, that was last year's issue.)

 

--

Edward J. Barkmeyer                     Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx

National Institute of Standards & Technology Systems Integration

Division

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263             Work:   +1 301-975-3528

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263             Mobile: +1 240-672-5800

 

"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,  

and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."

 

 

 

 

 

 

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