Please add these to the wiki.
We can save a lot of long e-mails by putting this type of information
directly into the wiki and posting a link.
Please try to separate out useful well-formed ideas (wiki material)
from questions and opinions (forum material).
This will save a lot of time and start the ball rolling towards some
useful output.
The wiki is not immutable. You can change/improve ideas later if you
want to. Just get it into a permanent home as quickly as possible.
Read the wiki. Start to add to the goals and start to build the table
of contents for the documentation.
Ron
Chief PITA/nag
On 07/04/2010 11:01 AM, Ali Hashemi wrote:
On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Cameron Ross <cross@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I guess I'm struggling to understand the value of ontology
repositories beyond their ability to facilitate the development and
sharing of ontologies. If there isn't any value beyond this, then
what is the need for an "online" repository. Wouldn't a system that
allows for the sharing and collaborative development of static
ontology artifacs (e.g. files) suffice? SourceForge comes to mind.
Perhaps this a naive view, or it has been discussed previously. If
so, some links would be much appreciated.
Cameron.
Kojeware Corporation
Dear Cameron,
Thanks for the question. I can provide three general use cases, and one
concrete example.
General Use Case
1) Ontology Design Tool (ODT)
Motivation: I am what an ontologist / knowledge engineer would call a
"domain specialist" or a "subject matter expert." I have extensive
experience in my field and want to formalize my knowledge. I don't have
the time nor desire to become an expert in logic, but I want to be able
to express my work in a machine readable format that is shareable with
others in my field and might possibly ease interface with those in
fields peripherally related to mine.
Goal: Provide a mechanism for a SME to formalize intuitions.
Actors: User + ODT
Triggers: Need for formal axioms
Pre-requisites: COLORE
Solution: Using the inbuilt advantages afforded with a formal language
at least as expressive as first order logic, we can communicate with
the SME using examples (tarski-models) only, and navigate the
repository to find the best set of axioms which correspond to their
intuition.
Base Course:
1) The user logs into COLORE. (it only works on COLORE atm)
2) The user names the relation(s) she wishes to formalize
3) User provides at least one example of their relation in "action" -
essentially a Tarski style model. The model can be represented
visually, or inputted as a plain text (see referenced papers for more
on this).
4) ODT searches the ontologies in the repository (COLORE) to find
"Core-Hierarchies" and bounds in each hierarchy that match the user's
intuition.
5) For each Core Hierarchy, ODT presents a Tarski style model in the
same representation that the user inputted.
6) The user decides if this example corresponds to their intuition.
7) repeat 5-6 until search space exhausted
8) Present user with axioms for their intuition.
For a more detailed explanation of how this works, please see Chapter 4
of my Master's thesis, or for a very brief version, this paper:
http://stl.mie.utoronto.ca/publications/design-repository.pdf
, or for something in between, wait for an upcoming journal paper.
Chapters 1-3 of the thesis discuss the repository and how the media
that is logic on the web allows all this to happen.
========================================
2) Semantic Mapping Tool (SMT) - Same Domain
Motivation: I am an organization who has developed an ontology and
would like to interface said ontology with one developed by others. I
need to determine what / how and where our ontologies overlap. This
works for any number of ontologies, not just two.
Goal: Given test mapping axioms, determine how two or more ontologies
are "similar" and "different."
Actors: User + SMT
Triggers: Interoperability
Pre-requisites: COLORE
Solution: Create an image for each target ontology in the repository.
Exploit repository structure to determine "similarity" and
"difference." Again, this only works on COLORE, and requires at least
first order expressivity.
Base Course:
1) User logs into COLORE
2) User provides candidate mapping axioms. I.e. the user guesses that A
is related to B, but is unsure how and to what extent, wants to see how
A is in fact related to B. (This can also be automated...)
3) SMT generates an image of the user's target ontologies in COLORE,
given the mapping axioms
4) SMT analyzes images to determined "Similarity" and "Differences" in
the target ontologies
5) SMT provides the user with partial interpretations of the ontologies
into one another and into COLORE (in some cases, SMT performs automatic
abduction).
For more on this, see chapter 5 of my Master's thesis or alternatively,
wait for an upcoming journal paper. The definition of "Similarity" and
"Difference" in the thesis are a bit outdated, you'll have to wait for
the journal paper for the most up-to-date definitions.
=======================================
3) Semantic Mapping Tool - Interdisciplinary Discovery / Sharing
Motivation: I want to know if knowledge developed in some other domain
is useful for me. Can I reuse work done by others in a seemingly
disparate field? Is there a way to get around the research silos and
specialized jargons that have popped up? i.e. cell diffusivity and
permeability being similar to electrical resistivity... Essentially, I
want to discover 'conceptual or structural metaphors' that connect
disparate domains to one another.
Goal: Support interdisciplinary knowledge sharing.
Actors: User + SMT
Triggers: Interoperability
Pre-requisites: COLORE
Solution: The exact same as Use Case 2, except the target ontologies
are from different domains. Again this exploits a basic advantage that
the medium of logic affords us :P
Base Course:
see above use case 2.
======================================
4) Concrete Use Case - Reseed
Reseed is a non-profit organization seeking to transform how people
relate to space, land and food. There are three vectors to this
organization:
(1) Community Intervention by Example (i.e. actual urban farming)
(2) Education and Knowledge Sharing (relevant to ontolog - the
technology side of collecting, collating and sharing gained wisdom)
(3) Effect Policy Change in Government and Business
Very brief overview -- food security is becoming an increasingly
important issue; we often fight against nature instead of learning how
to best work with it; people in urban environments often don't have a
connection to the land they live on, nor are they connected to the
provenance of the food they eat.
To address this, reseed wants to incorporate permaculture principles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
), to bring farming into urban environments. Take a moment and ask why
every house has green front lawn? It is a relic from Edwardian England
(or before, I forget). A green lawn demonstrated that one was wealthy
enough to set aside land for no purpose but to be green and short....
In this day and age, our widespread adoption of lawns seems a bit
absurd, especially in light of the resources they divert, consume and
larger looming environmental considerations... In effect, in Ontario at
least, a green lawn is a forest in its infancy. It is why weeds love
it, as they are nature's way of trying to increase the biomass density
en route to re-establishing a forest, and ultimately, it is why they
present an ecological and economic drain... But I'm beginning to
digress.
Basically, the relevant (to ontolog) technology integration strategy of
reseed includes developing an online knowledge resource for people to
share their experiences of urban farming, and for new comers to learn
the basic principles and apply them to their local context. For
example, wisdom from the Amerindians that almost disappeared with their
genocide a few hundred years ago, suggested that Corn, Beans, Squash
and a few other plants should be grown together. The corn grows quickly
and provides a base for the beans to sprout, while the squash, broccoli
etc. provide protection to the roots of these plants from hard rain and
larger creatures. All three together help mitigate the need for leaving
land fallow... Anyway, capturing and sharing this knowledge is valuable.
Not only that, but being able to take as input certain contextual (i.e.
local) variables regarding climate: i.e rainfall, temperature, humidity
etc. allows our system to suggest a number of plants and farming
strategies for someone looking to apply the collectively learned wisdom
to their local contexts.
So to make this more concrete for OOR, Reseed is looking to explore all
plant, farming, seed ontologies from the perspective of supporting
local farming initiatives. This means:
1) Being able to do a search on related ontologies
2) Be able to browse them to determine if they address our needs.
3) Be able to extract, reuse and/or extend axioms if relevant
4) Create pointers to and from said ontologies
5) Develop a new ontology to support the rest of our technology
integration
So it is a combination of the above use cases, plus some located on the
ontolog wiki. There's a bit more to the reseed use of ontologies, but
this email is already long enough and I think it gives a pretty good
impression of a use case.
Best,
Ali
--
Founding Director, www.reseed.ca
Social Technologies Adviser, www.pinkarmy.org
(•`'·.¸(`'·.¸(•)¸.·'´)¸.·'´•) .,.,
_________________________________________________________________
Msg Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/sio-dev/
Join Community: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/sio-dev/
Unsubscribe: mailto:sio-dev-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Community Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/SIO/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SharingIntegratingOntologies
|
_________________________________________________________________
Msg Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/sio-dev/
Join Community: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/sio-dev/
Unsubscribe: mailto:sio-dev-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Community Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/SIO/
Community Wiki:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SharingIntegratingOntologies (01)
|