Re: 1) Are there use
cases that describe uses of an ontology repository that go beyond the
development and sharing of ontologies (i.e. something closer to the
eventual end user use cases of the ontologies I guess)?
See:
* http://portal.modeldriven.org/content/president-obamas-initiatives
* http://portal.modeldriven.org/content/recipe-enable-president-obamas-initiatives
The use case is open government. Open government
requires open information. Open information, to be usable, requires usable
descriptions of that information as well as the processes and policies that
produce it.
-Cory Casanave
From: sio-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:sio-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Ron Wheeler
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010
3:57 PM
To: [sio-dev]
discussion
Subject: Re: [sio-dev] Fwd: [ontolog-forum] Sharing andIntegrating Ontologies
On 07/04/2010 12:59 PM, Cameron Ross wrote:
Hi Ali,
Thanks for the detailed response. I agree with
Ron that you should consider putting this up on the wiki!
The Ontology Design Tool use case takes an ontology
repository as input, along with input from a user, to generate an ontology as
an output. Both Semantic Mapping Tool uses cases take an ontology
repository as input, along with mapping axioms input from a user, and generate
an interpretation of the "Similarity" and "Differences"
between ontologies. Although these are certainly useful use cases, they
don't address my original questions. To clarify, I will restate my
questions:
1) Are there use cases that describe uses of an
ontology repository that go beyond the development and sharing of
ontologies (i.e. something closer to the eventual end user use cases of the
ontologies I guess)?
2) Are there use cases that clearly justify the
need for an "Online Repository"? By "Online
Repository", I mean an information system deployed on a centralized server
somewhere (or cluster) that provides users the ability to CRUD and process
repository information in near-real-time. This is in contrast to what
I'll refer to here as a "Static Repository". Take the Eclipse
open source software project as an example. We may define the Subversion
repositories used to manage the Eclipse software artifacts (e.g. source code)
as a "Static Repository". Users checkout artifacts from
the repository to their own local copy of the repository. Users
then CRUD and process their copy of the repository, synchronizing their
copy with the maser repository on occasion. Both Online and Static
Repositories have merit with the appropriate solution dependent on the intended
uses of the repository.
I'm not advocating either approach, but it would be
great to see the use cases that clearly justify one approach over the other.
I get the sense that we have tacitly decided that an ontology repository
must be an Online Repository. However, if there are no specific use
cases for an Online Repository then I would recommend that a Static Repository
be considered as the effort to deliver a production quality Online Repository
is much, much higher. There are all kinds of tools, systems, portals and
experience that we could leverage for a Static Repository. There are
examples of initiatives that manage some very large collections of engineered
software artifacts. The Eclipse Foundation, Apache Foundation and Linux
come to mind.
3) Does it make sense to consider ontologies, or
their modules, to be engineered software artifacts?
They would seem to share a lot of the same properties
- versioning is important,
- dependencies on other ontologies looks pretty familiar
- peer compatibility
4) Are there significant differences between a
collection of CLIF or OWL files and a collection of Java files that force us to
consider an entirely different approach to constructing a large collection of
such artifacts within a collaborative environment?
This is an interesting question and I suspect that the
differences may look bigger at first than they really are upon closer
examination.
There is certainly a value in looking at Eclipse, Maven and Nexus (and their
competing solution elements) for useful hints about how an integrated approach
should work.
Ron
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Ali Hashemi <ali.hashemi+ontolog@xxxxxxxxxxx> 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
(•`'·.¸(`'·.¸(•)¸.·'´)¸.·'´•) .,.,
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