I agree with Pat's points except would modify the following: (01)
PAT: Of course, any two systems can be integrated by the builders
getting
together and creating a "mapping" that satisfies them both, but that is
the equivalent of creating a common upper ontology for the two systems. (02)
I would say that you end up with an integrative ontology, not
necessarily a common upper ontology. However, the longer you continue
on the path to integrating domain ontologies, then integrating the
integrative ontologies, etc., the more you evolve to an upper ontology. (03)
Leo (04)
_____________________________________________
Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
lobrst@xxxxxxxxx Center for Innovative Computing & Informatics
Voice: 703-983-6770 7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA (05)
-----Original Message-----
From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cassidy,
Patrick J.
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2006 2:14 AM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] Other Approaches Too. (06)
My own take on where a common upper ontology is "needed": (07)
[JS] >> > I agree with Steve Ray's statement in the draft communique,
>
> "We all agree the use of some formally defined common upper
> ontology is essential for semantic interoperability." (08)
[BA] >> I would not go so far as to say "essential". EII and EAI are
not
*complete* failures today. They do work, but require a lot of
effort. The promise of (upper) ontology is that it makes the cost of
doing these things acceptable where it can't be argued that it is,
except for situations where the ROI warrants the cost. (09)
. . . and . . . (010)
[JS] >> > #3 I don't see this happening any time soon. Stand-alone
> ontologies don't need and aren't using upper ontologies. (011)
[BA] >> I don't deny they aren't using them. Again, the "what's the
difference between your ontology and a data model" question arises.
I do deny that they don't need them. As I mentioned above, our
experience indicates otherwise and I believe there are good non-
empirical arguments that ULO, properly done, beats "roll-your-own"
ontology every time where the roles of ontologies extend beyond those
played today by data models. (012)
[PC] --
I would distinguish "being useful" and "being essential". As Bill
suggests from his experience, having an upper ontology that has been
tested in many scenarios is probably going to result in a better
application and one that can be developed more efficiently. But I
would not say it is **essential**; one could develop a good stand-alone
ontology application with only one's own domain ontology (though
probably more slowly and less cost-effectively). Where some common
upper ontology is **essential** is the case where two or more
semantic-based reasoning systems (with non-trivial semantics, e.g. > 50
relations) want to share their knowledge. Without **exactly** the same
upper ontology for at least the ontology elements being shared, the
likelihood of error or logical contradiction (i.e.
non-interoperability) may be quite high - this is my own suspicion
based only on experiments with small ontologies. Even with small
ontologies, creating contradictions or semantic nonsense is easy - as
easy as creating a bug in a program that is never actually tested by
running it. (013)
Of course, any two systems can be integrated by the builders getting
together and creating a "mapping" that satisfies them both, but that is
the equivalent of creating a common upper ontology for the two systems.
As for enterprise architectures, one may get some useful level of
"interoperability" if the reasoning used is very simple and the number
of different relations is small enough that everyone can easily
understand exactly what is intended. But for **accurate**
interoperability among multiple systems doing complex reasoning with
complex ontologies, it seems so improbable as to be utterly negligible
that it could be done without the same upper ontology. Getting some
automated mapping to be correct 80% of the time has no hope of being
useful in applications where some important decision is going to be
made without a human to review alternatives. But then, I'm an
experimentalist, and if anyone has an example of where it has actually
been done, I will be delighted to be proved wrong and to learn from the
experience. (014)
Pat (015)
Patrick Cassidy
MITRE Corporation
260 Industrial Way
Eatontown, NJ 07724
Mail Stop: MNJE
Phone: 732-578-6340
Cell: 908-565-4053
Fax: 732-578-6012
Email: pcassidy@xxxxxxxxx (016)
-----Original Message-----
From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill
Andersen
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2006 12:53 AM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: Re: [uos-convene] Other Approaches Too. (017)
Jim raises some good (and some IMHO mistaken) points. Seems as good
a time as any to put my $0.02 in. See below for comments. (018)
On Feb 25, 2006, at 19:08 , Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6 wrote: (019)
> All,
>
> I agree with Steve Ray's statement in the draft communique,
>
> "We all agree the use of some formally defined common upper
> ontology is essential for semantic interoperability." (020)
I would not go so far as to say "essential". EII and EAI are not
*complete* failures today. They do work, but require a lot of
effort. The promise of (upper) ontology is that it makes the cost of
doing these things acceptable where it can't be argued that it is,
except for situations where the ROI warrants the cost. (021)
> I support exploring this new approach, but let's not dismiss other
> possible approaches, such as:
>
> 1. Major Leader Approach:
> a. A large player selects one CUO (after seeking input and
> consensus within an open forum)
> b. Its business partners use it and it spreads gobally
>
> 2. Consortium Leader Approach:
>
> a. A consortium of key players develop or select a CUO.
> b. It spreads globally
>
> 3. Market Momentum Approach
> a. Many players use different CUOs and the market eventually
moves
> toward one of them.
>
> 4. Consensus Approach
> Open forum seeks to develop or select a CUO.
>
> My assessment of each:
>
> All approaches need more commercial success of basic system
> ontologies. (022)
This is a key point. While I don't have a good handle on precisely
how much OWL, for example, is being used, the uses I have seen of it
outside academic contexts have, without exception, been trivial -
rarely beyond what could have been done with RDFS. As I have said in
other fora, I would like to know what about these uses constitutes
"ontology" where data models in use since the 70s and especially
since UML do not. In short, we're a long long (long) way from
talking about ubiquitous interoperability or integration. (023)
> #4 IEEE SUO WG (which I chaired) tried this but achieved little
> consensus, due in part to lack of utilization of the candidate
> upper ontologies, lack of pragmatic vendor participation, (024)
(guilty?) :-D (025)
> lack of market momentum toward any one candidate, and maybe just
> because there is no one correct upper ontology. (026)
Again, I don't think there are many applications out there (at least
as far as I know) outside academia that are doing anything serious or
large enough to test the "upper-level" hypothesis. The only
commercial systems I know of that employ an upper ontology in a
central role are Cycorp's and ours (Ontology Works). We have many
projects where our upper level is being exercised and our empirical
data on development and lifecycle costs indicates that ULO makes a
big difference. As for integration we can't say definitively because
no customer has attempted to use our system for that. I can't speak
for Cycorp but I suspect they could tell similar stories. (027)
> #3 I don't see this happening any time soon. Stand-alone
> ontologies don't need and aren't using upper ontologies. (028)
I don't deny they aren't using them. Again, the "what's the
difference between your ontology and a data model" question arises.
I do deny that they don't need them. As I mentioned above, our
experience indicates otherwise and I believe there are good non-
empirical arguments that ULO, properly done, beats "roll-your-own"
ontology every time where the roles of ontologies extend beyond those
played today by data models. (029)
Jim makes good points. All hinges on whether ULO is useful. I
believe it is but we are a long way from providing anything more than
anecdotal evidence. As that evidence comes in it will become
apparent exactly what role ULO is playing and exactly what benefits
it brings. (030)
Finally, let me suggest this as a topic that the Summit might spend
some time on. I would be very happy to participate in such a
discussion. (031)
.bill (032)
Bill Andersen (andersen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Chief Scientist
Ontology Works, Inc. (www.ontologyworks.com)
3600 O'Donnell Street, Suite 600
Baltimore, MD 21224
Office: 410-675-1201
Cell: 443-858-6444 (033)
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