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I would revert to Jim Schoening's wording, if possible,
which brings cost into the statement. "Increasingly indispensable" is indeed
right if you:
1) want to achieve semantic interoperability among
disparate domain ontologies, some of which are grounded in other reference,
middle, or upper ontologies (or all), but most of which are not; and
2) if you want to decrease your very high point-to-point
semantic interoperability development and maintenance costs in the future.
(By the way, the same argument holds for syntactic/structural
interoperability: witness the rise of data warehouses, data marts, notions of
federated models, federated query capabilities, the ETL (Extract-Transform-Load)
database paradigm, all of which try to mitigate interoperability problems at the
syntactic/structural level).
Remember that the value of reuse and non-n-squared semantic
(and other) integration is recurrent, pro-rate-able. High costs up front, vastly
decreasing costs down stream.
Plus, of course, semantic heterogeneity only increases
through time, as you go from system to systems-of-systems to enterprise to
community to internet levels. The value proposition of increased semantic
interoperability using upper ontologies (one or a lattice) increases over time.
Software engineers and eventually managers will understand these arguments,
I think.
Leo
_____________________________________________
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
Instead of 'helpful' or 'essential' how about 'will
become increasingly indispensable' (very clear evidence for this already in
biomedicine, if evidence were needed)
BS
At 09:04 AM 2/28/2006,
Cassidy, Patrick J. wrote:
Q: is a common upper ontology
essential for semantic interoperability?
Mike Uschold thinks not, and
Matthew West agrees:
[MU] > This statement is too strong, and I
don't agree with it in its
current
> form:
>
>
"the use of some formally
defined common upper ontology is
> essential for semantic
interoperability."
>
[MU] > UOs can be a big help
towards solving semantic interoperability,
by
> making part of the
problem go away. The whole problem [pretty
> much] goes away if
everyone uses the same ontology.
>
"If everyone uses the
same ontology" the problem indeed goes away.
So let us focus on the
question of what happens when (as we know is
happening and will continue
to happen) people develop their own domain
ontologies in different
locations, in uncoordinated fashion. Two
alternatives:
Case
(1): Two ontologies use the same upper ontology to provide the
basic
concepts with which they specify the meanings of their domain
ontology
elements (Types, relations). Where new relations are created,
the
axiomatizations also use the components from the same
upper
ontology. Once an ontology element is specified by use of
components
from the upper ontology, it can be itself used as part of an
extension
of the upper ontology, and ontology elements specified using
such
extensions can also be considered as specified with the upper
ontology.
If any two such domain ontologies want to interoperate,
they share all
of the newly created domain specifications that are not in
the common
upper ontology. They also share all of the data that
they intend to
reason with. The result is in fact exactly the same
ontology on both
ends. Voila! Interoperability.
Why is this
better than just mapping? It can be viewed as a "mapping"
of a
sort, using the upper ontology, but by using the upper ontology
for
*creation* of the domain ontologies, as well as for the "mapping"
phase,
the mappings can be precise, and can be accomplished
automatically.
There is some work needed to eliminate and merge
duplicates, e.g. to
recognize when the same Type or relation, defined
separately, has a
different name; that will be evident from their
specifications. The
same instances may appear with different names;
this could also happen in
a single ontology - the methods used to
determine the names of instances
would need to be shared. Likewise, it
is possible that the same
instances have been assigned to different
Types. If the Types are
disjoint, that would signal a logical
contradiction which would mean that
one or both of the domain
ontologies are erroneous. Using the same
upper ontology does not
prevent one from creating nonsense, but it does
help a lot to recognize
the problem.
There is also an issue of
when a newly-created concept has some
"primitive" character, and should
be in the upper ontology rather than
in a mid-level or domain
ontology. I can think of some criteria for
making such a decision,
but that is not essential to the point at hand.
Case (2): Two
ontologies are created using different upper ontologies,
or no upper
ontology at all. Now try to relate them. How? There
has
been a lot of effort expended in finding ways to automatically
map,
merge, align, or integrate ontologies. Much of the work makes
sense
and may be useful for limited purposes, but has no hope of
creating
accurate and complete maps between independently created
ontologies
because the information needed to accurately relate the
ontology
elements to each other is in general not present in the
individual
ontologies. Even when present, it is only in the
comments, not usable
for automated integration. The problem of
ambiguity of words used in
disparate databases also applies to terms used
to label ontology
concepts, or instances. I find it hard to
visualize how a merger of
ontologies developed without a common upper
ontology could begin to
approach the accuracy that can be expected from
using the same basic
upper ontology elements for creating the domain
ontologies. The problem
of recognizing what is intended by a logical
specification for a Type
or relation disappears when the same set of
basic concepts is used to
create the specification. It is
intractable when different basic
notions are used to create the
specifications, as there will always be
some unexpressed components of
meaning that are left out of the
fundamental ontology elements, and each
independently developed
ontology will leave out different components of
meaning.
===========================
So, back to the starting
question:
Q: is a common upper ontology essential for semantic
interoperability?
If by "semantic interoperability" we mean
interoperation between
applications using ontologies developed separately
(i.e., not
applications developed using the same domain ontology), I do
think that
the answer is "yes".
"helpful"?????
Anything can be helpful. I don't think that using
that wimpy word
in place of "essential" will be helpful.
Pat
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
-----Original Message-----
From:
uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[
mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
West,
Matthew R SIPC-DFD/321
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 6:43
AM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene]
Other Approaches Too.
I agree with
Mike.
Regards
Matthew West
Reference Data Architecture
and Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company
Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20
7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>
-----Original Message-----
> From:
uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [
mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
Uschold,
> Michael F
> Sent: 28 February 2006 01:51
> To:
Upper Ontology Summit convention
> Subject: RE: [uos-convene] Other
Approaches Too.
>
>
> This statement is too strong, and
I don't agree with it in its
current
> form:
>
>
"the use of some formally
defined common upper ontology is
> essential for semantic
interoperability."
>
> Replace 'essential' with
'helpful', and I'm on board.
>
> UOs can be a big help towards
solving semantic interoperability, by
> making part of the problem go
away. The whole problem [pretty
> much] goes
> away if everyone
uses the same ontology.
>
> We get over lack of a common
ontology by mapping between
> them, we can do
> the same thing
for UOs, in principle.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
-----Original Message-----
> From: Schoening, James R C-E LCMC
CIO/G6
> [ mailto:James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent:
Saturday, February 25, 2006 4:09 PM
> To:
'uos-convene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: [uos-convene] Other
Approaches Too.
>
> 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."
>
>
> 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.
>
> #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, lack of market
> momentum toward any one
candidate, and maybe just because there is no
> one correct upper
ontology.
>
> #3 I don't see this happening any time
soon. Stand-alone ontologies
> don't need and aren't using upper
ontologies.
>
> #2. This could work, but only if the
reach agreement and then use the
> CUO.
>
> #1. This
could work, but again, only if the major player successfully
> uses
the CUO.
>
> And I am anxious to learn more about the approach
of this summit.
>
> Jim Schoening
>
>
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