Hi Mills... (01)
I agree. However, I chose my particular suggestion for the tests so
that they test two very specific hypotheses: (02)
1) That ULO extended to domain ontology beats tabula rasa domain
ontology given equal tasks, equal resources, and tested with respect
to performance on that particular domain. (03)
2) That ULO-based domain ontologies beat tabula rasa domain ontology
given equal tasks, equal resources, when each is required to be
extended to a related but different domain. (04)
These are not tests of the individual ontologies themselves. In
fact, I can't conceive of what tests one might put to such things,
other than, say logical consistency wrt their respective formalisms.
That's not very interesting. I would expect that different upper
levels would exhibit variable levels of comparative performance on
these tests. (05)
What *is* interesting is to test the claims of ULO advocates
(including myself) that ULO not only better supports integration
(that's part of what the extension test would show) but also improves
the quality and lowers production cost of individual domain ontologies. (06)
If these hypotheses prove correct, I claim that they put what I call
the "strong semantic web position" (that separately developed domain-
specific ontologies may be effectively linked and merged) and the
"folksonomic position" under significant pressure to validate their
claims, which IMHO have gone virtually unchallenged. By contrast,
the "weak semantic web position" (that web-technology-based
mechanisms can be used to aid syntactic interoperability) seems to me
to be relatively innocuous. (07)
On Mar 11, 2006, at 22:57 , Mills Davis wrote: (08)
> Bill,
>
> Exactly. What if the ULO group can establish a test bed where each
> of these different formalisms can be represented, explored,
> compared, and evaluated in an executable environment (and in the
> context of specific problems to solve, or solutions to implement)?
> This would be valuable for everybody.
>
> Mills
>
> On Mar 11, 2006, at 5:58 PM, Bill Andersen wrote:
>
>> C'mon, Leo! You're spoiling my fun! And why do all of this work
>> if it isn't fun? :-D
>>
>> Actually, I am serious about that test I mentioned. If some
>> entity like DARPA or ARDA is looking for something worthwhile to
>> do, I would consider a test such as this worthy of funding.
>>
>> On Mar 11, 2006, at 17:55 , Obrst, Leo J. wrote:
>>
>>> Bill,
>>>
>>> We are ALL on your side, because we have all gone through this so
>>> many
>>> times. We all firmly believe in the value and ultimate necessity of
>>> Upper Ontologies -- because we have fought our way to this
>>> conclusion
>>> the hard way. We just need to impress this experience on others who
>>> have not yet undergone the baptism by fire. Teach them, not exorcise
>>> them.
>>>
>>> Leo
>>>
>>> ps. So does this mean that relational databases don't already
>>> provide
>>> everything that we need? ;)
>>> _____________________________________________
>>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> [mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill
>>> Andersen
>>> Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 5:36 PM
>>> To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
>>> Subject: [uos-convene] The value of ULO
>>>
>>> Just a quick comment on Mills' comment:
>>>
>>> Before continuing, let me first say that I am happy that Mills is an
>>> advocate for ontologies in general. Ok... but...
>>>
>>>> Bottom line: I applaud and encourage the efforts of this UO
>>>> community. By coming together, I hope they deliver value. At the
>>>> same
>>>> time, I'm reserving judgement (or, remaining agnostic regarding the
>>>> value, pending evidence), and am harboring a supposition that in
>>>> the
>>>> next year or so, technology may be emerging that will obviate UO
>>>> arguments by subsuming all of these disparate approaches and
>>>> subjecting them to tests of efficacy.
>>>
>>> I am having a very hard time understanding this comment. Short of
>>> HAL-9000, just what technology might that be that will subsume UO or
>>> "obviate UO arguments"?
>>>
>>> One of the things that has been systematically overlooked in these
>>> discussions is that almost all of the ULOs under discussion here are
>>> at least in part philosophically motivated. This includes at least
>>> SUMO, Cyc, DOLCE, and Matt West's 4D ontology and to a lesser extent
>>> PSL. They are so because the philosophers have been at this
>>> business
>>> for 2500 years, long before the advent of the W3C. The tools of
>>> mathematical logic and later computational logic were what were
>>> needed to make this 2500 years of work effective.
>>>
>>> As for efficacy, I have been arguing the need for this since my
>>> first
>>> posts to this mailing list. One comment that I have made more
>>> than a
>>> couple times in different guises is that the value of ULO lies NOT
>>> ONLY in semantic interoperability but has engineering advantages as
>>> well for building individual ontologies. Our experience at OW has
>>> been that we build better ontologies much faster (and thus at less
>>> cost) than those who take a tabula rasa approach, no matter what
>>> formalism they work in. That we have done this, you'll just have to
>>> take my word as the work was either classified or FOUO.
>>>
>>> The good news is you don't have to take my word for it. I
>>> suggest we
>>> set up an experiment by which teams of comparable expertise in their
>>> chosen formalisms, given the same domain description and a fixed
>>> amount of time, one using a ULO and one prohibited from doing so,
>>> build a domain ontology to meet the description. Then, given the
>>> same data sets, both are subject to a bank of blind competence
>>> questions based solely on the domain description by parties
>>> unfamiliar with the logical formalisms employed. We repeat the
>>> experiment several times on different domains. As an added
>>> bonus, we
>>> then take the resulting domain ontologies and, using them as
>>> starting
>>> points, ask each team (ULO, and non-ULO) to *extend* them to a
>>> different, but related domain. Then more competency questions.
>>>
>>> I know on which team I'll place my bet. Any takers?
>>>
>>> .bill
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
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>> UpperOntologySummit
>>
>
> Mills Davis
> Managing Director
> Project10X
> 202-667-6400
> 202-255-6655 cel
> 202-667-6512 fax
> mdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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> UpperOntologySummit
> (09)
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 (010)
_________________________________________________________________
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