OntologySummit Theme: Community Brainstorm Session - Thu 2013-09-19    (3T93)

Session Co-chairs: MichaelGruninger (IAOA; U of Toronto) & PeterYim (Ontolog; CIM3)    (3WSW)

Topic: Brainstorm Session on the OntologySummit2014 Theme: Community Input & Planning    (3WSX)

* * * Note that this session will start 1 hour earlier than our normal session time * * *    (3WUA)

Archives:    (3XSQ)

Conference Call Details    (3WSY)

Attendees    (3WTV)

Abstract    (3WU7)

The OntologySummit is an annual series of events (first started by Ontolog and NIST in 2006) that involves the ontology community and communities related to each year's theme chosen for the summit. The Ontology Summit program is now co-organized by Ontolog, NIST, NCOR, NCBO, IAOA, NCO_NITRD along with the co-sponsorship of other organizations that are supportive of the Summit goals and objectives.    (3XSY)

While the actual events of OntologySummit2014 will be rolled out between January and April of 2014, we have decided we will try to plan for it early. An initial round of input has already been received, as part of the OntologySummit2013 postmortem session on 2013.05.23. During that session, the community also agreed on having today's session, so we can dedicate some quality time to specifically discuss the possibilities and options on the choice of Themes for OntologySummit2014. This session will, therefore, be devoted to explore the theme(s) and topics that would best allow us to leverage next year's OntologySummit.    (3XSZ)

Ideas and suggestions collected so far are available at: OntologySummit/Suggestions. Members of the community are encouraged to continuously and asynchronously provide further input via this wiki page and via the [ontology-summit] mailing list as well.    (3XT0)

See developing details on the next Summit's homepage at: OntologySummit2014    (3XT1)

Agenda:    (3T94)

Brainstorm Session on the OntologySummit2014 Theme: Community Input & Planning    (3XT2)

Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call    (3XT3)

Proceedings    (3XT9)

Please refer to the above    (3XTA)

IM Chat Transcript captured during the session    (3XTB)

 see raw transcript here.    (3XTC)
 (for better clarity, the version below is a re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript.)
 Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit.    (3XTD)
 -- begin in-session chat-transcript --    (3XTE)
	------
	Chat transcript from room: summit_20130919
	2013-09-19 GMT-08:00 [PDT]
	------    (3YNN)
	[8:16] PeterYim: Welcome to the    (3YNO)
	 = OntologySummit Theme: Community Brainstorm Session - Thu 2013-09-19 =    (3YNP)
	Session Co-chairs: Professor MichaelGruninger & Mr. PeterYim    (3YNQ)
	Topic: Brainstorm Session on the OntologySummit2014 Theme: Community Input & Planning    (3YNR)
	Logistics:    (3YNS)
	* Refer to details on session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2013_09_19    (3YNT)
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	Attendees: MichaelGruninger (co-chair), PeterYim (co-chair), AliHashemi, BobSmith, HensonGraves, 
	JackRing, KenBaclawski, LamarHenderson, LeoObrst, MatthewWest, MikeDean, Richard Martin, 
	StefanoBorgo, ToddSchneider    (3YNX)
	 == proceedings ==    (3YNY)
	[8:33] PeterYim: == MichaelGruninger & PeterYim starts session by providing an overview - see intro 
	slides at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2013_09_19#nid3XST    (3YNZ)
	[8:42] List of members: AliHashemi, Bob Smith, HensonGraves, KenBaclawski, LamarHenderson, LeoObrst, 
	MichaelGruninger, MikeDean, PeterYim, Richard Martin, ToddSchneider, vnc2    (3YO0)
	[8:43] PeterYim: == open discussion begins ...    (3YO1)
	[8:44] LeoObrst: How about, a slight merger of topics: Ontologies and Reasoning over Big Data    (3YO2)
	[8:44] PeterYim: Michael suggested ToddSchneider starts the discussion off ... telling us about his 
	suggestion of the "Reasoning with Ontologies" theme (that he brought up during the 
	OntologySummit2013 postmortem session)    (3YO3)
	[8:45] PeterYim: @Todd - how do you see this theme interact with the RulesReasoningLP mini-series 
	that is just starting on Ontolog?    (3YO4)
	[8:47] ToddSchneider: Peter, yes. They overlap.    (3YO5)
	[8:--] PeterYim: I suggest we capitalize on the buzz in "Big Data" and work on a theme that shows 
	the world how Ontology can contribute to Big Data    (3YO6)
	[8:48] AliHashemi: I'd be very interested in Ontologies in Hybrid Reasoning Systems.. It is relevant 
	to both Todd and Peter's points.    (3YO7)
	[8:49] AliHashemi: Given that in many contexts, people assert that reasoning over declarative 
	constructs is not particularly efficient, it would be interesting to see how various people cordon 
	off declarative reasoning, and pass off the reasoning task to some alternative system    (3YO8)
	[8:49] AliHashemi: I suspect many Big Data problems would invoke such a methodology.    (3YO9)
	[8:50] LeoObrst: There is a AAAI Fall Symposium on "Semantics for Big Data": 
	http://www.aaai.org/Symposia/Fall/fss13symposia.php#fs04. Also, STIDS 2013 theme is "Semantics 
	Technologies for Big Data": http://stids.c4i.gmu.edu/.    (3YOA)
	[8:52] HensonGraves: Metadata and its generalization to ontologies for managing large data is one 
	promising area where reasoning is applicable for finding and drawing conclusions about data    (3YOB)
	[8:53] ToddSchneider: Another aspect of big data is search and semantic search.    (3YOC)
	[8:57] MichaelGruninger: I really like the idea of a Summit that brings together the Semantic Web 
	community with the formal and applied ontology community    (3YOD)
	[8:57] PeterYim: Leo / Michael: ... the merged "merger of topics: Ontologies and Reasoning over Big 
	Data" (plus Ali's suggestion on "hybrid reasoning") provides a theme that will bring the ontology 
	community and the semantic web community together too    (3YOE)
	[8:58] LeoObrst: The Linked Data community typically addresses the lower range of the Semantic Web, 
	i.e., RDF + URIs / IRIs. That too is "big" distributed data.    (3YOF)
	[8:58] AliHashemi: A common complaint from the ontology community is that sem web vocabularies don't 
	often have explicit semantics. In many cases, these semantics are interpreted by other tools, 
	because ontology reasoning tools are not perceived as being adequate to the task.    (3YOG)
	[8:59] AliHashemi: Elaborating on these rationales, and identifying why and how the reasoning is 
	passed to external processes would be informative    (3YOH)
	[9:00] AliHashemi: Isn't there a danger at casting too broad a scope for the theme? It can detract 
	from generating something actionably useful for the community(ies)    (3YOI)
	[8:59] ToddSchneider: Peter, what's the schedule for the Rules, Reasoning, LP meetings?    (3YOJ)
	[9:00] PeterYim: @Todd - see: 
	http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2013_09_12#nid3XF2    (3YOK)
	[9:01] PeterYim: mini-series sessions: (3XF2)    (3YOL)
	    R1. RulesReasoningLP: Survey and Introduction [LeoObrst, BenjaminGrosof]    (3XF3)
	       session date: Thu 2013.10.24    (3XF6)
	    R2. Concepts and Foundations of Logic Programming and Semantic Web Programming [LeoObrst, PascalHitzler]    (3XF7)
	        session date: Thu 2013.10.31    (3XFA)
	    R3. Rule Standards: Common Logic, RuleML, and RIF [HaroldBoley, AdrianPaschke, MikeDean]    (3XFB)
	        session date: Thu 2013.11.21    (3XFE)
	    R4. Guide to Reasoning Applications Development and Cases [HensonGraves, KenBaclawski]    (3XFF)
	        session date: Thu 2013.12.19    (3XFI)    (3YOM)
	[9:02] LeoObrst: The "standard" approach to Semantic Web / OWL + logic programming (with rules) 
	reasoning has been explicitly hybrid, i.e., some approaches in logic programming use two parts to 
	any rule, a description logic part and a standard logic programming part. Other approaches do try to 
	merge these, e.g., Grosof's work, etc.    (3YON)
	[9:03] AliHashemi: Can we identify some of the pain points @ the interfaces between the two 
	communities?    (3YOO)
	[9:03] AliHashemi: My impression is that the Semantic Web community stays away from more formal 
	ontologies because (a) they're hard, (b) suspicions about the value of reasoning over the ontologies    (3YOP)
	[9:03] AliHashemi: *i could be wrong*    (3YOQ)
	[9:04] HensonGraves: upper ontologies are quite useful for describing large data sets    (3YOR)
	[9:06] ToddSchneider: Henson, but the descriptions (based on a foundational ontology) usually don't 
	support the detailed analysis that users expect.    (3YOS)
	[9:08] HensonGraves: Todd, the upper ontologies give a good, common place to start, they may have to 
	be enriched    (3YOT)
	[9:05] ToddSchneider: What about the something along the lines of creating ontologies from big data?    (3YOU)
	[9:05] AliHashemi: If the idea is to try to bridge the gap, I would suggest we do some "market 
	research" and identify what the real pain points between the two communities are    (3YOV)
	[9:05] AliHashemi: and perhaps focus in on these issues.    (3YOW)
	[9:06] ToddSchneider: Ali, which communities?    (3YOX)
	[9:06] AliHashemi: for @12:05 - communities would be Formal Ontology and Semantic Web    (3YOY)
	[9:09] ToddSchneider: Should we spin the notion as 'big linked data':)?    (3YOZ)
	[9:09] PeterYim: when we are doing an "internal-facing theme" we want to be *very focused* ... but 
	when we are doing an "external-facing" theme, having a wider scope can actually be useful, and allow 
	us to be more inclusive, get more people engaged, and so on    (3YP0)
	[9:10] Richard Martin: How does the topic proposal for the two communities fit with the topic of 
	Semantic Federation?    (3YP1)
	[9:12] anonymous morphed into MatthewWest    (3YP2)
	[9:15] MatthewWest: Apologies for late arrival.    (3YP3)
	[9:12] MikeDean: JimHendler named director of new RPI Institute for Data Exploration and 
	Applications (IDEA): http://prod3.server.rpi.edu/oth/update.do?artcenterkey=3060    (3YP4)
	[9:12] AliHashemi: Well, why does Jim think that deep semantics are not fruitful?    (3YP5)
	[9:12] AliHashemi: And why do we give the impression that lightweight semantics are not enough?    (3YP6)
	[9:19] JackRing: Beyond today's session focus on the [Ontology community + Semantic Web community] 
	is the N other communities who do not have necessary, sufficient and efficient ways of understanding 
	one another. Is it time to address the larger problem? Until we respond to the issue of semantic 
	federation we will not serve the "marketplace"    (3YP7)
	[9:26] JackRing: This may be too far off the wall but please consider why the Morse Code was 
	embraced by many people world-wide whereas Esperanto exhibited far less market standing.    (3YP8)
	[9:33] JackRing: As the bumper sticker says, "Ontologies Happen" or is there a way to precipitate an 
	ontology representative of some field of discourse? The decisions and choices that arrive at an 
	ontology are quite similar to those that arrive at a model of most any system, describing its 
	intended purpose along with what it IS, KNOWS and DOES. A large vote for how to arrive at an 
	ontology.    (3YP9)
	[9:20] AliHashemi: IMO, the hybrid reasoning approach would help bridge these multiple communities. 
	In each community, what an ontology can offer is limited by a variety of factors, and how the 
	ontology operates in the larger systems is dependent on the perception of the community of the 
	limits of ontology, and the passing off of erstwhile reasoning tasks to other system components.    (3YPA)
	[9:20] BobSmith: The Financial Industry BUSINESS Ontology (FIBO) effort seems rich with potential 
	facets to discuss    (3YPB)
	[9:23] PeterYim: @RichardMartin, JackRing, BobSmith, LamarHenderson - are you alluding to the use of 
	 "ontological analysis" as the means whereby we can reach out to a lot of other communities?    (3YPC)
	[9:24] LeoObrst: "Big data" is a bit of a misnomer. Typically what is meant is vast uninterpreted, 
	barely interpreted, or disparately interpreted data. Hence the usual use of quantitative methods 
	(statistical, data-mining, etc.) But there is other big data, such as in e-science, the financial 
	community, where there is a need for finer semantic interpretation.    (3YPD)
	[9:24] HensonGraves: Peter, yes i agree    (3YPE)
	[9:30] ToddSchneider: Use of ontology for managing big data?    (3YPF)
	[9:31] HensonGraves: Todd, as I was saying earlier ontology is very useful for managing big data. 
	this is using an ontology as a generalized version of metadata    (3YPG)
	[9:32] ToddSchneider: If the theme is ontology development, do we then have a ready set of speakers 
	(i.e., the upcoming book contributors?:)    (3YPH)
	[9:33] MichaelGruninger: Theme 1: Semantic Web and Formal Applied Ontology    (3YPI)
	[9:33] MichaelGruninger: Theme 2: Semantic Federation    (3YPJ)
	[9:34] MichaelGruninger: Theme 3: Development of Ontologies    (3YPK)
	[9:34] RichardMartin: Assuming that 1) a very specific domain ontology is possible for each of 
	several related domains, 2) how do we use ontological tools to communicate amongst those 
	communities?    (3YPL)
	[9:34] MatthewWest: The challenge with Big Data and Linked Data is that it is just data, and the 
	problems are the same problems we have discussed before, mostly about meaning and integration. 
	However, engaging with the latest buzz words obviously has some merit. I would also be interested in 
	looking at some of the "What" we identified in this year's communique, and developing it into a "How 
	to" methodology for some of those tasks.    (3YPM)
	[9:35] PeterYim: Theme 3a: Development of Ontologies within and across domains    (3YPN)
	[9:35] ToddSchneider: If the theme is development of ontologies, then I would expect the outcome and 
	the communique to provide a paradigm for developing ontologies.    (3YPO)
	[9:35] HensonGraves: development of ontologies as a way of bridging different communities, and 
	communities such as construction which have to broaden their conversation    (3YPP)
	[9:36] JackRing: If we pursue Theme 3 then Semantic Federation becomes a facet of the design 
	process. Then we notice that Big Data is a pile of needles in which there may be several straws 
	belonging to several systems.    (3YPQ)
	[9:37] LeoObrst: Semantic Web and Formal Applied Ontology for Big Data    (3YPR)
	[9:38] PeterYim: @LeoObrst and All: how about - Theme 1a:Semantic Web and Formal Applied Ontology 
	for Big Data    (3YPS)
	[9:38] LamarHenderson: We need to define big data.    (3YPT)
	[9:38] MatthewWest: Rather we need to discover how Big Data is being used.    (3YPU)
	[9:43] RichardMartin: How do we craft a domain ontology to maximize the use of reasoning methods 
	across domains?    (3YPV)
	[9:44] LeoObrst: Potential tracks: 
	       1) definition of big data and kinds of semantic interpretations needed, i.e., use cases. 
	       2) combining ontological reasoning and lightweight SW reasoning over big data. 
               3) Combining quantitative methods with ontological reasoning over big data.    (3YPW)
	[9:45] JackRing: 2 and 3 are not the same. 2 presumes entities already exist and must be 
	rationalized whereas 3 creates the entities    (3YPX)
	[9:47] AliHashemi: For what it's worth, while I believe reasoning could be a single track in the 
	Semantic Web + Formal Ontology track is viable    (3YPY)
	[9:47] ToddSchneider: How about the application of ontology analysis in big data and the semantic 
	web as a theme?    (3YPZ)
	[9:47] AliHashemi: It is a distinct theme, because reasoning in Systems vs reasoning in Semantic Web 
	vs reasoning in Big Data have separate components    (3YQ0)
	[9:48] AliHashemi: and could be individual tracks each    (3YQ1)
	[9:48] LeoObrst: Also, a topic like "Semantic Web and Formal Applied Ontology for Big Data" kind of 
	teams up the two communities to collaboratively address "big data" issues.    (3YQ2)
	[9:48]MatthewWest: It would be better to pick something specific rather than try to combine everything.    (3YQ3)
	[9:48] HensonGraves: got to go, by    (3YQ4)
	[9:49] AliHashemi: I've got to run. Bye.    (3YQ5)
	[9:50] LeoObrst: I must go too.    (3YQ6)
	[9:52] PeterYim: summarize (title and one paragraph): 
	                   Theme-1 - MichaelGruninger; 
	                   Theme-2 - RichardMartin; 
                           Theme-3 - ToddSchneider 
                           -> send to MichaelGruninger    (3YQ7)
	[9:53] PeterYim: Michael will then post to the [ontology-summit] list and we will further discuss these theme 
	there with the rest of the community    (3YQ8)
	[9:53] PeterYim: great session ... thanks everyone!    (3YQ9)
	[9:54] PeterYim: -- session ended - 9:52am PDT --    (3YQA)
 -- end of in-session chat-transcript --    (3XTF)

A Summary of the Three Candidate Themes Discussed    (405K)

Here is the summary of the three themes that were discussed at the Brainstorming Meeting (summarised by MichaelGruninger, RichardMartin & ToddSchneider):    (405L)

Theme 1: Formal Ontology and the Semantic Web    (405M)

Theme 2: Semantic Federation    (405U)

Recent OntologySummit themes have largely been "internal-facing", focusing on issues important to the ontological community participants. OntologySummit2011: "Making the Case for Ontology" offered an "external-facing" theme intended to promote ontology as a way for users to express and regularize their conceptual terminology. Given this exposition of capabilities from the past, we can now apply this knowledge and the techniques identified to resolve an urgent need for communication among cross discipline teams responsible for creating very complicated and complex systems in health care, international commerce, defense, and civil infrastructure. Today multi-domain, multi-national teams, each with its own conceptual foundation, cultural distinctions, and operational languages are addressing these systemic problems. We waste enormous quantities of capital resources and human energy with ineffective and inefficient communication among participants, not for lack of trying to communicate, but because we have insufficient means for understanding the semantic similarity and dissonance in attempted communication. Our failures to interoperate successfully must be resolved if we are to meet expanding obligations.    (405V)

The summit would include tracks such as    (405W)

Theme 3: Development of Ontologies    (4062)

The goal of the Summit will be: the promotion of common 'best' practices for the development of ontologies; development of requirements, promotion of an understanding and use of ontological analysis, the role and use of foundational ontologies, and testing/evaluation.    (4063)

Possible tracks:    (4064)

Further Question & Remarks - please post them to the [ ontology-summit ] listserv    (3XTG)

Resources:    (3XTL)

For the record ...    (3XTS)

How To Join (while the session is in progress)    (3XTT)