Ontolog Panel Discussion: Advancing the UoM_Ontology_Standard work to OASIS - Thu 19-Nov-2009    (231C)

Archives    (2417)

Conference Call Details    (241E)

Resources    (242E)

Attendees    (242Y)

Agenda & Proceedings    (243F)

1. Opening by session Chair -- FrankOlken    (243G)

2. Review and adoption of our draft OASIS TC Charter -- HowardMason    (243H)

3. Next steps towards formation of the OASIS QUOMOS Technical Committee -- HowardMason    (243I)

4. Review of our UoM working draft standard - EdBarkmeyer, DavidLeal, RobRaskin, ChipMasters, HansPeter_de_Koning, PatHayes    (243J)

5. Identifying who is going to be involved, Q & A and Open Discussion (All) -- please refer to process above    (243K)

6. Summary and conclusion -- FrankOlken    (243L)

Proceedings    (243M)

Please refer to the archives above    (243N)

IM Chat Transcript captured during the session: ... (lightly edited for clarity)    (243O)

 PeterYim: Welcome to the Ontolog Panel Discussion: 
           Advancing the UoM_Ontology_Standard work to OASIS - Thu 19-Nov-2009    (243P)
 * Session Chair: Dr. FrankOlken (NSF)    (2480)
 * Panelists: 
  o Mr. HowardMason (BAE; ISO) -- UoM_Ontology_Standard_OASIS_TC_Charter_draft Adoption 
                                  and Next Steps towards the OASIS QUOMOS TC Formation 
  o Mr. EdwardBarkmeyer (NIST) -- UoM_Ontology_Standard_English_draft 
  o Mr. DavidLeal (CAESAR) -- UoM_Ontology_Standard_UML_Model_draft 
  o Dr. RobRaskin (NASA/JPL) [in absentia], Dr. JamesMasters (TopQuadrant) 
    & Mr. HansPeter_de_Koning (ESA/ESTEC) -- UoM_Ontology_Standard_OWL_draft 
  o Dr. PatHayes (IHMC) -- UoM_Ontology_Standard_CLIF_draft    (2481)
 Please refer to details on the session page 
 at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UoM_Ontology_Standard/ConferenceCall_2009_11_19    (2482)
 anonymous morphed into DavidLeal    (2483)
 anonymous morphed into ChipMasters    (2484)
 HajoRijgersberg: Hi, my telephone connection is very bad. I try to understand what you are saying.    (2485)
 FrankOlken: This is Frank Olken. I am on the line. I am having a hard time hearing folks - but I can 
 hear Peter Yim okay.    (2486)
 FrankOlken: I spoke yesterday at the CENDI/NFAIS/FLICC workshop on Semantic Web: Fact or Myth? in 
 Washington, DC.    (2487)
 FrankOlken: the workshop web page is: http://cendievents.infointl.com/cfn1109/ ... Eventually, there will copies of the speakers' slides and perhaps video at the CENDI web 
 site.    (2489)
 EdBarkmeyer: Schedule: the first day after 15 December is 2 January    (248B)
 PeterYim: if Jan-14 is too tight, Jan-21 or Jan-28 are both open too (if we still want to do it on 
 an Ontolog Thursday event slot)    (248C)
 MatthewWest: Who can be an "eligible person" to register as a participant?    (248D)
 HowardMason: See the Charter page for a link to the OASIS procedures that define the terms 
 explicitly    (248E)
 FrankOlken: I have received authorization from Mary Ann Piette (LBNL) to act on behalf of Lawrence 
 Berkeley National Laboratory    (248F)
 FrankOlken: w.r.t the QUOMOS effort and TC charter.    (248G)
 HajoRijgersberg: Do I understand correctly we can now make comments on the charter?    (248H)
 FrankOlken: You will recall that I (Frank Olken) am employed by LBNL - but am detailed here to NSF.    (248I)
 FrankOlken: Hajo, Yes. Raise your hand on the chat room, or send message to the chat room.    (248J)
 EdBarkmeyer: I am pleased with the revised draft charter. All of our concerns are addressed. Thanks.    (248K)
 EdBarkmeyer: NIST has formally approved our participation, that is, both the NIST OASIS principal 
 and my management.    (248L)
 FrankOlken: Thus the list on the charter is tentative list, until we get email confirming 
 participation (proper confirmation).    (248M)
 anonymous morphed into PavithraKenjige    (248N)
 EdBarkmeyer: You can actually extend the supporting membership during the participation call period    (248O)
 HansPeter_de_Koning: ESA is not an OASIS member and unlikely to become one any time soon. I can 
 provide inputs as an individual but cannot act on behalf of an OASIS member organisation.    (248P)
 FrankOlken: Perhaps we can get NASA to participate - they are members.    (248Q)
 ChipMasters: I am discussing membership options with our NASA sponsor for QUDT. Do you need a firm 
 commitment for a specific individual (e.g me) or is a commitment from a member organization to 
 participate sufficient?    (248R)
 FrankOlken: EdBarkmeyer suggests: Paragraph 2d should be "the TC will seek to coordinate 
 development with ...."    (248S)
 FrankOlken: JamieClark: in paragraph 2a, "we will talk ... and attempt to coordinate"    (248T)
 PeterYim: @Howard and Jamie: we have our five already - HowardMason (BAE), EdBarkmeyer (NIST), 
 FrankOlken (LBNL), JerrySmith (DoD) and PeterYim (CIM3; associate member)    (248U)
 HajoRijgersberg: Thank you, Frank. Yes, I think the draft is fine. I see many concepts mentioned 
 that I think are important in the domain of units of measure. However, to get to the point directly, 
 I argue measurement scales should be more prominent in the scope; converting temperatures (absolute 
 or differenc) has a strong relation with scale refered to or unit.    (248V)
 EdBarkmeyer: I have to leave now for the "dragoon" function. I am saddling up and grabbing my 
 musket...    (248W)
 FrankOlken: JamieClark: "contributions" should read something else "contributions means that the TC 
 may modify these items"    (248X)
 PatHayes: hajo: your point will emerge in the work no matter what the charter says, so relax    (248Y)
 JamieClark: thanks - Frank captured my second point; my first was to use something aspirational -- 
 The TC will liaise with and consider coordination of its specification(s) with XYZ ... rather than 
 the presceptive "development WILL be coordinated with ...". Thanks, apologizes that I must depart 
 early.    (2490)
 HajoRijgersberg: Yes, I'm relaxed, thank you. Just a little bit unused to a teleworkshop...    (2491)
 HajoRijgersberg: OK, I just get to another point. In 1b it says that existing formal models for 
 quantities and units are not quite comparable. I'm not sure that is true. More evidence should be 
 provided.    (2492)
 FrankOlken: Howard will edit the draft charter on the wiki. Peter will submit to OASIS.    (2493)
 PeterYim: I'll be happy to do that    (2494)
 FrankOlken: David Leal will now speak on the UML model of QUOMOS based on the VIM from his slides.    (2495)
 HajoRijgersberg: Maybe it's more important that a new standard is shared widely. And that we try to 
 accomplish that by the Ontolog discussion group. The different existing approaches may, in the 
 future, be comparable, so that they can be used next to each other.    (2496)
 FrankOlken: Summer discussion of quantity and kind of quantity overlap somewhat.    (2497)
 PeterYim: @DavidLeal - ref. the mangled up slides, if you can supply a set in pdf later, I will swap 
 that in (for the archives)    (2498)
 HajoRijgersberg: Reminds me of a question I have (maybe a stupid one): are we going to continue the 
 summer discussions?    (2499)
 HajoRijgersberg: Systems of units. They should be in the scope too.    (249A)
 JoeCollins: Quantity Kind, such as when two Derived Quantities with the same Quantity Dimension have 
 different Quantity Kind, is rather ill defined in VIM. Making the definition clear is an endless, 
 case by case task.    (249B)
 HajoRijgersberg: Being able to set the value of a quantity, may be a requirement (i.e., part of the 
 scope) too. It will have an effect on how quantities are modeled: as independent concepts or 
 properties (referring to out summer discussions too).    (249C)
 FrankOlken: We are now on slide 6 (aka 66) of David Leal's slides.    (249D)
 HajoRijgersberg: No, it does not necessarily have to be difficult: different quantity kinds (such as 
 breadth and width) can have the same dimension (length).    (249E)
 FrankOlken: We are now on slide 7 (aka 77).    (249F)
 PatHayes: I am finding this completely confusing (confused?)    (249G)
 ArturoSanchez: %}    (249H)
 JoeCollins: I believe that "mutually comparable" quantities, i.e., having the same Quantity Kind, 
 means that they are referred to in some "Law of Physics", a meaningful equality or inequality within 
 a scientific theory.    (249I)
 ArturoSanchez: I wonder how you will be able to express concepts such as "equivalence relations" in 
 UML ...    (249J)
 JoeCollins: To H.R.: I didn't mean difficult, just endless.    (249K)
 HajoRijgersberg: OK, but why exactly endless?    (249L)
 PatHayes: i don't knowe what the difference is and i have no idea how to separate them. Why are we 
 doing this? What is a particular quantity    (249M)
 HajoRijgersberg: We're back in the summer discussions.    (249N)
 JoeCollins: For example, there's no conceptual limit on the number of dimensionless quantities, many 
 of which may be of the same kind. The Kind equivalence classes are resultant of scientific theories.    (249O)
 HajoRijgersberg: Yes, there's no conceptual limit on the number of dim'less quantities. We have to 
 model them and assign their dimension "dimension one".    (249S)
 HajoRijgersberg: I think it is very important to continue our summer discussions.    (249T)
 HajoRijgersberg: My statement at the time was and still is that particular quantities, such as the 
 length of my table, is an instance (or member) of length.    (249U)
 HajoRijgersberg: And length is a quantity class.    (249V)
 MarkLinehan: VIM 1.1 for "quantity" has "Note 1: The generic concept 'quantity' can be divided into 
 several levels of specific concepts, as shown in the following table. The left hand side of the 
 table shows specific concepts under 'quantity'. These are generic concepts for the individual 
 quantities in the right hand column."    (249W)
 MarkLinehan: (and a table follows, where the first line has length, radius, and radius of a circle 
 on one row)    (249X)
 HajoRijgersberg: So a generic level of quantities is "length", "mass", etc. and a specific length 
 has representatives like "length of my table"?    (249Y)
 MatthewWest: Treating classes as instances, and then adding classification and specialisation at the 
 instance level is something ISO 15926 did around properties    (249Z)
 MarkLinehan: yes -- but to be parallel to the note 1 that I cited, generic would be "length", an 
 example mid-level quantity would be "width" (versus perhaps "depth") and a specific quantity would 
 be "width of my table"    (24A0)
 HajoRijgersberg: Yes, Mark, that's what I mean. In my eyes this is a hierarchy of quantities.    (24A1)
 MarkLinehan: yes, I agree    (24A2)
 HajoRijgersberg: But it can of course also be modeled as Matthew says.    (24A3)
 HajoRijgersberg: But I expect that people are more familiar with hierarchies?    (24A4)
 HansPeter_de_Koning: To H.R: I agree with the need explicit "dimension one". That's how we do it in 
 SysML QUDV.    (24A5)
 MarkLinehan: I suppose, but Matt's chart 4 defines 3 specific levels. I think Pat's point is that 
 may be the wrong way to go.    (24A6)
 HajoRijgersberg: Yes, there may be more levels in some cases. There's no official limit to the 
 number of levels.    (24A7)
 PatHayes: like sublasses, right?    (24A8)
 MarkLinehan: yes    (24A9)
 HajoRijgersberg: We have to model this for the most important quantities, starting with length, 
 mass, time, etc.    (24AA)
 HajoRijgersberg: Yes, like subclasses, I would say.    (24AB)
 MarkLinehan: in VIM, those are "kind of quantity" and are standards    (24AC)
 HajoRijgersberg: Yes, but we should not define "kind of quantity" as a class. (I stated that also in 
 our summer discussions.)    (24AD)
 FrankOlken: We are looking at 
 http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UoM_Ontology_Standard_OWL_Draft    (24AE)
 MarkLinehan: yes    (24AF)
 DavidLeal: For length as a class of particular quantity it is reasonable to have waist size as a 
 subclass, because some particular lengths are waist sizes. For length as a class of magnitude of 
 quantity it is not reasonable, because there is nothing special about 37 inches which makes it a 
 waist size.    (24AG)
 HajoRijgersberg: Indeed, measures/magnitudes have no hierarchy.    (24AH)
 FrankOlken: HansPeter - if understand this, simple units and base units are differentiated in order 
 to deal with the fact that    (24AI)
 HajoRijgersberg: As to waste size: we can have a class "Quantity", with subclass "Length", with 
 subclass "Size" on its turn, with subclass "Waste size" on its turn. This is a nice example.    (24AJ)
 FrankOlken: base unit for SI mass dimension is the kilogram?    (24AK)
 HajoRijgersberg: Base units are a property of a system of units.    (24AL)
 HajoRijgersberg: They are simple units, but derived units may also be simple units, such as pascal 
 and newton.    (24AM)
 HajoRijgersberg: In the NIST standardadization document of Taylor, simple units are called "units 
 that have a special name". Are we talking about the same thing here?    (24AN)
 FrankOlken: Howard Mason has updated the TC charter, send comments to him via email.    (24AO)
 HowardMason: *** ACTION item - the draft of the Charter has been completed, apart from the explicit 
 statement from NIST. Please review and send any comments direct to me for inclusion. Signing off for 
 tonight.    (24AP)
 HajoRijgersberg: OK, I see you are defining simple units as base units. Why?    (24AQ)
 PeterYim: for our editors of the OWL ontology: if you are planning to do some comparison (and 
 possibly mapping) between the various owl ontologies, may I suggest you upload them to the Open 
 Ontology Repository instance (OOR-sandbox at http://oor-01.cim3.net ... also ref. 
 http://OpenOntologyRepository.org which another community working in the Ontolog-CWE)    (24AR)
 FrankOlken: Pat Hayes is now speaking.    (24AS)
 HajoRijgersberg: Maybe a simple unit is a unit that is not defined in terms of other units but in 
 terms of standard quantities? Why distinguish these kinds of units? They can just have a different 
 definition.    (24AT)
 HansPeter_de_Koning: To HajoRijgersberg: We define a SimpleUnit as a class. It is instantiated independent 
 from any SystemOfUnits. We do not preempt SI. Then any SimpleUnit or DerivedUnit or ConversionBasedUnit 
 (all subclasses of Unit) can be selected as a baseUnit in a SystemOfUnits. In QUDV baseUnit is an OWL object 
 property with domain=SystemOfUnits and range=Unit. Similar for simple and base 
 QuantityKind. See http://www.omgwiki.org/OMGSysML/doku.php?id=sysml-qudv:qudv_owl for details.    (24AU)
 HajoRijgersberg: Your baseUnit property is great. Right domain and right range.    (24AV)
 HajoRijgersberg: But derived unit should also be such a property. Derived unit is system of units 
 related.    (24AW)
 MatthewWest: I agree to rise above and give the capability to explain how different systems 
 interrelate.    (24AX)
 DavidLeal: An issue is how a unit relates to a quantity. For length as a class of particular 
 quantity the metre is a subclass. For length as a class of magnitude of quantity the metre is a 
 member. Both views of length are useful. The first supports hierarchies, and the second is 
 mathematically tractable being a 1D vector space for which the metre can be selected as a basis.    (24AY)
 PeterYim: @Pat: if it's doable, your "rise above them" (ref. your slide #1) approach would make a 
 lot of sense, especially in light of the goal that we are not *just* trying to produce a good 
 ontology standard, we also *really* want to be adopted and embraced by stewards of existing 
 standard, as the overarching objective of having ontology-based standard as a first class citizen 
 that will sit alongside (natural language) standards    (24AZ)
 HajoRijgersberg: David, the metre can't be a subclass of quantity. It's a unit.    (24B0)
 DavidLeal: Hajo - why not?    (24B1)
 MatthewWest: I think that it is ok to differ from the ISO standards, as long as we can support the 
 intent. But then there is an obligation to engage with the owners of those standards and try to 
 achieve consensus with them.    (24B2)
 HajoRijgersberg: David, because we have the model the concepts in a clear way to all people. A metre 
 is not a quantity, it's definition (or reference if you wish) is in terms of a standard quantity. 
 And the metre isn't a measure either.    (24B3)
 HajoRijgersberg: Hans Peter, why distinguish SimpleUnit and ConversionBasedUnit? Do they have 
 different properties?    (24B4)
 MatthewWest: I need to leave now.    (24B5)
 HansPeter_de_Koning: To HR: Yes. A ConversionBasedUnit has a referenceUnit object property with 
 domain:ConversionBasedUnit range:Unit.    (24B6)
 HansPeter_de_Koning: I have to sign off now.    (24B7)
 FrankOlken: New tentative date is Jan. 21, 2010 for the first meeting of the QUOMOS TC. This is to 
 accommodate OASIS scheduling constraints.    (24B8)
 HajoRijgersberg: Hans Peter, you'll maybe read this later: I would propose a property "definition" 
 or "reference" with domain Unit and range Unit and Quantity (the latter for specific standard 
 quantities).    (24B9)
 FrankOlken: Jan 7 Thursday willbe our next working teleconference. Expecting new drafts of texts, 
 and models.    (24BA)
 PeterYim: good session ... thanks! ... bye everyone.    (24BB)
 HajoRijgersberg: Thank you for the organization!    (24BC)
 PeterYim: session ended 12:19pm PST    (24BD)
 -- end of chat-transcript --    (243Q)

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