[Ontology] UCDs vs ontologies?

[Tony Linde]

Now that we've resurrected the Semantics IG (semantics at ivoa.net), can we
keep the ontology-like discussions there so we don't annoy the dm people.

I've forwarded these two posts to there.

Cheers,
Tony. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-dm at eso.org [mailto:owner-dm at eso.org] On Behalf Of 
> Sebastien Derriere
> Sent: 02 June 2005 14:51
> To: dm at ivoa.net; Elizabeth Auden
> Subject: Re: [Ontology] UCDs vs ontologies?
> 
> [posted to dm only to avoid cross-posting]
> 
> Elizabeth Auden wrote:
> > 
> > Incidentally, I've posted a first go at a VOEvent ontology (OWL-DL 
> > format) on the VOTech wiki at 
> > http://wiki.eurovotech.org/bin/view/VOTech/VoEventOntology. Any 
> > comments on the structure, concepts, and coverage of this 
> v0.000000001 
> > ontology would be appreciated.
> 
>   Hi,
> 
>   Reading the questions you list in the above page, I have a 
> comment on points 2 and 3.
>   When trying to build small ontologies, I found (and still 
> do find) extremely stupid to be "forced" to define one slot 
> dedicated to each class to indicate "hasSomething".
>   In your example, Contact / hasContact , How / hasHow, What 
> / hasWhat, ...
> I found this (and this is the case in every example I could 
> find) awful.
> 
>   I wish we could define something where we don't have to be 
> omniscients when building the ontology, but where the ability 
> to make reasonning would not be lost. Something like:
>   - Having a class named Property
>   - Having classes Contact, How, What, ... being subclasses 
> of Property (these classes might have many superclasses)
>   - Having a unique slot "hasProperty" with a value being a 
> Class, with the allowed class "Property" (thus also allowing 
> Property's subclasses)
> 
>   That way, instead of having to define zillions of slots 
> (i.e. at least one per new subclass of Property) and writing:
> 
> MyConcept hasContact Contact
> MyConcept hasHow How
> MyConcept hasWhat What
> ... and as many as there are different possible properties
> 
> we could simply write things like:
> 
> MyConcept hasProperty Property  (with multiple cardinality, 
> this would cover all the above: no need to predefine all 
> possible cases)
> 
>   and if we need to be more precise (restrict allowed properties):
> 
> MyConcept hasProperty (Class with superclass Contact or How or What)
> 
>   Anyone experienced could tell if my own view is really 
> really wrong? Or incompatible with the way description logics 
> and reasonners work? I hope this could make our lives easier 
> when we stop playing with toy-ontologies and go into the big ones.
> 
> Sebastien.
> -- 
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>    /  ~   /, Sebastien Derriere   mailto:derriere at astro.u-strasbg.fr
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