Where to start (was: Ontology for Dummies)
Kirk Borne
borne at rings.gsfc.nasa.gov
Wed Oct 2 06:11:59 PDT 2002
Hi. As a 'lurker', I would like to ask : is this a mailing list
for Ontology/Semantics discussions or is it a list for Virtual
Observatory discussions related to ontology/semantics? I thought
that it was the latter.
- Kirk
+------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Dr. Kirk D. Borne | mailto:Kirk.Borne at gsfc.nasa.gov |
| Institute for Science & Technology, Raytheon (IST at R) |
| NASA Goddard Space Flight Center | |
| Astrophysics Data Facility | Phone: 301-286-0696 |
| Code 631 | or 301-286-2772:Kathy Starling |
| Greenbelt, MD 20771 | FAX: 301-286-1771 |
+------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
US Virtual Observatory: http://us-vo.org/
Staff page: http://rings.gsfc.nasa.gov/~borne/bio_borne_kirk.html
Raytheon ITSS: http://itss.raytheon.com/capabilities/
> From: "Tony Linde" <tol at star.le.ac.uk>
> To: <semantics at us-vo.org>
> Cc: "'seanb'" <seanb at cs.man.ac.uk>, "Phillip Lord" <p.lord at russet.org.uk>
> Subject: RE: Where to start (was: Ontology for Dummies)
> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 14:00:16 +0100
>
> Welcome Steve.
>
> I don't want to spark an OntoWar, but could people (participants and
> lurkers alike) say if there is any significant difference between a
> topic map approach to ontologies and an OWL (or its ancestors') language
> approach.
>
> Are there other approaches of significance?
>
> Cheers,
> Tony.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-semantics at us-vo.org
> > [mailto:owner-semantics at us-vo.org] On Behalf Of Steve Pepper
> > Sent: 02 October 2002 12:47
> > To: semantics at us-vo.org
> > Subject: Where to start (was: Ontology for Dummies)
> >
> >
> > Thanks to Ashish Mahabal for bringing this forum to my attention.
> >
> > Tony Linde wrote (about "Ontology for Dummies"):
> > >I know, there isn't such a book, so what can we (the
> > non-experts) have
> > >to get us up to speed. Can we come up with suggested texts
> > that would
> > >take a non-expert from basics through to understanding why
> > and how to
> > >encode a subject domain ontology and why and how to use it in one or
> > >more applications.
> >
> > Here are a couple of papers that I've found useful:
> >
> > * Deborah McGuinness' chapter in the forthcoming "Spinning
> > the Semantic
> > Web", called "Ontologies Come of Age":
> >
> >
> > http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/people/dlm/papers/ontologies-come-
> > of-age-mit-press-(with-citation).htm
> >
> > * "Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology"
> > by Natalya F. Noy and Deborah L. McGuinness
> >
> >
> > http://protege.stanford.edu/publications/ontology_development/
> > ontology101-noy-mcguinness.html
> >
> > I don't know of anything that discusses ontology design with
> > specific reference to topic maps (apart from internal course
> > material here at Ontopia), but the principles are pretty
> > simple. If you've read "The TAO of Topic Maps" [1] you know
> > that the core concepts in topic maps are Topics,
> > Associations, and Occurrences (hence "TAO"). Each of these
> > can be classified by type (topic types, association types,
> > occurrence types)
> > - and types are themselves also topics...
> >
> > Thus "Puccini" is a topic of type "composer", and "composer"
> > is also a topic. The association (relationship) between the
> > topic "Puccini" and the topic "Tosca" (which is of type
> > "opera") is of type "composed by", which is also a topic. An
> > information resource containing the libretto of Tosca would
> > be an occurrence (of type "libretto") of the topic "Tosca".
> >
> > In this example, the (typing) topics "composer", "opera",
> > "composed by" and "libretto" constitute the ontology -- or
> > what some people term the "upper ontology". The "lower
> > ontology" consists of the individuals, "Puccini", "Tosca" etc.
> >
> > (Apologies for not being able to give you examples from your
> > own domain: The only "stars" I am familiar with are ones like
> > Maria Callas and Pavarotti :-)
> >
> > It seems to me (correct me if I am wrong!) that what this
> > initiative needs is
> >
> > (1) agreement, as far as possible, on a common upper ontology and how
> > to *identify* the classes it consists of
> > (2) agreement on how to identify a useful common subset of known
> > individuals, but without (necessarily) assigning those
> > individuals
> > to classes (since this might be controversial).
> >
> > As soon as you have that, everyone can start making their own
> > assertions about any of the subjects in question in such a
> > way that knowledge about them can be aggregated, shared and reused.
> >
> > I would advise you to apply the KISS principle. You will
> > experience an almost irresistible temptation to bite off more
> > than you can chew, to "overmodel", to get embroiled in
> > endless discussions about almost unresolvable details. Resist
> > that temptation! Agree on the minimal common subset that is
> > actually useful and extend it later as necessary. In
> > particular, don't bother at this stage to try and express
> > complex constraints on the classes you identify for the upper
> > ontology.
> >
> > Finally, I would advise you to look seriously at the
> > Published Subject initiatives taking place under the auspices
> > of OASIS:
> >
> http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tm-pubsubj/
>
> You will achieve a lot in a short time if you concentrate on defining
> published subjects for your upper and lower ontologies. Among other
> things, it will make the choice of knowledge representation formalism
> less important, since published subjects allow multiple formalisms to
> interoperate. If anyone is interested in pursuing such a course, say so
> (in a new thread) and Bernard Vatant and I can explain how to go about
> it.
>
> I wish you luck in your endeavours and will continue to lurk here in
> case I can be of use.
>
> Steve
>
> [1] http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tao.html
>
> --
> Steve Pepper, Chief Executive Officer <pepper at ontopia.net> Convenor,
> ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3 Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps) Ontopia AS, Waldemar
> Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway. http://www.ontopia.net/ phone:
> +47-23233080 GSM: +47-90827246
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