What use the AstroOntology

[Roy Williams]

Kirk
All of what you say about tags and tagging and tag-clouds is true. 
However, social sites like Flickr and Blogspot use unconstrained tags 
(i.e. whatever you like), and they have millions of users. So perhaps 
the Virtual Observatory could save a lot of effort by allowing 
unconstrained tagging? Thus a VOEvent that is a supernova could be 
tagged "SN" or "supernova" and everyone would be perfectly happy?
Roy



kborne at gmu.edu wrote:
> In addressing the subject question, I like to think of ontologies
> as useful for search and discovery (of metadata and data).  The
> application of ontologies in the social networking sense (i.e.,
> tagging and folksonomies) allows researchers to tag scientifically
> useful data (and metadata) by the science application area (e.g.,
> AGN research, or QSO research) in which they found it to be
> applicable.  This assertion does not mean that this tag is 
> correct or universally acceptable, but it means that someone
> found it useful to describe a particular IVOA resource.  In this
> context, some future researcher may then search for similarly 
> tagged items for their own research (which they may accept or reject
> according to their own scientific needs and/or current understanding).  
> None of this imputes a greater meaning to the tag than that of 
> a single term within a larger scientifically meaningful tag cloud.
> Tag clouds provide validation of the tags through repeated assertions
> of that tag to describe a particular resource (hence, the tag appears
> in a larger font presentation than the other tags).  Implementing these
> assertions and these IVOA resource search & discovery capabilities is 
> made easier through the AstroOntology (OWL or RDF triplets or whatever).
>
> - Kirk Borne
>   George Mason University
>   http://classweb.gmu.edu/kborne/
>
>
>   
>> From: "Tony Linde" <Tony.Linde at leicester.ac.uk>
>> To: "'IVOA semantics'" <semantics at ivoa.net>
>> Subject: What use the AstroOntology 
>> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 11:19:55 -0000
>>
>> I won't even attempt to enter the astronomical discussion of QSOs and AGNs,
>> but do wonder if we're conflating two different approaches here: an
>> AstroOntology and sets of identification rules. 
>>
>> The AstroOntology is a set of terms used in astronomy and the relations
>> (is-a-type-of, is-a-component-of, ...) between them.
>>
>> OTOH there will be numerous sets of identification rules for each of the
>> terms: such as the ones being discussed here for QSOs and AGNs. The rules
>> may also be context driven: in context A the rules are this set while in
>> context B they are another set.
>>
>> It seems to be that the ontology changes relatively infrequently while the
>> rules (at least for terms on the fringe of the ontology) change much more
>> frequently.
>>
>> An ontology would be hideously inefficient at the job of identifying objects
>> from a set of observations. I'm not even sure it would be possible given the
>> limited ability of OWL to contain identification rules to the depth needed
>> for QSO vs AGN. I think any putative use of an AstroOntology to infer
>> objects from observations is doomed to fail.
>>
>> We have to ask what we want to use an ontology for. Then decide if the
>> structures of OWL are up to the job. The QSO/AGN discussion seems to show
>> that any definitions added to the ontology need to be limited and for
>> guidance only: they cannot serve as identification rules. 
>>
>> At least, I don't think they can. Can they?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Tony.
>> -- 
>> Tony Linde
>> Phone:  +44 (0)116 223 1292    Mobile: +44 (0)785 298 8840
>> Fax:    +44 (0)116 252 3311    Email:  Tony.Linde at leicester.ac.uk
>> Post:   Department of Physics & Astronomy,
>>         University of Leicester
>>         Leicester, UK   LE1 7RH
>> Web:    http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~ael
>>
>> Project Manager, EuroVO VOTech   http://eurovotech.org 
>> Programme Manager, AstroGrid     http://www.astrogrid.org 
>>  
>>
>> http://www.Taglocity.com Tags: IVOA, semantics
>>     
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Kirk D. Borne
> NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, SSDOO Program Manager, Perot Systems (ex-QSS)
> and George Mason University, Associate Research Professor, College of Science
> <mailto:kirk.borne at gsfc.nasa.gov>  Tel. +1-301-286-0696  Fax: 301-286-1771
> Staff page:      http://rings.gsfc.nasa.gov/
> US Virtual Observatory:  http://www.us-vo.org/
> Large Synoptic Survey Telescope:  http://www.lssto.org/
>
>