Vocabulary: Ontology

[Matthew Graham]

Hi,

I've been thinking about this lately and I believe that one of the 
reasons that astronomy is behind other sciences in this field is that we 
are actually taxonomically challenged. In spite of our extensive 
history, we do not have the depth or rigidity of classification that, 
for example, biology, chemistry or crystallography has. This means that 
our definitions are fuzzier and actually more akin to arts semantics 
(e.g. book genres) than science. Maybe we should be looking more at 
what's happening in these fields than those where there are families, 
species and subspecies.

    Cheers,

    Matthew

Frederic V. Hessman wrote:
>>
>> This can be achieved by using just about any kind of internal data 
>> model for each data source, and transformed on demand (processing 
>> dump export, web services, whatever) into a common RDF syntax (which 
>> boils down at the end of the day to a triple store).
>>
>> As an illustration, I don't know if folks here are aware of the 
>> Linking Open Data project [1], and singularly of the DBpedia [2] data 
>> base, which happens to contain quite a lot of descriptions extracted 
>> from Wikipedia pages - which quality might vary, OK, but just try the 
>> following. Go to http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/sparql And copy 
>> the following SPARQL query in the query box
>>
>> PREFIX category: <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Category:> PREFIX skos: 
>> <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#> PREFIX prop: 
>> <http://dbpedia.org/property/>
>>
>> SELECT ?x ?p
>> WHERE { ?x skos:subject category:Delta_Scuti_variables.
>>
>>                   ?x  skos:subject category:Bayer_objects.
>>                   ?x  prop:parallax ?p.}
>>
>> I am sure it does not need translation in natural language :-) . The 
>> query results as of today are as following
>>
>> x p
>> http://dbpedia.org/resource/Vega 129.01
>> http://dbpedia.org/resource/Beta_Cassiopeiae 69.5
>> http://dbpedia.org/resource/Delta_Capricorni 84.58
>> http://dbpedia.org/resource/Denebola 90.16
>> http://dbpedia.org/resource/Sigma_Octantis 12.07
>>
>>
>> Put any of those URI in your browser and see what you get.
>>
>
> Very nice, and a WONDERFUL example of my basic problem with the 
> current state of things: all of the tools out there are only 
> accessible if there is a fundamental vocabulary  - how else am I (and 
> especially my computer) to know that "Bayer_objects" was the magic 
> word ("parallax" I might have guessed myself).  Yes, I can create some 
> fancy software agent that goes out, creates a dynamic ontology based 
> on all the links currently available, and then guesses that 
> "Bayer_objects" is the thing I need, but......
>
> Ya'll are welcome to produce oodles of fancy tools and breathtaking 
> demos based on the power of current semantic software tools if you'll 
> just let me _officially_ name a spiral galaxy a "spiral galaxy" and a 
> Delta Scuti star a "Delta Scuti star" (please substitute your own 
> favorite form for the tokens - who cares, really)( I'm rather fond of 
> the token "PeanutButterAndJelly" and would like to see what your 
> favorite semantic tool does with this token when applied to a spiral 
> galaxy).
>
> Or do we want to wait long enough for the dbpedia crew to decide which 
> tokens we are effectively allowed to use and create a professional 
> vocabulary for us?  In fact, maybe we should pool the current dbpedia 
> list of resource labels and simply adopt them as good working starts 
> and then kindly ask the dbpedia crew to use the rest of the tokens if 
> possible......
>  
>>
>> All the point now is : Do you care for IVOA data to be 
>> merged/compared or otherwise linked to such public data? Or not?
>>
> (sigh)
>
> Rick
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Frederic V. Hessman     Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE 
> <mailto:Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE>
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