Vocabulary: Ontology
Frederic V. Hessman
hessman at astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de
Wed Sep 12 07:52:55 PDT 2007
I was hoping to get just this kind of assistance!
I purposefully avoided using OWL (don't want to introduce too many
revolutions at once), so I assume you are suggesting I should have
written
<skos:Concept rdf:about="#gammaRayBurst">
<skos:prefLabel>gamma-ray burst</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:altLabel>GRB</skos:altLabel>
<skos:broader rdf:resource="&ucd;src"/>
<skos:broader rdf:resource="&ucd;em.gamma"/>
<skos:broader rdf:resource="&sv"/>
</skos:Concept>
or, perhaps to emphasize that all need to be present simultaneously,
<skos:Concept rdf:about="#gammaRayBurst">
<skos:prefLabel>gamma-ray burst</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:altLabel>GRB</skos:altLabel>
<rdf:Bag>
<skos:broader rdf:resource="&ucd;src"/>
<skos:broader rdf:resource="&ucd;em.gamma"/>
<skos:broader rdf:resource="&sv"/>
</rdf:Bag>
</skos:Concept>
(pardon me for using the XML syntax - I'm happy to be able to think
even in <>, much less in N3, Turtle or whatnot).
The equivalences in the original scheme were intended to be
interpreted simply as summations or concatenations: a "gamma-ray
burst source" is simple gamma-ray+source+burst - and it wasn't
obvious to me when I threw together the RDF attempt how this is best
handled. If the "bag-syntax" expresses this, then fine.
I was about to write that I'd rather not add on OWL as well (oh no!
yet another semantic sub-working-group to convice), but then I
realized that all my uses of the vocabulary would be able to simply
ignore the ontological info, happily putting up with the ontological
baggage as a small price to pay for having a vocabulary of tokens.
If our original idea of "simple" translations (comparisons of the
"equivalences" between vocabularies) has been utterly superceeded by
modern semantic software technology (don't worry about the
translations and let someone's fancy software do it for you
automatically), then we can leave out my <voc:isEquivalentTo>'s
entirely and use vanilla SKOS.
If someone can suggest a basic RDF pattern which expresses what you'd
like to see and what we wanted to express - a minimum of ontological
info - then I'd be happy to produce the complete SKOS (draf)
vocabularies.
Rick
On 12 Sep 2007, at 3:58 pm, Ed Shaya wrote:
> Read SV.rdf. A gammarayburst is not equivalent to a src. Need to
> use skos:broader, skos:narrower, and skos:related. Or owl:subClassOf.
>
>
> Frederic V. Hessman wrote:
>>
>> On 12 Sep 2007, at 11:19 am, Bernard Vatant wrote:
>>
>>>> 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).
>>> Well, try this
>>>
>>> PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
>>> PREFIX skos: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#>
>>>
>>> SELECT ?x
>>> WHERE { ?x skos:subject ?c.
>>> ?c rdfs:label "Spiral galaxies" @en.}
>>>
>>> Granted, if you put "Spiral galaxy" instead of "Spiral galaxies"
>>> so far you don't retrieve anything.
>>
>> This last effect is _exactly_ the first half of my only point: I
>> don't want to have to guess.
>>
>>>> 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......
>>> You don't need to wait for anything of the like to happen. You
>>> can create your own professional vocabulary, publish it in RDF,
>>> and either let other declare equivalence, or be proactive and
>>> declare equivalence from your side if you think it's useful.
>>> Suppose you have declared your own concept "SpiralGalaxy" and
>>> declare an instance "Messier31" in your own namespace, the
>>> following declarations on either or both DBpedia / IVOA side will
>>> glue the data :
>>>
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy owl:sameAs
>>> dbpedia:Category:Spiral_galaxies
>>> ivoa:Messier31 owl:sameAs dbpedia:Whirlpool_Galaxy
>>>
>>> And if you want to make sure your resource is found under a
>>> variety of names, use skos:prefLabel and skos:altLabel to name
>>> your concept in a variety of labels and languages, such as
>>>
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:prefLabel "Spiral galaxy" @en
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:altLabel "Spiral galaxies" @en
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:altLabel "Spiral" @en
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:prefLabel "Galaxie spirale" @fr
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:altLabel "Galaxies spirales" @fr
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:altLabel "Spirale" @fr
>>> etc ...
>>>
>>> and even if you feel like it (not sure this gets consensus).
>>> ivoa:SpiralGalaxy skos:altLabel "PeanutButterAndJelly" :-)
>>
>> This is _exactly_ the other half of my point: we don't want to
>> insist that every VO user/programmer be forced to "create your own
>> professional vocabulary, publish it in RDF, and either let others
>> declare equivalence, or be proactive and declare equivalence from
>> your side if you think it's useful". This is - at least
>> initially - the job of the IVOA. If someone wants to append/
>> change/modify/drastically extend the standard vocabulary
>> thereafter, then... by all means. Let a thousand ontological
>> flowers bloom.
>>
>> Given the beauty of these examples and the trivial means of
>> exchanging formats within our VOcabulary proposal, can't we _by
>> the meeting this month_ (InterOp)
>> - replace all the XML/Schema in the "Note" aka "Working Draft",
>> substituting trivially a simple SKOS/RDF equivalent (see my toy
>> example at http://www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~hessman/rdf
>> <http://www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de/%7Ehessman/rdf> which
>> I'm sure you can all quickly improve upon) and publish it as a
>> true proposal with working examples like UCD, AOIM, A&A,... (easy
>> - can be done in a day;
>>
>> - suggest that the IVOA accept this simple, nearly totally
>> globally-standardized SKOS/RDF format/subset/extension as the
>> recommended format for all VO vocabularies like UCD, AOIM, .....
>> (after all, SKOS/RDF is already defined, there shouldn't be much
>> to discuss if we can agree we're publishing a list of tokens with
>> a minimal amount of RDF baggage);
>> - provide a draft Standard Vocabulary in SKOS/RDF (easy - can be
>> done in a day on the basis of our draft list) which VO
>> applications _could_ use as their fundamental basis RIGHT NOW and,
>> when accepted, _should_ use. We can bicker about the details later.
>>
>> Please, all of you say "yes and you'll receive a modificed "Note"
>> with working examples in the mail tomorrow.
>>
>> Rick
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------------------------
>> Dr. Frederic V. Hessman Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE
>> <mailto:Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE>
>> Institut für Astrophysik Tel. +49-551-39-5052
>> Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1 Fax +49-551-39-5043
>> 37077 Goettingen Room F04-133
>> http://www.Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.de/~hessman <http://
>> www.Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.de/%7Ehessman>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------------------------
>> MONET: a MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes
>> http://monet.Uni-Goettingen.de
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------------------------
>>
>>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------
Dr. Frederic V. Hessman Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE
Institut für Astrophysik Tel. +49-551-39-5052
Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1 Fax +49-551-39-5043
37077 Goettingen Room F04-133
http://www.Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.de/~hessman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------
MONET: a MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes
http://monet.Uni-Goettingen.de
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------
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