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Re: [cuo-wg] Technical maturity of Semantic Web solution

To: cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6" <James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 13:28:56 -0500
Message-id: <5F6E70D8ED5D274F9D9A721485C0A46213EA58DE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 Pat,
        I agree this is not the best model, but for our purposes, I suggest it 
is good enough. Perhaps you (or someone) could cite some recent demonstrations 
and whether they were in a laboratory, relevant, or operational environment.     (01)

        I'd also be in favor of doing a version of this model for semantic 
interoperability.    (02)

        I'm guessing the Semantic Web approach you describe works well in a 
small scale or a laboratory environment, but that there is no evidence (yet) it 
could scale up. If so, I believe further work should be funded to advance this 
approach.     (03)

Jim    (04)

-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 1:09 PM
To: Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6
Cc: cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] Technical maturity of Semantic Web solution    (05)

>Pat (or anyone),    (06)

Someone else will have to do this. I have no idea what these distinctions mean 
in this kind of a context. When did the WWWeb satisfy a 'proof of concept' or a 
'breadboard validation'? This seems to be about engineering some kind of 
device, not letting loose a social method of interaction.    (07)

Pat    (08)

>
>      OK, if what you describe is a potential solution, at what level 
>of technical maturity (using scale below, from the paper) would you 
>rate this, and please consider scalability as part of this assessement?
>
>1.  Basic principles observed and reported.
>2.  Technology concept and/or application formulated.
>3.  Analytical and experimental critical functions and/or 
>characteristic proof of concept.
>4.  Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment.
>5.  Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment.
>6.  System/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant 
>environment.
>7.  System prototype demonstration in an operational environment.
>8.  Actual system completed and 'flight qualified' through test and 
>demonstration.
>9.  Actual system 'flight proven' though successful mission operations.
>
>Jim Schoening
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx]
>Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:52 PM
>To: Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6
>Cc: cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] The next key question
>
>>CDSI WG,
>>
>>      Given Pat Hayes' description (below) of what Jim Hendler refers to as 
>>"URI-based reference mechanism coupled with the standard for KR and 
>>other aspects is aimed exactly at scalability.":
>>         
>>          The key question now is: Could the above referenced 
>>technology (when it matures) be used to achieve semantic 
>>interoperability across large numbers of domains (with independently 
>developed ontologies)?
>>Any takers?
>
>Sure. The direct answer to your question is, no.
>BUt that is because your question as posed misses the point: the open 
>publication paradigm allows ontologies to NOT be developed 
>independently of one another. They will cross-refer, use parts of other 
>ontologies, and include references - eventually, one hopes, 'nuanced' 
>references - to one another in a global network of semantic hyperlinks. 
>And they will do this because to create a useful ontology by re-using 
>and linking in this way will be vastly easier than building entire 
>ontologies from scratch, in isolation from other ontology building. 
>Think of the SWeb as a growing ontology 'library', freelyopen to all 
>for modification and re-use. As pieces of this are written and found 
>widely useful, the number of links to them (and the economic pressure 
>on the community to find ways to preserve them) will grow, ensuring 
>their even wider re-use. This effect snowballs on the Web, as we all 
>know. As far as I can see, the pressures which make such phenomena as 
>YouTube go from nothing to billions of users in less than a year will 
>still operate, albeit perhaps at a different timescale, for the 
>semantic web also. The semantic web is not just traditional ontology 
>engineering with XML added as a kind of afterthought. It is part of the 
>Web, and will be governed by Webbish laws of growth and distribution.
>
>Pat
>
>>
>>Jim Schoening
>>
>>         
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Pat Hayes wrote:
>>>
>>>   OK, here's my take on that.
>>>
>>>   First, "standard for KR". I think all that Jim means is, the SWeb 
>>> is  intended to use whatever is the best available KR mechanism that 
>>> can  be adopted as a 'standard', ie which a wide enough spectrum of 
>>> users  can be persuaded to agree to use. No such choice will be free 
>>> from  controversy. OWL wasn't and isn't free from controversy, and 
>>> nobody  even knows if a large enough community can ever be brought 
>>> to  consensus on an acceptable Rule language. But assuming that some 
>>> WG  can get its job completed, and produces a useful notation, then 
>>> that  can be used on the SWeb. There are plenty of potential 
>>> candidates
>  >> which are way more expressive than OWL readily available. So it 
> would
>>>  be a mistake to identify the SWeb vision with OWL or DL technology 
>>> in  particular. OWL-DL is just the first in what one hopes will be 
>>> an  evolving series of KR standards which will provide the 
>>> infrastructure  of the SWeb. Perhaps the next one will be more like  
>>> Python+Prolog on  steroids. Or it may be a  breakthrough in CL 
>>> reasoners using the  guarded fragment, who knows?
>>>   The decision is as much political as technical, or even subject to  
>>> whims of intellectual fashion.
>>>
>>>   "URI-based reference mechanism" is more interesting. This is one 
>>> of  the few things that really is new and different about the SWeb: 
>>> it is  part of the Web, and subject to Web conventions and 
>>> protocols. It  isn't *just* applied ontology engineering. So, every 
>>> SWeb ontology is  required to use names drawn from a (literally) global set 
>of names.
>>>   The scope of these names is the entire Web. There are no 'locally  
>>> scoped' or 'private'
>>>   names on the Sweb. So if your ontology uses a name for a concept, 
>>> my  ontology can use it too.
>>>   Anyone can 'say' anything about everyone else's concepts, on the Sweb.
>>>   This is a whole new game, which nobody has played before. A can  
>>> introduce a concept called A:thingie1 and B can introduce 
>>> B:thingie2,  and C can then, entirely independently and without 
>>> asking for A or  B's  permission, assert that (say) A:thingie1 is 
>>> the same as  B:thingie2. A
>>   > and B may disagree: tough tittie, they can't stop C from making 
>> the
>>>   assertion. C can say things about A's ontology, in fact, such as
>>>  assert that it is all BS. The globality of the namespace has a 
>>>whole
>>>  range of consequences which we are only beginning to explore. And
>>>  being URIs (actually IRIs these
>>>   days) , these names can also be used as identifiers which *access*
>>>  things on the Web.
>>>   Whether these accessed things should be the referents of the names
>>>  is  currently controversial (I think not, in general), but that 
>>>they
>>>  access
>>>   *something* is not even remotely at issue. So SWeb concept names
>>>  have  a whole new dimensionality to them, which is (or at any rate
>>>  can be)  orthogonal to their use as referring names. In particular,
>>>  it allows  ontologies to "address" other ontologies (a pale version
>>>  of which is  the OWL:imports primitive, but one can do a lot more
>>>  than this), which  obviously has many potential applications 
>>>relevant to scaling.
>>>
>>>   Hope this helps.
>>>
>>>   BTW, I entirely agree with Jim's optimism. I think people are way  
>>> too  scared of inconsistencies. Lets wait and see what problems  
>>> actually  crop up before trying to solve or avoid ones that we only  
>>> worry about  rather than actually find.
>>>
>>>   Pat
>>>
>>
>>___
>
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