Hi folks;
This growing list of support is
exciting!
I'm going to exercise the prerogative, which Pat
assigned me as COSMO lead, to dispense with formalities and diving right into
our business. To that end, I?ve included a straw-person process
for evolving toward a common semantic model. This is meant strictly as a
starting point for discussion.
The straw-person is an attempt to incorporate lessons
learned from the Standard Upper Ontology (SUO) effort while
offering:
·
short term usable
results,
·
respect for and use of existing
formal ontological artifacts, and
·
incremental sound formal
results.
This approach, I think, includes the key elements that
Dr. Sowa asked for in the SUO framework and provides a staging of effort and
results that assumes modest amount of effort on our parts. It also
addresses Pat?s desire to be inclusive of the European
efforts.
The suggesting steps are as
follows:
1.
Choose an existing ontology as
the initial embodiment of an ontology integration hub to which other
ontologies will be mapped
a.
Agree on a set of metrics for
selection of the ontology integration hub
i.
Metrics must be easily
collectable
b.
Agree on candidates for the
selection process
c.
Score candidate ontologies
according to metrics ? the high scoring upper ontology will become the initial
ontology integration hub
2.
Release this ontology as-is as
the initial COSMO ontology
3.
Address key short-falls of the
hub ontology
a.
Maintain a prioritized list of
issues
b.
Agree on resolution as time and
interest dictate
4.
Map the structural axioms (ground
atomic formulae) of the remaining candidate ontologies to the ontology
integration hub
a.
This process proceeds
opportunistically as our personal and project time allows
b.
Push out yearly major releases
based on achievement of yearly goals
c.
This step runs concurrently with
step three
5.
Map the remaining axioms of the
remaining candidate ontologies to the ontology integration hub
a.
As desired, such free-form axioms
can be added in steps three and four
Please excuse the roughness. My other tasks
beckon.
I look forward
suggestions.
Best!
Eric Peterson
Chief Ontologist
McDonald Bradley
Inc.