I suggest a broader view. I would
distinguish between ontologies that have a “function” such as
medicine, chemistry, law, etc. as their root subject with those that have a
more general root such as “enterprise”. The lattice of
functional ontologies would take place within a “function” class at
one level below the enterprise root. The classes below the enterprise
root would be location, organization, organization unit, function, process,
resource, and requirement/mission. The “collection” of
functional ontologies would form tree, with each functional ontology providing
a branch of the tree. The “lattice” would form when linking
across function and subfunctions to their corresponding component processes,
resources, and requirements, and their function-distribution across performing organization
units, responsible organizations, at their locations.
Roy
From:
ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peterson, Eric
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005
10:35 AM
To: ONTAC-WG
General Discussion
Subject: RE: [ontac-forum] COSMO
(upper model) Technical Kick off
The only way that ontologies can form a
lattice is when they depend and build upon one another like Ontolingua or Cyc
microtheories. If we were to take the existing upper ontologies, they
would form a *completely* flat lattice
because they are not monotonic variants of one another. I go into this in
more detail if you do a search in the SUO archives. So to me the
alternative to a hub is not a lattice, but rather a simple collection of
ontologies.
Perhaps the lattice that Dr. Sowa was
referring to is the one that forms between individual entities of the various
ontologies once that mapping begins in earnest.
Best,
-Eric
From:
ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dagobert Soergel
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005
11:47 PM
To: ONTAC-WG
General Discussion
Subject: Re: [ontac-forum] COSMO (upper
model) Technical Kick off
I do not believe that
starting from one ontology is a good idea. No one ontology can serve as a
hub. That requires something like the "lattice" John Sowa talks
about. That lattice must be built by starting from a number of ontologies
and successively incorporating more.
On another note, it would be helpful if someone could provide an example of
what the COSMO would look like. This would not need to be comprehensive
or necessarily the best structure, just illustrate the format of what is to be
built.
DS
At 10/10/2005 09:19 PM, you wrote:
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C5CE01.E1F00E89"
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.
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Dagobert Soergel
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