W/regard to
the UDEF Object Class List, just a note:
Coming from the library and information science realm, this
reminds me of the history of faceted classification.
Three
best-known faceted universal classification systems: the Colon Classification
and the second edition of the Bliss Bibliographic Classification
(BC2).Ranganathan's Colon Classification has
five facets, now classic (see Ranganathan (1962), among his many books, for an
introduction to the facets and how to use them):
- Personality (the something in
question, e.g. a person or event in a classification of history, or an animal
in a classification of zoology)
- Matter (what something is made of)
- Energy (how something changes, is
processed, evolves)
- Space (where something is)
- Time (when it happens)
- These five, known as PMEST, may be
enough for you.
- If you need more, look to
BC2 for ideas (Broughton 2001, 79):
- thing/entity
- kind
- part
- property
- material
- process
- operation
- patient
- product
- by-product
- agent
- space
- time
From: http://www.miskatonic.org/library/facet-web-howto.html
“The smaller the domain, the more specific and detailed the
facets can get. There is little or no need to deal with the complications
inherent in organizing the world of knowledge, and the system can be as precise
as necessary to do what is needed. Here follow some examples of smaller
classifications, beginning with the Art & Architecture Thesaurus
(Petersen 1994,
26), which is not actually a classification scheme, but is indeed faceted. Note
how some of the classifications are based on Ranganathan's Personality, Matter,
Energy, Space, and Time.”
- Associated Concepts (e.g.,
philosophy)
- Physical Attributes (density)
- Styles and Periods (Simulationist)
(similar to Space and Time)
- Agents (People/Organizations)
(lighthouse keepers)
- Activities (thinking) (similar to
Energy)
- Materials (plywood) (similar to
Matter)
- Objects (bunk beds) (similar to
Personality)
Antoinette Arsic
Sr. Information
Systems Engineer
The MITRE
Corporation
703-337-9016
(VOIP)
*703-983-5286 (new office number, was
883)
*443-567-2703 (new cell)
From:
ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Gary Berg-Cross
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005
4:04 PM
To: ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc:
ron.l.schuldt@xxxxxxxx
Subject: [ontac-forum] Universal Data Element
Framework (UDEF) question
I attended
the Expedition
Workshop on Advancing Information Sharing And Data Architecture today
(12/06).
I
had a question which there wasn’t time to pose, on the Universal Data Element
Framework (UDEF) briefing by Ron Schuldt and so I thought I might post it to Ron
as well as here.
See
http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/Expedition_Workshop/2005-12-06_Advancing_Information_Sharing_And_Data_Architecture/UDEF-DNS-6Dec2005.ppt
These have probably been discussed by discussed by the UDEF folks and
might persue it on the ontac forum if others have a position on
it.
Essentially the question
concerns issues with the UDEF “Semantics” which seems to be based on a fixed set
of 17 Class categories that are
decomposable into sub-classes. Taxonomies provide weak semantics but beyond this
there seems to be a real problem with this partially fixed class structure. UDEF
assigns a 3 part number (object class #, object/term # and property of term
#). The first part of the number is
based on the object classification and therefore part of it is fixed by the 17
top level classes that UDEF proposes (listed below) and whatever sub-classes
people come up with.
UDEF
Object
Class List
•
Entity
•
Document
•
Enterprise
•
Place
•
Program
•
Product
•
Process
•
Person
•
Asset
•
Law-Rule
•
Environment
•
Condition
•
Liability
•
Animal
•
Plant
•
Mineral
•
Event
So
if either the top level classes or how you sub-class thing change the
“semantics” change and therefore the number would have to change. How does UDEF
propose to handle this?
Looking at the classes I could see major issues off the top. For example, I wonder why Document or
Plant is not an Entity or where medical diagnosis might be in this
hierarchy?
So taken as a whole I see an issue with
the semantics of the approach. If UDEF is to be effective it seems to me
that its approach to semantics will have to be richer. The triplet might
be a nice way to label an ontology, but now it just does a taxonomic portion and
might have to be redesigned to provide labels for ontology
"nodes"....
Thoughts?
Gary
Berg-Cross
EM&I
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