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Ontolog Panel Discussion: Towards A Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology-based Standard - Fri 19-Jun-2009

  • Panelists:
    • Dr. StanHuff -- "Experience and Requirements for Units of Measure in Patient Data Exchange" - [ slides ]
    • Mr. DavidPrice -- "OASIS PLCS Committee Requirements for a Units Ontology" - [ slides ]
    • Mr. DaveMcComb -- "The gist Unit of Measure Ontology" - [ slides ]
    • Dr. RobertDragoset -- "Units Markup Language" [ slides ]
    • Dr. RobRaskin -- "SWEET 2.0 Scientific Units Ontology" - [ slides ]
    • Dr. PatCassidy -- "Aligning NASA SWEET sciUnits Ontology with COSMO" - [ slides ]
    • Mr. HowardMason -- "Units of Measure - How many standards?" [ slides ]
    • Dr. PatHayes -- "Making Distinctions" - [ slides ]
  • Panelists in absentia:
    • LinZhang - "Some Internationalization Considerations" - [ input ]
    • GeoffreyWilliams - "The International System of Units Standardization Landscape" - [ input ]

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Conference Call Details

  • Date: Friday, June 19, 2009
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Resources

Attendees

  • Regrets:

Abstract and Thoughts on this Session

Topic: Towards A Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology-based Standard

by: Steve Ray, Peter P. Yim, Howard Mason, Frank Olken & Ed Barkmeyer

During the OntologySummit2009_Symposium, the "Quantities and Units of Measure" was identified as a candidate ontology-based standard that folks from the standards community and the ontology community can (and should) work together on. Further momentum has been developing through the active discussion among the community members on this matter in the [ontology-summit] mailing list, prompting us to put this session together. It is important that we get a critical mass of representatives at the call, from each of the following constituencies:

1. The acknowledged authorities who maintain governance over the system of measures. Primarily that would seem to be BIPM, along with various national NMIs (National Measurement Institutes) who collectively maintain key documents such as the GUM (Guidelinefor Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results), the VIM (International Vocabulary of Basic and General Terms in Metrology), UCUM (Unified Code for Units of Measure), and the like. Other related organizations would be IEC, IFCC, ISO, IUPAC, IUPAP and OIML

2. The community who believes there is a requirement to have a harmonized ontology for units and measures.

3. The individuals and teams who believe they have an ontology, or a piece of an ontology, that formally describes some or all of such a universe of discourse.

4. The community of ontologists who have the necessary skills to be able to create a rigorous, well-posed ontology, or to evaluate the quality of existing ontologies or structures

With the above in mind, we hope participants in this session will contribute to working up a plan and a course of action that can make our "Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology-based Standard" a reality.

Here are some of the perspectives from our panelists:

  • "Experience and Requirements for Units of Measure in Patient Data Exchange" - by Stan Huff - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: Rigorously defined units of measure are essential for the interoperable exchange of patient data. Members of the Health Level Seven (HL7) standards organization has been working in this area for several years. We will briefly review the relevant history and current requirements for units of measure in patient data sharing.
  • "OASIS PLCS Committee Requirements for a Units Ontology" - by David Price - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: The OASIS Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS) standard is aimed

at data exchange between systems that define and manage complex engineering assets such as Ships and Aircraft. In support of that exchange, an OASIS committee standardizes "reference data", represented using OWL, that adds detailed semantics to a generic data model to formally specify information exchange requirements. The PLCS committee has an immediate need for a core Units Ontology with wide industrial acceptance supporting physical quantities, but that is extensible to support additions by using organizations in other areas. PLCS Version 1 has passed its first OASIS ballot and preparation for its publication is underway.

  • "The gist Unit of Measure Ontology" - by DaveMcComb - [ slides ] . [ doc ]
    • Abstract: gist is a minimalist upper ontology, expressed in OWL, designed primarily for business use. I will be describing, in this brief, the subset of properties, classes and instances within "gist" that pertains to units of measure.
  • "SWEET 2.0 Scientific Units Ontology" - by Rob Raskin - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: SWEET is a middle-level ontology set serving the multiple disciplines of Earth system science and its accompanying data. SWEET includes an ontology for scientific units that is suitable for most physical science applications. This ontology includes complex unit expressions defined by combining base unit concepts via terms from the mathematics ontology.
  • "Aligning NASA SWEET sciUnits Ontology with COSMO" - by Pat Cassidy - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: The COSMO ontology (COmmon Semantic MOdel) is a foundation ontology ("upper ontology") being developed to serve as an open-source ontology that has a full set of logical representations (types, relations, functions, instances) of the primitive (basic) concepts with which the meanings of all other, more complex terms and concepts in domain ontologies can be specified, as combinations of the basic ontology elements. The most important function of the COSMO is to enable translation of assertions of fundamentally different ontologies into the terminology and format of each other, thereby supporting general, automatic and accurate semantic interoperability. Units of measure are one component of the COSMO ontology. My presentation will be focusing on one issue in aligning the representations of the NASA sciUnits.owl ontology and COSMO.
  • "Units of Measure - How many standards?" - by Howard Mason - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: What are standards? ... and why do we end up with more than one standard?
  • "Units Markup Language" - by Robert Dragoset - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: Through participation in an OASIS Technical Committee (TC), Units Markup Language (UnitsML) is being developed for encoding scientific units of measure in XML. This language is expected to be one part of a project that is composed of three components: an XML schema (UnitsML), a database ([[UnitsDB]]) containing detailed information on SI (International System of Units) and non-SI scientific units of measure, and tools to facilitate the incorporation of UnitsML into other markup languages. The development and deployment of a markup language for units will allow for the unambiguous storage, exchange, and processing of numeric data, thus facilitating the collaboration and sharing of information over the Internet. It is anticipated that UnitsML will be used by the developers of other markup languages to address the needs of specific communities (e.g. mathematics, chemistry, materials science, etc.). Use of UnitsML in other markup languages will reduce duplication of effort and improve compatibility among specifications that represent numerical data that include scientific units and measured quantities.
  • "Making Distinctions" - by Pat Hayes - [ slides ]
    • Abstract: A quick review of some important distinctions that the units ontology will need to keep track of, and a short but passionate exegesis of why this tiresome level of detail is worth paying attention to.

Agenda & Proceedings

Agenda

1. Opening by session Chair (FrankOlken)

2. Briefings from Panelists -- Stan Huff, David Price, DaveMcComb, Bob Dragoset, Rob Raskin, Pat Cassidy, Howard Mason, Pat Hayes

3. Q & A and Open Discussion (All) -- please refer to process above

4. Summary and Next Steps (FrankOlken)

Proceedings

Please refer to the archives above

Input from Panelists in absentia - we received input from a couple of folks who weren't able to join us on the panel today:

  • From Lin Zhang (China), sharing with us issues, concerns and insight, especially from the internationalization perspective:

From: Forest Lin / Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:27:14 +0800

//

...I'd still like to share the following with you all.

==Concerns==:

1. Within the international context, we might need a multi-language mechanism for the widely re-use of the UoM ontology.

Link: UCUM - http://unitsofmeasure.org/

Link: MultiLingual UCUM - http://unitsofmeasure.org/wiki/MultiLingual

2. In a country, for different regions, especially different jurisdictional areas, there may be different Systems of Units,

although usually there is only one legal system. For example, in China, for the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, each

has its own legal system. Within the Mainland, the legal sytem is mainly identical to the SI. On the other hand, There are

different systems for different application domains, such as Avoirdupois, Troy, Apothecaries and the like.

Link: Chinese units of measurement [1]

Link: Systems of measurement - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_measurement

3. In addition, LOINC mapping tool (RELMA) is also involving a number of units of measurement currently used by medical

laboratories, especially in complex units, such as mmol/L.

Link: Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) LOINC - [loinc.org]

==Related works==:

1. Chinese translations of LOINC database and its user manuals.

Link: International LOINC - http://loinc.org/international

2. Chinese translations of the Unified Code for Units of Measure (UCUM) Specification document and its XML data.

Link: UCUM [2]

Link: MultiLingual UCUM - http://unitsofmeasure.org/wiki/MultiLingual

Link: Chinese translation - http://unitsofmeasure.org/ticket/20

3. Development of the interoperability specification on laboratory reports and preparation of its Proof-of-Concept (POC) testing (For China).

4. Chinese translation of the IHE Laboratory framework - static document (CDA).

Thank you so much for your invitation!

Best wishes,

..Lin Zhang

//

  • From Geoffrey Williams (BSI Group, UK) gave us an overview on the International System of Units Standardization Landscape:

//

From: Geoff Williams

Sent: 18 June 2009 13:25

To: Mason, Howard (UK); peter.yim

Cc: j.larmouth; pellaux-at-iso.org; Anders J Thor; Paul Gerome; Ian Mills

Subject: RE: [ontology-summit] Ontolog Session: Towards a Quantities and Unitsof Measure Ontology-based Standard - Thu 19-Jun-2009

Importance: High

Howard

I am afraid that I cannot participate in the teleconference. I draw the attention of the Ontolog Session to the following

information (apologies for those who are already conversant with this information.)

The International System of Units, the SI is defined by the BIPM and is the responsibility of the CCU

(http://www.bipm.org/en/committees/cc/ccu). Prof Ian Mills is the current President of the CCU.

The SI Brochure (http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/general.html) defines the seven base units that provide the reference

used to define all the measurement units of the International System. The SI Brochure also defines numerous derived units.

The multipart ISO/IEC 80000 replaces the former multipart ISO 31 and some parts of IEC 60027. ISO/IEC 80000 defines the

quantities used in various scientific and technological fields in terms of the relevant SI units and identifies the

appropriate SI symbol. ISO/IEC 80000 is the joint responsibility of ISO/TC 12 and IEC/TC 25.

The UK has requested that ISO/IEC 80000 also identifies the appropriate Unicode value for each of the symbols identified in

each part of the standard.

Participants in the ONTOLOG session may like to consider the following information. ISO 704 defines the Principles and

Methods to be used for the definition of technical terms. The standard requires definitions to be placed in a conceptual

framework. ISO 3543-1 and ISO 3543-2 are terminology standards for use in the field of statistics and conceptual analysis

was employed during the development of the terms defined. The concept diagrams are given in annexes of both parts of

ISO 3543. Would this approach be beneficial to the information science communities and fulfil the need for the different

ontologies?

Regards

Geoffrey Williams

Programme Manager,

Business Process Improvement Standards

Standards Operations

//

===IM Chat Transcript captured during the session=== (lightly edited for clairty

VNC2: Welcome to the Ontolog Panel Discussion: Towards A Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology-based Standard

- Fri 19-Jun-2009

  • Panelists:

o Dr. Stan Huff (Univ. of Utah) -- "Experience and Requirements for Units of Measure in Patient Data Exchange"

o Mr. David Price (Eurostep) -- "OASIS PLCS Committee Requirements for a Units Ontology"

o Mr. DaveMcComb (Semantic Arts) -- "The gist Unit of Measure Ontology"

o Dr. Robert Dragoset (NIST) -- "Units Markup Language"

o Dr. Rob Raskin (NASA/JPL) -- "SWEET 2.0 Scientific Units Ontology"

o Dr. Pat Cassidy (MICRA) -- "Aligning NASA SWEET sciUnits Ontology with COSMO"

o Mr. Howard Mason (ISO, BEA) -- "Units of Measure - How many standards?"

o Dr. Pat Hayes (IHMC) -- "Making Distinctions"

VNC2: Please point your browser to the session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2009_06_19

anonymous1 morphed into DaveMcComb

anonymous1 morphed into David Price

Frank Olken: I am on the chat room now, will join the teleconference momentarily.

David Price: On call and chat

DaveMcComb: I'm on the call (I think)

anonymous1 morphed into Joe Collins

anonymous2 morphed into Mark Linehan

anonymous1 morphed into Kurt Conrad

anonymous morphed into Stan Huff, Yim, Mark

Stan Huff, Yim, Mark morphed into Stan Huff, Yan, Mark

Chip Masters: Chip Masters My email is cmasters[at]topquadrant.com.

James Davenport (OpenMath): James Davenport (OpenMath) here

Mark Linehan: This is Mark Linehan from IBM (mlinehan@us.ibm.com). I'm

leading a team at OMG that is attempting to come up with a model for

Date and Time. It turned out that we needed a model for quantities and

units of measure before doing date and time. So we have something to

contribute for quantities & units of measure.

anonymous1 morphed into Mitch Kokar

Frank Olken: This is Frank Olken at the National Science Foundation. I

will be chairing the teleconference once we are set up.

Frank Olken: I suggest that everyone on the teleconference introduce

themselves on the chat room discussion.

anonymous1 morphed into Susan Turnbull

Roger Burkhart: I'm involved in OMG SysML (UML for Systems Engineering)

including a model for quantities and units

Frank Olken: Evan Wallace you are entirely silent .....???

anonymous1 morphed into Douglas Mann

Frank Olken: We have two anonymous participants in the chat room. Please

go to settings and change your login to your actual name.

Laurent morphed into Laurent Liscia

anonymous morphed into Evan Wallace

Evan Wallace: Thanks Mitch

Frank Olken: Note that due to the number of speakers for this teleconference

we will ask each speaker to limit their remarks to 10 minutes.

Laurent Liscia: On behalf of OASIS: David Price and DaveMcComb: thanks for being on the call!

Joel Bender: Joel here, and in spite of being late, I'm glad I havn't missed it!

Frank Olken: The first speaker will be Stan Huff of Intermountain Health Care from Salt Lake City in Utah.

Frank Olken: The second speaker is David Price from OASIS Product Lifecycle Committee.

Frank Olken: Dave McComb is the 3rd speaker of the teleconference, will speak on the gist units of measure ontology.

Steve Ray: Typhoid Mary must have been at the Semantic Technologies Conference.

I picked up a bad cold there also!

Steve Ray: In DaveMcComb's work, there seems to be a blending of units and dimensions.

Seems to me these are distinct concepts.

Frank Olken: Dave, You need to wrap up your talk now.

Peter P. Yim: I doubt if Dave will be reading the chat screen while talking ...

DaveMcComb: Sorry, you're right I have a tough time reading and speaking at the same time

Frank Olken: Is Bob Dragoset on the call now?

Frank Olken: We are passing over Bob Dragoset, who is apparently not on the call.

Frank Olken: Our speaker is now Rob Raskin, speaking about the NASA SWEET units ontology.

Ravi Sharma: Welcome Dr. Rob Raskin, Ravi here - great presentation. Thanks.

Frank Olken: DaveMcComb,

DaveMcComb: I did have a dimension class in the ontology a couple of

years ago, but I found there wasn't much of a need for it.

Frank Olken: @DaveMcComb, Please post the URL of the gist units ontology

to the chat room discussion.

DaveMcComb: The gist unit of emeasure ontologogy is at http://ontologies.semanticarts.com/gist/gistUOM.owl

DaveMcComb: There is some documentation on gist at http://www.gist-ont.com

Frank Chum: Minimalist!!!

DaveMcComb: As I look at it and think about it, I guess the dimensions

just sort of folded into the subtypes of UnitsOfMeasure (I didn't really

intend that but it sort of worked out that way)_

Ravi Sharma: Some confusion between Power as raised to Power in Math vs

Power and energy flow measure. Can you kindly provide some other example

as well next time? just a suggestion. but some notes may clarify. Glad

to learn that JPL and ESIP are collaborating on these.

Frank Olken: Pat Cassidy is now speaking on the alignment of the NASA SWEET Units ontology to COSMO ....

Steve Ray: @DaveMcComb: The reason that looks problematic to me is that there

can be several different units to measure a given dimension.

Mike Bennett: @SteveRay - I think the concept of dimension is critical,

and then common concepts like amount and quantity, before we even get

down into specific domains. As Dave says, currency exchange rate has a

time dimension.

DaveMcComb: @SteveRay Yeah, but if they each have the same base (so if

fortnights and hours each have "second" as their base unit, they will be

inferred to be "duration" units) which I think gets the dimension idea,

without having to have another class or property

anonymous morphed into Bob Dragoset

Frank Olken: @BobDragoset, We will have you speak after Pat Cassidy, who is speaking now.

Frank Olken: Pat, We have a problem in that the base unit for mass in SI is the kilogram.

Ravi Sharma: Pat Cassidy - If we could agree to represent the Units

(generally) in form of tuples then perhaps time and calendar typpe

conversions and ontological meanings would be clearer?

Joel Bender: An extension/implementation of the unix 'units' command to

support this effort would be excellent.

Frank Olken: Howard Mason, from ISO will now speak.

Joe Collins1: Actually, all units have time dependence, not just

currencies WRT rates of exchange. It's just that rates of exchange

change on a much shorter time-scale.

anonymous morphed into Bob Dragoset

Joe Collins1: ISO documents are not cheap. I suspect this is why people

generally refer to abstracts of them.

Ravi Sharma: Howard Mason - often units are used across-communities,

standards are followed cross communities. Ontology would allow reasoning

to compare different ways of expressing physical entity such as energy

and also different automation mechanisms based on language type etc.

hence there is a cse for XML or ontological representation of units.

Frank Olken: Bob Dragoset is now speaking on the UnitsML Units Markup Language.

Frank Chum: @HowardMason: Scope specific standards can prevent ontology from

being unneccessarily bloated.

Howard Mason: I am merely keen to ensure that we avoid duplication and conflict

Frank Chum: @HowardMason, I concur!

Frank Olken: What sort of units need non-integer exponents of the "root" units?

Ravi Sharma: Frank - any measures of geometry such as PI!

Joel Bender: ah, that's how I get my warp factor, v = w^3 * c

Frank Olken: @BobDragoset, You need to start wrapping up.

anonymous morphed into Martin S Weber (NIST)

Mike Bennett: It seems to me there is a real art to not designing

something. That's the difficult part of ontology.

Joe Collins1: Rational powers of units & dimensions may be encountered

in manipulating model equations. I would not want to put a finite bound

on what is expressible.

Frank Chum: @BobDragoset, seems to me that the UnitML you presented is

for the scope of physical science.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @JoelBender (timestamps) : speaking about

UnitsML: there will be something like the unix units command, and

UnitsML does include capabilities for timestamps so this should well be

possible.

Frank Olken: Pat Hayes is now speaking on "Making Distinctions".

Joe Collins1: Q@RobRaskin: What will be maintained by the ESIP

Federation, just units and dimensions, or all of SWEET?

Joe Collins1: Q@ Bob Dragoset: What tool did you use to represent your

schema diagrams?

Martin S Weber (NIST): @FrankChum: The initial scope was/is 'encoding

scientific units of measure'. I myself will (ab)use it for CS "units"

too. I don't see much in the schema limiting UnitsML from being

used to model other units

Martin S Weber (NIST): @Joe Collins1: this was done with XMLSpy* (yeah

you asked Bob, I'm on the group, too, though.) [ *Certain commercial

software was identified as being used by the UnitsML Group at the

National Institute Of Technology. Such identification is not intended to

imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of

Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the software

identified is necessarily the best available for the purpose. ]

Frank Olken: From BobDragoset's slides: For the most recent UnitsML

schema and documentation with images, go to: http://unitsml.nist.gov

Frank Olken: From BobDragoset's slides: For information about SI units

and non-SI units for the U.S., go to: http://physics.nist.gov/sp811

Ravi Sharma: Pat- Money is a measure but its units are measured by

currency type, but gold is ounces or gms?

Joe Collins1: Gold - troy ounces!!

Mike Bennett: @Ravi: the world moved from measuring money in weights of

metals, to recognising the property ofr money as an information

construct. If it has a dimension of a basic "stuff" it's information.

Joe Collins1: Yes, Money is a social construct and not measurable in the

same way as physical quantities.

anonymous morphed into Line Pouchard

Martin S Weber (NIST): @Ravi We were jokingly talking about money last

UnitsML TC Meeting. You -could- model that as dimension & quantity

(counted item) money.. and model 1 unit per currency involved. UnitsML

wasn't designed for that, you -could- model it ..

Martin S Weber (NIST): several problems with the extreme time-dependance

with "unit" conversions arise though

David Leal: A distinction that nobody has yet made is between unit and

scale (oops Pat just has). Decibel is a scale, but not a unit. A very

important scale is ITS90 - the practical temperature scale, which is an

appoximation to the linear scale derived from the unit Kelvin.

Mike Bennett: @Martin - then you would (jokingly) fall in to the trap of

"designing" some solution to the problem. We have seen a lot of clever

stuff in ontology, when what we should be doing is teasing out the

simplcity of reality itself.

James Davenport (OpenMath): @Martin S Weber (NIST): time AND space -

consider pount/guinea arbitrage in 17th century England

Joe Collins1: Units and Quantities ARE a physical theory, mathematically

constructed. Math constructs are inseparable from meaningful discussion.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @JD: true. (We talked about using external WSDL

described services to do these conversions. You could model time in

unitsml. not space (directly) though)

Mike Bennett: @PatHayes - some real clarity there.

Pat Hayes: @MikeBennett: reality isnt simple, and it doesn't have units

Ravi Sharma: Thanks Martin and Mike. units are required for common

understanding such as measuring a given string or reproducing it by

production, etc. and so is wealth or money by measuring the amount

required for exchange conversion or barter.

Douglas Mann: ISO 31 has quantity, dimension, and unit. (see: ISO 31-0

"section 2.2.6 Dimension of a quantity")

Douglas Mann: ISO 31-0 says velocity is a Quantity and L/T is the

Dimension of velocity.

Douglas Mann: Are people aware of this website?

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/ ... Just a few units.

anonymous morphed into Rob Raskin

Evan Wallace: VIM

James Davenport (OpenMath): Not sure if I was heard, but fuel efficiency

can be in miles/gallon or litres/100km.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @just speaking: dimension analysis is dangerous

here: Think energy / torque. You really have to talk about quantities,

not dimensions when trying to compare unit'ized values

Mike Bennett: @PatHayes - good point. I guess Einstein's dictum applies.

I just get worried when I see some clever "solution" to the "Problem".

That's what the next level of system design is about whereas the

ontology should be accurately depicting the problem. You said it cleare

than I could tho.

James Davenport (OpenMath): And the two CAN be directly compared, even

though they are reciprocal.

Mark Linehan: The VIM standard that I mentioned is called "International vocabulary

of metrology Basic and general concepts and associated terms (VIM)"

Josh Lieberman: Many indirect but few direct references to the fact that

units / dimensions / quantities are only meaningful together within a

coordinate reference system. How and should this work into a units ontology?

Joel Bender: We don't need MathML?

Evan Wallace: Josh: either we have to adopt one reference quantity

(dimension) system or we need to

Mark Linehan: it is standard number JCGM 200:2008 issued by BIPM - the

Bureau International des Poids et Measure -- the people who put out SI

Evan Wallace: allow (as VIM does) the definition and reference of

different quantity systems.

Martin S Weber (NIST): Joel: at some point math comes in and when it

comes to marking this up, will you invent something new or use something

existing like OM or MathML?

Joe Collins1: The distinction between energy and torque can be made

using the SI concept of Kind of Quantity.

Josh Lieberman: This is unavoidable for spatial units, but I wonder to what extent

it is behind other multiple unit conventions in other domains.

Ravi Sharma: Speakers: Object of measure is either a physical object or

geotemporal - geometric object. However processes can alkso be measured

thru these. any thoughts?

Martin S Weber (NIST): @Joe Collins1: that was what I was pointing at.

Unit & dimension is not enough alone.

Pat Hayes: Do dimensions have 'reasonable' ranges of scale? Eg mm and

parsecs are both lengths, but maybe should be treated as

different dimensions (?)

Mike Bennett: I think the fundamental ontological problem is "Amount" v

"Quantity", extended out into what they are a numeric number or a

measured amount of, and in the case of some continuous quantity, what

unit that is measured in. Each thing so measured is measured along some

dimension.

Josh Lieberman: @PatHayes - coordinate reference systems have different

scales, which might indicate why mm and parsec are not convertible in

most practices.

Joe Collins1: The amount of a quantity is definable using the SI

concepts unit(Q) and num(Q).

Martin S Weber (NIST): @MikeBennett to me you have a reading, a

measurement of something. All possible readings make up the quantity.

You reason about this reading with reference to a "1" thing, which is

the unit. And the dimension is there to describe the class of all

possible readings. Doesn't that describe amount vs. quantity?

James Davenport (OpenMath): @PatHayes: that's a consequence, not a

property. months are days are botrh time, bt aren't interconvertible

Evan Wallace: As mentioned depending on units alone is ambiguous since

derived units can represent different quantities.

Pat Hayes: @James Davenport: months are a notorious special case, because

they aren't even units. BUt my point would be, should we treat say

milliseconds and millennia as belonging in different dimensions?

DaveMcComb: to Pat Hayes: I agree, but from a pragmatic point, if I have

a dimension and unit, to communicate I need to get people to agree on

two things (ie the concept of length and an agreement on "meter") where

if I derive length from convertTo meter, once they've agreed on "meter"

I've got both.

Mike Bennett: @Douglas Mann: dimensionality versus Dimension. Dimension

is a feature of reality so if we ignore it we will be stuck forever in

some technical design "workaound" that is not an ontology at all.

Mike Bennett: sorry I have to jump off at 11 so I won't have time to get

to the top of the list.

James Davenport (OpenMath): @PatHayes I disagree that months aren't

units, but they are certainly notorious. For your second, no: they ARE

the same dimension, since there's a contunuous spectrum between them.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @PatHayes: milliseconds and millenia, there's

just a tiny constant between them (well or function depending on which

calender you choose to use). So I'd throw them in the same pot...

Ravi Sharma: Speakers: can NOTHING have quantity or dimension? Obviously

it is something physical or concept of reality in space-time --- that

only requires measurability and therefore units - the subject of today's

ontology dialog!

Pat Hayes: @DaveMcComb: True. You have efficiency on your side, I have

robustness. I guess my point could be phrased: robustness is more

important than efficiency when we are waning to keep a wide scope.

Pat Hayes: waning/wanting

DaveMcComb: I also find that people find it easier to agree to concrete

things than abstract things. so getting them to agree to a couple of

scratches on a piece of platinum (a meter) is actually easier than

getting them to agree on something more abstract, derived from that

(length)

Joe Collins1: The vacuum (nothing?) has physical properties.

Mike Bennett: We should end up with the same view of dimensions and units

and things as we learnt about in school. Length is a dimension. Time is

orthoginal to length and so is another dimension. As it charge and mass.

Mark Linehan: Pat Hayes: In our OMG date-time effort, we ended up

distinguishing "precise units" (e.g. second) from "nominal units" (e.g.

months). Common language has both but they have different properties for

reasoning purposes.

Josh Lieberman: Re: millisecond and millenium - there may be a nominal

conversion, but over any real length of time, the number of seconds in a

year will vary, so a particular millenium will have different numbers -

coordinate reference system!

Pat Hayes: @Joe Collins1: If it has properties, the it's not nothing (spoken as a

logician).

Martin S Weber (NIST): @Joe Collins: The vacuum is a certain reading of

amount of o2 (and pressure?), isn't it? So it's not nothing

Josh Lieberman: Is a unit ontology of "inherent properties" or "observed phenomena"?

DaveMcComb: Who was just speaking? That was good

Joe Collins1: @ Martin S Weber (NIST) - Not just that. there are quantum

fluctuations regardless of gas pressure.

James Davenport (OpenMath): @Mark, so both a year and a month are nominal,

but nevertheless a year is precisely 12 months (PS: did we meet

at YKT?)

Evan Wallace: +1 to speaker comment

Chip Masters: Chip Masters (Me)

Mark Linehan: @James -- yes, and yes.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @Joe C: what I meant to say, if you can 'measure'

it being there, it's not nothing ... you can't measure nothing

But then again, 0 has properties..

DaveMcComb: Chip, your points, I think was that the dimension is baked

into the system (not independent)? Interesting

Susan Turnbull: Perhaps use the term dimensions (plural) vs.

dimentionality (as in higher orders of dimension - i.e. high energy

physics, string theory, n-dimentionality, etc.)

Ravi Sharma: Speakers: it is one object but does not get described in all

aspercts by dimensions that imply origin and geometric concepts - but

there are properties that do not belong to common dimension such as spin

and quantum levels etc?

Joe Collins1: The effects of quantum fluctuations in a vacuum are

measurable. Whether you want to refer to the vacuum as "nothing" is a

matter of definitions.

Ravi Sharma: Susan - yes similar to what i wanted to express.

DaveMcComb: On Frank's point of scope: should we have a scientific scope

and a general use scope (I'd suggest the general including the

scientific so it's not inconsistent when they use the same units)

Ravi Sharma: zero has no properties really it is approximating the object

with zero that has property.

Ravi Sharma: Speakers: Electron - what are its units/ dimension (geo) or

energy or charge, etc. therefore every object can have different units

for different purposes?

Martin S Weber (NIST): @Ravi: is the neutral element to e.g. integer

addition, that by which you cannot divide, to you zero (which thus would

have properties), or the object trying to represent itself?

Ravi Sharma: Martin - not clear on Neutral element but zero and infinity

are more powerful concepts than any enumerables - this is the basis of

indian philosphy - at least one of them!

Pat Hayes: I am wondering what kind of dimension mg-per-gram can be? Does

that make sense in CGI?

Evan Wallace: NIST is not an SDO.

Ravi Sharma: Pat - measure in a mixture such as alloy, imprity, etc for

example, very useful.

Steve Ray: NIST would still need to identify an SDO to work with.

Peter P. Yim: @PatHayes - another example of imprecise units is, maybe,

"lunch time" (this was an example brought up when we were trying to

convince the EHR people that they need to seriously consider ontologies

back in 2004)

Martin S Weber (NIST): @PeterYim: It's not imprecise, it's just not

constant. and I wouldn't call it a unit but a measurement to which you

can relate.

Peter P. Yim: @Martin S Weber (NIST): indeed ... thanks

Pat Hayes: @ravi: I understand, but if you do dimensional analysis, its

mass/mass= dimensionless. Which of course it is, since it "measures" a

ratio. IMO this is one illustration of why different communities will

need different ontologies. Some thing is useful for one community but

incoherent to another.

David Price: So W3C, OMG or OASIS are the options for open stds.

Josh Lieberman: concentration is a quantity / measurand / phenomenon

which, having dimensions of gg-1, is dimensionless

Pat Hayes: I doubt very much if the W3C would consider this within its

purview. Just a personal opinion.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @ Josh, Pat : to be pedantic: It is dimensionless

but it's measuring the ratio of two different quantities

Ravi Sharma: Pat your example of mg per gm is pertinent. I agree with you

that we will have different ontologies but also a need to converge or

interoperate so as to not have knowledge sioes?

Ravi Sharma: siloes?

David Leal: I support the use of MathML too. We don't want to reinvent

things, and MathML has useful capabilities like lambda calculus.

Steve Ray: I concur with HowardMason's strategy.

Pat Hayes: MathML is too general, and does not support the needed

ontological expressiveness.

Ravi Sharma: Pat - dimensionless analysis is usual in high energy and

gravitational work and is a way to normalize or scale.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @PatHayes don't use it to express everything, use

it to express the parts of math you need and embed it. Better than

trying to come up with something to describe formulae if you need to

imho

Peter P. Yim: @HowardMason - the recommendation you made (verbally) just now is

important ... would you document it here on the chat, please (so it can

go into the proceedings, besides just being captured on the recording)

... thanks

Josh Lieberman: That does bring up the question of what are the initial

applications and therefore requirements (logical, expressive,

computable) of this ontology? Are "weird" units indeed an initial

target, or a later problem for example?

James Davenport (OpenMath): @PatHayes: I disagree, but we should have

this discussion offline. J.H.Davenport@bath.ac.uk

Pat Hayes: @Ravi: engineering and bioinformatics can likely be in

different siloes for the forseeable future without harm. Trying to find

one standard/ontology to cover both is likely to be too large a stretch,

IMO. Put Stan Huff and Bob Dragoset in a room and wait for the color of

the smoke to change?

Pat Hayes: @James: OK, lets. Note I wasnt suggesting ignoring MathML altogether.

Pat Cassidy: On the issue of ratios of quantities of substances as a

'unit', it may be necessary to have a complex 'unit' (or attribute

value) consisting of the ratio of two substances. That 'unit' would have

pointers to each substance, and the attribute value would include the

numerical ratio.

Joe Collins1: I think that the definitions of the units and definitions

within MathML must follow from their definition by a metrological

standards body.

Pat Hayes: @Joe Collins1: metrological?

Ravi Sharma: Pat - you have a point but MEMS - nano mechanical delivery

of medicines is a real case for understanding both together?

James Davenport (OpenMath): @PatHayes, JC: what I said was that the

MATHEMATICS should be in MathML, e.g. NIST's x:=a+b*(y+d)/c

Joe Collins1: Metrology, the science of measurement.

Pat Hayes: @Ravi: good point. I hadnt thought of that particular nexus.

Evan Wallace: Please add me to the list Peter.

Martin S Weber (NIST): @James Davenport: I agree and MathML and/or

OpenMath will be supported in a near-future version

(not the dreaded "1.0") for that reason

Bob Dragoset: @JamesD: there is a strong possibility that UnitsML will

adopt MathML to represent mathematical expressions.

David Price: Can NIST organize, facilitate the work with the aim of

eventually standardizing in BIPM?

Pat Hayes: @Stan O, speaking: There seemed also to be some consensus on

the need for extendability.

DaveMcComb: Agree completely with PatHayes's last statement

Joe Collins1: Bob Dragoset, I'd like to forward my paper "OpenMath

Content Dictionaries for SI Quantities and Units".

DaveMcComb: We do agree on a lot, and should start there

Evan Wallace: Good idea Frank.

Peter P. Yim: as discussed: (1) I will be creating a new mailing list to

cover this "Towards A Quantities and Units of Measure Ontology-based

Standard" discussion,

(2) I will automatically subscribe everyone who is

here today to that list (if you want to opt out, please email me

peter.yim@cim3.com),

(3) I will announce the creation of this mailing

list both on [ontolog-forum] and on the session page we are using today,

i.e. http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2009_06_19

Bob Dragoset: @DavidPrice: I think that's a possibility, but I'm not an

ontology expert.

Mark Linehan: Pat, there may be a core set of concepts that can have

relatively broad concensus, and then extension sets for specific

disciplines

Pat Hayes: Can anyone gather together all the readings people think we

should all have read?

Pat Hayes: We can't say goodbye as we are all muted.

DaveMcComb: bye

David Price: BobP / BobD!

Frank Olken: We will continue the discussion on an email list that

Peter Yim will construct and put a link to on the

Evan Wallace: Bye.

Doug Holmes: Adios

Frank Olken: conference call wiki page at Ontolog Forum

Frank Olken: Signing off

Peter P. Yim: also, there are people who I don't know (and don't have a email

address for) ... therefore if you attended this session, but did

not pre-register by email, please drop me a note to

<peter.yim@cim3.com> to make sure I have your email addresses

and your affiliations

Peter P. Yim: great session ... thanks you everyone!

-- session ended: 2009.06.19-12.33pm PDT --

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