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Ontolog Forum

Joint SIO-OOR-Ontolog Panel Discussion: "Getting the SIO Project Going" - Thu 25-Mar-2010

This is a joint SIO-OOR-Ontolog Panel Session for the community who wants to see a community-wide sharing and integration of ontologies. This session follows from the [[ConferenceCall_2010_03_16|16-Mar-2010 post Ontology Summit session]] during which the new "Shared and Integrated Ontologies (SIO)" project was officially born.

  • Chair: Dr. JohnSowa (Vivomind Intelligence)
  • Panelists:
    • Dr. MatthewWest (Information Junction)
    • Dr. PatCassidy (Micra)
    • Professor MichaelGruninger (U of Toronto)
    • Professor JohnBateman (U of Bremen)
    • Mr. MikeDean (Raytheon BBN)
    • Mr. PeterYim (Ontolog; CIM3)

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 25-March-2010
  • Start Time: 10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT / 6:30pm CET / 5:30pm GMT / 17:30 UTC (updated - sorry folks! =ppy)
  • Expected Call Duration: ~2.0 hours
  • Dial-in Number:
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      • Switzerland 0848-560-327
      • UK 0844-581-9148
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  • Please note that this session will be recorded, and the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

  • Expecting:
    • Nicola Guarino (first 30 min.)
    • Denise Bedford
    • ... if you are coming to the session, please add your name above (plus your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the community) above; or e-mail <peter.yim@cim3.com> so that we can reserve enough resources to support everyone's participation. ...

Resources

Background: Sharing and Integrating Ontologies

  • Session Topic: Getting the SIO Project Going
The challenge of relating ontologies so that the instance data associated with the ontologies can effectively interoperate has been researched and debated for a long time -- seriously for the last decade, and arguably, for the past six decades since the inception of artificial intelligence, or, some would even say, that this has been going on for millennia.
Informed by the UpperOntologySummit (2006) dialog, with support from the Ontology Summit 2008 as well as the OpenOntologyRepository work, and prompted by rigorous discussion on the [ontolog-forum] mailing list over the past 2~3 months, which John F. Sowa synthesized by drawing upon his "lattice of theories" and other related approaches. The community has finally made a leap into starting a project to implement some of the ideas that have been considered. The result is the founding of the "Shared and Integrated Ontologies (SIO)" project as the conclusion of our recent [[ConferenceCall_2010_03_16|16-Mar-2010 post Ontology Summit session]].
In this session, we try to get the perspectives from some of the key players who were in those earlier conversations, and hopefully, draw up a Charter to get this SIO project work started, in a way the community wants to drive it.

Agenda & Proceedings

Session Topic: Getting the SIO Project Going

Transcript of the online chat during the session

see raw transcript here.

(for better clarity, the version below is a re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript.)

Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit.

-- begin of chat session --

Peter P. Yim:

.

Welcome to the Joint SIO-OOR-Ontolog Panel Discussion: "Getting the SIO Project Going" - Thu 25-Mar-2010

  • Panelists:

o Dr. Matthew West (Information Junction)

o Dr. Nicola Guarino (LAO-CNR)

o Dr. Pat Cassidy (Micra)

o Professor Michael Grüninger (U of Toronto)

o Professor John Bateman (U of Bremen)

o Mr. Mike Dean (Raytheon-BBN)

o Mr. Peter P. Yim (Ontolog; CIM3)

anonymous morphed into Harold Solbrig

anonymous2 morphed into Matt Hettinger

anonymous1 morphed into Bart Gajderowicz

Bart Gajderowicz: @PeterYim, are the slides for 3-Guarino and 7-Dean available?

anonymous1 morphed into Kevin Keck

anonymous morphed into Lyn Niemeyer

anonymous morphed into Pavithra Kenjige

Cameron Ross: hello

Peter P. Yim: @Bart - no, we don't have slides from Nicola Guarino and Mike Dean ... some panelists may

choose to make their remarks without slides ... I have urged them (and everyone) to document the

points they are making on this chat-board, though

GaryBergCross: I expect that someone will define "shared" and "integrated" in the SIO title so we

are clear on the goal.

Peter P. Yim: @Gary - that would be a good question for John F. Sowa ... he named this project "SIO"

Arturo Sanchez: @Michael: is there an ontology which defines "meta-data" (as you called them) terms?

Phil Murray: Gotta go (2:10). Very interesting. Let me know how I might help.

Kevin Keck: Did I miss a discussion of why it should be named "shared and integrated" rather than

sharing and integrating? I personally rather like the latter, as in the title of John's motivating

presentation.

Peter P. Yim: @PhilMurray - thank you ... we'll probably be starting a new [sio-forum] mailing list; I

will subscribe everyone who participated today ... see you there!

Peter P. Yim: @Kevin - we did not have such a conversation

Kevin Keck: To the extent that we are developing "scripts" and methods in addition to ontologies, I

think the -ing form is preferable.

Peter P. Yim: @Kevin - let's bring that up during the Q&A/open-discussion segment ... since John F. Sowa

took the lead on this effort, we did say (during the Mar-16 meeting) to let him make the call on how

to label this effort

Arturo Sanchez: Wow! What a good interoperability example!! Destiny is laughing at us now

anonymous1 morphed into John Bateman

GaryBergCross: Missing the Spring time change has a bit more bite when you are trying to make a

plane flight back to the US as happended to me last year.

John Bateman: I think I'm doing well when I manage to remember to get the spring/fall time change

right in just *one* timezone, let alone several!

Peter P. Yim: @MatthewWest, Nicola Guarino, John Bateman, AlexGarcia - my apologies for having posted the

wrong start time for our colleagues from Europe (the US has moved over to Daylight Saving Time on

Mar-14, but Europe is still on "standard time" until Mar-2

Lyn Niemeyer: Thank you so much for allowing me to listen in. I have to move on, but I am enthused

that this group is looking at ontology inter-operability while the ontology concept is still in the

craft stage. I can't offer much expertise in this area as my work is on a much more lay-level,

however I intend to keep tabs on your work! Have a beautiful day.

anonymous1 morphed into Pierre Grenon

Peter P. Yim: @Lyn Niemeyer - thank you very much for participating today, Lyn

Kevin Keck: Slide #20 made me think of OMG's ODM.

Kevin Keck: (and John's comments on the mailing list of integrating with mainstream tools)

Peter P. Yim: John F. Sowa: suggest that John Bateman or other folks to work on the ability to translate to

UML

Mike Bennett: Indeed, I thought ODM had quie a lot of traction.

Harold Solbrig: ODM, however, has a risk. Many people think that converting a UML information model

to OWL gives ontology...

Harold Solbrig: ... but the only ontology you get is about tables (e.g. parents are optional, but all

people inherently have SSN's...)

Mike Bennett: Not if you use ODM properly - if defines a complete metamodel, which can be

implemented. Of course that doesn't guarantee that's what built is an ontology, but to the same

extent that having something in OWL doesn't guarantee that it's an ontology.

Harold Solbrig: The problem is that, by and large, UML models data. It is very strange to hear the

claims these days about what sorts of ontology now exists, thanks to ODM conversions of

implementation models.

Harold Solbrig: And even more interesting to see what they assert...

Mike Bennett: Well I don't know about that but I know that I have been able to use ODM (in an early

draft) to create a workable ontology using a UML tool. It's down to having a clear approach to

meaning, but that seems clear enough in OWL as it is. I don't see what difference the toolset makes

at the level of the ontology content (obviously it makes a difference in terms of URIs etc.).

Mike Bennett: Anyway "UML models data" is a bit like saying "paper creates charcoal sketches".

Harold Solbrig: I realize I misspoke - UML tends to be used to model data.

Harold Solbrig: We are just frustrated because folks are taking shortcuts - on the basis that now

that they've got the ODM, there is no longer need for ontology modeling. They've already got it.

Cameron Ross: @JohnBateman: Does the HETS GPL-like license support its use within commercial

applications?

Harold Solbrig: A risk that I think this community needs to be aware of...

Mike Bennett: @Harold fair point. I think the theoretical framework is as important regardless of

what tools or syntax are used

John Bateman: Example of relabelling: see my slide 12, where we see CASL *parameterisation*. There we

have the abstract generalized mereology theory GENMEREOLOGY which is reused for time (T), space (S)

and perdurants (PD). This is exactly the kind of useful relabelling meant and shows how (a) it is

already used in ontology design and (b) is fully supported by HETS structuring methods.

Mike Bennett: Certified - in light of the above notes on ODM, should this include some sanity check

on there being a workable theory of meaning inthe ontology in the first place?

Peter P. Yim: @MikeDean ... missed you calling in earlier, please make your remarks right after John F. Sowa

finishes ... (we only have about 15 minutes left)

Mike Dean: @PeterYim - sounds good

Mike Dean: Mike Dean is one of the co-conveners of OOR, along with Peter Yim and Leo Obrst

Mike Dean: I'd like to echo Peter Yim's comments about the value of this effort and bridging between

related communities

Mike Dean: OOR is pleased to support SIO

Mike Dean: good opportunity to attract more OOR users and developers

Mike Dean: We look forward to further collaboration!

Peter P. Yim: folks: one more mishap on today's session ... the audio recording will only be for this

last segment (the last 20~30 minutes only ... the earlier presentations didn't make it in) ...

sorry! ... I will be contacting the earlier speakers and try to get a recording of their talks

offline, and then edit those back into the session recording.

Peter P. Yim: John F. Sowa: re-labeling the project "Sharing and Integrating Ontologies"

Peter P. Yim: new mailing list: [sio-dev] to address the next level of granularity

Peter P. Yim: the overall conversation on "Sharing and Integrating Ontologies" will stay on the

[ontolog-forum] list

Peter P. Yim: John F. Sowa will start a thread on [ontolog-forum] to work up the SIO Project Charter

Peter P. Yim: thank you everyone, for the participation ... great session!

Peter P. Yim: -- session ended: 2010.03.25-12:38 --

-- end of chat session --

  • ... More Questions
    • For those who have further questions or remarks on the topic, please post them to the [ontolog-forum] or the new [sio-dev] mailing lists so that everyone in the community can benefit from the discourse ... see the next section (below) on how you can participate, if you aren't already a member of the community.)

An Open Invitation

If you are among those who want to see the sharing and integration of ontologies as an enabler for improved information and data interoperability, we cordially invite you to join us in this new "Shared and Integrated Ontologies (SIO)" project community.

  • To participate in SIO virtual discourse, please refer to details [ here]

Audio Recording of this Session

  • To download the audio recording of the session, click here
    • the playback of the audio files require the proper setup, and an MP3 compatible player on your computer.
  • Conference Date and Time: 25-Mar-2010 10:38am ~ 12:38pm Pacific Daylight Time
  • Duration of Recording: 1 Hour 19 Minutes
  • Recording File Size: 9.0 MB (in mp3 format)
  • suggestion: its best that you listen to the session while having the presentation opened in front of you. You'll be prompted to advance slides by the speaker.
  • Take a look, also, at the rich body of knowledge that this community has built together, over the years, by going through the archives of noteworthy past Ontolog events. (References on how to subscribe to our podcast can also be found there.)

For the record ...

How To Join (while the session is in progress)