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OntologySummit2012: Session-02 - Thu 2012-01-19

Summit Theme: OntologySummit2012: "Ontology for Big Systems"

Session Topic: Ontology for Big Systems - What's In Scope?

Session Co-chairs: Dr. LeoObrst (MITRE, Ontolog) & Dr. NicolaGuarino (ISTC-CNR)

Panelists:

Archives:

Abstract

OntologySummit2012 session-02 - "Ontology for Big Systems: What's In Scope?"

This is our 7th Ontology Summit, a joint initiative by NIST, Ontolog, NCOR, NCBO, IAOA & NCO_NITRD with the support of our co-sponsors. The theme adopted for this Ontology Summit is: "Ontology for Big Systems." The event today is our 2nd virtual session.

During this 3-month Summit, we seek to explore, identify and articulate how ontological methods can bring value to the various disciplines required to engineer a "big system." The term "big system" is intended to cover a large scope that includes many of the terms encountered in the media such as big data, complex techno-socio-economic systems, intelligent or smart systems, cloud computing, netcentricity and collective intelligence. Established disciplines that fall within the summit scope include (but not limited to) systems engineering, software engineering, information systems modelling, and data mining.

The principal goal of the summit is to bring together and foster collaboration between the ontology community, systems community, and stakeholders of some of "big systems." Together, the summit participants will exchange ideas on how ontological analysis and ontology engineering might make a difference, when applied in these "big systems." We will aim towards producing a series of recommendations describing how ontologies can create an impact; as well as providing illustrations where these techniques have been, or could be, applied in domains such as bioinformatics, electronic health records, intelligence, the smart electrical grid, manufacturing and supply chains, earth and environmental, e-science, cyberphysical systems and e-government. As is traditional with the Ontology Summit series, the results will be captured in the form of a communiqué, with expanded supporting material provided on the web.

The panel today will present how the organizing committee intends to structure the discourse. We will discuss, clarify and refine what is (or should be) in scope during this Summit season. The champions of various tracks and topics will share their plans and solicit the community's involvement and participation.

See developing details on this Summit series of events at: OntologySummit2012 (home page for this summit)

Agenda

Ontology Summit 2012 - Panel Session-02

  • Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call

Proceedings:

Please refer to the above

IM Chat Transcript captured during the session:

see raw transcript [http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2012/2012-01-19_OntologySummit2012-whats-in-scope/chat-transcript_unedited_20120119a.txt here]. 
(for better clarity, the version below is a [http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2012/2012-01-19_OntologySummit2012-whats-in-scope/chat-transcript_edited_20120119b.txt re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript].)
Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit. 
-- begin in-session chat-transcript -- 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: Welcome to the 
= [[OntologySummit2012]]: Session-02 - Thu 2012-01-19 = 
Summit Theme: [[OntologySummit2012]]: "Ontology for Big Systems" 
Session Topic: Ontology for Big Systems - What's In Scope? 
Session Co-chairs: Dr. [[LeoObrst|Leo Obrst]] & Dr. [[NicolaGuarino]] 
Panelists: 
Track-1: Large-scale systems engineering - Co-Champions: Dr. [[HensonGraves]], Mr. [[CoryCasanave]] 
Track-2: Large-scale engineered systems - Co-Champions: Dr. [[MatthewWest]], Dr. [[HensonGraves]] 
Track-3: Challenge: ontology and big data - Co-Champions: Mr. [[ErnieLucier]], Ms. [[MaryBrady]] 
Track-4: Large-scale domain applications - Co-Champions: Dr. [[SteveRay]], Dr. [[TrishWhetzel]], Mr. [[CoryCasanave]]  
X-Track-A1: Ontology Quality and Large-Scale Systems - Co-champions: Dr. [[AmandaVizedom]] 
Communiqué Co-Lead Editors - Dr. [[ToddSchneider]] (in absentia), Mr. [[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]
Public Relations - champion: Mr. [[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]] 
Session page: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_01_19 
Mute control: *7 to un-mute ... *6 to mute 
Can't find Skype Dial pad? ... it's under the "Call" dropdown menu as "Show Dial pad" 
== Proceedings: == 
anonymous morphed into [[MikeRiben]] 
Nicola Guarino: Hi everybody 
[[LeoObrst|Leo Obrst]]: Hi, Nicola. 
anonymous morphed into [[ChristopherSpottiswoode]] 
anonymous morphed into [[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]] 
anonymous morphed into [[DougFoxvog]] 
[[JoelBender|Joel Bender]]: getting "please continue to hold while we locate this subscriber" message and music 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: Hi Joel, are you sure you are dialing into the correct room? We're in the call right 
now. 
[[JoelBender|Joel Bender]]: redialed - all set 
anonymous morphed into [[ElizabethFlorescu]] 
anonymous morphed into IAM <--[ppy: not sure who this is; please use real name (in [[WikiWord]] format) 
in the future. thanks.] 
anonymous1 morphed into [[AndreaWesterinen]] 
anonymous morphed into [[MaryBrady]] 
anonymous morphed into [[RamGouripeddi|Ram Gouripeddi]] 
anonymous morphed into [[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]] 
[[DuaneNickull|Duane Nickull]]: Good Morning all! 
anonymous morphed into [[GaryBergCross]] 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: @DougFoxvog - thank you for helping post the (chat-room) attendees roster to the wiki 
session page last week 
[[RamSriram|Ram D. Sriram]]: I will be leaving early, but we need to decide on the date. We have two options: April 
12-13 and April 23-24. 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: @RamSriram - we will let you and [[MichaelGruninger]] decide on the symposium date. Just tell 
us. 
[[RamSriram|Ram D. Sriram]]: @MichaelGruninger: Is April 12-13 fine with you. 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @RamSriram, [[MichaelGruninger]] is not in the chat. 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: @RamSriram - let's decide at the organizing committee meeting tomorrow, and then announce 
the decision to the community 
RosarioUcedaSosa: Good day to everyone. A comment. Given that we all have different backgrounds and 
interests, it would be a good idea for the track leaders to post a reading list of papers/materials 
that they think are foundational/relevant/thought provoking. The track leaders could 'filter' the 
references if the lists become unmanageable. 
Nicola Guarino: @Rosario: excellent idea 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: +1 to Rosario's idea as well, it would be very helpful. 
[[ErnieLucier|Ernie Lucier]]: [[RosarioUcedaSosa]] requested a reading list. One reference I like is Ultra-Large-Scale 
Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future 2006, 
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/assets/ULS_Book20062.pdf 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: Could definitely use resources for the group around Automatic Programming if that will 
remain a focus of Track 3 discussions. 
RosarioUcedaSosa: I can't access the slides anymore. Get 'Connection to the server was reset' 
Anybody else has the same problem? 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: whoever it is who typed in the box next to the hand, the chat input box is further to the 
left, please re-type your input, thanks 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: I was hoping that Track 4 would include -- as part of "large-scale" systems -- those 
that require large/complex ontologies, not just large data. Is that the case? I didn't see that 
aspect described in the slides just shown. 
[[SteveRay|Steve Ray]]: Yes, we hope to cover that as well. That is what was meant by "very complex data sets". 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: @Steve: Great. Let's talk more because I think the complexity of the required 
ontology is (or can be) distinct from the complexity of the data. That is, I agree that semantic 
systems need to model the data, but IMHO also need to model the "domain". Either or both of these 
models can be large/complex. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @Steve @Larry - there's also different degrees of "very" (large and/or complex). 
[[JamesOdell|James Odell]]: There is also a different between complicated and complex. 
RosarioUcedaSosa: @Steve @Larry -- If that's the case, the comment I made to the 3d track really 
applies to track 4. Large data sets (instance-level) and large models/metadata (class-level). If 
track 4 is explicitly tackling the two dimensions and their different assumptions 
(storing/streaming/caching data in the instance-level and integrating/prescribing/describing at the 
class level) it should be a very interesting discussion. 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: Wow, and I thought Clinton was a tough English sentence parser in his "what is is" 
days Yes, I agree with each of those distinctions. 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: There are multiple issues with complex ontologies - both defining (understanding) 
and storing them, and then reasoning over them. We might want to separate these issues. 
[[JamesOdell|James Odell]]: --as well as executing over some part of an ontology (particularly process ontologies) 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: Has anyone looked at the DQM vocabulary for some aspects of the quality work? 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @andrea the RPI LODQ ? 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: I do not believe that DQM is related to the LODQ, but they might be. Info on DQM 
is available at http://semwebquality.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=DQM-Vocabulary_Primer. 
[[ChristopherSpottiswoode|Christopher Spottiswoode]]: @AmandaVizedom, (ref. the X-Track-A1 focus) Are you distinguishing between 
ontology quality and ontology-based application quality? 
[[ChristopherSpottiswoode|Christopher Spottiswoode]]: @Amanda. Thank you! (to Amanda's verbal response.) 
[[AmandaVizedom|Amanda Vizedom]]: Capturing here my response to @Christopher on the call, for record: Yes, I am making 
that distinction, and I am talking about ontology quality specifically. However, the door is open to 
discuss way in which ontology-based application quality may depend on ontology quality, and how 
ontology quality in a big systems context can be defined. Additionally, I briefly took off my 
Champion hat and put on my experienced practitioner hat and stated my view that (applied) ontology 
quality cannot be evaluated in full without considering (aspects of) the performance of the system 
of which it is a part. 
[[ChristopherSpottiswoode|Christopher Spottiswoode]]: Thanks Amanda - your answer, now also on the chat, was good. 
[[ChristopherSpottiswoode|Christopher Spottiswoode]]: @Amanda, here's another distinction: between functional quality and 
non-functional quality. 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: Excellent discussion Amanda.. Thanks for offering it up as a track! 
[[LinePouchard|Line Pouchard]]: I looked at some 2005 work by Stuart Madnick at MIT business school. Also an 
interesting paper "Data Quality- What can ontological ananlysis contribute?" by Andrew Frank. 
Interesting. Not related to LOD I believe 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: One might argue that an ontology may have logical quality and/or formal 
representation quality and/or domain relevance/faithfulness quality...and of course some quality of 
how these are related in an ontology. 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: @Gary: I like those distinctions. 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: @Gary: +1 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: @Gary: To your list, I'd add an efficiency/utility/effectiveness dimension. Although 
it might bother the purists who might think that the ontological model should be independent of its 
use, there is definitely an impact of the design of the ontology and its usefulness. 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: @Larry: would second your proposition.. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: @Larry, I guess I was folding efficiency/utility/effectiveness into the Domain part, 
but is is worth having these considered as part of pragmatic application of an ontology. 
[[MikeBennett|Mike Bennett]]: Another aspect of ontology quality I think is ientifying what are the appropriate 
requirements to be met in a business conceptual ontology versus an operational ontology 
(representing overall business meaning versus decidable ontologies for semantic apps). I don't know 
if that's a distinction that's widely shared. 
Nicola Guarino: @MikeBennett: your distinction between ontology quality wrt conceptual understanding 
and ontology quality wrt operational efficiency is very important, in my opinion 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: @Mike: DQM is related to requirements. 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: @Nicola and @Mike: Indeed this has been a key concern in my area of interest. 
[[MikeBennett|Mike Bennett]]: @Nicola and @Matthew glad to hear I'm not alone. We are starting to articulate some of 
these distinctions in some of our ongoing proof of concept work. It's a bit new to some of the 
[[SemTech]] folks 
[[AmandaVizedom|Amanda Vizedom]]: Thanks to everyone who is making comments related to quality, and suggesting 
references. 
[[AmandaVizedom|Amanda Vizedom]]: @Gary: regarding your suggestion of different types of quality: In the Unscoped 
Wilds, there is (as you know) a spectrum of views regarding the universality of standards of 
ontology quality. At the poles of this spectrum are, roughly, (1) those who see ontology quality as 
context independent (purely formal, specifiable without reference to application or acctivity, and 
(2) those who see ontology quality as entirely context-specific, locally-definable, and expedient. 
Most practitioners fall between these poles, but there is a relatively continuous disagreement on 
the matter. One reason I think that there is hope for this discussion is that we are not in the 
Unscoped Wilds; we are explicitly looking at ontology quality and Large-scale systems. Letting the 
systems discussion shape the quality discussion gives us a way to skip the most intractable parts 
and focus on quality *as it relates to large-scale systems*, that is, as it affects such systems 
and/or the engineering of them, and as it can be measured and so made useful within these contexts. 
In this scope, Quality can be operationally defined as ~~ fitness for purpose, where more and less 
formal criteria can be identified as characteristics contributing (variably) to ontology quality. 
So, with that in mind, I'd suggest re-casting these distinctions from "kinds of quality" to features 
relevant to quality, and then asking when and how those features matter, and whether and how we can 
measure and evaluate them. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: What is the twitter handle for the 2012 Summit again? 
[[AmandaVizedom|Amanda Vizedom]]: @GaryBergCross (and all): twitter hashtag is #ontologysummit2012 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: #ontologysummit2012 seems to be the twitter handle 
anonymous morphed into [[RexBrooks|Rex Brooks]] 
anonymous morphed into [[KathyEllis]] 
anonymous1 morphed into [[JosephSimpson]] 
anonymous morphed into [[NancyWiegand]] 
[[LinePouchard|Line Pouchard]]: Hi Nancy 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: This all seems, in contrast to previous years, highly fragmented and unfocused. Will 
there be a higher level effort to focus the outcome of the summit? 
[[SteveRay|Steve Ray]]: @Chris: Our hope is that we will end up with some specific recommendations about where 
ontology is particularly well suited to help, be it in the systems engineering process itself, or in 
the engineered system that results. ... @ChrisWelty - I think more of a focus will emerge as the 
tracks become more crystallized 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: ...in my experience, "focus" is not an emergent quality 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @ChrisWelty, the reason I suggested that a focus would emerge is that it is not wholly 
clear to what extent of the different types of systems will be covered. Once the exact scope of the 
large-systems being investigated (a function of who is involved in the tracks in addition to the 
mission statements) will greatly narrow the focus 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @ChrisWelty - I think that the cross-tracks will also help lock in 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: (it's a question) 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: I asked if long was a dimension of big 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: I asked if keeping data usable over archival timespans 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: 50 years and longer 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: [dataset provenance, citation tracking, replication awareness, etc are important issues 
in large scale systems engineering) 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: [[PeterYim]] suggests to post questions here, and use the hand for indicating you want to 
speak. 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: ref. [[SteveRay]]'s suggestion (verbal) on prefixing mailing list posts - '''please use 
[SystemEngineering], [EngineeredSystems], [BigDataChallenge], [Applications] & [Quality] when 
discussing respective track issues''' (I will document that on the wiki too, just in case people want 
to refresh their memories later - it'll be under: 
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2012#nid309T 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: A preliminary unifying narrative I see is the recommendations for various practitioners. 
It would seem to begin with identifying what exactly big systems are, and then explicating the 
various ways that ontologies apply. This would cover tracks 1 & 2. Track 4 supplements those two by 
providing examples, while track 3 focuses on a problem that persists at the moment. 
[[NancyWiegand|Nancy Wiegand]]: I have an interest in what might be Track 1 or Track 4 regarding how computer 
architectures hold and use ontologies and other semantic components. For starters, I was thinking of 
looking at [[CUAHSI]] or iPlant to find out how they designed semantics into their architectures. Ilya 
Zaslavsky and Blazej Bulka from those respectively did answer an email on this and might be willing 
to give presentations. Others probably know of other systems too. 
[[NancyWiegand|Nancy Wiegand]]: @LinePouchard -- Maybe you could talk about your system too, regarding my comment. 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: To try to answer the question being asked about multiple data sets with the same data. 
What I hope will happen is that the idea of "Authoritative Source" will gain credence, so that those 
that are the originators of data and are properly the authoritative source will make it available so 
that the many do not have to curate their own copy. 
[[TerryLongstreth|Terry Longstreth]]: @MatthewWest: your point about "authoritative source" is well taken, but our 
current models all assume that the authority is a human. In an archiving environment, transferring 
authority over the course of years is a hard problem. 
[[AmandaVizedom|Amanda Vizedom]]: @Terry: true of some systems, but notably not true of, e.g., sensor fusion systems 
(which I think would count as Big in several dimensions! 
[[AmandaVizedom|Amanda Vizedom]]: @Larry, your point a way back about "complexity of the required ontology" can also be 
viewed through the lens of quality and evaluation, in this sense: one significant barrier to 
effective ontology evaluation is the lack of effective specifications of ontology *requirements*. 
Understanding how to specify ontology requirements, including what characteristics/dimensions matter 
to fitness-for-purpose, is one area in which, IMHO, relatively rapid progress in support of ontology 
quality could be made. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: It helps 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: @Amanda: Agreed. Walking this back even one step further, the question might be how 
ontology development (including requirement specification) should be driven: in the abstract (e.g, 
"let's build a weather ontology") vs application-driven. In the latter case, of course, one wants to 
aim for reusability, but there are definite advantages to having a concrete use case as a driver and 
as a means of validation. 
anonymous morphed into [[PavithraKenjige]] 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: When we talk about ontology to help Big Data are we talking about Big Meta-Data? 
Might play well. 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: @Gary: How would you differentiate the two? 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @Gary "All data is metadata" 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: @Simon: And all metadata is data 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: @KenAllgood - "How would you differentiate the two?" Ontology is formalized 
metadata??? 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: @Gary: It could be described as such, I asked the question to gain insight into how it 
could be presented cleanly.. 
[[LinePouchard|Line Pouchard]]: @Gary: in simulation results on large supercomputers, order of magnitude in size still 
is one of the differences between data and metadata. Another one maybe formats, with results as 
scalars or arrays, and metadata as somewhat human-readable. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: @Line. That magnitude factor is a great distinction. I was thinking if we are talking 
about VERY Big data, then we get to Big metadata... 
[[PavithraKenjige|Pavithra Kenjige]]: What are big systems? how do you define large systems? did anyone discuss it 
already? 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: @Pavithra: yes this has been discussed. We got as far as the whole system being beyond 
the comprehension of a single person. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: Nicola mentioned [[FuturICT]] at last year's Summit, so perhaps an update on that is in 
order. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: (ref. Nicola's verbal response) Nicola, thank you for the update. It seems that the 
project must be considering some of the issues surfaced here. 
[[BruceBray|Bruce Bray]]: Shorter subject titles would be better than longer ones 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: @Nicola: I agree that an important aspect of the systems we are looking at that is 
about being intentionally constructed, indeed intentionally construct systems would have been my 
choice of name for clarity, but for a wider audience I think engineered systems is better, and 
matches systems engineering. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @Nicola, @Matthew: Taxis, not Kosmos, in Hayek's terms (Made order, vs. Grown order) 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: But, use cases of 1 always work and rarely result in designs that are reusable. 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @Nicola and Matthew, I asked on the list, but i'll repeat here - consider someone trying 
to understand and do urban planning human's role in ecologies / environment / climate science ... 
are the people trying to understand (and in some case, conduct interventions in these systems) 
engaged in engineering? ... Why not _Designed_ Systems ? 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: I am not arguing against use cases, just arguing for multiple ones if reusability 
is a goal. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: Design is part of Engineering as is analysis and implementation. 
Nicola Guarino: @Ali: I agree with you, "designed" is better than "engineered". However, I want to 
include also the context where designed systems are placed in the notion of system. That's why I am 
proposing "large scale socio-technical systems" 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @Nicola, that works too, i don't think the notion of function is restricted to 
engineered systems only. 
Nicola Guarino: @Ali: agreed 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: @Andrea: I concur (re multiple use cases). One proxy for that is drawing on the 
experience (embodied both in terms of an extant ontology and in the minds of the practioners) to 
design for reuse, even in the case of a single (new) app/usecase. I think we both agree that several 
are better than one and that one is better than none (i.e., developing in the abstract). 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @Gary, my point is that someone who is engaged in design planning, or someone who is 
trying to build a climate model, could use things from engineering, but would not necessarily define 
their system as an "engineered system" 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: er, could use learning from ontology* 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: design planning --> urban design planning* 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: @Ali: I don't have a fixed idea of what the name of track 2 should be. If someone makes 
a suggestion and several others support it, I would be inclined to go with it. As far as designed 
systems is concerned I think it has similar problems of interpretation as engineered systems. You 
only need to take a narrow view of the name as you have done with engineered systems. 
Nicola Guarino: On the ontology of functions, let me point to the recent special issue of Applied 
Ontology http://iospress.metapress.com/content/u015875jv78t/?p=ccdb1d13b00943ba931aff599352fd21&pi=2 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: @Ali. I see your point in an urban design planning activity. The resulting urban 
product might not be called "engineered", but this seems in part to me one of labeling. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: Tall for a philosopher, but short for a basketball player... 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @Gary, I'm also thinking in terms of making the content findable, and such that someone 
in non-ontology domain would identify with it. If part of the goal of this summit is to foster 
inter-disciplinary knowledge transfer, then it seems useful to make the terms accurately reflect how 
different cultures identify their domains. 
[[SteveRay|Steve Ray]]: @Matthew: But we have included "Large" to also mean simply Big, so I would include 
Facebook in scope. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @MatthewWest was OS/360 a complex system? 
[[AndreaWesterinen|Andrea Westerinen]]: @Ali: I agree. That was my point earlier about the different aspects of building, 
understanding, efficiently storing and then reasoning over ontologies. 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: Complex in relation to usual human ability to understand...but not for a chess 
grandmaster... 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @Andrea, I agree. Especially if track 2 is about ontologies that can be used to describe 
these systems, they will often include aspects that aren't often within the scope of traditional 
engineering professions. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: I agree: If enough people say "it is big system", that's enough for now 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: @Amanda I do like your related quality to the largeness and conplexity focus we have. 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: i suggest it would be a mistake to try and define "complex" and "big" ... even "system". 
It would take a lot of time, generate something most people would simply disagree with, and serve no 
real purpose 
[[JosephSimpson|Joseph Simpson]]: For complex systems you must first define the boundary of the system. If you can not 
clearly define the boundary, it is probably is complex. 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: rather, (...looking for focus...) what seems to be clear here is a nice focus on 
ontology quality 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: @Chris, would it be useful to identify interpretations of systems that fall within scope 
of the summit? 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: @ChrisWelty++ 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: Are Big systems from 1970 now considered Big in 2012? 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: At least try to make clear which systems we expect our recommendations to apply to, and 
which do not. 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: @ChrisWelty: Agree, and we've run into that ourselves already 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: i think it woudl be useful to make a "big systems may include systems like ..." and make 
a clearly non-exhaustive list, and then move on 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: they key being to move on 
[[MikeBennett|Mike Bennett]]: Apologies, have to drop off for another call. Great session! 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: Also, isn't track 2 answering that question to a large degree? 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: @Chris: Or at the least arrive at a list of criteria. 
[[LarryLefkowitz|Larry Lefkowitz]]: What are the next steps? 
[[ChrisWelty|Chris Welty]]: gotta go 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: Would it help to pull a list of the domains that are currently being addressed by the 
NSF Datanet projects? 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: @ChrisWelty - I think the giving examples of Big Systems is a good one.. 
[[SteveRay|Steve Ray]]: @Gary: That's what Track 4 will try to do. 
[[MatthewWest|Matthew West]]: (ref. AliHashemi's solicitation to ALL to blog, tweet or help spread the word about 
OntologySummit2012) I'm on LinkedIn so I can say something there. 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: There should be some LinkedIn groups where a thread might pick up steam (and could point 
here) 
[[SteveRay|Steve Ray]]: Thanks all. 
[[AliHashemi|Ali Hashemi]]: Thanks 
[[GaryBergCross|Gary Berg Cross]]: Bye all. 
[[SimonSpero|Simon Spero]]: Thanks everyone 
[[KenAllgood|Ken Allgood]]: Thanks Leo and Steve.. 
[[LeoObrst|Leo Obrst]]: Thanks, folks! 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: great session ... thanks! 
Nicola Guarino: bye all! 
[[PeterYim|Peter P. Yim]]: -- session ended: 11:05am PST -- 
-- end of in-session chat-transcript -- 
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    • all subscribers to the previous summit discussion, and all who responded to today's call will automatically be subscribed to the [ ontology-summit ] listserv
    • if you are already subscribed, post to <ontology-summit [at] ontolog.cim3.net>
    • (if you are not yet subscribed) you may subscribe yourself to the [ ontology-summit ] listserv, by sending a blank email to <ontology-summit-join [at] ontolog.cim3.net> from your subscribing email address, and then follow the instructions you receive back from the mailing list system.
      • please email <peter.yim@cim3.com> if you have any question.

Audio Recording of this Session

  • To download the 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: 19-Jan-2012 9:38am~11:05am PST
  • Duration of Recording: 1 Hour 31.33 Minutes
  • Recording File Size: 10.46 MB (in mp3 format)
  • suggestions:
    • its best that you listen to the session while having the respective presentations 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.)

Additional Resources:


For the record ...

How To Join (while the session is in progress)

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 19-Jan-2012
  • Start Time: 9:30am PST / 12:30pm EST / 6:30pm CET / 17:30 UTC
  • Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours
  • Dial-in:
    • Phone (US): +1 (206) 402-0100 ...
      (long distance cost may apply)
      • ... [ backup nbr: (415) 671-4335 ]
    • when prompted enter PIN: 141184#
    • Skype: joinconference (use the PIN above) ...
      generally free-of-charge, when connecting from your computer)
      • for skype users who have trouble with finding the Skype Dial pad ... it's under the "Call" dropdown menu as "Show Dial pad"
  • Shared-screen support (VNC session), if applicable, will be started 5 minutes before the call at: http://vnc2.cim3.net:5800/
    • view-only password: "ontolog"
    • if you plan to be logging into this shared-screen option (which the speaker may be navigating), and you are not familiar with the process, please try to call in 5 minutes before the start of the session so that we can work out the connection logistics. Help on this will generally not be available once the presentation starts.
    • people behind corporate firewalls may have difficulty accessing this. If that is the case, please download the slides above (where applicable) and running them locally. The speaker(s) will prompt you to advance the slides during the talk.
  • In-session chat-room url: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/summit_20120119
    • instructions: once you got access to the page, click on the "settings" button, and identify yourself (by modifying the Name field from "anonymous" to your real name, like "JaneDoe").
    • You can indicate that you want to ask a question verbally by clicking on the "hand" button, and wait for the moderator to call on you; or, type and send your question into the chat window at the bottom of the screen.
    • thanks to the soaphub.org folks, one can now use a jabber/xmpp client (e.g. gtalk) to join this chatroom. Just add the room as a buddy - (in our case here) ontolog_20120119@soaphub.org ... Handy for mobile devices!
  • Discussions and Q & A:
    • Nominally, when a presentation is in progress, the moderator will mute everyone, except for the speaker.
    • To un-mute, press "*7" ... To mute, press "*6" (please mute your phone, especially if you are in a noisy surrounding, or if you are introducing noise, echoes, etc. into the conference line.)
    • we will usually save all questions and discussions till after all presentations are through. You are encouraged to jot down questions onto the chat-area in the mean time (that way, they get documented; and you might even get some answers in the interim, through the chat.)
    • During the Q&A / discussion segment (when everyone is muted), If you want to speak or have questions or remarks to make, please raise your hand (virtually) by clicking on the "hand button" (lower right) on the chat session page. You may speak when acknowledged by the session moderator (again, press "*7" on your phone to un-mute). Test your voice and introduce yourself first before proceeding with your remarks, please. (Please remember to click on the "hand button" again (to lower your hand) and press "*6" on your phone to mute yourself after you are done speaking.)
  • RSVP to peter.yim@cim3.com appreciated, ... or simply just by adding yourself to the "Expected Attendee" list below (if you are a member of the team.)
  • Please note that this session may be recorded, and if so, the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content, along with the proceedings of the call to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees