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Ontology Summit 2012: Session-11 - Thu 2012-03-22

Summit Theme: OntologySummit2012: "Ontology for Big Systems"

Track (1&2) Title: Ontology for Big Systems & Systems Engineering

Track Co-champions: Dr. MatthewWest and Dr. HensonGraves

Session Topic: Big Systems: The ontology of System Components, and System Modelling Language Requirements

Session Chair: Dr. MatthewWest ... intro-slides

Panel Briefings from:

  • Dr. NicolaGuarino (IAOA; ISTC-CNR LOA, Italy) - "Functional roles and their realizations" - slides
  • Mr. ChrisPartridge (BORO Solutions, UK) - " 'System Components' as a litmus test for your ontological architecture " - slides
  • Mr. DavidLeal (CAESAR Systems, UK), presented by Dr. MatthewWest (Information Junction, UK) - "Some thoughts on requirements for languages in engineering" - slides
  • Dr. HensonGraves (Algos Associates, US) - "Using Ontology to Meet Big Systems Challenges" - slides

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Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 22-Mar-2012
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Attendees

Abstract

Big Systems: The ontology of System Components, and System Modelling Language Requirements

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 11th virtual session.

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.

This "Ontology for Big Systems & Systems Engineering" Track aims to bring key challenges to light with large-scale systems and systems of systems for ontology and identify where solutions exist, where the problems require significant research, and where we can work towards solutions as part of this summit. The areas to be considered include:

  • working with and integrating the results of models using multiple modeling languages,
  • the systems lifecycle and the issues of sharing data within and between lifecycle stages,
  • the difference between requirements and the delivered system,
  • systems of systems vs systems,
  • the nature of system components and the difference between these and the parts installed,
  • the connections between system components and what they carry,
  • the specific role of social, legal, and value-related aspects in systems architecture, modeling and design
  • systems behaviour,
  • federated systems both as a big system, and as a solution to some of the challenges,
  • principles of how to construct good quality reusable models (ontologies),
  • the management of ontologies of and for large systems and the challenges in developing and maintaining them.

Rather than trying to continue the exploration of issues and develop new territories, we shall make a synthesis on what has transpired in the discourse around the issues covered by tracks 1 & 2. In this session, we will focus on two topical areas in particular:

  • 1. have a discussion on system components ... and,
  • 2. have a discussion on the requirements for engineering modelling languages, and the shortcomings of what is available.

More details about this Summit at: OntologySummit2012 (home page for the summit)

Agenda

Ontology Summit 2012 - Panel Session-11

  • 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 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 in-session chat-transcript --

Peter P. Yim: Welcome to the

Ontology Summit 2012: Session-11 - Thu 2012-03-22

Summit Theme: Ontology Summit 2012: "Ontology for Big Systems"

Track (1&2) Title: Ontology for Big Systems & Systems Engineering

Track Co-champions: Dr. Matthew West and Dr. Henson Graves

Session Topic: Big Systems: The ontology of System Components, and System Modelling Language Requirements

Session Chair: Dr. Matthew West

Panel Briefings:

  • Dr. Nicola Guarino (IAOA; ISTC-CNR LOA, Italy) - "Functional roles and their realizations"
  • Mr. Chris Partridge (BORO Solutions, UK) - " 'System Components' as a litmus test for your ontological architecture "

- "Some thoughts on requirements for languages in engineering"

  • Dr. Henson Graves (Algos Associates, US) - "Using Ontology to Meet Big Systems Challenges"

Session page: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_03_22

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 MatthewKHettinger

anonymous morphed into Rex Brooks

Henson Graves: @johnbilmanis - do you remember me

anonymous1 morphed into Tom Tinsley

anonymous morphed into Christopher Spottiswoode

anonymous morphed into Chris Partridge

anonymous morphed into Anatoly Levenchuk

anonymous1 morphed into Elizabeth Florescu

anonymous morphed into Henry (IBM)

Peter P. Yim: ERRATA: (first line above) session should be: = Ontology Summit 2012: Session-11 - Thu

2012-03-22 =

Peter P. Yim: == Matthew West introducing the session ...

Peter P. Yim: == Nicola Guarino presenting ...

anonymous morphed into Doug Foxvog

Peter P. Yim: @Henry (IBM) - would you click on "settings" and morph into your real name, please?

Thanks.

Henry (IBM) morphed into Henry Broodney

Peter P. Yim: @HenryBroodney - many thanks, ... Welcome

Henry Broodney: @PeterYim Thank you

Simon Spero: @Nicola: I have problems with these examples (and some from the paper)

Simon Spero: @Nicola: Some are at most one '?' in my idiolect

Simon Spero: @Nicola: After the Jello incident, Sandy was replaced as Kim's BFF

GaryBergCross: Slide 7?

Simon Spero: @Nicola: (From paper) << I have a good neighbour">> . Not just acceptable, but

idiomatic.

Doug Foxvog: For X being a role, "s/he is a good X" means that s/he performs expected types of

actions someone playing that role "should" do relative to the subject. friend(A,B) obligates B in

relation to A, while classmate(A,B) obligates B relative to A far less. That is why "B is a good

classmate of A" is marked '*'.

Amanda Vizedom: Simon: What paper are you referring to? I don't see a reference in the slides; did I

miss it?

Steve Ray: Hmm, it seems to me that you can replace both a classmate and a teacher...

Jack Ring: Seems to me these are examples of the general case of stating a coordinate system then the

location of the item in the system.

Jack Ring: e.g. is right headlamp the 'not left' or the

Jack Ring: "correct" headlamp?

Matthew West: not left

Doug Foxvog: @Steve: A teacher can replace your classmate, but i fail to see how you can do so in a

standard class situation.

Jeffrey Wallk: I tend to think about a role as a set of functional activities framed by a position in

an organization and the context with which the role is operating rather than a defined set of

"rules". Perhaps a discussion for later..

Simon Spero: Amanda Vizedom: A link was sent to a draft on dropbox

Jack Ring: @ Matthew. In this example "not left" is pretty obvious but my point illustrates the

uncertainty of any specific term.

Simon Spero: @Amanda: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7903842/Guarino-FunctionalPartsFunctionalRoles.pdf

Nicola Guarino: A revised version (BUT STILL UNPUBLISHED!) or my paper is here

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7903842/Guarino-FunctionalPartsFunctionalRolesV2.pdf

Simon Spero: @Nicola: Thanks

Peter P. Yim: == Chris Partridge presenting ...

Doug Foxvog: Are not the object part and the object in the same place at the same time?

Simon Spero: Is the Clay the statue?

Nicola Guarino: @Chris: When I meet the President, the legal person and the physical person are in

front of me at the same time in the same location

anonymous morphed into Pavithra Kenjige

Jack Ring: Replacement is ambiguous. Replacement may indicate similarity to tyre removed whereas

perhaps the original was summer and the second one a winter tyre.

anonymous morphed into FOUGHALI

Terry Longstreth: Slide 9 is a great graphic

Simon Spero: Deflationary approaches to tyres can be problematic

Jack Ring: Is Rosen / Kineman relational algebra not useful here?

Nicola Guarino: @Jack: replacement is always relative to a function (or an expected behaviour). As

long as a generic behavior for the car is expected, you can replace a winter tyre with a summer

tyre. The role "car tyre" allows such replacement, but of course the role "winter tyre" doesn't

Simon Spero: Unicorns are Pegasi

Doug Foxvog: What's wrong with multiple kinds of parthood? Parthood at one time does not imply

parthood of a 4D worm, or vice-versa.

MatthewKHettinger: @Jeffrey IMO a role is a collection of *expected* functional activities .....

e.g. see DougFoxvog. Rules may be considered to be part of the context by which expectations may be

defined. The network of roles may form the the basis for an architecture of a system of interest

e.g. enterprise, federation. As you say, perhaps a discussion for later.

Jeffrey Wallk: @MatthewKHettinger: Agreed...look forward to it

Doug Foxvog: @Simon: It depends on the context. In the context of various conceptual works, it is

false that Unicorns are Pegasi. (assuming the existence of Pegasi) -- i thought that "Pegasus" was

the name of an individual, not the name of a class.

anonymous morphed into RafaelPena

GaryBergCross: It certainly seems that the conceptualization that Nicola spoke about earlier is very

relevant to how parts are discussed as part of an abstract pattern that is a car.

David Flater: Intentionally speaking, having wings is a necessary condition for being a Pegasus (or

the Pegasus). Unicorns don't qualify. However, two classes with empty extents are equivalent in the

extensional sense.

Doug Foxvog: What about the automobile of Theseus? At what point as parts are replaced do we still

have the same automobile? Can an automobile have its chassis replaced?

Peter P. Yim: == Matthew West, presenting DavidLeal's material ...

Jack Ring: @Nicola - Re: DavidLeal's Slide 16 it seems that the designer must be aware of the degree

of specificity that may be presumed by the observer.

Steve Ray: Actually, isn't it Matthew West playing the role of David Leal?

GaryBergCross: Isn't Matthew REPLACING David ? It's not a change....except his voice is different...

Doug Foxvog: @David, Simon: it depends on "X are Y" means. Is it merely, "Every instance of X is an

instance of Y"? The truth of such a statement is context dependent. If it means "Any instance of X

is necessarily an instance of Y", then David is correct.

anonymous morphed into PercySalas

Nicola Guarino: @Matthew (and David): in slide 4, the three cases at the bottom (excluding part

types) can be represented using Dolce's qualities without the need of classes of classes

Simon Spero: Doug Foxvog: Right - the inten_s_ional stance if you will

Nicola Guarino: @Matthew: I would model ownership as a (static) event which has its starting and

ending time, and so on... This gives us much more flexibility t

Jeffrey Wallk: Do we need to think about an object (part if you will) having a location ? Or, can we

think about it's relationship to other things ... location is typically relegated to positioning

within 2 or 3 dimensional perspectives. So, what if i step back and consider an idea (rather than a

part) ....where would I "position" this in a business model (or more tactically within a product

design) ?

Doug Foxvog: @Jeffrey: We can define spatial and aspatial objects as well as temporal and atemporal

objects. An agreement/account/song would be aspatial and temporal. A Platonic solid would be spatial

and atemporal.

Simon Spero: @Doug: But in 4-D, aspatial things becomes complicated. What is the difference between a

point (at time t) whose location is not known, and a fictional character (in the real world) at time

t - for example, Sherlock Holmes, who came in to existence (given intenten_t_ional stance) when

conceived of by Sir Arthur

Simon Spero: @Doug: Cyc approach is better

Nicola Guarino: ...this implies introducing thematic roles: Fred is the *experiencer* of an ownership

event, whose *theme* is Fido

Peter P. Yim: == Henson Graves presenting ...

Nicola Guarino: @Matthew: I strongly agree on the importance to have variable in a representation

formalism. This is in my opinion one of the biggest problem of current description logics.

Matthew West: @Nicola: Yes, I noticed that too. David was just a bit sloppy there.

Matthew West: @Nicola: Yes I agree again that variables are important for serious work.

Doug Foxvog: @Simon: Cyc uses the concept of a "FictionalContext". From its comment, "In general, a FictionalContext is assumed to include many assertions that are widely believed to be false or questionable. Such assertions might or might not be about actually-existing things. For example, the fictional context associated with the Sherlock Holmes stories contains assertions about London as well as assertions about Holmes. "

Doug Foxvog: Cyc also has "[[FictionalWorksMt]] to provide facts about fictional works. It's comment states ""This microtheory contains true facts about all fictional Mts, e.g. Dracula-TheNovel, [[TheSimpsonsMt]]. This Mt includes information about the type of fictional work, the characters (see character[[InCW]]), and other information. author[[OfLiteraryWork]]-CW assertions should be made in [[LiteraryPeopleDataMt]]. Information presented in a fictional work should be asserted in the PIT associated with that work (see [[ContextOfPCWFn]]) or in #$[[FactsInFictionalWorksMt]]."

Doug Foxvog: Statements about characters as characters are true in a different context than

statements about the characters in the context in which they are real -- the context of the works in

which they are presented.

Simon Spero: @Doug: Right - but the creation of the character "Sherlock Holmes" is a fact in

consensual reality, and real thoughts can be "about" that character

David Flater: Real thoughts?

Doug Foxvog: @Simon: What is the problem with expressing statements about "Sherlock Holmes" in a

"real-world" context? In a 1999 context,

Doug Foxvog: various things can be said about the character. More statements are true now, since

movies using the character have been produced.

Simon Spero: Doug: It's a 4D problem

Doug Foxvog: @Simon: I'm not sure that lack of knowledge of the future should be considered a PROBLEM

.

Jack Ring: Re: Henson slide 3: The main root cause is that the model did not project system behavior,

e.g., what the system is supposed to do, not just what it is.

Jeffrey Wallk: This presentation is thoroughly resonating ...thank you. Henson, are you available for

an offline discussion ??

Henson Graves: @jeffrey yes

Jeffrey Wallk: Henson please feel free to reach me at jeffrey.wallk [at] ul.com

Peter P. Yim: == back to Matthew West ... open Q&A

Jack Ring: No examples for enthusiasm, tenacity, etc. for modeling human activity systems. Warfield

warned years ago that as the problematic situation becomes large enough then the designers become

THE problem. We cannot deal with Big Systems without coping with the Human Activity System modeling

practices.

MatthewKHettinger: @Jack ++1

Jack Ring: Pls see http://www.starkermann.com

Rex Brooks: There was a group in OASIS several years ago that made an attempt to model human-specific

information in a Humanmarkup Language, but it didn't get enough participation to carry it beyond

some very basic modeling of physical characteristics and a bare beginning for psychological or

sociological characteristics.

Rex Brooks: So those problems that Jack noted remain unmodeled.

MatthewKHettinger: @Rex those problems are not as yet completely modeled, especially in a coherent

fashion.

Rex Brooks: In DoDAF and MoDAF there is another set of characteristics being modeled as "Human Views"

for analyzing or putting values to various characteristics relating to competencies and

capabilities.

Rex Brooks: @MatthewKHettinger - Yes, it still remains.

Doug Foxvog: (genls Enthusiasm Excitement) (genls ([[MediumToVeryHighAmountFn]] Enthusiasm)([[PositiveAmountFn]] Excitement)) Cyc has done some modeling for Enthusiasm, etc. OpenCyc

has no rules, so i'm not sure how well this is ontologized. I would not be surprised if there are

not many statements about such terms -- probably because no one has funded such work.

Rex Brooks: The DoDAF folks are aimed at "Performance" abilities.

Doug Foxvog: Cyc's list of emotions are: Abhorrence Admiration Adulation Affection Ambivalence Amusement-Feeling Anger Anguish Anticipation-Feeling Approval Awe Belligerence Boredom Calmness Celebratory-Emotion Charm Cheerfulness Companionship-Feeling Concern Confidence Confusion-Generic Contempt Contentment Courageousness-Feeling Curiosity Cuteness-EmotionalResponse Defeatedness-Feeling Delight Depression-Feeling Desire Despair Diffidence Disappointment Disapproval Disgust Dislike Displeasure Disrespect Dissatisfaction Distress Doubt Dread Eagerness Elation Embarrassment EmotionalColdness Empathy Enjoyment Entertained-Emotion Enthusiasm Envy Excitement Fear [[FeelingOfCompetence]] Flippancy Freedom-Emotion Friendliness Frustration Gloominess GoodWill Gratitude Grief Guilt Happiness Hate Hope Hostility Humility Impatience Indecision Indifference Ingratitude Initiative Innocence Insecurity Inspiration-Emotion Interest-Feeling Irony Irritation Jealousy Like Listlessness Loneliness Love Love-Romantic Loyalty Lust Machismo-Pride Misery Mistrust Modesty Nationalism Nervousness Nostalgia Offendedness-Feeling Panic Passion Patience Patriotism Pensiveness Piety Pity Pleasure-Feeling Pride [[PrideOfAccomplishment]] [[PrideOfMembership]] Rage Rebelliousness-Feeling Regret Relaxation Relief-Feeling Remorse Reproach Resentment Reservation-Feeling Resolution-Emotion Respect Restlessness Reverence Sadness Satisfaction Security-Emotion SelfConfidence SexualArousal SexualGratification Shame Shock Solemnity Solitude SpiritualElitism Stress-Feeling Surprise Suspense Sympathy Touched-Feeling TrappedFeeling Triumph Uncertainty Uneasiness Unhappiness Vanity Willingness Wonder-Admiration

Rex Brooks: In OASIS we stayed with the emotions that the human facial muscles can, often

unconsciously, express and then gave them a range of values to indicate how strongly the emotion was

expressed or could be expressed. Even that quickly eclipsed the ability to compute combinations of

those basic emotions.

Jack Ring: The state of the design is not known to managers because no one included a task for

"knowing system design viability" c.f., Steve Krane, INCOSE, who does it every day.

Peter P. Yim: (to capture a verbal exchange ... ref. audio recording) - is modal logic a prerequisite

when we need to include people into our systems model?

Matthew West: @Peter: yes

Peter P. Yim: -- session ended: 11:23am PDT --

-- end of in-session chat-transcript --

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