Actions

Ontolog Forum


Launch Session - Thu 2016-02-11

Session Co-chairs: Donna Fritzsche & Michael Grüninger (IAOA; U of Toronto)

Abstract

The necessity for systems to interoperate has become crucial to the conduct of business and operations in organizations. In practice, however, interoperability is difficult to achieve, since each of these applications utilizes information in a different way, and the knowledge representation formalisms inherent to these applications are also different. In particular, existing approaches to interoperability lack an adequate specification of the semantics of the terminology used by the systems, which leads to inconsistent interpretations and uses of knowledge.

The mission statement for the first Ontology Summit (Upper Ontologies, March 2006) noted that agreement on upper level ontologies would facilitate semantic interoperability (SI) among other ontologies. In turn, the benefit would be "to enable a large degree of compatibility and interoperabiity for the many projects developing knowledge bases that include the most common mid-level concepts".

Ontologies and related reasoning systems (both terms used in the broadest sense) are key to the facilitation of semantic integration and interoperability. How do we define the frameworks which support this interoperability? What is required to achieve optimal performance across applications and domains? What have we learned in the last 10 years? How do we frame the conversation when discussing the role of ontologies with various stakeholders?

As part of Ontology Summit 2016, we seek to explore, identify and articulate how ontologies and ontological methods can facilitate semantic interoperability. We solicit input and anticipate that summit presenters and participants will help identify the methods, tools and architectures which utilize or might utilize ontologies to facilitate semantic interoperability. Practical considerations will be brought to the forefront, but philosophical and theoretical questions will be addressed as they arise.

During the course of these talks, speakers will address the methodologies, successes and challenges of semantic interoperability within the areas of

  • Healthcare
  • Earth Sciences
  • Engineering and manufacturing
  • Finance and Retail

We will

  • explore the techniques that people are using to achieve semantic integration and interoperability;
  • articulate the framework that supports semantic integration and interoperability;
  • identify the role that ontologies play in these frameworks;
  • abstract a set of discussion points to better characterize this role.

We will draw from learnings gleaned in past summits and extend our knowledge based on domain-specific talks and summit attendee active participation As part of our discussion, we intend to examine, question and extend past summit findings including but not limited to Communiqués addressing:

  • The Role of Upper Ontologies (2006),
  • Ontology-based Standards (2009),
  • Ontology Evaluation across the Ontology Lifecycle (2013)
  • The Internet of Things: Toward Smart Networked Systems and Societies (2015)

As part of Ontolog’s general advocacy to bring ontology science and engineering into the mainstream, we endeavor to abstract a conversational toolkit from the sessions that may facilitate discussion and knowledge sharing amongst stakeholders of various SI ecosystems and architectures. Our findings will be supported with examples from the various domains of interest. The results will be captured in the form of a 2016 Summit Communiqué, with expanded supporting material provided on the web.

Agenda

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 11-Feb-2016
  • Start Time: 9:30am PST / 12:30pm EST / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm BST / 1630 UTC
  • Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours
  • Dial-in:
    • Phone (US): +1 (425) 440-5100 ... (long distance cost may apply)
      • ... [ backup nbr: (315) 401-3279 ]
      • when prompted enter Conference ID: 843758#
    • Skype: join.conference (i.e. make a skype call to the contact with skypeID="join.conference") ... (generally free-of-charge, when connecting from your computer ... ref.)
      • when prompted enter Conference ID: 843758#
      • Unfamiliar with how to do this on Skype? ...
        • Add the contact "join.conference" to your skype contact list first. To participate in the teleconference, make a skype call to "join.conference", then open the dial pad (see platform-specific instructions below) and enter the Conference ID: 843758# when prompted.
      • Can't find Skype Dial pad? ...
        • for Windows Skype users: Can't find Skype Dial pad? ... it's under the "Call" dropdown menu as "Show Dial pad"
        • for Linux Skype users: please note that the dial-pad is only available on v4.1 (or later; or on the earlier Skype versions 2.x,) if the dialpad button is not shown in the call window you need to press the "d" hotkey to enable it. ... (ref.)
  • Shared-screen support ... (to be advised)
  • In-session chat-room url: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/summit_20160211
    • 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) summit_20160211@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 gruninger@mie.utoronto.ca with your affiliation appreciated, ... or simply just by adding yourself to the "Expected Attendee" list below (if you are a member of the community already.)
  • This session, like all other Ontolog events, is open to the public. Information relating to this session is shared on this wiki page.
  • 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

Proceedings

[12:24] KenBaclawski: I will be starting the conference bridge.

[12:28] Gary Berg-Cross: Donna's intro slides at https://s3.amazonaws.com/ontologforum/OntologySummit2016/2016-02-11_Launch/Introduction_OntologySummit2016_launch--DonnaFritzsche-MichaelGruninger_20160211.pdf

[12:28] Gary Berg-Cross: Mine and Ken's are at https://s3.amazonaws.com/ontologforum/OntologySummit2016/2016-02-11_Launch/GeoSciences-Track_OntologySummit2016_launch--GaryBergCross-KenBaclawski_20160211-7.pdf

[12:29] Gary Berg-Cross: Ram and Leo's at https://s3.amazonaws.com/ontologforum/OntologySummit2016/2016-02-11_Launch/Healthcare-Track_OntologySummit2016_launch--RamSriram-LeoObrst-DonnaFritzche_20160211-4.pdf

[12:32] Gary Berg-Cross: Meeting page is http://ontologforum.org/index.php/ConferenceCall_2016_02_11

[12:36] MugeSevinc: Hi, I am Muge Sevinc, I am at a noisy place, cannot talk, am just listening. I am a computational linguist.

[12:36] MichaelGruninger: hi Michael here

[12:36] MugeSevinc: thank you

[12:40] Mark Underwood: Welcome back, Ravi

[12:50] RaviSharma: Mark thanks, I will be back from India in the US in March.

[12:52] RaviSharma: John, looking forward to listening to you next week, regards

[12:52] John Sowa: Formatting comment: PDF is more convenient for slides than PPT or PPTX.

[12:54] MikeBennett: It's not obvious but on the agenda page, the link with the names of the speakers links to the PDF version of the slides (not the namesake page), and the link after that gives .PPTX as an alternative.

[13:01] RaviSharma: Gary - FIBO or XBRL is then at syntactic or semantic levels?

[13:02] John Sowa: Questions I always ask: How can legacy systems interoperate with the new systems? What is the migration path? Is interoperability possible without rewriting everything?

[13:04] Donna Fritzsche: John - good question - and its always a challenge. Hopefully we can address it further in our sessions.

[13:04] FrankOlken: What are the dates of the Onotology Summit Face-to-Face meeting? location?

[13:05] Gary Berg-Cross: Ravi "FIBO or XBRL is then at syntactic or semantic levels?" I guess it is at least at the semantic levl but Mike Bennett can better respond.

[13:05] RaviSharma: John - yes, and to add also - as to the effort and returns from interoperability vs updates?

[13:06] MikeBennett: FIBO is at the semantic level. We will explore this in the Finance track. XBRL has semantics grounded in accounting rather than formal logic, and is at the report level.

[13:06] ToddSchneider: Frank, 9 - 10 May at NSF in Arlington, VA

[13:06] FrankOlken: Todd, Thanks.

[13:07] Gary Berg-Cross: @John These indeed are very practical questions and partly a function of how the ontologies have been crafted and integrated into the architecture. SOme like brokers may argue for being reusable infrastructure for some small changes.

[13:08] MikeBennett: Is anyone else not getting the slides for Healthcare? I get some kind of message about style information / access denied.

[13:09] LeoObrst: Ram: can you provide a link to the document you mentioned?

[13:09] Gary Berg-Cross: @RAm can you put a link to the document when you get a chance?

[13:10] Gary Berg-Cross: @Ram it is slide 5 Inserting Semantics into Service Architectures...

[13:10] RaviSharma: Leo - I have trouble downloading your pdf and ppt?

[13:11] KenBaclawski: It is working now. Two people were updating the page at the same time, and the URLs were modified.

[13:13] John Sowa: Another formatting comment: The wide screen format was designed for movies. The 4x3 aspect ration is better for text.

[13:17] Ram D. Sriram: @Gary: If you google ONC A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap you get the PDF version of the file

[13:17] Donna Fritzsche: precoordination and postcordination are common terms in the IA/Library Sciences world. It will be good to bring some cross-discpline terminology to this community (where/if it did not exist)

[13:18] Ram D. Sriram: FHIR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Healthcare_Interoperability_Resources) may be used as a service broker for semantic interoperability

[13:18] Gary Berg-Cross: @Ravi OK thanks that seems to be https://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/nationwide-interoperability-roadmap-draft-version-1.0.pdf

[13:20] Mark Underwood: Referenced George Ball (Raytheon) publication: http://dms.sagepub.com/content/11/3/219.abstract

[13:21] Mark Underwood: If This Then That cloud service: https://ifttt.com/

[13:21] LeoObrst: Mark/Ken: we need a placeholder in today's agenda for Mark Underwood's contribution, on the conference page.

[13:22] Mark Underwood: Trade pub reference to the API-first design pattern: http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/27/the-future-of-coding-is-here-and-threatens-to-wipe-out-everything-in-its-path/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1730_-931760535667349867#.4jjhhls:6eSj

[13:24] KenBaclawski: @LeoObrst I added it.

[13:28] LeoObrst: @KenBaclawski: Thanks!

[13:30] RaviSharma: Gary - thanks, it worked but I get the whole document

[13:30] Donna Fritzsche: do we have someone from schema.org?

[13:30] MichaelGruninger: http://ontologforum.org/index.php/OntologySummit2016

[13:31] MikeBennett: I expect we can get someone from the schema.org ecosystem - there's an active FIBO initiative in that space, I need to ask the people I'm contact with, whether there is an interoperability angle they can bring out for this.

[13:31] Donna Fritzsche: view community input pages / please add info, mission, vision, goals, ideas - all are welcome to contribute. A dynamic tool for collecting insights!

[13:32] Donna Fritzsche: great mike

[13:33] Ram D. Sriram: @Judith: Peter Lyster from NITRD (who is Keith's deputy) has agreed to open the meeting and describe NITRD activities.

[13:34] Donna Fritzsche: HI Judith - can participants send you ideas for panels/speakers/problem sets?

[13:36] Mark Underwood: @Leo - thx for placeholder update

[13:44] Mark Underwood: Todd "gutter" lol

[13:44] Donna Fritzsche: Cross boundaries - for semantic interoperability - View from an Ecosystems POV (paraphrasing Todd S)

[13:46] RaviSharma: Todd - yes great, there could be the even vocabularies are often partially shared among related practitioners e.g. clinical and pharma

[13:46] Donna Fritzsche: speakers point - proliferation of languages is not necessarily the solution

[13:47] Donna Fritzsche: (sorry John, I did not realize that was you speaking)

[13:48] Donna Fritzsche: everyone - I am trying to capture discussion points - please jump in and correct my paraphrasing if you wish!

[13:49] MichaelGruninger: Mark: can you please say a few words about publicity?

[13:50] LeoObrst: There is also the OntoIOp effort and the Distributed Ontology Language. See: http://ontologforum.org/index.php/OntoIOp.

[13:50] Donna Fritzsche: Live tweeting will take place and we are using creative commons for IP concerns

[13:51] John Sowa: I have another meeting, so I have to sign off.

[13:51] Donna Fritzsche: Thanks John!

[13:53] Mark Underwood: Mark agrees to handle the "slick" web page

[13:53] MikeBennett: Is there a main wiki page for Ontology Summit 2016? The Ontology Summit page on the wiki lists up to 2015.

[13:53] KenBaclawski: @MikeBennet - Yes, see http://ontologforum.org/index.php/OntologySummit2016

[13:54] LeoObrst: Thanks, all.

[13:55] Donna Fritzsche: Thank you and hope to see you next week.

Audio Recording

Session Audio Recording

Retrieved from "https://ontologforum.com/index.php?title=ConferenceCall_2016_02_11&oldid=3316"