<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 1:15 AM, Richard Pyle <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org" target="_blank">deepreef@bishopmuseum.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">This is mostly over my head, but I do have a more general
question along these lines:</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"></font></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">To what extent are we likely to be implementing substantive
machine reasoning for Agents within the context of biodiversity
informatics? I can see some value in terms of de-duplication of literature
citations, and maybe a few other things here and there such as copyright
ownership. But I take the absence of an Agent class within DwC as an
indication that our community does not have as much a need for semantic
reasoning for Agents (compared to, say, taxa and localities, among
others).</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"></font></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">If I'm missing something here, I'd very much like to be
informed.</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff"></font></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">Aloha,</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#0000ff">Rich</font></span></div><br></div></blockquote><div><br>My words "be wary of" were chosen intentionally. I do not mean "do not
use in any circumstances". The following are roughly true:<br><br> It's
not that hard to come up with an arguably important use cases for
reasoning on agents. For example, deciding whether two observation or
specimen data records represent distinct or the same Occurrence can
hinge---with enough agreement on other values---on deciding whether the
observers are the same or different people. Herbarium duplicate sheets
often suffer inconsistent misspellings of collector names due to data
entry errors.<br><br>Including an intractable ontology in an otherwise tractable one can poison the latter.<br>
<br>[1] - [3] show that there are plenty of ways out of the current,
not very deep, reasoning weaknesses that FOAF shares with many "OWL
Full" ontologies. The risk is mainly in getting on board the wrong
train of the many. For example, one way favors huge data but requires
small class hierarchies, and another the reverse. It's not hard to
imagine biodiversity data models that demand both large class
hierarchies and large data. Homegrown hybrids might be possible, but
then might require homegrown tools, etc. etc. <br><br>[3] is
particularly interesting and probably readable with just a little
exposure to formal ontologies, especially if you pretend that the
acronyms and other stuff you don't understand don't matter very much to
getting the big picture.<br><br><br>[1] <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-owl2-profiles-20081202/#Introduction" target="_blank">http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-owl2-profiles-20081202/#Introduction</a><br>
[2] <a href="http://www.semanticoverflow.com/questions/1210/owl-full-and-reasoning">http://www.semanticoverflow.com/questions/1210/owl-full-and-reasoning</a><br>[3]
Edward Thomas et al. Lightweight Reasoning and the Web of Data for Web
Science, Web Science Conf. 2010, April 26-27, 2010, Raleigh, NC, USA
<a href="http://journal.webscience.org/319/">http://journal.webscience.org/319/</a><br><br>Bob Morris <br><br>Robert A. Morris<br>Emeritus Professor of Computer Science<br>UMASS-Boston<br>100 Morrissey Blvd<br>Boston, MA 02125-3390<br>
Associate, Harvard University Herbaria<br>email: <a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com" target="_blank">morris.bob@gmail.com</a><br>
web: <a href="http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/" target="_blank">http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/</a><br>web: <a href="http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush" target="_blank">http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush</a><br><a href="http://www.cs.umb.edu/%7Eram" target="_blank">http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram</a><br>
phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 255); padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en-us" align="left">
<hr>
<font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> Bob Morris [mailto:<a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com" target="_blank">morris.bob@gmail.com</a>]
<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, November 02, 2010 6:56 PM<br><b>To:</b> Richard
Pyle<br><b>Cc:</b> Paul Murray; Steve Baskauf;
<a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org" target="_blank">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a><div><div></div><div><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [tdwg-content] Comments on
Cam's RDF practical details of recording a determination What is an
Occurrence? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]<br></div></div></font><br></div><div><div></div><div>
<div></div>If machine reasoning is a goal, I would be wary of FOAF. An
OWL2-DL, or other OWL2 tractable reasoning profile, version remains a moving
target, to the best of my knowledge. The reasons that <a href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/" target="_blank">http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/</a> is not subject to tractable
reasoning are relatively manageable, but I can no longer find the Zimmerman
proposal for a FOAF DL version referenced in the thread ending at <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Jul/0378.html" target="_blank">http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Jul/0378.html</a><br>
<br>Can
someone point me at a DL version of FOAF and indication that it is actively
under discussion somewhere?<br><br>Thanks<br><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 10:38 PM, Richard Pyle <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org" target="_blank">deepreef@bishopmuseum.org</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote"><br>I was thoroughly delighted to learn recently that FOAF
uses terms in almost<br>exactly the same way that I had structured my
"Agents" data (right down to<br>the same exat terms, in most cases). I
plan to move forward with the FOAF<br>terms that are relevant (thanks to
John W. for pointing this out to me at<br>TDWG).<br><br>Rich<br>
<div>
<div></div>
<div><br>> -----Original Message-----<br>> From: <a href="mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org" target="_blank">tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org" target="_blank">tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a>]
On Behalf Of Paul Murray<br>> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 4:18
PM<br>> To: Steve Baskauf<br>> Cc: <a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org" target="_blank">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>>
Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Comments on Cam's RDF practical<br>> details
of recording a determination What is an Occurrence?<br>>
[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]<br>><br>><br>> On 29/10/2010, at 12:41 AM, Steve
Baskauf wrote:<br>><br>> > I think both dwc:recordedBy for the
Occurrence and<br>> dcterms:created for some tokens should be
provided.<br>> Depending on the situation, they might be different
entities<br>> (I think John Wieczorek pointed this out in an
earlier<br>> thread). dwc:recordedBy is specifically supposed to be
a<br>> person whereas I think dcterms:creator could be a person
or<br>> an institution.<br>><br>> Perhaps it might be worthwhile
leveraging the FOAF vocabulary<br>> (Friend of a Friend). It's mainly
meant for social<br>> networking, but nevertheless it does contain terms
such as<br>> Person, Organisation, Group and Project. (Project is<br>>
interesting - collection activities perhaps are FOAF
Projects).<br>><br>> The spec is here: <a href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/" target="_blank">http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/</a><br>><br>> We can
envisage the day where, by following links on<br>> taxonomic web pages,
you could eventually find an Author's<br>> current twitter address, or
ask the semantic web "find me all<br>> specimens of genus Tandanus
collected by teams affiliated<br>> with the university of NSW between
2005 and 2007".<br>><br>><br>><br>><br>> ------<br>> If
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Robert A. Morris<br>Emeritus Professor of Computer
Science<br>UMASS-Boston<br>100 Morrissey Blvd<br>Boston, MA
02125-3390<br>Associate, Harvard University Herbaria<br>email: <a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com" target="_blank">morris.bob@gmail.com</a><br>web: <a href="http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/" target="_blank">http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/</a><br>
web: <a href="http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush" target="_blank">http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush</a><br><a href="http://www.cs.umb.edu/%7Eram" target="_blank">http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram</a><br>phone (+1) 857 222 7992
(mobile)<br><br></div></div></blockquote></div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-<br>