<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div>On Nov 13, 2010, at 5:17 AM, Roger Hyam wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>I think we need a mother of all points at the beginning</div><div><br></div><div>0) Clearly defined use-cases/scenarios/competency questions that have enough detail to act as tests of any proposed solutions. Without these we will continue to bob around in the sea of good ideas and never arrive at any destination.</div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div>I often have thought the same thing. Folks working on ontologies tend to focus on philosophical issues of conceptualization, i.e., painting a detailed picture of the "things" involved. This quickly leads to problems because, to the extent that the world actually can be understood via "classes" and "properties", domain experts simply do not agree on what these classes and properties are. Yet one of the (frequently implicit) assumptions of ontology-building is that the domain experts have an agreed-upon description of the world, or they can talk themselves to the point of having one. </div><div><br></div><div>The alternative is to focus on the process of reasoning from inputs to correct outputs, i.e., test-driven ontology development. Perhaps domain experts would agree much more thoroughly on what inferences are valid, and what ones are invalid, from a given set of inputs. In an ideal world, the domain experts would provide a rich set of hypothetical information inputs, and then they would provide a rich set of inferences from them, and perhaps an equally rich set of invalid inferences, and then the knowledge engineering folks would build the ontology to avoid all the invalid inferences and support as many of the valid inferences as they can (until the money runs out). </div><div><br></div><div>Are there any examples of this approach? </div><div><br></div><div>Arlin</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Who is it for? What will it enable them to do? Do they want/need to do it? <br><div><br></div></div><div><br>On 13 Nov 2010, at 08:30, Kevin Richards <<a href="mailto:RichardsK@landcareresearch.co.nz">RichardsK@landcareresearch.co.nz</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>'Effective tools' to do X, Y & Z always seem to be on the agenda, but I'm not sure it is the tools that are the hold up. Unfortunately I think it boils down to funding... I'm sure if we had adequate funding to get people together for the required length of time, working on the right stuff etc, etc, then we would make fantastic progress.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br>I'm thinking a really good session with a basic UML tool would be a big step forward. I have got hold of a UML tool and intend to have a go at a core tdwg model. I think it would be great then if we could organise a session on working on this model.<br><br>Kevin<br><br>Sent from my HTC<br><br><div id="htc_header">----- Reply message -----<br>From: "Lee Belbin" <<a href="mailto:leebelbin@gmail.com">leebelbin@gmail.com</a>><br>Date: Sat, Nov 13, 2010 3:42 pm<br>Subject: [tdwg-content] Relation of GNA to TDWG vocabularies<br>To: "<a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a>><br><br></div><font size="2"><div class="PlainText">Well stated Stan, but I'd add a third-<br><br>3. Effective tool/s for viewing (graph, sub-graph, tables, properties etc.),<br>add/delete/modify with adaptable governance control (e.g., assigned management<br>to sub-graph domains), annotate (with full logging of who did what, when and<br>how...). This is in effect a collaboration tool.<br><br>Until we have a tool (preferable to tools) that can be intuitive and effective<br>for building, managing and deploying /exporting vocabs or ontologies, we will<br>struggle with this socially and technically tough, but very necessary task. The<br>social issues are the hardest, but an effective collaboration tool would be a<br>big help.<br><br>A tool that will be readily embraced by #2 (the domain specialists) seems far<br>more important than the tools I've seen so far that are embraced by #1 (e.g.<br>Protégé).<br><br>That we don't have a TDWG ontology is an increasing worry.<br><br>Lee<br><br>Lee Belbin<br>Geospatial Team Leader<br>Atlas of Living Australia<br><br><br>-----Original Message-----<br>From:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org"></a><a href="mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>[<a href="mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org"></a><a href="mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org">mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a>] On Behalf Of Blum, Stan<br>Sent: Saturday, 13 November 2010 9:43 AM<br>To:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org"></a><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Relation of GNA to TDWG vocabularies<br><br>Progress on the TDWG ontology seems to require:<br><br>1) one or more people with good sense of what can be done with ontologies, both<br>in the near-term and long-term; and<br>2) one or more people who understand the way information is partitioned in this<br>domain and how it could fit together.<br><br>I think we have a lot of #2, but not many of #1.<br><br>FYI, we have seed money to bring these categories together.<br><br>-Stan<br><br><br>On 11/12/10 2:25 PM, "Bob Morris" <<a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com">morris.bob@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Richard Pyle<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> <<a href="mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org">deepreef@bishopmuseum.org</a>><br>> wrote:<br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>>> [...] the current status of the TDWG-Ontology efforts. The Google<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>>> Code website seems a bit anemic,<br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> Ooh, I love that line. I think I'll put it in the script of my next<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> animation, to be titled: "Alpha and Beta discuss the current status of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> of the TDWG-Ontology efforts"<br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> Thanks for correcting the URL.<br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> Bob<br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> Robert A. Morris<br>> Emeritus Professor of Computer Science UMASS-Boston<br>> 100 Morrissey Blvd<br>> Boston, MA 02125-3390<br>> Associate, Harvard University Herbaria<br>> email:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com"></a><a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com">morris.bob@gmail.com</a><br>> web:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/"></a><a href="http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/">http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/</a><br>> web:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush"></a><a href="http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush">http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush</a><br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram"></a><a href="http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram">http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram</a><br>> phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> tdwg-content mailing list<br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org"></a><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content"></a><a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content">http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content</a><br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>tdwg-content mailing list<br><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org"></a><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content"></a><a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content">http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content</a><br></div></font><br><hr><font face="Arial" color="Green" size="1">Please consider the environment before printing this email<br>Warning: This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails.<br>The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz"></a><a href="http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz">http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz</a><br></font></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>tdwg-content mailing list</span><br><span><a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a></span><br><span><a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content">http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content</a></span><br></div></blockquote><span><ATT00001.txt></span></div></span></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">-------</div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">Arlin Stoltzfus (<a href="mailto:arlin@umd.edu">arlin@umd.edu</a>)</div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">Fellow, IBBR; Adj. Assoc. Prof., UMCP; Research Biologist, NIST</div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD</div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">tel: 240 314 6208; web: <a href="http://www.molevol.org">www.molevol.org</a></div></div></div></span> </div><br></div></body></html>