[tdwg-content] Relation of GNA to TDWG vocabularies

Mon Nov 15 14:55:00 CET 2010

On Nov 13, 2010, at 5:17 AM, Roger Hyam wrote:

> I think we need a mother of all points at the beginning
>
> 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.

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.

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).

Are there any examples of this approach?

Arlin

> Who is it for? What will it enable them to do? Do they want/need to  
> do it?
>
>
> On 13 Nov 2010, at 08:30, Kevin Richards <RichardsK at landcareresearch.co.nz 
> > wrote:
>
>> '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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Kevin
>>
>> Sent from my HTC
>>
>> ----- Reply message -----
>> From: "Lee Belbin" <leebelbin at gmail.com>
>> Date: Sat, Nov 13, 2010 3:42 pm
>> Subject: [tdwg-content] Relation of GNA to TDWG vocabularies
>> To: "tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org" <tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org>
>>
>> Well stated Stan, but I'd add a third-
>>
>> 3. Effective tool/s for viewing (graph, sub-graph, tables,  
>> properties etc.),
>> add/delete/modify with adaptable governance control (e.g., assigned  
>> management
>> to sub-graph domains), annotate (with full logging of who did what,  
>> when and
>> how...). This is in effect a collaboration tool.
>>
>> Until we have a tool (preferable to tools) that can be intuitive  
>> and effective
>> for building, managing and deploying /exporting vocabs or  
>> ontologies, we will
>> struggle with this socially and technically tough, but very  
>> necessary task. The
>> social issues are the hardest, but an effective collaboration tool  
>> would be a
>> big help.
>>
>> A tool that will be readily embraced  by #2 (the domain  
>> specialists) seems far
>> more important than the tools I've seen so far that are embraced by  
>> #1 (e.g.
>> Protégé).
>>
>> That we don't have a TDWG ontology is an increasing worry.
>>
>> Lee
>>
>> Lee Belbin
>> Geospatial Team Leader
>> Atlas of Living Australia
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org
>> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Blum, Stan
>> Sent: Saturday, 13 November 2010 9:43 AM
>> To: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Relation of GNA to TDWG vocabularies
>>
>> Progress on the TDWG ontology seems to require:
>>
>> 1) one or more people with good sense of what can be done with  
>> ontologies, both
>> in the near-term and long-term; and
>> 2) one or more people who understand the way information is  
>> partitioned in this
>> domain and how it could fit together.
>>
>> I think we have a lot of #2, but not many of #1.
>>
>> FYI, we have seed money to bring these categories together.
>>
>> -Stan
>>
>>
>> On 11/12/10 2:25 PM, "Bob Morris" <morris.bob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Richard Pyle
>> > <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> [...] the current status of the TDWG-Ontology efforts.  The Google
>> >> Code website seems a bit anemic,
>> >
>> > Ooh, I love that line.  I think I'll put it in the script of my  
>> next
>> > animation, to be titled: "Alpha and Beta discuss the current  
>> status of
>> > of the TDWG-Ontology efforts"
>> >
>> > Thanks for correcting the URL.
>> >
>> > Bob
>> >
>> >
>> > Robert A. Morris
>> > Emeritus Professor  of Computer Science UMASS-Boston
>> > 100 Morrissey Blvd
>> > Boston, MA 02125-3390
>> > Associate, Harvard University Herbaria
>> > email: morris.bob at gmail.com
>> > web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/
>> > web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush
>> > http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
>> > phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > tdwg-content mailing list
>> > tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> > http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>> >
>>
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> <ATT00001.txt>

-------
Arlin Stoltzfus (arlin at umd.edu)
Fellow, IBBR; Adj. Assoc. Prof., UMCP; Research Biologist, NIST
IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD
tel: 240 314 6208; web: www.molevol.org

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