RE: SUO: RE: SUO Comment #3
Dear David,
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Whitten [mailto:whitten@NETCOM.COM]
> Sent: None
> To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: Re: SUO: RE: SUO Comment #3
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > Dear Bill,
> >
> > See responses below.
> >
> > Regards
> > Matthew
> > ============================================
> > Matthew West
> > Asset Information Management
> > Shell Services International
> > H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
> > Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
> > E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
> > http://www.shellservices.com/
> > ============================================
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Bill Andersen [mailto:andersen@ontologyworks.com]
> > > Sent: 15 August 2000 19:50
> > > To: West, Matthew MR SSI-GPEA-UK
> > > Cc: Schoening, James R CECOM DCSC4I;
> Standard-Upper-Ontology (E-mail)
> > > Subject: Re: SUO Comment #3
> > >
> > >
> > > "West, Matthew MR SSI-GPEA-UK" wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Dear Bill,
> > > >
> > > > I don't think it is as bad as you make out.
> > > >
> > > > As far as I can see, conformance to the SUO means using the
> > > > terms of the SUO with the meaning of the formal definition
> > > > defined by the SUO in the SUO language.
> > >
> > > Right... But that might not (probably won't) be
> possible even in
> > > principle in the case of RDF, for example, which doesn't
> even admit
> > > negation. The compilation target system has to be capable of the
> > > semantic expressiveness of the SUO language. Perhaps
> there are W3C-
> > > like proposals for XML-based languages of this sort, but I'm not
> > > aware of them. We're talking pretty much full FOL for
> the SUO lang-
> > > uage and all of the XML-based languages being considered
> for popular
> > > use come nowhere close in expressiveness. That means
> approximation
> > > will be required. As Mike Uschold commented, he doesn't see this
> > > approximation as that much of a problem, but it's still a
> problem.
> > MW: Well there are two possibilities here, either you can only
> > partially map the SUO into the environment, and the implication
> > is that if negation can't be mapped, then it isn't relevant to
> > the purposes of that envirnonment, so is not missed. Or you
> > model negation in the environment. I'm not familiar with RDF,
> > but entity-relationship models have the same problem. However,
> > with the constructs of entities attributes and relationships,
> > I can create a model that will handle negation, so then it is
> > not a problem, only a matter of how to solve it.
>
> I'm not sure how Matthew is intending to create such a
> model, but one possibility of a 'compilation' that handles
> negation (imperfectly) would be to create a new class
> (call it not-class1). Assuming class1 is a partition of parclass,
> it is sufficient to define not-class1 as the union of all other
> subclasses of parclass.
>
> This does have the problem of determining what classes along
> with class1 provide a complete partition of its parent class,
> and may falter if you can't define negation of class1 as the
> 'set difference' of class1 and its parent class.
>
> It also depends on a static class structure. so that non-class1
> may be defined properly.
>
> PS. if someone sees an obvious flaw in my construction, I'd
> appreciate a note pointing out my error.
>
MW: Yes you could do this, and whether it is satisfactory or not depends on
the range of expression that is required by the application (or the wider
system including people).
Another approach could be to create an entity relationship model of FOL
(probably plus some governing code), you could then say anything that FOL
can say. This for example is the approach we are taking with EXIST.
Regards
Matthew
============================================
Matthew West
Asset Information Management
Shell Services International
H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
http://www.shellservices.com/
============================================