SUO: RE: RE: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example - nature of organisation
Dear Ian,
I strongly support Chris in this.
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Partridge [mailto:chris_partridge@csi.com]
> Sent: 27 August 2001 08:55
> To: iniles@teknowledge.com; mail@ChrisPartridge.net
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: SUO: RE: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example - nature of organisation
>
>
>
> Ian,
>
> I am not sure I made my point sufficiently clearly (Which is
> English for I
> have not ... etc.).
> If we take the English Monarch as a 'good' example of a role, we note;
>
> It has identity - in other words, the monarch remains the
> same thing over
> time, despite changes of occupant.
> This is most clearly the case in terms of responsibility.
> When the monarch
> does something. The monarch is responsible, NOT the person
> occupying the
> role of monarch - see dictionary definition below.
>
> Corporation sole
> This is the earliest type of corporation as it does not
> relate to a group of
> persons acting in concert but to an individual who holds some
> public office
> under the Crown or the State. This individual has two faces:
> a personal one,
> within the normal restrictions set by the law, and an
> official one, as a
> public office-holder with power to bind the office itself and
> all subsequent
> holders of that office. When acting properly, i.e. not ultra
> vires, in this
> official capacity then this person is acting as a corporation
> sole. These
> two manners of contracting are quite distinct one from the
> other and nothing
> effected in one capacity will affect duties or responsibilities in the
> other. See Corporation aggregate.
> The Penguin Business Dictionary, (c) Michael Greener 1994
>
> On this score a monarch cannot be an attribute can it?
>
> Bill Anderson pointed out to me that there is a similar
> notion in America -
> the Office of the President.
>
> What is important is that the Office, the Position, the
> Monarch or whatever,
> in analogy with humans can perform actions and can have rights,
> responsibilities and obligations. In legal terms it is a person.
>
> Once you accept this, you must begin to, at least, accept
> they have temporal
> extent. Surely we can imagine situations where the Office of
> the President
> or the Monarch of England can cease to exist. Or taking the
> argument in
> another direction, how can an abstract quality have responsibilities -
> particularly onerous ones?
>
> Regards,
> Chris
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: iniles@teknowledge.com [mailto:iniles@teknowledge.com]
> Sent: 24 August 2001 22:09
> To: 'mail@ChrisPartridge.net'
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: RE: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example - nature of organisation
>
> Chris,
>
> See my responses below.
>
> Thanks,
> Ian
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Chris Partridge [mailto:chris_partridge@csi.com]
> > Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 1:43 AM
> > To: iniles@teknowledge.com
> > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > Subject: RE: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example - nature of organisation
> >
> >
> > Ian,
> >
> > See my comments CP>.
> > More problems than answers to the key issues, I am afraid.
> >
> > Regards
> > Chris
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: iniles@teknowledge.com [mailto:iniles@teknowledge.com]
> > Sent: 23 August 2001 18:54
> > To: 'mail@ChrisPartridge.net'
> > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > Subject: RE: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example
> >
> > Chris,
> >
> > Thanks for your message. See my replies below.
> >
> > -Ian
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Chris Partridge [mailto:chris_partridge@csi.com]
> > > Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 1:00 AM
> > > To: Ian Niles
> > > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > > Subject: RE: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example
> > >
> > >
> > > Ian,
> > >
> > > I thought that you merged in either the TOVE or Enterprise
> > > Ontologies into
> > > SUMO. Can you remind me which one?
> >
> > I did include elements from the Enterprise Ontology. I
> > didn't use TOVE,
> > because when someone on the list mentioned it a few months
> > back, I couldn't
> > find a reference online. I now see that there is a manual
> > available at
> > http://www.eil.utoronto.ca/tove/ontoTOC.html, and I'll have a
> > look at this
> > as time permits. Can you suggest anything else I should look
> > at regarding
> > TOVE?
> >
> > CP> I am using [Fox et al 1996] Fox, M.S., Barbuceanu, M.,
> > and Gruninger,
> > M., (1996), "An Organisation Ontology for Enterprise
> > Modelling: Preliminary
> > Concepts for Linking Structure and Behaviour", Computers in
> > Industry, Vol.
> > 29, pp. 123-134. This also appeared in: Proceedings of the
> > Fourth Workshop
> > on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative
> > Enterprises (WET
> > ICE '95) as my basis. I can send you a copy - or you can find
> > it easily on
> > the web. In our analysis of enterprise ontologies we found
> > that EO and TOVE
> > were very different. However when we looked at data models
> > there was much
> > greater consistency.
>
> If you'd be willing to send me a copy, that would be great.
> I did a search
> on google, but I found only citations of the article and not
> the article
> itself.
>
>
> >
> > >Also how did you merge in
> > > their notion of
> > > position? They have concepts for position that are disjoint
> > > from (allowing
> > > for some interpretation) the notion of agent - which seems to
> > > be at odds
> > > with the current structure. I have found (as it looks
> like TOVE and
> > > Enterprise did) that you need to be careful here. For
> > > example, one problem
> > > with the way it seems that SUMO has taken is that positions
> > > (rather than
> > > grades) need to have some kind of identity. A good example is
> > > the English
> > > Monarch which has a life and responsibilities apart from the
> > > people who
> > > occupy the position - and this is clearly stated in the Law
> > > (she/he is a
> > > Corporation Sole).
> >
> > The example of Monarch is a good one, and I agree that, in
> > general, we do
> > need to distinguish positions from the people who
> > (temporarily) occupy them.
> > Accordingly, I propose that we replace the class
> > 'PersonBySocialRole' (which
> > is a subclass of 'CognitiveAgent') with the class
> > 'SocialRole', which will
> > be defined as a subclass of 'Attribute'. We can then make
> > positions like
> > 'Monarch' instances of 'SocialRole' (or perhaps, more
> specifically, of
> > subclasses of 'SocialRole', like 'OccupationalRole' or
> > 'GovernmentalRole').
> > This will allow us to relate people to the roles they occupy
> > (via the binary
> > relation 'attribute'), but it will also permit us to
> > distiguish people and
> > roles. What do you think?
> >
> > CP>I think the issue is quite delicate. I see you are moving towards
> > regarding the class 'PersonBySocialRole' as a type - which
> seems to me
> > right. But note that the notion of position is flexible,
> > there is normally
> > only one managing director but as required there may be two
> > joint managing
> > directors. So more than one person can occupy the position.
> > I do not see why you think these non-role 'roles' are
> > attributes. Things
> > like Managing Director and Monarch are physical entities that
> > have spatial
> > and temporal extents and are capable of having rights and
> > responsibilities.
>
> I'm not sure that roles have spatial/temporal extent.
> Although the people
> who occupy roles have such an extent, it seems to me just as
> natural to
> regard roles as abstract qualities which are temporarily
> embodied by people.
> As for rights and responsibilities, I agree with you that
> these are entailed
> by positions, but I don't see that regarding roles as
> attributes blocks this
> connection. As for multiple people occupying the same role,
> this can be
> handled by relating more than one person to the same
> positional attribute,
> e.g., as follows:
>
> (attribute John ManagingDirectorOfAcme)
> (attribute Tom ManagingDirectorOfAcme)
>
> We are here just regarding the 'Attribute'
> 'ManagingDirectorOfAcme' as one
> that can be multiply instantiated in a given time frame.
>
> > It seems to make sense to see them as socially constructed
> > (see Searle, John
> > R. 1995 The Construction of Social Reality, New York: Free
> > Press or Smith,
> > B., "Agglomerations", in Freksa, C. ed., Spatial Information Theory.
> > International Conference COSIT '99 Lecture Notes in
> Computer Science,
> > Springer Verlag, 1999). But how does this make them
> > 'attributes'? Human
> > beings have a relation 'playing the role' with these entities
> > - so I can see
> > how you use 'occupy' as a relation - and this seems to me a
> > good start. But
> > this is just a specialization of the 'member of' relation
> > that humans have
> > with organizations - e.g. Ian is a member of Teknowlege
> > (maybe an employee
> > member rather than an owner member).
>
> I guess I would be inclined to distinguish two relations here. The
> predicate member, I agree, relates a person to an
> organization, but, as
> illustrated above, my tendency would be to use 'attribute' or a
> specialization of 'attribute' to relate people to the roles
> they occupy.
>
> > It seems to that this is an example of an area where we do
> > not understand
> > very well what we are talking about - though we are more than
> > capable of
> > using the notions (maybe there is some causal relation here
> > :)). Anyway I
> > hope I have given you some idea of the issues. At the moment
> > I do not feel
> > confident about the details of the answers - which is what you want.
>
> That's OK. This is still interesting and useful discussion, I think.
>
> > I think it is important to note that as one of our goals is
> > (according to
> > the PAR). "INTER-OPERABILITY : The standard will provide a basis for
> > achieving Inter-Operability among various software and database
> > applications." The SUO needs to have a reasonable ontology of
> > organizations
> > for any kind of inter-operability between commercial systems.
>
> I strongly agree.
>
> >
> > >
> > > Also this raises the question of whether you flag
> > > roling-sub-classes and
> > > distinguish them from typing-sub-class - something Nicola
> > (Guarino) is
> > > strong on. If you do, maybe you point me to where you do
> > this. Is it a
> > > meta-property of the sub-class relation?
> >
> > I think we can generalize the approach described in my
> > previous response to
> > get the typing/roling distinction. What do you think?
> > CP> I think this works in this case because you explicitly
> > say you are not
> > talking about roles. But it seems to me that in the wider
> > SUMO you are using
> > the sub-class relation in a way that allows fluents (roles) -
> > if so then it
> > is very important to be able to distinguish when you are using is as
> > sub-role and when as sub-type. Note - this is only a problem in a 3D
> > ontology - roles (in this sense) are excluded from a 4D ontology.
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > > [mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On
> > > Behalf Of Ian
> > > Niles
> > > Sent: 22 August 2001 20:04
> > > To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > > Subject: SUO: RE: RE: 2000-7-26 example
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Chris,
> > >
> > > In the current version of the SUMO, your concept of
> > > "executive-position" would be a subclass of
> > > 'PersonBySocialRole', which, in
> > > turn, is a subclass of 'CognitiveAgent'. Note that
> 'CognitiveAgent'
> > > subsumes, but is not identical with, the concept of 'Human'
> > > in the SUMO.
> > >
> > > -Ian
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Chris Partridge [mailto:chris_partridge@csi.com]
> > > > Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 8:30 AM
> > > > To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > > > Cc: Yang Yun
> > > > Subject: SUO: RE: 2000-7-26 example
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hi yy,
> > > >
> > > > I think there is some confusion here that touches on an area
> > > > of my current
> > > > research.
> > > >
> > > > I think executive is a sub-type of person (in the legal
> > > sense) as are
> > > > Executive Committee, First Minister, the deputy First
> > > Minister and the
> > > > Northern Ireland Ministers. In the case of Executive
> > > > Committee we have a
> > > > committee-person and the others a position-person. None of
> > > > these are of
> > > > course human beings, as is clear from an elementary knowledge
> > > > of the law (or
> > > > the TOVE or EO Ontologies).
> > > >
> > > > Of course persons (in the legal sense) can be and often are
> > > formed by
> > > > (consist of) other persons. However this must be defined
> > > > quite carefully if
> > > > it is not to lead to odd results.
> > > >
> > > > I presume that SUMO does not identify executive-positions
> > > > with human beings,
> > > > as either the TOVE or EO Ontologies were merged into it.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Regards
> > > > Chris
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > > > [mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On
> > > > Behalf Of Yang
> > > > Yun
> > > > Sent: 22 August 2001 17:02
> > > > To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > > > Subject: SUO: 2000-7-26 example
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >>Perhaps as an example, in identifying the meaning of
> > > "executive" in
> > > > >>the following sentence, it will probably not be useful
> > to identify
> > > > >>merely events, properties, attributes, classes, actions and
> > > > >>similar. Instead, one needs at least domain specific knowledge
> > > > >>about possible concepts (and their linguistic
> > realizations) in the
> > > > >>field of "politics".
> > > >
> > > > >>"On his arrival in Belfast, there was no sign of an end
> > > to the deep
> > > > >>divisions between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists on the
> > > > >>formation of a new executive for Northern Ireland and on the
> > > > >>decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons."
> > > >
> > > > >>Nevertheless, I understand the objective of the SUO
> > project is to
> > > > >>define higher levels first which will give anchors for
> > > lower level,
> > > > >>domain specific ontologies. This is a reasonable objective,
> > > > >>although it may be more effective to start from the
> lower levels
> > > > >>and combine, merge them at an appropriate time
> > > > >>into a more abstract higher level ontology.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Paul Buitelaar
> > > > >> DFKI Language Technology
> > > > >> Saarbrücken, Germany
> > > > >>
> > > > >> http://www.dfki.de/~paulb/
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > This example shows the need to consider domain-specific uses
> > > > of words eg use of executive in UK politics. The meaning is
> > > > defined by statute to be :
> > > > http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/80047--d.htm#20
> > > > or "cabinet" in the US.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Adam Pease below argues the example shows that a
> standard ontology
> > > > could help disambiguate 2 common senses of executive ie manager
> > > > (person) and administration (governing body). Since a person
> > > > cannot form another person, the meaning must be administration.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe not, because Section 20 says the executive is comprised
> > > > of people (first minister, deputy, and others).Why should a
> > > > reasoner know that a person cannot form these people either?
> > > >
> > > > yy
> > > >
> > > > -------included message---------------
> > > > From: apease
> > > > To: Paul Buitelaar ; SUO
> > > > Subject: Re: [Fwd: Call for vote on SUO Scope and Purpose]
> > > > Date: Saturday, July 22, 2000 2:38 AM
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Paul,
> > > > I may have misunderstood your example, but it seems to me an
> > > > excellent
> > > > example in fact of how an upper ontology could assist in
> > > > disambiguating
> > > > natural language.
> > > > If we formulate your example sentence loosely as
> > > >
> > > > (instance-of Formulate-Token1 CreationAction)
> > > > (performedBy Formulate-Token1 SinnFein)
> > > > (performedBy Formulate-Token1 UlsterUnionists)
> > > > (objectActedOn Formulate-Token1 Executive-Lexeme2)
> > > >
> > > > and we need to decide which is correct
> > > >
> > > > (instance-of Executive-CompanyManager Executive-Lexeme2)
> > > > or
> > > > (instance-of Executive-GoverningBody Executive-Lexeme2)
> > > >
> > > > and we further assume that these terms have been defined
> > > with respect
> > > > to an
> > > > SUO, if the SUO has very general rules that state people
> > > can't create
> > > > other
> > > > adult humans, then the NLU system could pick the correct
> > definition
> > > > for the
> > > > instance.
> > > > While the meanings of Executive-GoverningBody,
> > SinnFein etc would
> > > > have
> > > > to be created in a domain specific ontology, the value of
> > the SUO in
> > > > this
> > > > example seems clear to me.
> > > >
> > > > Adam
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -----A-d-v-e-r-t-i-s-e-m-e-n-t-s---B-e-l-o-w--------------
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> > >
> >
> >
>