SUO: Re: Critique Of Non-Functional Reason
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| A. Automated Reasoning (AR)
|
| The standard will be suitable for automated logical inference
| to support knowledge-based reasoning applications.
|
| B. Inter-Operability (IO)
|
| The standard will provide a basis for achieving Inter-Operability
| among various software and database applications.
Remarks having to do with A or B will be tagged "A" or "B".
Comments on the integration of A and B will be tagged "AB".
Running Remarks On The Relevance Of The Current Thread:
1. On the negative side, I will be calling attention to a number
of what I will continue to argue are serious practical defects
in the syntax and the 'de facto' semantics of KIF, with especial
reference to the way that this language, and FOL in general, is
currently institued in the 'ad hoc' pragmatics of the proponents
of the SUMO starter document. Aside from the circumstance that
much of this usage is presently out of keeping with the letter
and the spirit of what is already standard knowledge in many
fields of application, I will provide reasoned argument that
these deficiencies will most likely undermine our ability
to achieve Purpose A, Purpose B, and their coordination.
2. On the positive side, I will be expositing a number of suggestions
for potential improvements to the syntax, the semantics, and the
pragmatics of whatever langauge we decide to adapt, to adapt,
or to appellate as our basic logical formalism, if any, and
I will continue to provide reasoned argument and practical
evidence for the advisability and the viability of my
suggestions.
3. Basic common sense suggests that the development of a widely
acknowledged and internationally supported ontology standard
cannot be done well, if at all, without careful comparative
and deep developmental studies of the many different standards,
bearing on the relevant domains, that already exist in the field.
If there are any reasoned objections to this general principle,
I have yet to find anybody willing to bring them forth and to
exposit them in rational discussion.
And now, back to work ...
Jon Awbrey
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IEEE Standard Upper Ontology
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Scope & Purpose
Scope of Proposed Project
The Scope describes what is being done,
including the technical boundaries of the project.
This standard will specify an upper ontology that will
enable computers to utilize it for applications such as
data interoperability, information search and retrieval,
automated inferencing, and natural language processing.
An ontology is similar to a dictionary or glossary, but
with greater detail and structure that enables computers
to process its content. An ontology consists of a set of
concepts, axioms, and relationships that describe a domain
of interest. An upper ontology is limited to concepts that
are meta, generic, abstract, and philosophical, and therefore
are general enough to address (at a high level) a broad range
of domain areas. Concepts specific to given domains will not be
included; however, this standard will provide a structure and a
set of general concepts upon which domain ontologies (e.g. medical,
financial, engineering, etc.) could be constructed.
Purpose of Proposed Project
A. Automated Reasoning
The standard will be suitable for automated logical inference
to support knowledge-based reasoning applications.
B. Inter-Operability
The standard will provide a basis for achieving inter-operability
among various software and database applications.
1. Application developers can define new data elements
in terms of a common ontology, and thereby gain some
degree of interoperability with other conformant systems.
2. Applications based on domain-specific ontologies that are compliant
with this standard will be able to interoperate (to some degree) by
virtue of the shared common terms and definitions.
3. The SUO will play the role of a neutral interchange format whereby
owners of existing applications will be able to map existing data
elements just once to a common ontology. This provides a degree
of interoperability with other applications whose representations
conform to SUO. This entails the SUO being able to be mapped to
more restricted forms such as XML, database schema, or object
oriented schema.
C. Application Areas
1. E-commerce applications from different domains
that need to interoperate at both the data and
semantic levels.
2. Educational applications in which students learn concepts
and relationships directly from, or expressed in terms of,
a common ontology. This will also enable a standard record
of learning to be kept.
3. Natural language understanding tasks in which a knowledge-based
reasoning system uses the ontology to disambiguate among likely
interpretations of natural language statements.
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