RE: SUO: RE: Re: Missing Ingredients
1. <<<There's about 20 years worth of research on "deductive databases"
> > that I can remember>>>
Yep, I'm aware of deductive databases, though I've read nothing of the
original work on them. My way of keeping up with academic work is to read
anthologies (John's on semantic networks, for example) and books.
2. <<<could you try to expand a bit on this? For instance, how does a table
of tuples compare to a set of sentences? >>>
If you're looking for something more than the obvious, I'm afraid I've
overlooked it. A table is a type, its rows tokens of that type. A query is a
theorem about what exists, i.e. about what tokens of that type there are
(right now). An empty result set is a negative response, a non-empty one a
positive response. If my customer query returns two rows, I can formulate
two sets of sentences, e.g.
"The customer John Smith exists. He became a customer on 6/5/2002, and has
purchased $2567.23 worth of product so far from our company."
"The customer Susie Johnson exists. She became a customer on 11/3/2002, and
has purchased $3617.05 worth of product so far from our company."
Is there something I'm missing?
3. <<<what is the alternative to "real world database concepts"? What
sort of choice are we presented with? >>>
Sorry if the term sounds perjorative to more academic concerns. I pretty
much mean "business databases and tables". I think it's important to sink
our teeth into them because I know that these databases contain semantic
problems far more subtle and sophisticated than those I see in traditional
database textbooks. Some of my earlier emails, about not only customers, but
also such things as bills of material, illustrate that.
The contrast might be attempts to formalize various niches in the sciences,
the chemistry of metals, for example. Possibly out of my great ignorance, I
suspect that such scientists work with vocabularies far more regular than
the vocabularies used in business, and thus far less replete with really
messy semantic problems.
Regardless, we business guys have a lot more money to spend. Get our
interest, and checks might be written.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of
Pierluigi Miraglia
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 10:56 AM
To: SUO
Subject: Re: SUO: RE: Re: Missing Ingredients
On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 02:22:00PM -0700, Richard Cooper wrote:
>
> Jon Awbrey wrote:
> <snip\>
> > TJ: 1.1. Our goal, I take it, is to increase the semantic
> > interoperability
> > of databases. This means, I take it, (although I
> > have found no
> > description of any such thing on the SUO website)
> > is to create
> > a registration framework for real world databases.
> >
> > Tom,
> >
> > There's about 20 years worth of research on "deductive databases"
> > that I can remember just since the first standard textbooks began
> > to appear. But you said bottoms-up, and I'm all for that, well,
> > let me check -- yes, it's an odd-numbered day where I am, so OK.
> >
> > Let us try to approach the question
> > of "semantic inter-operability" (SIO)
> > by way of the following sub-questions:
> >
> > 1. What is the "meaning" of a "set of sentences" (SOS)?
> >
> > 2. What is the "meaning" of a "table of tuples" (TOT)?
> >
> > 3. How shall we compare the "meanings" of these two?
> >
> > I will give you and me both time to think and then get back to you.
> >
> > Jon Awbrey
>
> This set of three questions is the most important triple we're
> dealing with in all SUO work. Getting clear answers to how
> meaning is represented, communicated, stored, compared and
> organized would be a successful result.
could you try to expand a bit on this? For instance, how does a table
of tuples compare to a set of sentences?
>
> We have predefined the answer to be an ontology. Then we refined
> that concept to include the lattice of ontologies, plus the IFF
> framework, but I still get the feeling there's a lot of stuff left
> out.
(No here I disagree: once you have answered every question about
meaning the work would be done.)
>
> So I agree with Tom that the focus should be refined further
> to incorporate real world database concepts, and I add one more
> suggestion; that we should be working with natural language
> words and sentences to impose the type structure, or class
> structure, and property lists, of common everyday concepts like
> address, customer, person, ..., fill in your favorite concepts.
what is the alternative to "real world database concepts"? What
sort of choice are we presented with?
> Finally, since we haven't been able to agree on more enhanced
> ontologies than WordNet, perhaps we should start the bottom-up
> process by extracting exactly the ontology that WordNet provides.
> This could be one of the bottom-level concept sets, along with
> others that may appear in the lattice as we continue.
>
> Rich
>
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