Re: SUO: RE: suggested draft vertebrate animal Ontology.
>Hi Graham,
>
> I've just incorporated into the merged ontology the Natural Kinds
>ontology developed by the ITBM-CNR folks. I think it does a nice job of
>specifying the essential axioms and taxonomic relations for high-level
>categories of organisms. Perhaps you could use this ontology as a basis for
>additional biological content. The merged, SUO-KIF version of the Natural
>Kinds ontology follows.
>
>-Ian
>
>;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Hi all,
I am currently maintaining the ONIONS Ontology Library including both
general and biomedical ontologies (see site below for accessing them).
Since Ian extracted the 'Natural Kinds' concepts from a comprehensive
library, maybe I should add some comment to it.
The current version of the library (ON9.3) contains some general
theories (meta-level, dependence, mereology, topology, actors, etc.)
as well as domain-oriented 'intermediate-level' theories, such as the
one included by Ian. Our ontologies have been developed mostly by
reusing, revising, and integrating existing theories.
In particular, 'Natural Kinds' is a formalized elaboration on a set
of concepts and their informal definitions given within the 'UMLS
Semantic Network' (some comments are still the original informal
defs), developed at the National Library of Medicine to provide some
classification to the terms contained in the big repository of the
UMLS Project.
Notice that many concepts and relations used as defining elements in
'Natural Kinds' come from other ontologies in the library.
> > -----Original Message-----
>> From: Horn, Graham [mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 6:49 PM
>> To: Schoening CECOM DCSC4I James (E-mail)
>> Cc: 'standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org'
>> Subject: SUO: suggested draft vertebrate animal Ontology.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jim et al,
>> . I gather no-one replied with a medical ontology.
Graham, you can take the following addresses as a reply:
http://saussure.irmkant.rm.cnr.it/onto/ON9.3-OL-HTML/index.html
http://saussure.irmkant.rm.cnr.it/onto/LOOM/ON9.3.0html/
where you can find some of our ontologies (in Ontolingua and Loom
versions, the SUO-KIF version is being done by Ian Niles), customized
to integrate existing medical classifications within a set of
general-level ontologies (developed with a mixed top-down and
bottom-up approach, as described in our ONIONS methodology).
> >
>> . I'm not sure that this qualifies as an
>> ontology, but I have
>> been thinking about having a go at a defining physiology for
>> vertebrate
>> animals on Planet Earth. I am trying to guess how much complexity is
>> appropriate for the SUO. I suggest this may be appropriate,
>> since it would
>> cover so much of the life present on this planet.
>>
>> . In view of my lack of expertise in the "logical
>> languages",
>> it would be in plain English "dot point format", but I would
> > hope it would
> > be reasonably unambiguous. I would be happy to assist anyone
> > wishing to
> > translate it into SUO-KIF, ACE, etc.
> >
> > . Basically, I propose to group structures in
> > what appears to
>> me to be a logical pattern.
>> * Body temperature (significant since this is often used as an
>> indicator for illness),
>> * Basic form:
>> * Skin - the external covering of the entire being of the animal;
>> * Muscles - the tissue able to be contracted along its
>> length to make
>> movements in the being;
>> * the Vascular system;
>> * the Nervous system - electrically conductive fibres acting as
>> information carriers;
>> * Body (trunk), containing most organs, and comprising:
>> * Chest (Thorax), and
>> * Belly (Abdomen),
>> * Head, location defining the "top front" of the animal; and
>> * 4 Limbs;
> >
A classification of top dimensions in medicine you could compare to
is provided in the SNOMED Nomenclature:
http://www.snomed.org/
SNOMED top level contains some general 'axes', e.g. Anatomy,
Function, Morphology, etc.
The SNOMED top level has been integrated into the ONIONS library as well.
(BTW, a similar approach to SNOMED's was pursued some years ago by an
australian physician, Elmer Gabrieli, who maybe you are aware of.)
Ciao
Aldo Gangemi
--
*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*;*
Aldo Gangemi
Ontology and Conceptual Modeling Group
ITBM-CNR (National Research Council)
Viale Marx 15, 00137
Roma Italy
+3906.86090249
mailto://gangemi@saussure.irmkant.rm.cnr.it
http://saussure.irmkant.rm.cnr.it