RE: SUO: Ontology Structure & Content

["Horn, Graham" <graham.horn@aihw.gov.au>]

John, 
	1st   .	I don't know whether the list below is in the format you
received, but it has lost the subcategorisation levels I originally sent to
you. For example, meat and milk were types of animal extracts, which was a
type of constituent. Here is a further attempt to ensure the original
structure I sent is represented at your end:  
o	temperature, 
o	constituents: 
.	=	minerals, 
.	=	plant extracts: 
.	.	>	leaf, 
.	.	>	fruit, 
.	.	>	bean, 
.	.	>	wood, 
.	.	>	bark, and 
.	.	>root, 
.	=	animal extracts: 
.	.	>	meat, and 
.	.	>	milk, 
.	=	brewed extracts:
.	.	>	alcohol, and 
.	.	>	bacilli; and 
o	"aeration":
.	=	"fizz", and 
.	=	froth.  

	2nd.  	Naturally I agree that support of lattice structures and
other tools and methodologies for extending, refining, and sharing
ontologies are important for the SUO. I have two extensions of that
principle:
*	that tailoring such items to ontological development improves
effectiveness and efficiency, eg SUO-KIF is intended to enhance SUO
development over what the standard KIF, just as a tailor designed car
factory would assist car production over just having a metalworking and
assembly factory; and 
*	there is opportunity to considerably enhance ontological development
through selection of good conceptual structures for those tools and
methodologies. 

	.	On a related topic, are you familiar with any of the various
data, process and information modelling languages, such as IDEF0, IDEF1X,
ORM, etc.? I would be interested in your opinion of their potential for
diagrammatically representing ontologies. 

	.	Same goes for the principle I put forward for dimensional
analysis of ontological structures. 



Thanks   				Graham Horn
National Data Standards Unit
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 
================================================
Phone:      	02.6244.1094  
Fax:          	02.6244.1199  
E­mail:    	Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au>


-----Original Message-----
From:	John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
Sent:	Sunday, January 14, 2001 4:24 AM
To:	Horn, Graham; 'John F. Sowa'; pat hayes; West, Matthew MR
SSI-GREA-UK; standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org; Awbrey Jon
(E-mail); Fuchs E. Norbert (E-mail); Whitten David (E-mail)
Subject:	Re: SUO: Ontology Structure & Content

Graham,

I agree that your list of attributes is a better choice than
the one that Erdmann used for his illustration or the example
that I suggested by adding more distinctions to Erdmann's table.

>Basically, I would group Erdmann and your beverage types in
>a different way. The basic attributes I see are: 
>*	temperature, 
>*	constituents: 
>*	minerals, 
>*	plant extracts: 
>*	leaf, 
>*	fruit, 
>*	bean, 
>*	wood, 
>*	bark, and 
>*	root, 
>*	animal extracts: 
>*	meat, and 
>*	milk, 
>*	brewed extracts:
>*	alcohol, and 
>*	bacilli; and 
>*	"aeration":
>*	"fizz", and 
>*	froth.  

>This provides a far more comprehensive structure, without
>even ranging beyond the beverages you mentioned other
>than to add the logical additional alternatives. It allows
>further elaboration, such as from what species the extracts
>derived, and what particular extract compositions
>are involved. It would thus more readily accommodate
>such beverages as cappuccino, cocoa, soy milk, Irish
>coffee, kava, Bovril, yoghurt and so on, even flat beer
>and champagne. 

The point I was making is that the lattice-based approach can support
incremental modifications at any level of detail. I showed how Erdmann's
original lattice, which I'm sure he would admit is very limited, can be
extended by adding more distinctions to his table.  Any or all of your
distinctions can be incorporated in the lattice by makind additions and/or
deletions one at a time (or two or three or more at a time, if you like).
At every step of the way, you have a lattice, which can be automatically
extended as far as you like.

The important point is to have a systematic methodology, preferably
supported by software that can make the updates automatically.  The
techniques of Formal Concept Analysis are an example of such an approach,
but there are other methods that can be used to supplement, extend, or even
replace them as desired.

Developing the tools and methodologies for extending, refining, and sharing
ontologies are just as important, and perhaps even more important than any
particular choice of categories we may develop or propose for the SUO.

John