ONT RE: Ontology case study
Bill,
At 01:55 PM 5/23/2002 -0700, William Burkett wrote:
>Adam:
>
>The integration model/paradigm that you describe in your case study here
>(i.e., the use a neutral ontology as an integrating mechanism for multiple
>data sources) has been used in many other integration efforts in the past
>ten years and is certainly a valid and successfully-used approach. See
>for example:
>
> - ISO 10303: Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data
> (www.tc184-sc4.org)
> - Product Data Markup Language (www.pdml.org)
> - ISO 18876 - Integration of Industrial Data for Exchange, Access, and
> Sharing (www.iso18876.org)
>
>to name just a few that I've personally been involved with.
>
>*The* most significant problem with this paradigm, however, is the
>development and application of mappings. What is "mapping", really? Can
>it be understood and taught to the general ontology-using public? Your
>effort was successful because you were dealing with a closed system of a
>known and well-defined scope and data meanings. How can the mapping
>lessons you learned (and were learned in the above efforts) be applied to
>an open system with a huge, unknown, and constantly evolving scope and
>fuzzy, ambiguous, context-sensitive data meanings?
The mapping problem is significant, to be sure, but is a problem in any
sort of integration effort, whether using ontologies, or a more
conventional data warehouse approach. I would suggest that at least the
problem is more manageable than typical systems integration approaches
where n components require n^2 mappings.
>While I think you can sell the neutral ontology integration model as a
>problem solving approach, getting people to know about and use SUMO (or
>any other "upper" ontology) as neutral ontology in their solution is a
>different kind of sales job altogether. And it is one that I don't think
>will be very successful - any well-defined and well-bounded integration
>effort will want to use their own.
Can you discuss further why you feel they'd want to use their own? I've
found that unlike in the research world, people who want to accomplish a
practical commercial task are very happy to adopt someone else's models or
software if it helps them get their job done.
Adam
>Bill Burkett
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>William C. Burkett 562-495-6500 x13
>Product Data Integration Technologies, Inc. Fax:562-495-6509
>444 W. Ocean Blvd Suite 1800 wburkett@pdit.com
>Long Beach, CA, 90802 USA icq: 4508836
><http://www.pdit.com>http://www.pdit.com
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Adam Pease
> [<mailto:apease@ks.teknowledge.com>mailto:apease@ks.teknowledge.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 4:17 PM
> > To: SUO
> > Subject: SUO: Ontology case study
> >
> >
> >
> > Folks,
> > Bill Andersen and I were speaking a moment ago and he
> > pointed out that I
> > hadn't related an application of ontology that we did a while
> > ago. My hope
> > is that this case should point out one simple, concrete
> > application of an
> > ontology, in a deployed business environment.
> > During the dot-com boom we worked with a Internet-based
> > real-estate
> > company to solve a database integration task. I was
> > surprised to find out
> > as we started the project that what consumers know as the
> > Multiple Listing
> > Service database that realtors use is actually a collection
> > of some 30,000
> > locally-developed databases that record information about
> > homes for sale in
> > a particular geographic area. All the databases cover the same basic
> > information, but all the table names, field names, and symbols may be
> > different from one database to the next.
> > We created an ontology of real estate in first order
> > logic, using an
> > upper ontology. We then "compiled" the ontology by hand into
> > a relational
> > database. We then wrote scripts, again by hand, to map the
> > contents of
> > each MLS database into our common database. The ontology was
> > robust and
> > comprehensive enough such that after the first couple
> > databases, and we
> > eventually mapped several dozen of them, there were no
> > changes to the ontology.
> > The company's web site went live for several months, using our
> > ontology-based database, and then they exhausted their
> > funding and went out
> > of business.
> > Of course this is just an anecdote. I doubt it's going to change
> > anyone's mind who already has a strong opinion about the
> > usefulness of a
> > single ontology for supporting integration. But at the very
> > least, it's a
> > concrete instance of the productive use of a particular
> > ontology on one
> > commercial integration task. I've provided references in
> > previous messages
> > to other government research projects where we've used ontologies for
> > integration as well.
> > One impact of an ontology that I find undeniable is that
> > at the very
> > least, a formal ontology can serve as a more precise set of
> > comments about
> > the meaning of database tables and fields than informal English.
> > This also points out some fruitful areas of research for tool
> > builders. It would be nice to compile the ontology to an SQL
> > DB schema. I
> > believe Bill's company is working on that. Another extremely
> > valuable tool
> > would be one that aids in doing the mapping from disparate
> > databases to a
> > common database. I'm doubtful about the prospects for doing that
> > completely automatically, but hopefully that tools could be
> > developed that
> > would help.
> > I hope this is helpful.
> >
> > Adam
> >
> >
> >
> > Adam Pease
> > Teknowledge
> > (650) 424-0500 x571
> >
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571