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Session Communique
Duration 1.5 hour
Date/Time Apr 18 2018 16:00 GMT
9:00am PDT/12:00pm EDT
5:00pm BST/6:00pm CST
Convener KenBaclawski

Ontology Summit 2018 Communique Session 2

Agenda

The Communiqué will be based on OntologySummit2018/Synthesis

Version 01 of the Communiqué is available at [1].

The Symposium will be held on 30 April and 1 May 2018 at NITRD in Washington, D.C.

Video Recording

Conference Call Information

  • Date: Wednesday, 18-April-2018
  • Start Time: 9:00am PDT / 12:00pm EDT / 6:00pm CST / 5:00pm BST / 1600 UTC
  • Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours
  • Video Conference URL: https://bluejeans.com/703588230
    • If you have not used BlueJeans before, then connect to the URL above before the meeting time so that the required plug-in can be installed.
  • Chatroom: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/ontology_summit_2018
    • Instructions: once you got access to the page, click on the "settings" button, and identify yourself (by modifying the Name field from "anonymous" to your real name, like "JaneDoe").
    • You can indicate that you want to ask a question verbally by clicking on the "hand" button, and wait for the moderator to call on you; or, type and send your question into the chat window at the bottom of the screen.
  • This session, like all other Ontolog events, is open to the public. Information relating to this session is shared on this wiki page.
  • Please note that this session may be recorded, and if so, the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content, along with the proceedings of the call to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

Proceedings

[12:08] KenBaclawski: Latest communique (version 01) http://bit.ly/2JRwOY2

[12:35] ToddSchneider: But the context of 'context is a meta-level relative to ontology' is formalization (of these notions) or information systems.

[12:36] Gary Berg-Cross: @John, CYC folks talk about MTs and context this way, see if you agree: "In CYC, the interpretation of every fact and every inference is localized to a specific region of context space. All conclusions that the inference draws involve only facts that are visible from that region of context space, that is, are stated either in an MT or 1 of its general MTs..."

[12:36] ToddSchneider: 'Meta-Level' requires a distinction that itself is a context.

[12:37] ToddSchneider: Jim, Thank you.

[12:38] RaviSharma: Notes: John - Metalevel is "about" the qualification of text

[12:39] RaviSharma: Notes: John - meta is about as in Metadata.

[12:40] RaviSharma: Notes: Gary - metadata or metalevel about the piece or whole ontology?

[12:41] RaviSharma: Notes: Gary - Provenance, about ontology.

[12:42] RaviSharma: Notes: John - reasoning about a piece of text can also be used in text.

[12:42] RaviSharma: @mike, yes instead of always, we can say mostly?

[12:43] janet singer: Following Gary's point: if an ontology is seen as providing context, is the ontology on a metalevel to the text it is contextualizing?

[12:43] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: Not sure where this belongs in the communique, but some kind of "crosswalk" from metadata to ontologies may be helpful -- mainly due to developer ignorance of the latter. Developers think they understand "metadata", albeit apart from their adherence to canonical forms of metadata. For instance, note the absence of ontology references in this project: https://standards.ieee.org/develop/indconn/BDGMM_index.html

[12:43] BobbinTeegarden: If you think about context as holonic, you can get to meta-meta levels and contexts of context(s)...

[12:43] BobbinTeegarden: Mike @yes.

[12:44] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: Metadata substitutes for context because of this limited understanding of what would otherwise be feasible with richer models

[12:45] ToddSchneider: Ken, will the 'aspect' of agency be addressed?

[12:46] ToddSchneider: Mark, what did you have in mind for a 'crosswalk' (among metadata and ontologies)?

[12:46] Gary Berg-Cross: @Janet, yes when you use an ontology to understand data you are using it at the meta-level to provide a meaning context.

[12:47] BobbinTeegarden: @john you're using lots of 'always' (as Mike noted), but 'always' is relative only in a certain context...

[12:48] KenBaclawski: @[12:45] ToddSchneider: Was agency covered in one of the tracks?

[12:48] RaviSharma: @John, we need sentences and @ken hopefully we are recording?

[12:48] RaviSharma: @Ken, please record if not already?

[12:48] KenBaclawski: @[12:48] RaviSharma: Yes we are recording.

[12:49] RaviSharma: Ken thanks.

[12:49] Gary Berg-Cross: Agents (and their agency) are part of PROVO for example.

[12:49] RaviSharma: Notes: Todd, John, Mike: Agent, agency another concept.

[12:50] Gary Berg-Cross: Are we trying to back into the topic of "intentions" with this Q on agents?

[12:50] RaviSharma: Notes: John, notion in Communiques Meta and Subject level differentiation.

[12:51] KenBaclawski: Agency was covered in the Upper Ontologies track.

[12:51] Gary Berg-Cross: Make this distinction up front - meta-level vs "object" (domain) level.

[12:51] RaviSharma: Notes: Meta level could be metadata, hierarchy, lowest level is subject?

[12:51] MikeBennett: My hunch: Perspective is a kind of context, where the contextual matter is the 'Who'. We did not draw any firm conclusions on this on our track conversations but there were some email exchanges on intention in that, er, context.

[12:52] Gary Berg-Cross: Subject matter... or subject of our attention.

[12:52] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: @Gary shopping for recent use cases / case studies for PROVO... Have any handy?

[12:53] janet singer: What is ground and what is meta is relative to how/what knowledge is used in an interpretation event by a given agent.

[12:53] ToddSchneider: Should there be a general qualifier that the notions of 'context' in the communique are in the context of formalizations of knowledge or 'systems'?

[12:53] BobbinTeegarden: @john context is not ever just 2, 3 levels, it composes (and decomposes) infinite in both directions, depending on your perspective.

[12:54] Gary Berg-Cross: The bridge example..could be our current subject of interest. We may refer to an ontology on bridges as part of this.

[12:55] RaviSharma: Notes: context about bridge, civil engg or network data bridge? at top level.

[12:55] MikeBennett: Or dentistry

[12:56] ToddSchneider: Ravi, The notion of 'levels' is problematic in this context.

[12:56] RaviSharma: @Mike - yes there could be more!

[12:57] ToddSchneider: Use of the notion of 'levels' commonly implies an ordering, many times linear.

[12:58] Gary Berg-Cross: Both canine and pet are about dogs.

[12:58] Jim Disbrow: An almost infinite number of items (large but finite?) organized with relationships, strands, logic, reflexivity and time-durations.

[12:59] RaviSharma: @Todd - we do not need a level in ontology, only in our hierarchy, or temporal sequencing.

[13:01] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: Sorry for the long paste the follows. I may have missed this topic in my spotty attendance:

[13:01] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: Varieties of Metadata in API Alerting

Background: Part of some pragmatic research into identifying best practices for logging and alerting.

Account app scenarios: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt607522.aspx

Library bibs https://www.oclc.org/developer/develop/web-services/worldcat-metadata-api.en.html

Attribute discovery for Google Analytics https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/metadata/v3/

Force.com (SalesForce) attribute customization https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_meta.meta/api_meta/meta_intro.htm

Box (key value pairs around what is usually a file) https://blog.box.com/blog/introducing-metadata-bringing-context-to-your-content/

A W3 API discussion calls out MediaOntology in "An implementation of the mappings from a specific source format to the core properties. Here, the Metadata API for Media Resources 1.0 should use the Ontology for Media Resources 1.0 specification [MEDIA-ONTOLOGY], where applicable."

Also worth mentioning that developers will mistake (or rather correctly identify, depending on your viewpoint / framework) the use of context which arises in scope ... A useful introduction to this "confusion" appears in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_(computer_science)

[13:05] RaviSharma: @janet - often fuzzy boundaries exist, John says - what is subject and application, defines everything about it and

[13:06] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: Another of the several ambiguities in terminology is "agent," as seen in this meaning of "user agent" in the W3C diagram https://www.w3.org/TR/mediaont-api-1.0/API_options.png

[13:08] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: Ken - I can add a few pghs in the domain specific section, tho it will need editing to better link with this year's sessions

[13:08] RaviSharma: Assignment for Ravi and David to put a paragraph for Communique on Domain specific needs.

[13:08] John Sowa: Suggested terminology: Whatever information we're using is the *subject matter*. That would include the database (simple facts) and the ontology (general facts).

[13:09] RaviSharma: this is TBD on blog page on domain track

[13:09] John Sowa: At the metalevel is all the metadata and anything else we use for talking about the subject matter.

[13:10] John Sowa: The context might include irrelevant interruptions. But the important parts are relevant.

[13:11] Mark Underwood @knowlengr: @Todd Just kidding

[13:11] John Sowa: The relevant context is *about* whatever we need to add to the subject matter.

[13:12] Gary Berg-Cross: John had an email on context to the Forum which I add here for possible use in the Communique: Last week, I said that anything in ontology could be an implicit part of some background knowledge (context) that was necessary for interpreting some text or discourse. That has important implications:

 1. The contents of any or every context is something that could
    be, would be, or already is in some general-purpose ontology.
 2. Therefore, reasoning about context is always at the metalevel.
    It involves an analysis of the current text or discourse to
    determine what background information is relevant to the
    current topic.  And by point #1, the relevant ontology is or
    should be available somewhere in the general-purpose ontology.
 3. It's true that Guha was influenced by McCarthy's theory of
    context when he wrote his PhD thesis about microtheories.
    But the idea of partitioning the ontology into modules is
    necessary for designing and using any large ontology.  It's
    more general than just a subtopic about contexts.
 4. Therefore, the focus of any R & D about contexts must be
    on point #2:  What kind of metalevel reasoning could be
    used to determine what is relevant?  Where and how do we
    look for it?  The current text?  The physical situation?
    Some explicit or implicit agenda?  The general goals or
    purpose that led us to our current activity?

Basic point: Any fact or ontology, no matter how obscure, might be critical background knowledge for understanding some text or discourse. That point was debated by linguists in the 1960s.

[13:12] John Sowa: We need to classify whatever aspects are relevant and how they are relevant,

[13:14] RaviSharma: Mark -OK yes please see URL for domain slides pdf.

[13:14] RaviSharma: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ontologforum/OntologySummit2018/Synthesis/Domain+Specific+Needs+for+Context+Sessions+1+and+2.pdf

[13:17] RaviSharma: Cory and Ravi to summarize the interoperability track on the blog

[13:18] KenBaclawski: There will be another Communique meeting on 25 April. I will create the meeting page and send out notices.

[13:20] RaviSharma: Assignments: John on Context, Ravi on Domain, Mark on Domain, Mike on his Track and Cory and Ravi on Integration, overall Ken and others.

[13:20] RaviSharma: @Todd - Thanks for inputs to Ken

[13:22] TerryLongstreth: W/R/T John's point 4 (reported by Gary) I suggest the communique bring out the point that there is no way to document context as a static collection of theories. Context results from acknowledgement of the situation in which a particular ontology is being applied.

[13:30] RaviSharma: @Terry - thanks.

Resources

Video Recording

Track BlogChampions
Domain Specific NeedsDavid Whitten and Ravi Sharma
Upper OntologiesMike Bennett and David Whitten
Open Knowledge NetworkRam D. Sriram and Gary Berg-Cross
Integration and InteroperabilityCory Casanave assisted by Ravi Sharma
Systems EngineeringJanet Singer and Jack Ring
Representation of ContextCory Casanave

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