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Ontolog Forum

Ontolog Mini-Series on "Database And Ontology" (Session-6) - Thu 12-Apr-2007

  • Invited Speaker: Mr. Edward Barkmeyer from the US National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST)
  • Topic: "Ontologies as the Next Generation Information Models"

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, April 12, 2007
  • Start Time: 10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT / 6:30pm BST / 17:30 GMT/UTC
  • Expected Call Duration: 1.5~2.0 hours
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Attendees

  • Also expecting (and who may have joined us after the roll call):
    • ... to register for participation, please add your name (plus your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the community) above, or e-mail <peter.yim@cim3.com> so that we can reserve enough resources to support everyone's participation. ...
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Background

This is the 6th event of the "Database and Ontology min-series" of talks and discussions, during which this community will be exploring the landscape, issues and interactions between databases and ontologies.

This is a community-driven set of activities, and is probably long overdue. On 15-Aug-2006, Tatiana Malyuta (who just joined the community after participating at our 23-Jul-2006 face-to-face workshop at Stanford, brought up her request for the Ontolog Forum to delve into the subject of "Database and Ontologiy." An almost unprecedented flurry of online responses were received from the community. It was decided that we could systematically pursue the subject by mounting a min-series on the matter at hand.

A planning meeting for this mini-series took place on 31-Aug-2006. Matthew West was invited to champion the effort, and a "Program & Technical Advisory Team" was formed, comprising Matthew West (Lead), Adrian Walker, Atilla Elci, Chris Partridge, Leo Obrst, Peter P. Yim, Susie Stephens & TatianaMalyuta.

See also: DatabaseAndOntology (the 'project' homepage for this mini-series)

The community is requested to contribute their thoughts by posting to [ontolog-forum] or to the DatabaseAndOntology wiki page (and/or its subpages). We hope to accumulate and synthesize the knowledge gathered and compile it into a written deliverable (a paper or even a handbook) that we could publish this collaboratively authored work to other relevant media and channels (like relevant conferences or the wikipedia.)

Agenda & Proceedings: "Database And Ontology" - Mini-series Session-6

Mr. Edward Barkmeyer from NIST, presents: "Ontologies as the Next Generation Information Models"

  • Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call
    • 1. Opening by the Session Chair - Matthew West
    • 2. we'll go around with a self-introduction of participants (10~15 minutes) - All - we'll skip this if we have moe than 20 participants (in which case, it will be best if members try to update their namesake pages on this wiki prior to the call so that everyone can get to know who's who more easily.)
    • 2. Introduction of the invited speaker - Matthew West
    • 3. Invited Speaker Presentation (60~75 minutes) - Edward Barkmeyer
    • 5. Q & A and Open discussion by all participants (20~30 minutes)
    • 7. Summary / Conclusion / Follow-up by the Session Chair - Matthew West (~5 minutes)

Topic: "Ontologies as the Next Generation Information Models" by Mr. Edward Barkmeyer

http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/DatabaseAndOntology/2007-04-12_EdwardBarkmeyer/edbark_20070412.jpg [Mr. Edward Barkmeyer]
  • Abstract (by EdwardBarkmeyer):
In 1976, Peter Chen created the term "entity-attribute-relationship modeling" to describe an approach to analyzing data requirements in terms of the entities the data describes. In 1980, the term became "information modeling" to accommodate slightly different approaches, and in various ways, we have been improving on that idea for 30 years.
  • . The thesis of this talk is that
    • ontologies are an evolutionary step in information modeling,
    • "good"-ness is largely the same for ontologies and information models,
    • a good information model is a sound basis for a good ontology, and
    • the best practices for developing good information models apply to developing good ontologies
But no discussion of these technologies is complete without examining the weaknesses of information models, languages and methods. And one of the questions to be discussed is the degree to which ontologies overcome any of these weaknesses. Object models proved only to be a step sideways. In what ways are ontologies a step forward? How do we adjust the analysis practices to take advantage of those?
  • About the Invited Speaker:
Mr. Edward Barkmeyer has an M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland and forty years' experience in the computer sciences, covering a wide range of topics, including compilers, operating systems, database systems, communications, systems simulation and real-time control. Since 1981, Mr. Barkmeyer has been involved in manufacturing systems integration activities at NIST, as a principal architect and implementor of communications and distributed database systems, and as a principal analyst in information interchange among manufacturing software systems - engineering, planning and control. He is currently leading a project in automating software integration processes using systems engineering and artificial intelligence methods. Mr. Barkmeyer represents NIST on national and international standards bodies in the areas of interface specification, information modeling, and data interchange for manufacturing software.

Questions, Answers & Discourse

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    • For those who have further questions or remarks on the topic, please post them to the [ontolog-forum] so that everyone in the community can benefit from the discourse.
  • ... More Questions
    • from Chris Partridge: (discussion begun) ... to be continued over the [ontolog-forum]
    • from Peter Brown: If OWL added identifiers as you suggest, that would break TimBernersLee's underlying model for Web architecture
  • Session ended 2007.04.12 12:30 pm PDT

Audio Recording of this Session

  • To download the audio recording of the session, click here
    • the playback of the audio files require the proper setup, and an MP3 compatible player on your computer.
  • Conference Date and Time: 12-Apr-2007 10:42am~12:30pm Pacific Standard Time
  • Duration of Recording: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
  • Recording File Size: 12.3 MB (in mp3 format)
  • Telephone Playback
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      • Conference ID: 5823120#
      • Recording Reference Number: 82510#
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