UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004 1 Environmental Terminology & Thesaurus Workshop...
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Transcript of UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004 1 Environmental Terminology & Thesaurus Workshop...
1UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
EnvironmentalTerminology & ThesaurusWorkshop
UN Environment Programme Regional Office of Europe Geneva, April 14-15, 2004
Ontology and Thesaurus Integration in a Semantic Web Framework
Use Case : Multimedia Dictionary of Sustainable Development
2UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
TerminologyThesaurus, Glossary ...
Knowledge ObjetsClasses, Individuals ...
Information ResourcesDocuments, Data ...
SemanticInteroperability ?
IndexTaxonomies ...
KOSOntologies ... Metadata
Big Picture : Things we are about
Different views of the world, different technologies … But : ‘Everything is a Thing’ : concepts, objects, resources ...
3UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Semantic Interoperability Issues
Identification of things How do we agree we are speaking about the same thing?
Inside the same KOS Across distributed systems
How do we access distributed information about a given thing?
Ontology Commitment How do we agree on classes and properties of things? How formal is this agreement? (for humans - for computers)
Knowledge Organisation How are things related to each other?
Metadata Definition What things are our documents and data about?
4UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Semantic Web Quick Answers
Identification of things Things are represented and identified by URIs
“Everything” can be represented and identified that way
Ontology Commitment OWL provides standard ways to declare, and commit to, an ontology
Based on RDF-XML syntax and RDF semantics
Knowledge Organisation RDF allows linking of resources using ‘semantic predicates’
Whatever the kinds of things represented
Metadata Definition RDF is the common metadata format
Supported by current Web environment and technologies (XML)
5UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Some added value from Topic Maps
Topic Maps bring features not native in RDF+OWL Multilingual Management
Using Name + Scope mechanism Subject Indicators
Supposed to clarify which subject an URI actually identifies But there is still debate about how a subject indicator defines identity ...
• Identity = identifying properties + identification context N-ary relationships
Native Topic-Role-Association structures Allow natural expression of Knowledge Base complex relationships
Like Thesaurus, Topic Maps have no built-in formal semantics Can be a strength or a weakness
Pro : flexibility, intuitive model and navigation paradigm Con : no formal model, no standard support for inference
6UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Porting Thesaurus to the Semantic Web
Dealing with Thesaurus legacy How to make a Thesaurus usable in a Semantic Web framework?
How to declare - implicit or explicit - Thesaurus semantics? Which languages fit the best?
RDF? RDFS? OWL? Topic Maps? SKOS? What are the current standard or best practices?
No ‘standard’ answer(s) to those questions ...
Ongoing work in W3C Semantic Web Activity and WGs SWAD-Europe Thesaurus Activity : SKOS Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group
“Porting Thesaurus to the SW” is one of the top-priority tasks
7UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Thesaurus vs Ontology : FAQ Is not my Thesaurus a (weak, casual, unformal) kind of ontology?
Yes, a Thesaurus defines concepts and relationships between them• But provides no formal definition of meaning of relationships
Can I make my Thesaurus more formal? Sure, most of the time one can easily explicit some implicit semantics
• e.g. BT-NT may stand for Whole-Part, or Agent-Action, Class-Instance ...
What will users gain from more explicit semantics? Consider the trade-off between formalism and usability
• For human navigation purpose, formal semantics are barely useful• For machine inference, formal semantics are needed
So, should I transform my Thesaurus into an ontology, and throw away the old stuff altogether?
Don’t do that! Thesaurus should be integrated in, not destroyed by the SW infrastructure
8UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Ontology
Topic Map
Ontology-Driven Knowledge Base
Rules
Constraints
Classes
Instances
Data 1953-04-21
Bernard VatantMondeca AR1 R2
OrganisationEmployeeEmployer
Employment
Person
In an Employment AssociationThe Employer role is played by an OrganisationThe Employee role is played by a Person
homePage birthDate
www.mondeca.com
9UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Ontology
Topic Map
Ontology-Driven Thesaurus
Rules
Constraints
Classes
Instances
Data The northernmost area of the Earth ...
Arctic RegionPolar Region AR1 R2
Geo-ConceptPartWhole
Partitive
Geo-Concept
In a Geographical Partitive AssociationThe Whole role is played by a Geographical ConceptThe Part role is played by a Geographical Concept
Definition Definition
Area relating to the Earth's poles...
10UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
Technology Integration Use-Case
2002 Q1 : Prototype project Integration in Mondeca ITM of several KOS
GEMET Thesaurus (translation in XTM - made in Mondeca) UNEP priorities for 2002 Earth Summit Planète-Ecologie Directory of Web Resources
In the same Topic Map framework
2004 Q1 : Full-scale project Dictionnaire Multimédia du Développement Durable Same framework and objectives as in the prototype, plus
Control of all components (including Thesaurus) by a customized ontology• Concept tested in two ongoing FP5 projects : Hi-Touch and MOSES
Workspaces customization• Specific groups of users access and edit specific resources and metadata
Extensible to any relevant wider scope (ontology and content) And open to any proposal ...
11UNEP Terminology Workshop - Geneva, April 15, 2004
References
Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/
Topic Maps standards http://www.isotopicmaps.org
Ontology Editor Protégé-2 http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/owl/
Mondeca http://www.mondeca.com
Dictionnaire multimédia du Développement Durable http://www.planetecologie.org/forumdd/Dicdevdur.html