Clarification Re: AW: DBpedia 3.2 release, including DBpedia Ontology and RDF links to Freebase

Kingsley Idehen wrote:
> [SNIP]
>
> If the Web is becoming a real Graph Model Distributed Database were 
> the Entities in the Database are defined formally via a Data 
> Dictionary, the utility of Domain and Range should be self-describing 
> and obvious. For starters, higher level user interaction solution 
> pursuits will benefit immensely from exploitation of ___domain, range, 
> and other aspects of OWL.
Should have read:
If the Web is becoming a real Graph Model Distributed Database were the 
Entities in the Database are defined formally via *loosely bound Data 
Dictionaries*, the utility of Domain and Range should be self-describing 
and obvious. For starters, higher level user interaction solution 
pursuits will benefit immensely from exploitation of ___domain, range, and 
other aspects of OWL.

The association between DBpedia individuals and UMBEL, OpenCyc, and Yago 
is an example of the above which exists today.

Also take a peek at the following via http://dbpedia.org/sparql or 
http://dbpedia.org/isparql:

define input:same-as "Yes" 
select ?tp where { 
<http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwKl8z5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA> a 
?tp }


The query shows how the loose binding of OpenCyc, UMBEL, and Yago can be 
used explore DBpedia down a plethora of paths. And this is before 
delving into leveraging the data dictionaries for higher level UI.


Kingsley
>
>
>
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> Kingsley
>> Cheers
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> -----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: semantic-web-request@w3.org [mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org] Im
>> Auftrag von Hugh Glaser
>> Gesendet: Montag, 17. November 2008 23:33
>> An: Richard Cyganiak
>> Cc: public-lod@w3.org; Semantic Web;
>> dbpedia-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net
>> Betreff: Re: DBpedia 3.2 release, including DBpedia Ontology and RDF 
>> links
>> to Freebase
>>
>>
>> Very nicely put, Richard.
>> We are opening up the discussion here of when to define one's own and 
>> when
>> to (re-)use from elsewhere.
>> I am a bit uncomfortable with the idea of "you should use a:b from c 
>> and d:e
>> from f and g:h from i..."
>> It makes for a fragmented view of my data, and might encourage me to use
>> things that do not capture exactly what I mean, as well as introducing
>> dependencies with things that might change, but over which I have no
>> control.
>> So far better to use ontologies of type (b) where appropriate, and 
>> define my
>> own of type (a), which will (hopefully) be nicely constructed, and 
>> easier to
>> understand as smallish artefacts that can be looked at as a whole.
>> Of course, this means we need to crack the infrastructure that does 
>> dynamic
>> ontology mapping, etc.
>> Mind you, unless we have the need, we are less likely to do so.
>> I also think that the comments about the restrictions being a 
>> characteristic
>> of the dataset for type (a), but more like comments on the world for 
>> type
>> (b) are pretty good.
>> Hugh
>>
>> On 17/11/2008 20:09, "Richard Cyganiak" <richard@cyganiak.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> John,
>>
>> Here's an observation from a bystander ...
>>
>> On 17 Nov 2008, at 17:17, John Goodwin wrote:
>> <snip>
>>  
>>> This is also a good example of where (IMHO) the ___domain was perhaps
>>> over specified. For example all sorts of things could have
>>> publishers, and not the ones listed here. I worry that if you reuse
>>> DBpedia "publisher" elsewhere you could get some undesired inferences.
>>>     
>>
>> But are the DBpedia classes *intended* for re-use elsewhere? Or do
>> they simply express restrictions that apply *within DBpedia*?
>>
>> I think that in general it is useful to distinguish between two
>> different kinds of ontologies:
>>
>> a) Ontologies that express restrictions that are present in a certain
>> dataset. They simply express what's there in the data. In this sense,
>> they are like database schemas: If "Publisher" has a range of
>> "Person", then it means that the publisher *in this particular
>> dataset* is always a person. That's not an assertion about the world,
>> it's an assertion about the dataset. These ontologies are usually not
>> very re-usable.
>>
>> b) Ontologies that are intended as a "lingua franca" for data exchange
>> between different applications. They are designed for broad re-use,
>> and thus usually do not add many restrictions. In this sense, they are
>> more like controlled vocabularies of terms. Dublin Core is probably
>> the prototypical example, and FOAF is another good one. They usually
>> don't allow as many interesting inferences.
>>
>> I think that these two kinds of ontologies have very different
>> requirements. Ontologies that are designed for one of these roles are
>> quite useless if used for the other job. Ontologies that have not been
>> designed for either of these two roles usually fail at both.
>>
>> Returning to DBpedia, my impression is that the DBpedia ontology is
>> intended mostly for the first role. Maybe it should be understood more
>> as a schema for the DBpedia dataset, and not so much as a re-usable
>> set of terms for use outside of the Wikipedia context. (I might be
>> wrong, I was not involved in its creation.)
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>   
>
>


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 17:09:15 UTC