RE: [xtm-wg] Knowledge management claims re XTM (and Topic Maps.. .)

["Wrightson, Ann" <Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk>]

Thanks for your support, Dale! (BTW, "Ann", please, not "Ms Wrightson", in
this company...)

I've been giving some thought to using the kind of refinement relationships
used v. successfully by Eliot & John in the "abstract model", to relate
concepts from specific knowledge engineering (KE) domains (eg as below) onto
topic maps in a meaningful and reusable way... Since this notion of
refinement, and many KE concepts, are grounded in similar formal methods,
then this should be "quite straightforward" - has anyone got access to a
research assistant to spend a few weeks on this one? - I'm sure there's a
respectable academic paper in it!  ;-)

Cheers

Ann W.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dale Hunscher [mailto:dale@supportability.com]
> Sent: 23 August 2000 17:24
> To: xtm-wg@egroups.com
> Subject: RE: [xtm-wg] Knowledge management claims re XTM (and Topic
> Maps...)
> 
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Wrightson's concerns. As a 
> lurker for the
> most part on this list, I have felt similar concerns and not 
> expressed them.
> 
> I hear people saying that the way to solve this problem is to 
> shy away from
> including any meaningful semantics in TMs (e.g., 
> transitivity, symmetry; the
> ability to specify abstract association types for prototyping 
> and validation
> purposes; etc.), leaving all that to be specified by 
> applications. There is
> a danger in that approach that is at least as great as 
> specifying too much;
> from the perspective of the work I am doing as a consultant for
> pharmaceutical publications, TMs contain too little 
> information to be useful
> for our purposes (merging knowledge/content bases, unifying 
> lexicons and
> thesauri, etc.)
> 
> Hand Holger-Rath and Steve Pepper did a paper a while ago 
> called Topic Maps:
> Introduction and Allegro that contained some suggestions for 
> TM templates
> and validation
> (http://www.topicmaps.com/content/resources/mt99/hhr-stp.pdf).
 Rather than
repeat what they said there, I would simply second their concerns and hope
that XTM can address them.

It sounds like your meetings went well, and rest assured I will be on here
the sidelines cheering you on!

-Dale Hunscher
South Wind Design, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Wrightson, Ann [mailto:Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 11:09 PM
To: 'xtm-wg@egroups.com'
Subject: [xtm-wg] Knowledge management claims re XTM (and Topic Maps...)


Hi folks...

I don't know if you discussed this at all in Montreal, but I am very
concerned that XTM should encourage/facilitate good working-with the
long-standing academic knowledge-engineering community by
a) being (very) moderate and realistic in its claims for XTM *by itself* as
a knowledge modelling technique - XTM's main strength could well be in
providing the "hooks" which enable the wide range of established knowledge
modelling techniques to link to Web resources, and also in providing simple
exchangeable *static* representations of (some) such models;
b) working with folks who have done eg semantic modelling for years, rather
than trying to (re)invent ways of doing it without the benefit of that
experience.

This concern is based on back-of-room conversations at XML Europe, where I
found myself trying to bring some experienced knowledge engineers "back down
off the ceiling", and into a more realistically appreciative frame of mind
regarding Topic Maps, after some rash claims from the podium...

Cheers

Ann W.



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