[xtm-wg] Ontology standards study

["Mason, James David (MXM) " <mxm@y12.doe.gov>]

This mab be considered as a digression from the primary business of XTM, but
I thought it was something the group should be aware of.

I hear a lot of talk in the Topic Map world about knowledge management and
of using TMs to represent ontologies (I'm guilty myself). Those of us who
were in Montréal were fortunate to hear Doug Lenat talk about his work on
common-sense ontologies. A new group has been formed to consider the
creation of a Standard Upper Ontology. They are sponsored by IEEE, but they
are considering bringing their work into ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32, a committee in
parallel to SC34. They are a long way from deciding on a representation for
their ontology (they're pretty far from even deciding on what goes into
their ontology, too, though they're looking at Lenat's work), but some of
them are leaning to KIF. Their leader is aware of TMs. The group's online
discussions are at the moment very philosophical (how do your define
"definintion"? what is an "upper ontology"?) and heavily dependent on formal
logic (there seem to be as many philosophy professors as computer-science
types). But there may be something instructive for us as we make claims
about what TMs can do. The web site, with discussion logs, is at
http://ltsc.ieee.org/suo/index.html .


Jim Mason
James David Mason, Ph.D.

(Chairman ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34)
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34

Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant
Bldg. 9113, Room 337I
P.O. Box 2009, M.S. 8208
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-8208

+1 865 574 6973



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