FOIS’18 conference report

To some perhaps surprisingly, despite being local organizer, I could attend all sessions of the 10th International Conference Formal Ontology in Information Systems as participant (cf. running around for last-minute things). It just wasn’t as much of a trip as it usually is: only 15 minutes to town at the Atlantic Imbizo conference venue, which is situated between the Clock Tower and (award-winning) Zeitz MOCAA at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. This blog post has turned into a longer post than intended—yet, there’s still so much left out to talk about—and it is divided up into sections on keynotes, presentations, ontologies, and the (ontologically inappropriate basket of) other things.

 

Keynotes

The first keynote was presented by (emeritus) professor in philosophy Peter Simons from Trinity College Dublin and Universität Salzburg, on the ontology of aboutness (slides).

Peter Simon during his keynote talk

That may sound a bit abstract, but it is not unusual for some information system that it will have to record statements about something, such as different medical opinions, changes of policies, plans or expectations, and we need a way to represent that and deal with it. Simons discussed several earlier proposals before proposing his own, which includes as main entities a bearer, act, time, act-type, mental content, mental content type, intentional objects, referent, and referent type (slide 16), and then variants for pictorial and linguistic (speech and writing). And, in closing, his advice of “Don’t get involved in irrelevant philosophical disputes”.

The second keynote was presented by Alessandro Oltramari, who works at Bosch Research and Technology Centre in Pittsburgh, USA. He presented several of Bosch’s projects where ontologies are used in one way or another (slides) and that he was involved in. One of them was about knowledge-based intelligent IoT and another on an emergency assistant, or, in business sales parlance, a “personal guardian angel” mobile device that has location awareness, safety information of those locations, a decision support system for alternate route computation, and automatic escalation. The ontologies used include the foundational ontology DOLCE, the domain ontology of semantic sensor networks (SSN) from the W3C, and specific schemas developed in-house. Another project on a knowledge-based chatbot for healthcare policies links up DOLCE, schema.org, and some in-house schemas with Highmark-specific information (and is not ashamed of using SKOS). Om my question what methods and methodologies were used for the in-house ontology development, the (disappointing) answer was, unfortunately, only “DOLCE and OntoClean”, but the former is neither a method nor a methodology (it implies a top-down approach), and the latter is some 15 years old, as if nothing has happened in ontology engineering in the meantime (more about that further below). Regardless, it was good to see that ontologies are being used in industry.

The third keynote (slides) was by Riichiro Mizoguchi from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), on a state-centric methodology, which I’ll leave for a separate post.

Riichiro Mizoguchi during his keynote talk.

 

Presentations

The report on the presentations easily could take up several pages, but I’ll try to keep it short, lest otherwise this post never gets posted. The first session of the conference was on foundations. This included Antony Galton’s assessment of the treatment of time in upper ontologies [1]. It was mildly entertaining in that it turned out that BFO would need abstract things for its treatment of time (which it doesn’t have and doesn’t like) and adheres to Newtonian physics cf. the latest scientific theories. It is definitely on my list of papers to read in more detail. Another paper-for-printing to read is Torsten Hahmann’s work on mereotopology, which extends it to multidimensional space [2]. A nice bonus (though it ought not to be perceived as such) is that at least the theorems in the paper have been proved with Prover9 and Vampire (cf. having to double-check them manually). Laure Vieu presented a proposal for a graph-based approach to represent structure among the components of an entity [3], which is apparently different from the graph-based approach for representing molecules (within the Semantic Web context); I’ll have to look at that in more detail, for it sounds like it might be of some use for the parts aspects of part-whole relations.

Besides such theoretical contributions that are rather distant from applications, there were two of note that were motivated from praxis more clearly. One was about the ontological foundations of competition and the sort of competitive relations there are [4], which was presented by Tiago Prince Sales. The other one was presented by Pawel Garbacz, whose presentation conveyed more than the paper so as to get a real feel of the problem, being identity criteria for localities [5], with complicating use cases extracted from a Polish history project. He presented some examples of changes and a proposal for how to identify a locality/settlement. For instance, settlements can get moved altogether, have a population-only move, split into two, be merged, renamed and renamed again, deserted by a population and repopulated and renamed, and so on. When is it the same settlement and when is it another one? The paper [5] describes a first solution for identity criteria with an event-based approach to identity of localities.

My presentation on part-whole relations in Zulu language and culture [6] was scheduled in the ‘applications’ session, which had positive feedback and some pointers that may assist with future work.

 

venue during a Q&A session

Ontologies

Besides presentations, there was a discussion session on “what constitutes a good ontology paper?” for the Applied Ontology journal. Seeing the ontology papers at FOIS now, they should have done such as session for FOIS as well. There are four papers in the proceedings describing OWL files: “Amnestic forgery” (AF, conceptual metaphors) [7] presented by Mehwish Alam, UNiCS for research and innovation policy [8] presented by Fernando Roda, SAREF4Health [9] presented by João Moreira, and religious and spiritual belief (ORSB) [10] presented by Stefan Schulz. Skimming through each paper, AF, UNiCS and ORSB do not use a methodology explicitly, none of them uses existing methods, but they all do use a foundational or top-level ontology or the WordNet material, and then it’s cool enough to get into FOIS, apparently. This is a bit disappointing. At least SAREF4Health presented a set of competency questions, a systematic approach and broader framework, and some evaluation, and ORSB reuses not only top-level and top-domain ontologies but also tests some patterns. AF and ORSB have some interest to it as they’re addressing relatively novel modeling issues to solve and the ORSB discussion could be used more broadly for any “terms of dubious reference”. UNiCS is not really an ontology but an information model or, at best, a conceptual data model (e.g. calling “SCOPUS subject” an ontology is pushing it a bit too far); it makes their OBDA scenario easier to realize, true, but that’s a separate discussion. Fig 1 of SAREF4Health doesn’t look any better either, which has all the hallmarks of a plain UML Class Diagram (attributes with data types and such), with object diagram components attached and coloured in and annotated with OntoUML. SAREF4Health’s other downsides are things like “implementing the ontology as RDF” that just hurts to read (it is left implicit for AF that is plugged into the LOD cloud), as is the download in Turtle format (cf. the required exchange syntax of OWL 2), which isn’t even available at the provided link when you click on it (copy-paste gets you in the right direction), but is [I think] in some github sub-directory that has a whole bunch of ttl files with neither head nor tail, but one of them is called saref4health.ttl. On first inspection, it has plenty of data properties and data type use, and the class-as-instance issue here and there (e.g., ‘Rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery’ as instance cf. class), and others (e.g., a ‘series’ of measurements is not a subclass of a measurement) and very many classes directly subsumed by top, though some are knock-on effects from imports.

And then ontologists at FOIS deplored that there are many domain ontologies that are of poor quality and artifacts presented as ontologies but aren’t. The FOIS reviewers themselves apparently can’t even get their act together in the reviewing process, where artifacts that are sold as domain ontologies but aren’t (UNiCS, SAREF4Health) make it not only through the reviewing process but, moreover, even get a best paper award from the PC chairs (SAREF4Health). The PC chairs wanted to make a political statement to communicate that FOIS accepts domain ontology papers. It is good that the FOIS topics are becoming less narrow and I’m not saying they are pointless papers or lousy artifacts per sé—they are useful reference papers and UNiCS and SAREF4Health perform the application tasks they’re supposed to be performing, which is a good thing. Maybe, collectively, ontology developers can’t do better or don’t need to do better w.r.t. applied ontology? Either way, once upon a time there were principles for what ontologies are; what happened to that? Also, there are multiple methodologies for domain ontology development, and there are a myriad of methods and tools, which have been mostly ignored. For instance, using one foundational ontology over another ‘just because I know x’ is neither a scientific nor a sound engineering approach. There are comparisons, requirements, and a mix of the two to help you figure out which one is the best to use; an early tool for that is ONSET, the ONtology Selection and Explanation Tool, developed by Zubeida Khan (more data). To name one example.

Coincidentally, ontology engineering papers with such a content do not, or very rarely, make it into FOIS; but just that they don’t (because they’re typically not philosophical enough), doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just in case a FOIS ontologist would like to explore methods, methodologies and tools for ontology development: ESWC, EKAW, and K-CAP are good/top conferences covering such topics in whole or in part, and Chapter 5 of the ontology engineering textbook provides a sampling as well (as do some other sections in Block II). Considering my critical comments, one may ask whether my ontologies and ontology papers are any better, or anyone else’s for that matter. Perhaps, perhaps not. You can check for yourself some of my recent papers on domain ontologies that also have OWL files[1] that I was involved in developing; one paper was intended as a reference paper for the domain ontology [11], another paper was a bit of both domain ontology and some framework [12], and yet another turned into a core ontology [13] (v1, with the main categories; there’s an updated version for the relations).

Anyway, returning to the first sentence of this section: the open forum discussion did not make it any clearer as to what would be the characteristics of a good ontology paper for the Applied Ontology journal (or FOIS, for that matter). Mainly just Protégé screenshots certainly is not, but opinions varied as to what would be. Going by examples of the ontology papers that made it through: use of a top-level or foundational ontology and some modeling issues and solutions seems to be preferred, evaluation and usage & uptake as a nice-to-have. Is developing an (domain) ontology science? That question wasn’t answered unanimously; I think it was leaning towards a ‘mostly no’ w.r.t. applied ontology but it may be if it’s the first to solve a modeling issue. How to evaluate the ontology? Another question without a satisfactory answer. Overall, the criteria for an ontology paper—let alone for the ontology itself—are “TBD” and meanwhile one has to hope that one will get a supportive ‘reviewer 2’.

 

Other

In case you have clicked-though to one or more of the listed papers, you may have noticed that the FOIS’18 proceedings are Open Access—paid for by those who registered for the conference (it was calculated in the registration fee). I suppose the next FOIS organisers and the IAOA exec may like your opinion on that approach.

mentors of the early career symposium papers

Besides the best paper award for SAREF4Health [9], there were two “distinguished paper awards”, which went to aforementioned paper on the graph-based approach for structured universals by Laure Vieu and Claudio Masolo [3] and to the foundational ontologies for units of measure by Michael Grüninger and co-authors [14]. The early career symposium went well and from hearsay they had a good social activity, too. There were lots of interesting conversations, networking, good food, and so on, and lots more to write about. There are also more photos.

Some of the postgraduate students and a recent PhD graduate in the spotlight at the closing ceremony, being thanked for chairing the sessions.

Last, but not least: the next FOIS in 2020 will be in Bolzano, Italy, as part of a ‘Bolzano summer of knowledge’ with more co-located conferences, workshops, and summer schools.

 

References

[1] Antony Galton. The treatment of time in upper ontologies. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 33-46.

[2] Thorsten Hahmann. On Decomposition Operations in a Theory of Multidimensional Qualitative Space. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 173-186.

[3] Claudio Masolo, Laure Vieu. Graph-Based Approaches to Structural Universals and Complex States of Affairs. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 69-82.

[4] Tiago Prince Sales, Daniele Porello, Nicola Guarino, Giancarlo Guizzardi, John Mylopoulos. Ontological Foundations of Competition. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 96-112.

[5] Pawel Garbacz, Agnieszka Ławrynowicz, Bogumił Szady. Identity criteria for localities. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 47-56.

[6] C. Maria Keet, Langa Khumalo. On the Ontology of Part-Whole Relations in Zulu Language and Culture. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 225-238.

[7] Aldo Gangemi, Mehwish Alam, Valentina Presutti. Amnestic Forgery: An Ontology of Conceptual Metaphors. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 159-172.

[8] Alessandro Mosca, Fernando Roda, Guillem Rull. UNiCS – The Ontology for Research and Innovation Policy Making. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 200-210.

[9] João Moreira, Luís Ferreira Pires, Marten van Sinderen, Laura Daniele. SAREF4health: IoT Standard-Based Ontology-Driven Healthcare Systems. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 239-252.

[10] Stefan Schulz, Ludger Jansen. Towards an Ontology of Religious and Spiritual Belief. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 253-260.

[11] Keet, C.M., Lawrynowicz, A., d’Amato, C., Kalousis, A., Nguyen, P., Palma, R., Stevens, R., Hilario, M. The Data Mining OPtimization ontology. Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web, 2015, 32:43-53.

[12] Chavula, C., Keet, C.M. An Orchestration Framework for Linguistic Task Ontologies. 9th Metadata and Semantics Research Conference (MTSR’15), Garoufallou, E. et al. (Eds.). Springer CCIS vol. 544, 3-14.

[13] Keet, C.M. A core ontology of macroscopic stuff. 19th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW’14). K. Janowicz et al. (Eds.). 24-28 Nov, 2014, Linkoping, Sweden. Springer LNAI vol. 8876, 209-224.

[14] Michael Grüninger, Bahar Aameri, Carmen Chui, Torsten Hahmann, Yi Ru. Foundational Ontologies for Units of Measure. Proc. of FOIS’18. IOS Press, 306: 211-224.

[1] I have others developed as part of methods & tools research