Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

May 23, 2012

New UMBEL Release Gains schema.org, GeoNames Capabilities

Filed under: Geographic Data,GeoNames,Schema.org,UMBEL — Patrick Durusau @ 2:12 pm

New UMBEL Release Gains schema.org, GeoNames Capabilities by Mike Bergman.

From the post:

We are pleased to announce the release of version 1.05 of UMBEL, which now has linkages to schema.org [6] and GeoNames [1]. UMBEL has also been split into ‘core’ and ‘geo’ modules. The resulting smaller size of UMBEL ‘core’ — now some 26,000 reference concepts — has also enabled us to create a full visualization of UMBEL’s content graph.

Mapping to schema.org

The first notable change in UMBEL v. 1.05 is its mapping to schema.org. schema.org is a collection of schema (usable as HTML tags) that webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers. schema.org was first developed and organized by the major search engines of Bing, Google and Yahoo!; later Yandex joined as a sponsor. Now many groups are supporting schema.org and contributing vocabularies and schema.

You will appreciate the details of the writeup and like the visualization. Quite impressive!

PS: As if you didn’t know:

http://umbel.org/

This is the official Web site for the UMBEL Vocabulary and Reference Concept Ontology (namespace: umbel). UMBEL is the Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer, designed to help content interoperate on the Web.

January 23, 2012

Semantic Web – Sweet Spot(s) and ‘Gold Standards’

Filed under: OWL,RDF,UMBEL,Wikipedia,WordNet — Patrick Durusau @ 7:43 pm

Mike Bergman posted a two-part series on how to make the Semantic Web work:

Seeking a Semantic Web Sweet Spot

In Search of ‘Gold Standards’ for the Semantic Web

Both are worth your time to read but the second sets the bar for “Gold Standards” for the Semantic Web as:

The need for gold standards for the semantic Web is particularly acute. First, by definition, the scope of the semantic Web is all things and all concepts and all entities. Second, because it embraces human knowledge, it also embraces all human languages with the nuances and varieties thereof. There is an immense gulf in referenceability from the starting languages of the semantic Web in RDF, RDFS and OWL to this full scope. This gulf is chiefly one of vocabulary (or lack thereof). We know how to construct our grammars, but we have few words with understood relationships between them to put in the slots.

The types of gold standards useful to the semantic Web are similar to those useful to our analogy of human languages. We need guidance on structure (syntax and grammar), plus reference vocabularies that encompass the scope of the semantic Web (that is, everything). Like human languages, the vocabulary references should have analogs to dictionaries, thesauri and encyclopedias. We want our references to deal with the specific demands of the semantic Web in capturing the lexical basis of human languages and the connectedness (or not) of things. We also want bases by which all of this information can be related to different human languages.

To capture these criteria, then, I submit we should consider a basic starting set of gold standards:

  • RDF/RDFS/OWL — the data model and basic building blocks for the languages
  • Wikipedia — the standard reference vocabulary of things, concepts and entities, plus other structural guidances
  • WordNet — lexical language references as an aid to natural language processing, and
  • UMBEL — the structural reference for the connectedness of things for basic coherence and inference, plus a vocabulary for mapping amongst reference structures and things.

Each of these potential gold standards is next discussed in turn. The majority of discussion centers on Wikipedia and UMBEL.

There is one criteria that Mike leaves out: Choice of a majority of users.

Use by a majority of users is a sweet spot that brooks no argument.

February 15, 2011

UMBEL – Reference Concept Ontology and Vocabulary 1.0

Filed under: Ontology,UMBEL,Vocabularies — Patrick Durusau @ 1:41 pm

UMBEL – Reference Concept Ontology and Vocabulary 1.0 has been released!

From the website:

This is the official Web site for the UMBEL Vocabulary and Reference Concept Ontology (namespace: umbel). UMBEL is the Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer, designed to help content interoperate on the Web.

UMBEL provides two valuable functions:

  • First, it is a vocabulary for the construction of concept-based domain ontologies, designed to act as references for the linking and mapping of external content, and
  • Second, it is its own broad, general reference structure of 28,000 concepts, which provides a scaffolding to orient other datasets and domain vocabularies.

The mappings in Annex F: Mapping with UMBL are with owl:sameAs and umbel:isLike.

I would prefer more specific reasons for mapping. Particular given the varying use of owl:sameAs. Could mean just about anything.

Still, this is a valuable data set, although I would use it for mappings with more specific reasoning disclosed as part of the mapping.

PS: It has a really cool logo!

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