Ontoloty and SC4 Data Integration Architecture

[David Price]

WG10 folks,

I stumbled across the following when looking at the XML.org Web site. It
appears to be very much along the lines of what the integration model in
the SC4 Integration Architecture is doing. Just wondering if anyone has
looked into this. Also, I noted that it's using XML Topic Maps which as I
mentioned in a previous email seem to be getting a lot of press relative to
SC4 activities. It seems to me we should DO something about that. I'm
particularly concerned that what IIDEAS is going to produce soon is an
overview and methodology while these other groups are producing
ontologies/frameworks to which industry may become attached. I know we have
the Oil and Gas standard and EPISTLE work available but they don't seem to
be seen as cross-industry activites... even in SC4. I don't have a
particular suggestion and it's possible the O&G and EF work have a wider
audience than I realize but this kind of thing concerns me.

February 28, 2001

                    Draft Version of The Upper Cyc Ontology in XML Topic
                    Map Representation. Murray Altheim (Sun Microsystems)
                    announced the availability of a draft version of the Upper
                    Cyc Ontology in XTM (XML Topic Map) format. Reference:
                    Sun Microsystems Technical Report 27-February-2001. The
                    Technical Report "documents research and development of
                    an XML Topic Map (XTM) representation of the Upper Cyc
                    Ontology, including a distribution of five XTM topic maps
                    based on features of the ontology. The Technical Report
                    plus any associated software and/or documentation may be
                    submitted to TopicMaps.Org with the goal of promoting XML
                    Topic Maps (XTM) as a suitable ontological framework, as
                    well as a source of XTM Published Subject Indicators
                    (PSIs)." The Upper Cyc Ontology knowledge base stores
                    some 3,000 terms "capturing the most general concepts of
                    human consensus reality; it also represents a vast structure
                    of more specific concepts descending below this upper level:
                    logical axioms (rules and other assertions) which specify
                    constraints on the individual objects and classes found in the
                    real world."


Thanks,
David

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