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Ontological terminology work. EAFT & Nordterm workshop: Terminology, Concept Modelling and Ontology - Which approach for which problem? Katri Seppälä, The Finnish Terminology Centre TSK / FinnONTO project, Helsinki University of Technology. Ontological terminology work. Contents
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Ontologicalterminology work EAFT & Nordterm workshop: Terminology, Concept Modelling and Ontology - Which approach for which problem? Katri Seppälä, The Finnish Terminology Centre TSK / FinnONTO project, Helsinki University of Technology
Ontological terminology work • Contents • FinnONTO project • from thesauri to ontologies • ontological features in terminology work • Core concepts • semantic web: extension of WWW which uses ontology based content description of web material • ontology: description of concepts of a certain domain in computer readable format
FinnONTO project • project coordinator: Professor Eero Hyvönen, Helsinki University of Technology, Media Technology / University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science • Semantic Computing research group: 20 persons • IT experts • terminologists, information specialists • participants from several sectors: museum, library, education, health care, land survey etc. • financiers: Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) and participants • 1. phase 1.9.2003-31.8.2004, 2. phase 1.9.2004-31.8.2005, 3. phase 1.9.2005-31.8.2006 (31.5.2007)
Goals • to demonstrate the usability of ontologies • for example MuseumFinland (MuseoSuomi), Finnish General Upper Ontology (YSO) • to provide central ontologies for free public use in order to maximize their use and to avoid multiple work • to create a national ontology library for decentralised development, managament and use of ontologies • easy access (search/copy/add/change) • version management, communication on changes • to suggest a model for organizing ontology work • co-ordination of general ontology work: National Library of Finland • responsibility for extending the General Upper Ontology with domain ontologies: domain experts
From thesauri to ontologies • a widely used thesaurus is a good starting point for an ontology, but many changes must still be made… • every concept must have its exact own place in the hierarchy and an URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) which identifies the name and the place of the concept • an upper structure must be added in order to integrate the concepts into one system which computers can use in information processing • preliminary upper structure in Finnish General Upper Ontology: period, physical object, phenomenon, immaterial output, system, property, place, event, action
From thesauri to ontologies • action concepts have a central role in an ontology as they link different types of concepts to each other, but the amount of associative relations has to be increased in order to build these links • for example: action – agent – instrument – patient – place – time – result • ontological relations have no room for interpretation • generic relation (broader term – narrower term) • partitive relations have to be separated from generic relations • generic group concepts (dimensions) have to be added • individuals have to be separated from classes • associative relation (related term) • type of associative relation might be needed
From thesauri to ontologies • different means to describe several viewpoints simultaneously are allowed • several generic superordinate concepts, for example exposure meter: photographic equipment and meter • roles, for example • human: occupation, member of a family • material: source of energy, building material • different kind of associative relations, for example • instrument used in action; result of action
From thesauri to ontologies • ontological features make it possible to • describe the content of web material for computers more precisely than before • for example deal with polysemy/homonymy • improve description methods, for example • by eliminating unnecessary relations • by unifying descriptions (concepts belonging to a certain upper class typically have certain relations) • develop intelligent web services which use ontology based description • use information on concept relations to delimit search results • joint use of information which is described with the help of different systems
Ontological features in terminology work • products of systematic terminology work offer an accurate basis for ontologies • information on concept relations can be picked up from definitions and enriched with the information found in explanatory notes • this requires a system which allows the tagging of concept relations, but doesn’t necessarily involve any extra work if the concepts are linked anyhow, for example, for electronic publication • if there is a need to combine material from different vocabularies, the relations between concepts from different sources have to be tagged separately • XML based information can be converted into RDFS or OWL for ontological use
More information • FinnONTO project: http://www.seco.tkk.fi/projects/finnonto/ • MuseumFinland http://www.museosuomi.fi/ • methods: Sanastokeskus TSK, http://www.tsk.fi/