[seek-kr-sms] OBOE discussion: Ferdinand's version
Joshua Madin
madin at nceas.ucsb.edu
Wed Jul 26 14:15:34 PDT 2006
Sergey. I've attached the last picture I drew of what OBOE looks
like. There may be some differences between it and the OWL file I
just committed. Shawn and I spent some time discussing the
MeasurementSpace-like idea that Ferdinando gets at. I'm looking
forward to your and Ferdinando's comments.
Thanks,
Josh

On Jul 26, 2006, at 11:20 AM, Serguei Krivov wrote:
> Shawn,
>
> It would be nice to give Ferdinando a chance to defend his version
> against our criticism (after tomorrow morning hi will be
> unavailable for comments).
>
> We were discussing the question “can a measurement be considered
> as a kind of observation”, where I do agree with Ferdinando and
> you don’t. For convenience I paste my last unanswered message
> below. In that message I missed an important argument of yours
> that “sometime we can talk about measurement even without
> mentioning any related observation”. If this is your argument,
> then it is argument against the current version of OBOE, rather
> then against Ferdinand’s version. In the current version every
> measurement is connected to exactly one observation via the
> property isMeasuredCharacteristicOf and therefore the situation you
> mention is not allowed to exist (should we set cardinality [0,1]
> for properties hasSubject and isMeasurableCharacteristicOf, we may
> cover the case you mentioned). In Ferdinand’s version Observation
> is defined as a general category and calling a measurement
> “observation” is a matter of naming convention which is a bit
> different from the convention you use when you assert that “we can
> talk about measurement without mentioning related observation”.
> Within Ferdinand’s ontology it is your assertion, which is
> invalid- just by definition. I do not see any inconsistencies
> between this definition and acceptable usage of the two words in
> English. Setting cardinality [0,1] on property hasSubject ( of
> Observation) will allow to talk about the measurements that have no
> subject- the situation of which you were concerned. What else?
>
>
> As I mentioned, I believe that Entities and Traits/Characteristic
> should be reintroduced to Ferdinand’s version and what currently
> is Observable should become Characteristic. (I do not understand
> how entity per se could be observable, but this is the question for
> the current version)
>
>
> I think that the idea of CompoundObservation and AtomicObservation
> provides much more natural better mechanism for characterizing
> relation between the columns of the table than what we have in the
> current version . ( I do not ask anymore about characterizing
> relation between the rows. Let spatial and temporal context do this
> job as many of you agree)
>
>
> I also like the idea of ObservationSpace. This neatly generalizes
> numeric measurements and qualitative observation, such as color of
> something, state of health etc. The problem of correct description
> of numeric measurement versus nominal observations was surfaced in
> the messages of Matt, Bob Morris and Jessy. I think that the
> current version of OBOE has much bias towards numeric measurement,
> while Ferdinand’s version has a reasonable generic framework to
> deal with both.
>
>
> Most likely you disagree with most of these points. If you could
> explain in some details why you disagree (when it is the case)
> before tomorrow , then perhaps Ferdinando will have chance to reply
> on your critics.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sergey
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> Sergey Krivov, Research Assist. Professor,
>
> Computer Science Dept. & Gund Inst. for Ecological Economics,
>
> University of Vermont; 617 Main St. Burlington VT 05405
>
> phone: (802) 656 0380
>
> From: seek-kr-sms-bounces at ecoinformatics.org [mailto:seek-kr-sms-
> bounces at ecoinformatics.org] On Behalf Of Serguei Krivov
> Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 3:58 PM
> To: 'Shawn Bowers'
> Cc: seek-kr-sms at ecoinformatics.org
> Subject: Re: [seek-kr-sms] OBOE discussion: current version
>
>
> > I am a bit confused here -- and maybe Josh, you can clarify. My
>
> > impression is that OBOE isn't currently changing in this way.
>
>
> Shawn,
>
> One of the problem discussed yesterday was how to capture both
> normal measurements and nominal ones. Obviously the current version
> of OBOE has bias towards normal measurements and it is not clear if
> it would deal satisfactory with the nominal measures, that is -
> classifications. The majority who wrote on the subject consider
> those qualitative observation as important and worth of our
> attention. Josh was trying to sum up the yesterday discussion in
> one way and I thought that the summary he made is worth of
> discussing. I failed to underscore the word "proposed" while
> talking about Josh's summary. I apologize.
>
>
> > > So we have to remove attributes (roles, properties) measurement
> (0:n),
>
> > > count(0,n) classification (0,1) from Observation.
> Alternatively, we may
>
> > > refuse the idea of having Observation as superclass of
> Classification,
>
> > Count
>
> > > and Measurement.
>
> >
>
> > I wouldn't say "refuse" the idea -- I would say that modeling
> measurement
>
> > (and its various types) as observations has some problems --
>
>
> So far I do not see what those problems are (besides those that I
> have mentioned myself).
>
>
> I think the reason to
>
> > distinguish measurement and observation is because they are actually
>
> > different things. In the general setting, one can have observations
>
> > independently of measurements, and measurements independently of
>
> > observation -- suggesting these are fundamently different entities.
>
>
> I wish we were living in a Plato's world , where concepts have real
> existence. In such world all ontologies would exist in the same
> manner as physical object exist and our job would be just to record
> them on paper the way we do it with biomass, color etc. I think
> that Scholastics did believe in this nice reality, but positivists
> came and spoiled everything...
>
>
> I think there is nothing that makes observation and measurement
> fundamentally different, at least in this world. For a moment I
> thought that may be I am the only one who think so. Then I typed in
> Google " define: measurement" and I see many definitions; and some
> of them at the middle/bottom of the page look as:
>
>
> --An observation that reduces the amount of uncertainty about the
> value of a quantity. In the balanced scorecard, measurements are
> collected for feedback....
>
>
> -- A logical rule for assigning numbers to observations to
> represent the quantity of a trait of characteristic possessed
>
>
> So, there are other people who confuse observation and measurement
> in some way. But still, it would be nice we all vote on the question:
>
>
> Is it linguistically correct to consider Measurement as a kind of
> Observation?
>
>
> Also most of the definitions of measurement given on that page
> consider measurement to be quantitative, that is assigning numbers…
> We need to deal with qualities as well, and packing those
> qualitative observation inside framework of measurement with a
> special unit is a big stretch. (My understanding that here Matt
> agreed with Ferdinando) Obviously, observing sex of an individual
> {male ,female} does not remotely resemble measurement. So, how do
> we then incorporate those qualitative (nominal) classifications
> into OBOE.
>
>
> As Josh’s summary clearly demonstrates, Measurement, Count and
> Classification have common attributes. So, why do not we have a
> common superclass for them. If it is not Observation or
> AtomicObservation, then what it can be?
>
>
> -sergey
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
> > Also, we need to be very careful about talking about data
> structure when
>
> > we talk about oboe. Not all day is tabular -- and so it is a
> mistake to
>
> > design oboe to only work with data formatted this way.
>
> >
>
> > -shawn
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > > In the pdf files, where Josh explicatde examples given
>
> > > by Matt and Mark the attribute C (which, as Shawn explained
> to me
>
> > means
>
> > > hasMeasuredCharacteristic) was used to create n-ary relations.
> If we
>
> > refuse
>
> > > measurement(0:n), count(0,n) classification (0,1), then we have to
>
> > refuse
>
> > > hasMeasuredCharacteristic too. If we don't, then Classification
> and
>
> > Count
>
> > > and Measurement will inherit this attribute and we again land
> in the
>
> > same
>
> > > mess. So how do we now create n-ary relation? In Ferdinando's
> proposal
>
> > > Observation can be CompoundObservation and AtomicObservation.
> Later on
>
> > > Ferdinando took back idea of CompoundObservation, but then what
> do we
>
> > have
>
> > > instead, may be we just need a better name?
>
> > >
>
> > > 4. Personally I like the idea of how Ferdinando's proposal takles
>
> > dichotomi
>
> > > between complex (compound) observations and the other things
> such as
>
> > Count,
>
> > > Measurement and Classification. I like his idea of
> ObservationSpace.
>
> > What I
>
> > > do not like is that Observables can be both Entities and
>
> > Characteristics. I
>
> > > think this is an overkill: Entity (thing, object) and
> Characteristic
>
> > > (property) are two fundamental phylosophical categories. Further
>
> > > generalisation over fundamental phylosophical categories
> warants a big
>
> > mess
>
> > > and missunderstanding. I will gaet back later with my comments on
>
> > > Ferdinando's proposal
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > _____
>
> > >
>
> > > From: seek-kr-sms-bounces at ecoinformatics.org
>
> > > [mailto:seek-kr-sms-bounces at ecoinformatics.org] On Behalf Of
> Joshua
>
> > Madin
>
> > > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 3:57 PM
>
> > > To: seek-kr-sms at ecoinformatics.org
>
> > > Subject: Re: [seek-kr-sms] OBOE discussion: current version
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > Based on the comments this morning I have redrawn the core of
> oboe for
>
> > > discussion (attached pdf). It seems to me that the unit-at-all-
> cost
>
> > > framework will greatly simplify what we are trying to deliver for
>
> > improving
>
> > > data integration, but, as Ferdinando said, this framework will
> be hard
>
> > to
>
> > > justify and may cause problems down the line. In the attached
> ontology,
>
> > I've
>
> > > tried to divide the different notions of "measurement". All
> this does is
>
> > > restrict the properties that can be used on different types of
>
> > observation.
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > I've also included "hasProcedure" as a properties that acts on
>
> > Observations.
>
> > > This can also act on Measurements due the the subsumption
> hierarchy
>
> > shown in
>
> > > Figure A. I think that this is what Ferdinando meant, but I'm
> not sure.
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > Cheers. BTW: I just received new emails from Ferdinado and Matt
> -- but
>
> > I'll
>
> > > send this anyway.
>
> > >
>
> > > Josh
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > >1. Observable is either Entity or Characteristic (at the moment).
>
> > > Characteristic has only one subclass Dimension, which defines
> the set of
>
> > > base quantities such as length, weight, etc. , Dimension
> includes only
>
> > > things measured in quantities. Thus at the moment we are missing
>
> > > specification for observations of such characteristics as
> color, smell,
>
> > > taste or anything which is measured in qualitative scale.
>
> > >
>
> > > This is a question that has come up a lot recently and really
> needs to
>
> > be
>
> > > confronted with some good examples. The idea was that nominal
>
> > measurements
>
> > > would just be given unit "name" and a characteristic, such as
> "red".
>
> > This
>
> > > would mean having these characteristics in an extension
> ontology such as
>
> > a
>
> > > "classifiation ontology" (which would plug into OBOE's
> charactersitic).
>
> > >
>
> > > I don't think this is right. Simply, the values of that
> observation come
>
> > > from a finite set of color classes (or instances). Not a
> measurement, if
>
> > we
>
> > > define measurement as comparison with a reference unit (meter
> of tree)
>
> > using
>
> > > an abstract unit for the dimension (meter for length).It is
> ameasurement
>
> > if
>
> > > we define measurement to encompass assigning a class to an
> observable in
>
> > a
>
> > > context as the result of measuring it. I'd rather call it a
>
> > > "Classification", subclass of Observation and siblings of
> Measurement.
>
> > And
>
> > > we could have "Ranking" as subclass of Classification, where
> classes
>
> > must
>
> > > have an ordinal relationship. But stretching the definitionto
> make it
>
> > fit in
>
> > > the unit-at-all-costs framework and giving the characteristic
> the role
>
> > of
>
> > > subsetting the value space doesn't sound right at all. This was
> the
>
> > thought
>
> > > behind proposing an explicit value space.
>
> > >
>
> > > Ordinal measurements may not be as easy to deal with. It might
> work in
>
> > the
>
> > > same way as above, but use the unit "rank". However, the ordinal
>
> > ontology
>
> > > would need to contain constructs that deal with "direction" or
>
> > "magnitude".
>
> > > For example, "high" is distinct from and of greater magnitude than
>
> > "low".
>
> > > This ontology would have to be able to deal with arbitrary
> numbers of
>
> > > levels, similar to the way we dealt with Observation in OBOE
> for coping
>
> > with
>
> > > experimental design. The idea was to remove these kind of
> things (i.e.,
>
> > > characteristics) from the core ontology because the way that
> people want
>
> > to
>
> > > use them are so variable.
>
> > >
>
> > > Similar concerns,plus one:I don't think the ordinal
> relationshipbetween
>
> > > classes such as {high,medium, low} has much of a chance to be
> captured
>
> > in
>
> > > OWL. Nor I think it should be, as you don't do much with it in
> workflows
>
> > > unless it'sa realnumeric scale (whose ordinal properties are
> also not
>
> > > expressed in OWL, so why bother?).If really necessary, we
> couldmake
>
> > > suchclassificationhierarchies subclasses of"Rank" and use
>
> > anumericproperty
>
> > > for ordering suchvalues, but all the logic necessary to do
> anythingwith
>
> > it
>
> > > remains outside OBOE.
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > Our definition, if I remember correctly, was :Observation is a
>
> > statementthat
>
> > > an Observable has been observed. I think more than this is
> going to
>
> > > colorOBOEwith restrictions it does not need to have.By the
> way,we model
>
> > the
>
> > > result of the observation, not the process of the observation,
> and the
>
> > > result is not an event.To annotate a dataset we don't need to know
>
> > anything
>
> > > about the measurement except its results.
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> _______________________________________________
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