looking at the merged ontology

Nicola Guarino (guarino@ladseb.pd.cnr.it)
Thu, 27 Nov 1997 19:24:52 +0100

As announced at the last meeting, we are working at a review paper which
addresses the semantic problems of current top-level proposals. I have some
questions regarding the current version (1.1 , 3/11/97) of the merged
ontology:

1. In the ontolingua source, "Individual" is a subclass of "Thing", while
in the generated indented list the two classes appear at the same level.
This seems to be a problem of the indented list generator.

2. Is the merged ontology just the latest version of CYC upper level plus
the SENSUS links? In other words, when writing the paper, should we
consider separately the merged ontology on the Stanford site and the CYC
upper level as available on the Austin site?

3. Why so many annoying redundant generalization links, like

Wood subclass-of Solid-Tangible-Thing
Wood subclass-of Structural-Support-Stuff
Structural-Support-Stuff subclass-of Solid-Tangible-Thing

isn't subclass-of transitive?

Greetings,

-- Nicola

---------------------------------

Nicola Guarino
National Research Council phone: +39 49 8295751
LADSEB-CNR fax: +39 49 8295778
Corso Stati Uniti, 4 email: guarino@ladseb.pd.cnr.it
I-35127 Padova
Italy

http://www.ladseb.pd.cnr.it/infor/Ontology/ontology.html
(*** UPDATED 3 Sept, 1997 ***)

P.S.: I will post the slides of my last meeting's presentation as soon as I
find the time to put them in order. In the meanwhile, people interested may
give a look at my paper entitled "Semantic Matching: Formal Ontological
Distinctions for Information Organization, Extraction, and Integration",
appeared in M. T. Pazienza (ed.) Information Extraction: A
Multidisciplinary Approach to an Emerging Information Technology. Springer
Verlag 1997: 139-170. [Available on the WWW site above]

-- Nicola

---------------------------------

Nicola Guarino
National Research Council phone: +39 49 8295751
LADSEB-CNR fax: +39 49 8295778
Corso Stati Uniti, 4 email: guarino@ladseb.pd.cnr.it
I-35127 Padova
Italy

http://www.ladseb.pd.cnr.it/infor/Ontology/ontology.html
(*** UPDATED 3 Sept, 1997 ***)