Modelling, Methods, and Technology SIG

This is the PCA-MMT-SIG homepage. The focus of this SIG is the application of formal (mainly logical) approaches to using ISO 15926. The MMT SIG is primarily aimed at the investigation of basic notions and generic challenges involved in the application of semantic methods.

Note: For ongoing work on implementation and application, please refer to the IDS-ADI-ISO15926-Pages.

Contents

1. Ongoing activities
2. Templates
   1. Template Development and ISO 15926 languages
   2. Templates documented on Wiki pages
   3. Verification of template definition correctness
3. Tools in this Wiki for handling ISO 15926 content
4. Source material
   1. Presentations
5. Links
6. Discussions

Ongoing activities

• The current focus is on defining predicates with complex definitions, as applied in ISO 15926 templates. The approach is due to be standardized in Part 7 of ISO 15926. See below for information on the various parts of ISO 15926 and how IDS-ADI is involved.
• SIG MMT will strive to align work on ISO 15926 with current developments in the research field of applied logic. The representation of ISO 15926 in OWL, developed in the IDS project, is of particular practical relevance.

Templates

ISO 15926 templates are patterns for facts for which definitions are stated using rules. (Formally, a template is a first-order logic predicate.) This provides for a precise and implementation-independent interface to ISO 15926, and is intended to be applied in creating and maintaining ontologies that conform to the standard.

Templates are the subject of the in-progress ISO 15926 Part 7. They standardize valid usage patterns of Part 2, and how Part 4 and other reference data is represented. See TemplateGenerics for an introduction.

As standard usage patterns, Templates come in different levels of granularity, different levels of abstraction and specialization, represented in and mapped between different levels of expression, from business levels to explicit Part 2 patterns.

Template Development and ISO 15926 languages

Templates may be used to define and represent both reference data and project data. The following figure illustrates the relations between the languages of ISO 15926 Parts 2/4 and the template language of Part 7. In brief: Part 2 corresponds to a Description Logic (DL) TBox, i.e., classes and relations. Part 4 and other reference data populate the Part 2 structure with individual instances, a DL ABox. Templates according to Part 7 require a much more expressive, first-order language.

• TemplateGenerics gives an informal account of what goes into the definition of a template.

Look at the bottom of this page, and of TemplateDescriptionID, for ongoing discussion on the characterization of ISO 15926 templates. A document describing the current list of templates defined in the IDS project, with roles and brief definitions in natural language, can be found as an attachment to the Intelligent Data Sets Prototype page.

Templates documented on Wiki pages

Every template defined in ISO 15926 Part 7 will be documented on a separate page in this Wiki, according to a common pattern. For a list of template pages, go to TemplateIndex.

Verification of template definition correctness

See SigMmtTemplateAxioms.

Tools in this Wiki for handling ISO 15926 content

SIG MMT has provided certain Trac features that support the needs of modellers.

ISO 15926 Diagrams.

The Wiki provides for entering diagrams of ISO 15926 models, using a simplified set of xy-pic commands; see ISO15926Diagrams. Examples can be found in ISO15926Diagrams_BoltSet, ISO15926Diagrams_Weights.

Symbolic notation using LaTeX.

This Trac supports entering content in LaTeX format, using the LatexEquation plugin. This is useful for entering first-order formulae, and diagrams.

Macros for fetching reference data.

A facility for dynamically pulling content from the Reference Data Library for graphical display on Trac pages, using XSLT, graphviz, and the macrochain macro, is high on our wishlist. For the time being, only the XSLT macro works with Trac 0.11.

Source material

Presentations

Presentations from Semantic Days 2008 are available in PDF format. SIG MMT presentations are also available in Powerpoint format (including some animations that may be of interest).

• A Tutorial on semantic technology, with special focus on templates for ISO 15926. Download slides
• A presentation of SIG MMT, describing this Trac and the need for template interfaces for creating reference data. Download slides

Links

• The 15926-2 standard in OWL (non-authoritative). If you wish to work with this to create data, consider Protege 3.4 beta (note: build 126 or later) or 4.0 beta. To open the ontology in the OwlSight ontology browser, click here.

• The 15926-2 standard in EXPRESS (authoritative), with documentation in HTML

• The Prover9 first-order logic reasoner is a great tool for expressing template definitions and developing/testing axiomatizations.

• A recent paper called Structured Objects in OWL (Motik, Cuenca Grau, Sattler) is extremely promising with regard to finding a more natural and powerful language for defining templates.

Contact: Johan W. Klüwer, johan.wilhelm.kluewer@….

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Discussions

• What is a template? -- exploration of the notion. Check this out to get a feeling for the kind of discussions that have been held. Which is not to say the discussion is closed!