No, go ahead. ----- Original Message ----- From: Ian McNicoll <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 12:12 pm Subject: Re: Layers of interoperability, OWL and openEHR To: For openEHR technical discussions <openehr-technical at openehr.org>
> Can I suggest moving this to the Clinical list? I think it is an > important subject ,and rather dear to my own interests but, as Thomas > pointed out, we are in danger of submerging Seref's original more > technical question. > > Any objections? > > Ian > > Dr Ian McNicoll > office / fax +44(0)141 560 4657 > mobile +44 (0)775 209 7859 > skype ianmcnicoll > ian at mcmi.co.uk > > Clinical Analyst Ocean Informatics ian.mcnicoll at oceaninformatics.com > BCS Primary Health Care Specialist Group www.phcsg.org > > > > 2009/4/22 Gerard Freriks <gfrer at luna.nl>: > > Dear Seref, > > > > Ask yourself the question: > > How do we, humans, deal with interoperability? > > > > Do we humans use formally expressed ontologies using OWL. > > Do we use rigid formal syntaxes where we use strictly defined formal > > terms. > > Do wet have to express a measurement in DV-Quantity as Double or > > Floating Point with Precision x. > > All this is the world of zero's and one's, bits and bytes and IT > > industry. > > > > We humans have a vague knowledge of many concepts in our worlds. > > We have a very flexible syntax and many, many terms. We even invent > > new ones. > > It is a chaotic system based on a limited set of rules with emergent > > behavior. > > We express what we want to document using documents, chapters, > > sections, paragraphs, words and characters. > > This is the world of documentation, concepts, humans. > > This the magnificent world of language, prose and poetry. > > Where on the basis of a limited set of rules we can document > everything.> > > It is clear that both worlds (IT and Humans) overlap in certain > areas.> But mostly the do not overlap. > > Do not mix them up and when you do, we get confused and create > monsters.> Both worlds have to stay absolutely orthogonal to each > other.> > > Any interoperability solution where notions, ways of thinking and > > expressing, from the IT world with bits and bytes are enforced on > > humans, will create problems. > > Solutions should start at this human documentation/language level. > > > > The EHR is about documentation of events/facts/thoughts/ideas for > > human consumption primarily. > > IT-systems should support this. That is all we need for now. > > We can try to model real life using the formal, rigid, technical > ways.> And create something that doesn't fit the needs of humans or > relates> to this human world. > > Or we use IT and models to support humans to document what they feel > > they need to document. > > Humans are not very precise but language works rather efficiently > and> well enough. > > > > Modeling knowledge in ontologies is an interesting academic > exercise.> Modeling the complex real life is an interesting > academic exercise. > > But... > > Let humans use words freely, either as free text of better from a > > common controlled flexible resource (dictionary=coding system/ > > terminology/classification). > > Let humans use words in a syntax (Reference Model) to create freely > > all sentences/screens (Templates) they need using agreed > documentation> patterns (Archetypes), using tools based on an > Archetype Model. > > > > And that for the moment is good enough at this point in time looking > > for the Holy Grail called Semantic Interoperability. > > > > Gerard > > > > > > On 21, Apr, 2009, at 12:25 , Seref Arikan wrote: > > > >> Dear members of the list, > >> I'd appreciate your opinions and guidance about a particular topic. > >> As most of you probably know, the work in the ontology domain has > >> been the flagship of semantic interoperability for many projects > >> now, and there is a large amount of researchers active in the > field.>> I've been involved in use of ontologies for semantic > >> interoperability for the first time in 2002, and since then, > >> ontologies have become a frequently pronounced solution for a large > >> set of problems. > >> However, I have a feeling that the nature of this work creates just > >> a layer in the multilayer interoperability space. Expressing > >> relationships among different entities and doing this in a formal > >> way (OWL) is nice. OWL also allows you to do processing, reasoning > >> on the defined relationships, but unless I'm missing something, > this>> is all about relationships, and concepts. I mean the > capabilities of > >> OWL seem to be valid in the relationships is defines. > >> What about the actual things, data items, entities that OWL links > >> together? I've been a proponent of well defined type systems and > >> object hieararchies in healthcare interoperability solutions, since > >> I've spent years in the software development side of the domain, > and>> a huge number of issues arise from the developers interpreting > >> losely defined types, or inventing their own types. > >> Now pinning down concepts either by using terminologies or > >> ontologies is good. It is good to know that two fields on two > >> different data structures are pointing to the same concept. This > >> however, is the beginning of the process. Pointing at the same > thing>> and processing it in the same way are different things. > Just because > >> we agree that we are pointing to body temperature in two different > >> documents does not stop us from processing one of them with a > >> double, and the other one with a float. > >> There is a great deal of information out there expressed in the > form>> of OWL, or other formalisms, but I can't see this covering all > >> aspects of interoperability, but (no offense) there is a large > crowd>> out there who think they have solved the problem of semantic > >> interoperability. Though it may be an undervaluation of the work, > >> "mappings" are nice, but they don't ease the rest of the work, > where>> mapped items are processed in different domains. > >> Are there resources or works that you know of, that try to link > type>> systems in openEHR or other formalisms like 13606 or HL7 to > these>> semantic expressions? How does a DVQuantity instance and an > OWL>> expression play together? > >> > >> Best Regards > >> Seref > > > > _______________________________________________ > > openEHR-technical mailing list > > openEHR-technical at openehr.org > > http://lists.chime.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/openehr-technical > > > > > _______________________________________________ > openEHR-technical mailing list > openEHR-technical at openehr.org > http://lists.chime.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/openehr-technical > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: dmeyer.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 175 bytes Desc: Card for Derek Meyer <dmeyer at sgul.ac.uk> URL: <http://lists.openehr.org/mailman/private/openehr-technical_lists.openehr.org/attachments/20090422/4747df7f/attachment.vcf>
