Description
The purpose of this course is to give participants a working knowledge in formal ontology, a new technology increasingly used for data interoperability and large scale database metadata design. Ontologies are increasingly being used to define and constrain the use of terms in schema and database design, in search and information retrieval applications and generally in software design and development. Dozens of job openings on major IT jobs sites mention ontology as a job title or required skill.
After completion of the course, participants will be able to: (1) create their own ontology content that extends the open source Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO); and (2) use the open source Sigma toolset to ensure their ontologies are internally consistent, consistent with SUMO, and structured in accordance with current best practices.
The course will be given in eight sessions, each session consisting of a one-hour lecture followed by a one-hour facilitated lab. An optional class project will be offered for participants who are prepared to undertake a larger commitment. Each class will have a homework assignment to be completed during or after the lab. All assignments will be graded. Attendance will be taken. Students attending all classes and turning in all the assignments will receive a certificate of completion from the ACM and signed by the instructor.
Administrative Details
This course is presented in two sessions per day running from 10am to noon and 2-4pm with catered lunch from August 6-9, leaving ample time for working on the course exercises and discussion. Each attendee will be provided a copy of the book Ontology: A Practical Guide, which will form the basis for the course. Students must bring their own laptops. eBay will provide classroom facilities and catering. A nominal tuition of $75 will be charged to cover ACM administrative costs, refreshments and the course textbook.
Course Content
Class 1: Introduction
Motivation, Responding to the Critics, The Symbol Grounding Problem, Applications
Class 2: Knowledge Representation
Informal Languages, Frames, Description Logic, Propositional and Predicate Logic, First-Order Logic, Higher-Order Logics, SUO-KIF Details, Conversion from SUO-KIF to strict First-Order Logic
Class 3: Suggested Upper Merged Ontology
Validation, Principles of Construction, Open Research, SUMO History, SUMO Overview, SUMO's Eleven Modules, Lower Level Ontologies, Ontological Issues, Ontology Code Management, SUMO Details and Examples, Semiotics Content, Physical Systems
Class 4: Ontologies in Comparison and Extension
WordNet, DOLCE, Basic Formal Ontology, Open Biomedical Ontologies, Semantic Web, DBPediaDigression: Ontology Development Pitfalls, YAGO: Extending SUMO with Wikipedia, eBay ontologies
Class 5: SUMO, WordNet, Language Generation
Interpreting Language, Global WordNet, The Interlingual Index, Language Generation
Class 6: Knowledge Engineering Tools
Browsing and Display, Analysis and Debugging, Inference, Higher-Order Logic, Mapping, Merging and Translation, Working with Sigma and SUMO
Class 7: Using SUMO for Inference
Anatomy of a first order theorem prover, Proof Presentation, Normal form conversion
Class 8: English to Logic Translation
Simple Parsing and Interpretation, Issues in Translation
Speaker Bio
Adam Pease a computer scientist working on ontology and computational linguistics. His work is centered around the Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) and Sigma Knowledge Engineering Environment. You can find out more about his work, and personal interests.
Watch Adam Pease's talk at SFBay ACM in 2011 :
