xml-dev - Re: Ontologies

[Martin Bryan <mtbryan@sgml.u-net.com>]

Walter Perry wrote:

>In fact, aren't we ready to go the whole
way and acknowledge that the ontologies addressable at the nodes of a
semantic
web must in fact *be* executable against the various inputs we put to them?

Not unless we agree a fixed API for returning node data in a given language.

>Let us submit the same body
> of input simultaneously to various different diagnostic
methodologies--each
> expressed as an ontology to which we can form a nexus at an addressable
> node--and, provided that we can retrieve or address the output of each, we
can
> ignore the particulars of what happens in those opaque boxes.

Works OK for short term data, but try looking at medical records over the 90
year life of a patient on this basis and you will run into problems. Even
Jonathon will admit that drugs get reclassified in their life-time. You need
to know the classification at the time they were administered, not the
classification today. Opium was de rigour in our grandparents time. Do you
want it adminstered to your grandchildren?

Martin Bryan