Session	Harmonizing diverse conceptualizations in multi-context systems engineering
Duration	1.5 hour
Date/Time	Mar 07 2018 17:00 GMT
	9:00am PST/12:00pm EST
	5:00pm GMT/6:00pm CET
Convener	JanetSinger and JackRing

Ontology Summit 2018 Harmonizing diverse conceptualizations in multi-context systems engineering

Agenda

Janet Singer Harmonizing Diverse Conceptualizations Slides

Jack Ring Help us ontologize the co-evolution of problem system and problem suppression system as mutual contexts Slides

Hillary Sillitto Can one ontology support seven different ‘system worldviews’ Slides

Video Recording

Conference Call Information

Date: Wednesday, 07-March-2018
Start Time: 9:00am PST / 12:00pm EST / 6:00pm CET / 5:00pm GMT / 1700 UTC
- World Clock
Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours

Video Conference URL: https://bluejeans.com/703588230
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Chatroom: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/ontology_summit_2018
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- You can indicate that you want to ask a question verbally by clicking on the "hand" button, and wait for the moderator to call on you; or, type and send your question into the chat window at the bottom of the screen.
This session, like all other Ontolog events, is open to the public. Information relating to this session is shared on this wiki page.
Please note that this session may be recorded, and if so, the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content, along with the proceedings of the call to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

Proceedings

[12:24] ToddSchneider: Some of problems Jack is alluding to come from the paradigms Systems Engineering employ (e.g., product breakdown) and ontological commitments engendered by them.

[12:25] Hillary: Parsimony - I have never heard anyone say parsimony! In the UK...

[12:26] Hillary: I meant Par-simmony

[12:26] Gary Berg-Cross: Not sue I understand all this, but I can imagine other points/aspects under Quality: a) Accuracy and dynamics for intended Effects; b) When and While Needed, and c) Do No Harm.

[12:29] Gary Berg-Cross: A core system may be what some have called an upper level domain reference ontology - what you need to discuss a system broadly and make basic connections.

[12:30] Lan Yang @NUIG: top-level ontology, it is then

[12:32] ToddSchneider: Note the effort 'Semantic Technologies for Systems Engineering' (ST4SE) is attempting to create ontologies that will provide the common formalism suggested.

[12:34] Gary Berg-Cross: Is the Enterprise Ecology and its concepts a starting point for building a relevant ontology? We would need definitions that can be ontologized for:

Mission&Vision
Strategy
Intent
Goals
Plans
Commitments
Competencies
Energy and Automation
Teambuilding
Collaboration
Tenacity
Achievement
Recognition
Co-celebration

[12:36] ToddSchneider: Gary, building an ontology for what or whom?

[12:36] Gary Berg-Cross: Not sure that I by the analogous nature of the conservation of Thermodynamics: mass, momentum, energy to Informatics: data, information, knowledge.....

[12:36] Hillary: System 7 - I don't think the seven types of system are mutually exclusive

[12:38] Hillary: Gary, Indeed; there is a fundamental difference between information in systems and matter and energy in systems. The latter are conserved, and transformations between them are constrained by physics; the former can be replicated and distributed almost for free.

[12:42] janet singer1: @Todd I take Jack to be laying out the scope of what the conceptualization of ST4SE needs to plan on addressing

[12:43] Lan Yang @NUIG: Probably I am influenced by ontologies in biomedical domain very much. To me, an ontology for SE is something like these: a)SNOMED http://browser.ihtsdotools.org or b)ICD-11 https://icd.who.int/dev11/l-m/en#/

[12:45] ToddSchneider: Janet, I wouldn't disagree entirely. But the initial focus is to support model based engineering (i.e., providing a consistent basis for create models). Unfortunately, 'model' refer almost exclusively to UML/SysML models.

[12:47] BobbinTeegarden: Jack, wonderful, holonic approach.

[12:49] janet singer1: Question (For Todd) is systematically thinking through MBSE provides models of what, for whom, etc (as you pointed out to Gary, above)

[12:52] Gary Berg-Cross: @Hillary One can see some relations in these 7 types, so 6) "Systems as a Mode of Description" may be more general than 1) "A formal minimalist view based on mathematics and logic" if we say that is a special type of Description.

[12:54] janet singer1: @Todd You said ST4SE is focused on supporting MBSE. My point (and Jacks, I believe) is that the modeling activities in MBSE are usually underconceptualized because they don't think through full scope of the issues Jack raised. That's the context for them to coherently answer model of what? Model for whom?, etc

[13:02] ToddSchneider: Janet, the problems Jack alluded to are not special to systems engineering or engineering in general: Constrained scope, implicit assumptions (among which are assumed contexts).

[13:03] BobbinTeegarden: Hillary Are complex systems inherently always nondeterministic because of what Bohm called the implicate order - there are always 'compiled' implications i.e. contextual influencers that are not in the observable 'explicate' order that we model?

[13:04] Gary Berg-Cross: In some ontology work System boundary relies on some unity and unifying relations of an entity.

[13:04] janet singer1: @Todd - Agree, and?

[13:05] Gary Berg-Cross: System boundary also gets us into some view of "context" or at least environment.

[13:08] Gary Berg-Cross: @Hillary "A system is described by four sets of features" besides these 4 there may be the idea of a system role.

[13:09] Mark Underwood: I see the copyright notice -- so we should not publicize on social media? Perhaps we can get a version that is "open" ?

[13:12] janet singer1: Ill ask. I expect distribution is fine as long as copyright notice is kept on the document

[13:12] ToddSchneider: Janet, practicing system engineers are usually constrained by time/money, convention and expectations.

[13:12] janet singer1: Also agree with that ...

[13:13] MikeBennett: Interesting comment on how ontologists use language in an arcane way. I find it odd that many ontologists use the word 'axiom' that is actually incorrect in any other context, and insist they have it right. Or is it just me?

[13:14] ToddSchneider: Mike, could expand on the 'use' of the term 'axiom'?

[13:15] MikeBennett: Yes, when describing OWL models, many OWL modelers refer to every assertion as an axiom - whether or not it is axiomatic.

[13:15] ToddSchneider: Mike, got it.

[13:18] Mark Underwood: Thx re the copyright!

[13:20] Mark Underwood: Wondering if folks have looked at openBIM - ISO 16739 uses a gadget called ifcOWL ... domain is building and construction data (though not, apparently, the NY/NJ tunnel project :))

[13:21] janet singer1: Hillary mentions Capella for modeling (freely available)

[13:22] MikeBennett: The hands next to a person's name are just to show they are typing, not as a hand up

[13:23] Jack Ring: Be alert to those who need to think in terms of hierarchy.

[13:24] David Whitten: What is the download website for Capella ?

[13:24] janet singer1: @Mike thx - trying to view chat on a mobile screen given problems with BlueJeans update on Mac, so couldn't see the two windows

[13:25] Cory Casanave: The proposed analysis looks a lot like what is going on in SysML 2 which has a semantic foundation

[13:26] Mark Underwood: For the notes, Todd seconds the anti SysML sentiment, but I must demure... No fan of what developers put on whiteboards

[13:26] Mark Underwood: The diagrams they put on the whiteboards are just boxes containing tools

[13:26] Mark Underwood: IMHO the issue is training specialists to use tools that interop with Visual Studio.. no something a typical engineer can o

[13:26] Hillary: https://www.polarsys.org

[13:27] ToddSchneider: Hillary, thank you.

[13:27] Mark Underwood: will look at Capella, thx

[13:28] Ram D. Sriram: I think we did discuss some terminology in the Internet of Things Summit, e.g., cyber physical social systems, which is probably relevant to "systems engineering" discussion.

[13:28] Mark Underwood: (desperate for something instead of whiteboards)

[13:29] Mark Underwood: Developers increasingly want to know microontologies behind a REST API

[13:29] Mark Underwood: They just don't call them that

[13:30] Gary Berg-Cross: Have to go, thanks.

[13:31] Mark Underwood: Ram - IoT is interesting in that the ontology associated with a sensor tends to have a consensus around it, perhaps due to the specialization depth

[13:31] Ram D. Sriram: What is the role of CONTEXT in Systems Engineering?

[13:32] Hillary: Role of context needs to be made clearer in SE. Current definitions don't sufficiently emphasize properties arising from interactions between system and environment.

[13:32] ToddSchneider: Ram, many practicing engineers don't address this, i.e., they assume a context the one they usually operate in.

[13:32] Hillary: Our new one will!

[13:34] ToddSchneider: Ram, the assumed context when designing a system can come into conflict with operational contexts (of the designed system).

[13:34] Ram D. Sriram: Take for example, design of Boeing 777. There are different types of context. E.g., The specifications are a starting point for the context.

[13:35] Hillary: Anthony, have you read https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=enlightenment+now+steven+pinker&tag=googhydr-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=227562307879&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3902693589953486305&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007326&hvtargid=kwd-384894948464&ref=pd_sl_1c2x6bmyzv_e

[13:37] Mark Underwood: Thanks to organizers and speakers

[13:38] AlexShkotin: Thank you.

[13:54] Vicky Hailey: The purpose of a natural system is to exist.

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