[FDM] Developing Thin Slices: An Introduction to the Methodology for Developing the Foundation Data Model and Reference Data Library of the Information Management Framework - draft for review

[Chris Partridge]

Hi,

Please find a link below to the latest draft of the Information Management Framework's Developing Thin Slices: An Introduction to the Methodology for Developing the Foundation Data Model and Reference Data Library of the Information Management Framework.

https://borosolutions.net/developing_thin_slices

Comments welcome.

Here is an 'abstract' of the contents.

This report is directed at a technical audience who are interested understanding how to prepare their data for use in the UK National Digital Twin.

Background

In 2017, the National Infrastructure Commission published Data for the Public Good (NIC, 2017) which set out a number of recommendations including the development of a UK National Digital Twin supported by an Information Management Framework of standards for sharing infrastructure data, under the guidance of a Digital Framework Task Group set up by the Centre for The National Digital Twin programme.

Much work has been done following this, but in particular

• A vision of how society can benefit from a UK National Digital Twin is set out in Flourishing Systems (Schooling, 2020).
• The direction for the technical standards, guidance and common resources needed as part of the Information Management Framework is set out in The pathway towards an Information Management Framework (Hetherington, 2020) and updated in Managing Shared Data (West, forthcoming).

In particular they identified the need for:

• A Foundation Data Model: a data model that provides the structure and meaning of data incorporating a top-level ontology based on science and engineering principles, enabling it to be extended to support the broadest possible scope consistently.
• A Reference Data Library: the classes and properties needed for the UK National Digital Twin that enables different organizations and sectors to describe things consistently.
• An Integration Architecture: the technical means, including open source software, for sharing data securely with authorised users.

Content

This report provides a technical description of the process at the heart of the Thin Slices Methodology with the aim of providing a common technical resource for training and guidance in this area. As such it forms part of the wider effort to provide common resources for the development of the Information Management Framework.

This report focuses on the process at the core of the Thin Slices Methodology. It identifies a requirement for a minimal foundation for these kinds of processes. In the companion report, Top-Level Categories (Partridge, forthcoming), the foundation adopted by the Information Management Framework is described. Together, the two reports cover the details of the developing thin slices process.

Regards,
Chris Partridge

Chris Partridge | Chief Ontologist | BORO Solutions Limited | www.BOROSolutions.co.uk
M: +44 790 5167263 | e: partr...@borogroup.co.uk

BORO Solutions Limited | Registered Office: 2 West Street, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 2DU
Registered in England & Wales | Company No: 06025010 | VAT No. GB 905 6100 58

[Ian Cornwell]

Chris and all,

The “thin slices” document is interesting, though by itself not quite yet fully answering one of my main interests. I probably have a more limited viewpoint and interest than this document is trying to satisfy, and in particular I was drilling in to see if I could learn something directly usable for schema harmonisation work in my domain (or perhaps even use our domain’s experience to help clarify the NDT approach).

I fully support all the material on context and benefits, and the approach at a high level is clear. 

I am interested in the internals of the bCLEARer “evolve” process. The figure expanding “evolve” shows 2 system schemas become one neutral schema through a process called “entification”. I didn’t see further definition of that process. I checked the linked references that seemed to be most relevant to my line of questioning. I appreciated the linked paper by Chris “The Role of Ontology in Integrating Semantically Heterogeneous Databases” (2002) which has relevant examples of heterogeneity with semantic similarity, and identifies ontological considerations which mostly are ways to see past simplifications in representations where the real-world possibilities are more complex.

I am still wondering how well-defined is the process of entification. Experts can perform this process using the understanding of the domain, system schemas, ontological considerations as discussed in the paper, and agreed top level categories, but I wonder whether beyond those things there are any further systematic steps, principles or rules defined.

Regards, Ian Cornwell

[Chris Partridge]

Hi Ian,

Many thanks for the comments.

I've tried to answer inline ...

Regards,
Chris Partridge

Chris Partridge | Chief Ontologist | BORO Solutions Limited | www.BOROSolutions.co.uk
M: +44 790 5167263 | e: partr...@borogroup.co.uk

BORO Solutions Limited | Registered Office: 2 West Street, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 2DU
Registered in England & Wales | Company No: 06025010 | VAT No. GB 905 6100 58

On Tue, 22 Feb 2022 at 11:11, 'Ian Cornwell' via UK NDT FDM <uk-nd...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Chris and all,

The “thin slices” document is interesting, though by itself not quite yet fully answering one of my main interests. I probably have a more limited viewpoint and interest than this document is trying to satisfy, and in particular I was drilling in to see if I could learn something directly usable for schema harmonisation work in my domain (or perhaps even use our domain’s experience to help clarify the NDT approach).

I fully support all the material on context and benefits, and the approach at a high level is clear. 

I am interested in the internals of the bCLEARer “evolve” process. The figure expanding “evolve” shows 2 system schemas become one neutral schema through a process called “entification”. I didn’t see further definition of that process. I checked the linked references that seemed to be most relevant to my line of questioning. I appreciated the linked paper by Chris “The Role of Ontology in Integrating Semantically Heterogeneous Databases” (2002) which has relevant examples of heterogeneity with semantic similarity, and identifies ontological considerations which mostly are ways to see past simplifications in representations where the real-world possibilities are more complex.

[CP] You may have seen the references to the examples of the process in Appendix B – Early Thin Slice Examples:

"The formal description of the analysis is the Python code available on GitHub here: https://github.com/boro-alpha/uniclass_to_nf_ea_com ."
"The surface onomatology work is complete and the open source output is stored here: https://github.com/boro-alpha/bclearer_boson_1_1 ."

Maybe these will help you see the internals. 

I am still wondering how well-defined is the process of entification. Experts can perform this process using the understanding of the domain, system schemas, ontological considerations as discussed in the paper, and agreed top level categories, but I wonder whether beyond those things there are any further systematic steps, principles or rules defined.

[CP] This is a good question. We are finding that bCLEARer is a practice (like swimming and cycling). We have over the years developed a lot of material for explaining and training in bCLEARer. We have also there is no substitute for actually doing it. So experienced practitioners would feel there is pretty good grasp of the process of entification - and could supply principles and rules for the process. But these are probably inadequate, without practice, for undertaking an entification.

  

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