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Overview
Most of the discussions at this hackathon deal with technology issues relating to interoperability. A few of the discussions are discuss OpenBio* "platform specific implementations" - language APIs (BioRuby, BioJava, BioPerl, etc.), web service protocols (BioMoby et. al.) and database implementations (i.e. !BioSQL). A general issue relating to harmonization of community semantics or, at least, establishing a community process for semantics management, is recognized. This OpenSpace discussion is targeting this issue for further progress.
The broader scope of this discussion is titled OpenBioSemantics rather than simply Ontology.
Convenor/faciltator: Richard Bruskiewich
Proceedings
Summary of Day 1 Discussions (11th Feb. Afternoon AcademyHills)
Observations: Framing the Problem
Cathedral versus the Bazaar: the global community of bioinformatics are struggling with the issue of semantics, and various formalisms are currently being used to capture such semantics, i.e.
- Formal Code Implementations: implied semantics expressed as an API and body of computer code (e.g. OpenBio* initiatives)
- Data Formats: expressed as standard, human readable semi-structured text (e.g. sequence formats: FASTA, Genbank, EMBL)
- Object models: expressed in Unified Modeling Language (UML) (e.g. Functional Genomics Experiment model and Generation Challenge Programme domain model)
- Ontology initiatives:
- OBO format driven: e.g. Gene Ontology (GO), Sequence Ontology (SO), etc.
- OWL format initiatives: Ontology for Biomedical Investigations
- XML Schema driven languages: EMBRACE WS-I, TDWG ABCD schema in !BioCase+Tapir, etc.
- Common Database Schemata and Queries: BioSQL, Generic Model Organism (GMOD) Chado, International Crop Information System, etc.
- Web Service Protocol Data Types: e.g. BioMoby data type object hierarchy
At this meeting, a general desire is being expressed to achieve some level of interoperability, at least, between OpenBio* initiatives generally, and more specifically, between OpenBio* and web services protocols like BioMoby and EMBRACE.
An addition targeted need is simply to harmonize specific ontology pertinent to key interoperability technology. A specific example of such a need (from M. Wilkinson) is the harmonization of BioMoby and myGrid service ontology.
It is generally agreed that semantics is a hard community problem ("herding the cats") but can be made tractable by "divide and conquer" (witness the relative success of GO and other similar ontology development communities). Efforts should and generally are, driven by a specific set of practical tasks in the community, on an "as needed" basis. The expectation to create a consensual "mother-of-all-biological-data-models" is most likely unrealistic, but can some agreement on the general principles, process and tools of semantic collaboration be achieved?
Preliminary Questions
- Can a formal community strategy (akin to that in successful ontology consortia) for the specification and evolution of open bio semantics be specified and endorsed?
- Would the objective of interoperability between OpenBio*, web services protocols and related initiatives be well served by the specification of a common consensual "platform independent" domain model (or set of domain models)?
- If so, how should this best be specified? Can an intersection set of OpenBio* semantics be extracted and formalized (i.e. in UML or OWL)?
- How might it be used directly as a focal point for harmonization of OpenBio* API's, web service protocols, etc.
- Can the task be partitioned down to size to make it tractable, yet large enough to be useful (achieve "buy-in")? Can guidelines for modular (community specific) code/data type modules be stipulated?
