The%20Agricultural%20Ontology%20Service:%20multilingual%20domain%20ontologies%20for%20knowledge%20management%20in%20agriculture

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The Agricultural Ontology Service
multilingual domain ontologies for knowledge
management in agriculture

• Johannes Keizer
• Information Systems Officer
• Food and Agriculture Organization
• of the UN
• Library and Documentation Systems Division

APAN 2003, Fukuoka 23rdth January 2003
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FAOs mandate

• Reducing the quantity of hungry people by 50
  within the year 2015 (World Food Summit 1996).
• WAICENT (World Agricultural Information Center)
  is FAOs approach to fight hunger with
  information
• FAO itself produces huge amount of content in
  its subject area
• It is also within FAOs mandate to make available
  useful information from other information
  providers
• FAO collaborates in information networks

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Introduction

• It is not difficult to find information on the
  WWW (if you for what you are looking)
• But it is nearly impossible to extract knowledge
  or structured information

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The Search Problem
How to evaluate Search Results?

• Full text search engines might have a high recall
  (not verifiable), but precision/relevance is
  desperately low!

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State of Search Systems

• Full text search engines based on statistical
  text analysis are inprecise by nature
• New system based only on machine intelligence
  do not show too promising results
• Recogniton of meaning (semantic analysis) by
  machines is only possible by using knowledge
  organization systems
• agreed metadata schemas
• Controlled vocabularies
• Machine readable encoding

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Knowledge Organization Systems Vocabularies

• Insufficient subject language coverage

Existing Thesauri and Knowledge Organization
Systems (KOSs)
Dedicated KOSs
e.g., ASFA thesaurus
e.g., the Multilingual Forestry Thesaurus

• Only very simple encoding of semantic relations

e.g., the Sustainable Development website
classification

• Common concepts are not declared

e.g., biological taxonomies such as NCBI and ITIS

• No or very limited interoperability

Other thematic thesauri
Non-dedicated KOSs

• Very limited machine readability

CABI Thesaurus
AGROVOC
NAL Thesaurus

• Severe maintenance problems

GEMET
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Ontologies?

• An ontology is a formal knowledge organization
  system
• It contains concepts (and instances)
• a formal description of the application knowledge
• Definitions of concepts and instances
• Relations between concepts and instances
• possibility of machine processing
• Nearly everyone tries to build (inexplicit)
  ontologies
• Directory structures, navigation trees
• Humans can overcome bad organization by intuition
• Machine have no intuition, Machine need formal
  information

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What benefits do we expect from Ontologies?

• Semantic Organization of websites
• Knowledge maps
• Guided discovery of knowledge
• Easy retrievability of information without using
  complicated Boolean logic
• Text processing by machines
• Text Mining on the Web (meaning-oriented
  access)
• Automatic indexing and text annotation tools
• Full text search engines that create meaningful
  classification (FAO-Schwartz not related to FAO)
  (semantic clustering)
• Intelligent search of the Web
• Building dynamical catalogues from machine
  readable meta data
• Natural Language processing
• Better machine translation
• Queries using natural language

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The Example International Portal on Food Safety,
Animal and Plant Health

• Goal To create an explicit, formal
  specification of a shared conceptualization of a
  domain of interest

Ontology
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Ontology conceptual model
label
Concept
synonym
Concept
relationship
stem
synonym
synonym
description
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Ontology RDFS model, machine readable encoding
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Processes to create a Domain Ontology

• Ontology acquisition (2 paths)
• Creating core ontology from scratch
• Automatic extraction of ontological knowledge
  from base vocabulary and domain specific text
  sources
• Merging into one ontology
• Refinement and Extension
• Evaluation and Assessment

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Creation of the core ontology

• Information Resources
• Brainstorming
• Codex Alimentarius
• SPS Agreement

3 subject specialists
Core Ontology
67 concepts 91 relationships
Ontology Editor (SOEP)
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1st Acquisition ApproachFocused Crawling
List of extracted main sites http//www.foodsafet
y.gov/ Gateway to Government Food Safety
Information http//vm.cfsan.fda.gov/ Center for
Food Safety Applied Nutrition http//www.inspec
tion.gc.ca/ Canadian Food Inspection
Agency http//www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsafet
y/ Iowa State University - Food Safety
Project http//www.foodsafety.iastate.edu Iowa
State University - Food Safety Consortium http//
www.fsis.usda.gov/ United States Department of
Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection
Service http//www.nal.usda.gov/foodborne/index.h
tml Foodborne Ilness Education Information
Center http//www.euro.who.int/foodsafety World
Health Organization Regional Office for
Europe Food Safety Programme
Focused Web Crawling
Core Ontology
68 concepts 91 relationships
List of 257 food Safety domain web pages
Grouping into Main sites
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Selection of Documents

• Domain Set Manual selection
• 11 documents
• Codex Alimentarius Description, Code of Ethics,
  Food Hygiene, Food Import and Export
• Report of consultation on risk assessment of
  microbiological hazards in foods
• Ensuring food quality and safety, Protecting food
  quality and safety
• Domain Set Focused Crawler Output
• 5 documents extracted
• http//vm.cfsan.fda.gov/
• http//www.inspection.gc.ca/
• http//www.foodsafety.iastate.edu
• http//www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsafety/
• http//www.euro.who.int/foodsafety
• Generic documents Manual Selection
• 8 documents
• www.nytimes.com
• Several documents of the animal feed domain

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2nd Acquisition ApproachThesaurus Pruning
AGROVOC 27365 keywords
5 evaluation runs
Rice BT NT RT RT RT
1632 frequent terms
Automatic Pruning
Food Safety Documents
Extracted ontological structure of concepts
504 taxonomic depth 5
Generic Documents
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Merging of Ontologies and Refinement
1632 Terms from pruning process
12 new concepts extracted
Core Ontology
67 concepts 91 relationships
92 new relationshipscreated
Assembly step
Ontologicalstructureextracted from AGROVOC
23 new concepts With hierarchical relationships
extracted
Food Safety OntologyPrototype 102 concepts 183
relationships
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Final Prototype
Core Ontology 67 concepts 91 relationships
Food Safety OntologyPrototype 102 concepts 183
relationships
1.36
1.79
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102 Concepts
Agreement of Agriculture ALOP ALOP, Codex ALOP,
OIE ALR animal byproducts animal diseases animal
fats animal feed additives animal feed
contaminants animal feed ingredients animal
feeding animal health animal processing animal
products animal waste animals antibiotics Bacteria
bakery products biological agent CAC Caragene
protocol CCFH cereal products cheese
chemical agent Codex Committees commodities Consum
er health diseases eggs exposure
assessment fabrication FAO fishes food food
additives food consumption food contaminants food
export food import food ingredients food
safety food-borne diseases fungi good hygienic
practices hazard hazard characterization hazard
identification human health human nutrition
humans international agreements international
food trade international governmental
organizations IPPC labelling meat microorganisms m
icroorganisms byproducts microorganisms
processing microorganisms products microorganisms
waste milk milk products milk products non-pathoge
ns OIE packaging parasites pathogens physical
agent plant byproducts plant diseases plant feed
additives plant feed contaminants
plant feed ingredients plant feeding plant
health plant processing plant products plant
waste plants processed animal products processed
plant products processed products processing risk
analysis risk assessment risk characterization ris
k communication risk management slaughter SPS
agreement standards sugar TBT agreement transport
viruses WHO WTO
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29 Unique Relationships
adopts adversely affect are included in are
produced by are the source for can be used
as constitutes describes determines ensures establ
ishes govern has economical impact
on Implies includes
influences interacts with is a consequence of is
a step in the process is comprised of is
established by is protected by originate
from refer to requires rule sustains trades uses
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Current project statusOntology creation 2nd
application of framework
100 domain Specific documents
List of frequent terms
Text To Onto
Food Safety OntologyPrototype 102 concepts 183
relationships
1st acquisitionapproach
2nd acquisitionapproach
Revised Ontology Pruner
Pruned Agrovoc 3000 concepts
AGROVOC
Merging Refinement
Ontology Editor (OIModeler)
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Usage Scenario
Ontology based search extension
Ontology Enabled Search Application
Ontology
Search results
Doc base
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Current project status Application Ontology
Browser for the Ontology on Food Safety, Animal
and Plant Health
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The Project for an Agricultural Ontology Service

• Only agreed semantic standards guarantee
  knowledge discovery between different
  applications
• The definition of Knowledge Organization systems
  is resource intensive
• Therefore FAO started initiatives to bring
  interested partners together
• October 2000 Launch of the AGStandards initiative
  to agree on metadata standards
• July 2001 concept paper on Agricultural Ontology
  Service

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What does Agricultural Ontology Service mean?

• The Agricultural Ontology Service is an approach
  to organize knowledge organization systems that
  is
• International
• The Internet must become plurilingual
• Multidisciplinary
• The area of subjects is broad and needs various
  inputs
• Cooperative
• different expert knowledge has to be associated
  and used
• Distributed
• no central ownership should be looked for
• Coordinated
• Coordination must ensure reusability and
  standardization

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AOS Iterative Knowledge Registration
Components terms, definitions, relationships
KOS uses components to build an application
Agricultural Ontology Service (AOS) Federated
storage and description facility
Components terms, definitions, relationships
Discussions and choices for amendments to
components
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Activities up to now

• 4 workshops (Rome, Wallingford, Florida,
  Cobenhavn) and numerous presentations have been
  organized to discuss the role of ontologies and
  semantic standards
• Several prototypes for ontology use are in
  preparation
• The AGROVOC thesaurus has been enhanced
  especially in multilinguality

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AOS a business model

• A consortium of Information Providers
• A clearinghouse for semantic standards in the
  relevant subject areas
• One stop access to agreed standards (Ontologies,
  Metadataschemas, Vocabularies)
• Participation as a consortium in semantic web
  activities to get funding for specific projects
  (Semkos for EU 6th framework)
• Organization of seminars and workshops to further
  develop and promote the use of semantic standards

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Further Information

• http//www.fao.org/agris/AOS
• http//www.fao.org/agris/AGMES