1) The document discusses different ontologies that model observations and measurements, including PROV, SSNX, OBOE, BCO, and how their terminology and conceptualizations of key concepts like "observation" differ. 2) It presents observation as an activity according to PROV and argues that sampling and actuation should also be modeled as activities. 3) Aligning the ontologies and grounding them in upper ontologies like BFO can help address misunderstandings from different modeling approaches.

1. PROV ontology
supports
alignment of
observational
data (models)
Simon J D Cox
LAND AND WATER
4 December 2017

2. Outline
• The problem – different terminologies
• Observation as an Activity
• Alignments
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments2 |

3. What’s the problem?
OM_Observation
+ phenomenonTime
+ resultTime
+ validTime [0..1]
+ resultQuality [0..*]
+ parameter [0..*]
GF_PropertyType
GFI_Feature
OM_Process Any
+observedProperty
1
0..*
+featureOfInterest 1
0..*
+procedure1 +result
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments
SJD Cox, OGC Abstract Specification – Topic 20: Observations and Measurements 2.0
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/om
ISO 19156:2011 Geographic Information – Observations and measurements
https://www.iso.org/standard/32574.html
O&M: ISO 19156
Geographic Information–
Observations and
Measurements
3 |

4. What’s the problem?
SSNX – Semantic
Sensor Network
ontology
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments4 |
The SSN ontology of the W3C semantic sensor network incubator group. Michael
Compton et al.. Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide
Web, 17:25-32 . December 2012.
URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826812000571

5. What’s the problem?
OBOE – the Extensible
Observation Ontology
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments5 |
OBOE: the Extensible Observation Ontology, version 1.1. Mark Schildhauer;
Matthew B. Jones; Shawn Bowers; Joshua Madin; Sergeui Krivov; Deana
Pennington; Ferdinando Villa; Benjamin Leinfelder; Christopher Jones; Margaret
O'Brien.2016. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5063/F11C1TTM

6. What’s the problem?
BCO - Biological
Collections Ontology
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments6 |
Walls, R. L., Deck, J., Guralnick, R., Baskauf, S., Beaman, R., Blum, S., …
Wooley, J. (2014). Semantics in support of biodiversity knowledge discovery:
an introduction to the biological collections ontology and related ontologies.
PloS One, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089606

7. This is the problem!
ISO 19156 O&M
– Observation
– result—Any
– procedure—Process
– observed-property—Property
– feature-of-interest—Feature
– phenomenon-time
– result-time
W3C SSNX
– Observation
– observationResult—SensorOutput
– observedBy—Sensor
– implements—Sensing(Process)
– detects—Stimulus
– isProxyFor—Property
– isPropertyOf—FeatureOfInterest
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments7 |
OBOE
– Measurement
– hasValue—Entity
– usesProtocol--Protocol
– ofCharacteristic—Characteristic
– measurementFor/ofEntity—Entity
OBI/BCO
– observing process
– material target of observation
– has specified input
– has specified output
– quality
– specimen
– specimen collection process

8. What is an observation?
OM_Observation
+ phenomenonTime
+ resultTime
+ validTime [0..1]
+ resultQuality [0..*]
+ parameter [0..*]
GF_PropertyType
GFI_Feature
OM_Process Any
+observedProperty
1
0..*
+featureOfInterest 1
0..*
+procedure1 +result
An Observation is an action whose
result is an estimate of the value
of some property of the feature-of-
interest, obtained using a specified
procedure
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments Cox, OGC Abstract Specification – Topic 20: Observations and Measurements 2.0
ISO 19156:2011 Geographic Information – Observations and measurements
8 |

9. Process-flow model
Core PROV
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments
Developed primarily for datasets, data products, reports
T. Lebo, S. Sahoo, D.L. McGuinness, PROV-O: The PROV Ontology, (2013).
http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/
9 |

10. An Observation is an Activity
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments10 |
A Haller, K Janowicz, S Cox, D Le Phuoc, K Taylor, M Lefrancois.
Semantic Sensor Network Ontology
W3C Recommendation 19 October 2017
https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-ssn/

11. BCO agrees
BCO - Biological
Collections Ontology
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments11 |

12. SSNX (through DUL alignment) does not
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments
• Observation, Process are ‘Social Objects’
• Not an ‘Event’
M. Compton, P. Barnaghi, L. Bermudez, R. García-Castro, O. Corcho, S.J.D. Cox, et al.,
The SSN ontology of the W3C semantic sensor network incubator group,
Web Semant. Sci. Serv. Agents World Wide Web. 17 (2012) 25–32. doi:10.1016/j.websem.2012.05.003.
12 |

13. MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments
M. Compton, D. Corsar, K. Taylor, Sensor Data Provenance:
SSNO and PROV-O Together at Last,
in: 7th Int. Work. Semant. Sens. Networks, 2014.
SSNX aligned to PROV
13 |

14. Sampling is also an Activity
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments14 |
A Haller, K Janowicz, S Cox, D Le Phuoc, K Taylor, M Lefrancois.
Semantic Sensor Network Ontology
W3C Recommendation 19 October 2017
https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-ssn/

15. OBI agrees
BCO - Biological
Collections Ontology
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments15 |
Bandrowski A, Brinkman R, Brochhausen M, Brush MH, Bug B, Chibucos MC, et al.
(2016) The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0154556.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154556

16. Actuation is also an Activity
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments16 |
A Haller, K Janowicz, S Cox, D Le Phuoc, K Taylor, M Lefrancois.
Semantic Sensor Network Ontology
W3C Recommendation 19 October 2017
https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-ssn/

17. PROV-O ↔ BFO
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments17 |

18. PROV-O ↔ OWL-Time
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments18 |

19. PROV-O ↔ SOSA
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments19 |

20. Summary
“observation” and “process” mean different things in different models
Inter-community discussions are vulnerable to misunderstandings
Grounding in traditional ‘upper ontologies’ doesn’t necessarily help!
SSNX-DUL vs OBI/BCO-BFO
Generating result of an observation is essentially a process-flow
 PROV-O provides a lightweight ‘upper ontology’ that can help
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments20 |

21. Land and Water
Simon Cox
Research Scientist
t +61 3 9545 2365
e simon.cox@csiro.au
w www.csiro.au
LAND AND WATER
Thank you

22. OBOE ↔ SOSA
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments22 |

23. BFO/OBI/BCO
MODSIM 2017 | Cox | Prov alignments23 |