friendly reminders

[Bruskiewich, Richard (IRRI)]

Hi Pankaj,

I missed a chance to meet with an Agrovoc principal while in Rome in
February. Not sure how that initiative is going.

I guess my main point was to build some flexibility into our
representations, to ensure linguistic universality. Like you say, many folks
might help out with the actual translation, and yes... Keeping things
synchronized is a problem.

For our part here, we'll probably embed some flexibility in our management
of ontology in Generation CP systems (at least, in our ICIS implementation
thereof), to partly meet the challenge, then get our NARES to work on
translations.

Cheers
Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: Pankaj Jaiswal [mailto:pj37 at cornell.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 10:14 PM
To: po-dev at plantontology.org
Cc: po-dev at plantontology.org; Michael Ashburner; Hintum, Theo van
Subject: RE: friendly reminders

Hi Richard,

There is an international effort going on with the help from FAO, AGVOC and
UMLS if I am not wrong, on doing the translations as well as integrating the
various vocabularies. These are called agricultural ontologies.
http://www.fao.org/agrovoc/

A couple of years ago I met the project coordinator from FAO and he was very
much interested in the PO and GO work. He even offerred that if we can
provide the ontologies in some exchangeable format like OWL/RDF formats, it
will help them in integrating our ontologies in their database. Not to
mention an added advantage is getting the translations in
5-6 major languages other than English. The only problem Michael cited was
on synchronizing translations with the GO & PO releases.

If this works out then I think we don't have to worry about semantics of
doing translations on our own. This will be an excellent example of working
with a major international organization. Since it is FAO, I am pretty sure
CGIAR will be more than willing to chip in with their help in coordinating
the exchange.


Pankaj


Bruskiewich, Richard (IRRI) said:
> One of Pankaj's points raises a issue here: translation of the POC/GO 
> into international languages...
>
> In principle, I don't see why we shouldn't be considering 
> "internationalization" of the POC (and GO) to accommodate ESL 
> researchers in other countries. I'm already considering such 
> generality in designing our next generation International Crop 
> Information System, that is, trying to split off the term "string" (in 
> unicode, of course) from the concept (indexed by accession identifier) 
> and the term definition (which could also be internationalized).
>
> I think that the CGIAR plant crop centers (and the ICIS project, and 
> the Generation CP) can probably help out in this regard given our 
> broad multi-national constituency, and extensive network of ESL 
> national research partners. If we collectively design the schemata to 
> accommodate such flexibility, then perhaps national partners from 
> major non-English speaking research constituencies will offer to do 
> the translation into their own languages(?). Big task, I know, but 
> doable...
>
> BTW, though English is one of the world's most widely spoken 
> languages, I wouldn't automatically assume that American English is 
> the dominant form...
> Considering the size of some major ESL countries in the British 
> Empire, like India ;-)))
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pankaj Jaiswal [mailto:pj37 at cornell.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 8:56 AM
> To: POC-dev
> Subject: friendly reminders
>
> Here are a few friendly reminders.
>
> -please do not use characters like ! # $ in the definitions.
> -The main term should always have an American english spelling if 
> required.
> -the synonyms can have British spellings.
> -Same goes with definitions. Try using the American English spellings.
> -do not use short forms of words like "str." for "structure" in the 
> definition. Always use full form.
> -Always prefix /suffix the desired term mane if its a combination of 
> noun and an adjective. e.g. "indehiscent fruits". Having only 
> "indehiscent" as term name is insufficient.
>
> There are some more things, which I will post later on. I did some of 
> the changes but asombody has to go through them again.
>
> Cheers
>
> Pankaj
>
> ************************
> Pankaj Jaiswal, PhD
> G15-Bradfiled Hall
> Dept. of Plant Breeding
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, NY-14853, USA
>
> Tel: +1-607-255-3103
>       +1-607-255-4109
> Fax: +1-607-255-6683
> http://www.gramene.org
> ************************
>
>


--
Pankaj Jaiswal
Gramene Database
www.gramene.org