Include ontology for countries / country codes

[stap-m]

Description of the issue

For the annotation of study regions and other data to spatial regions, country names and codes are used. We should check ontologies, that provide these specifications and check whether we it makes sense to include them.

Ideas of solution

There is an ontology that includes ISO standardized country names and country codes (alpha 2 and alpha 3) fom OMG. https://www.omg.org/spec/LCC/1.1 https://www.omg.org/spec/LCC/1.1 See also the documentation: https://www.omg.org/spec/LCC/1.1 https://www.omg.org/spec/LCC/1.1/PDF And the RDF-file to the respective ontology: https://www.omg.org/spec/LCC/20190201/Countries/ISO3166-1-CountryCodes.rdf

Workflow checklist

• [ ] I am aware of the workflow for this repository

[l-emele]

Long time ago, we decided that we want to use GAZ:

We decided to close this issue and use the proposed solution down below. If this approach doesn't work this issue can be reopened

An alternative proposal would be to not include the ontology and instead just use it as another namespace/ used ontology when describing the factsheets and other models/scenarios. That way we don't have to limit ourselves to just parts of the ontology. What we can't do is involve classes of that geo ontology in our axioms but if such a case happens we can still easily include the needed classes.

Originally posted by @akleinau in https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/ontology/issues/76#issuecomment-696089796

[stap-m]

I see, thanks for the link. GAZ doesn't contain country codes, though, which are used widely in the domain. Maybe we could reconsider, which ontology to choose.

I guess, we don't need to axiomatize the countries. So the proposed approach by @akleinau might work for the OEKG purpose.

[l-emele]

That's fine. I just wanted to remember that we already discussed this topic. But I am open to use a different ontology like LCC.

[areleu]

Concretely, how would the Geo ontology would be used? would we assign a spatial region to a country code? with the is_about property?

[l-emele]

I think, we somehow have to express that the class geographic region from LCC is either a subclass of or equivalent to our spatial region (which itself is not an OEO defined class but a BFO class). Maybe we can use the annotation property owl:equivalentClass here?

@OpenEnergyPlatform/oeo-general-expert-formal-ontology : Any suggestions here?

[nelekoehler]

Implementing the whole LCC ontology seems not so ideal because Geographic region from LCC is not well compatible with Spatial region in our ontology. Neither equivalent class nor subclass captures the relation between the two. Also, the definitions of geographic region, country, etc. in the LCC are very circular and not really pratical. One option would be to just use the Country codes or otherwise look for other ontologies, it depends a bit on what the goal is.

[viktorwichern]

If all we want is to annotate data with country codes, we could maybe implement a relation like 'has geographical origin' and then add the country codes as individuals under a placeholder class (for example just 'country codes').

[viktorwichern]

So my idea is to add country codes under spatial region and use has origin.

(Or add has country code as a Data Property but that's probably a weird idea)

Any opinions? @l-emele @stap-m

[l-emele]

Why do you think, origin can be applied here? By definition Origin is a quality of a portion of matter or energy based on where it comes from. It is inherited from its primary sources. A spatial region is neither a material entity nor an energy. It's quite the opposite: A spatial region is an immaterial entity.

[stap-m]

@viktorwichern this was also discussed in the last oeo-dev-meeting (no. 63). Obviously, it was not documented here. Please check the notes.

[viktorwichern]

@l-emele you are right, I did not check origin apparently and just assumed, sorry.

@viktorwichern this was also discussed in the last oeo-dev-meeting (no. 63). Obviously, it was not documented here. Please check the notes.

Sorry I did not know, however I can't find any notes about the meeting, https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/ontology/wiki/OEO-developer-meetings has just linked the protocols to 60, and I couldn't find anything on the Etherpad either. I'm sure I'm just blind, sorry.

[stap-m]

The decision of the meeting # 63 was to not include contries and country codes into oeo for now. For the usage in oekg and oemetadata, our current main applications, we use LLC-codes. At a later state, GAZ and LLC-codes should be mapped and combined ontologically, e.g. in a separate module, and as annotations or data properties.

I think it would be useful to define the basic concept of country code and its relation to a country / spatial region in the oeo anyway. Then it could be reused in a unified manner.

[stap-m]

Also from oeo-dev-63:

• Idee: Projekt oder Masterarbeit
  • Eigenes [OEO-]Modul
  • GAZ und LCC/Country codes kombinieren
  • eurostat, Location Vocabulary
  • Codes als Annotationen oder Data Properties