RE: SKOS & SIMILE, concepts, terms, URIs, mappings

Oops, forgot to put [1] ref on previous mail - the RDF Encoding of
Multilingual Thesauri Report ...

http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/SWAD/deliverables/8.3.html

Al.


---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440



> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
> [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Miles, AJ 
> (Alistair)
> 
> Sent: 09 June 2004 18:19
> To: 'Butler, Mark'; (www-rdf-dspace@w3.org)
> Cc: 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
> Subject: RE: SKOS & SIMILE, concepts, terms, URIs, mappings
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Mark, 
> 
> In reply to this question ...
> 
> > - how can you provide versions of an altLabel in multiple languages?
> > BTW, I did discuss with Damian Steer, and he pointed out 
> the multiple
> > language problem could be solved using bNodes. 
> 
> This needs careful analysis.  The effort in SKOS has been to 
> be utterly
> clear about which nodes in the graph represent a piece of 
> meaning (concept),
> and which represent lexical or symbolic labels.  
> 
> So it is entirely reasonable to say something like ...
> 
> 	<skos:Concept rdf:nodeID="a">
> 		<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="en">Cats</skos:prefLabel>
> 		<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="fr">Chats</skos:prefLabel>
> 	<skos:Concept>
> 
> ... but to say something like ...
> 
> 	<skos:Concept rdf:nodeID="b">
> 		<skos:prefLabel>
> 			<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="c">
> 				<rdf:value 
> xml:lang="en">Cats</rdf:value>
> 				<rdf:value 
> xml:lang="fr">Chats</rdf:value>
> 			</rdf:Description>
> 		</skos:prefLabel>
> 	</skos:Concept>
> 
> ... would break the whole model, because what does the "c" 
> node represent?
> The only reasonable interpretation is that it is a piece of 
> meaning, because
> the only thing that connects the two strings is their 
> received meaning.  And
> so we now have a concept as the value for a labelling property!!! 
> 
> The correct (first) example above uses the 'multilingual 
> labelling approach'
> (see [1]), which is essentially the rough and ready way of doing
> multilingual thesauri.  To be more precise about modelling 
> these sorts of
> structures, one needs to take the 'interlingual mapping 
> approach' as in e.g.
> ...
> 
> 	<skos:Concept rdf:nodeID="a">
> 		<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="en">Cats</skos:prefLabel>
> 	</skos:Concept>
> 
> 	<skos:Concept rdf:nodeID="b">
> 		<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="fr">Chats</skos:prefLabel>
> 	</skos:Concept>
> 
> 	<rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="a">
> 		<skos-map:exactMatch rdf:nodeID="b"/>
> 	</rdf:Description>
> 
> Note that the mapping statement does not necessarily follow 
> from the fact
> that 'chats' is the usual french translation of the english 
> word 'cats'.  If
> I added the statement ...
> 
> 	<skos:Concept rdf:nodeID="a">
> 		<skos:altLabel xml:lang="en>Cool dudes</skos:altLabel>
> 	</skos:Concept>
> 
> ... it would become obvious that the mapping statement is in 
> fact entirely
> incorrect - that what the "a" node actually intends is 
> something completely
> different from the concept of the furry things that purr.
> 
> Anyway, hope this helps :) 
> 	
> Yours,
> 
> Alistair.
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Alistair Miles
> Research Associate
> CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
> Building R1 Room 1.60
> Fermi Avenue
> Chilton
> Didcot
> Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
> United Kingdom
> Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
> > [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Butler, Mark
> > Sent: 08 June 2004 14:51
> > To: (www-rdf-dspace@w3.org)
> > Cc: 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
> > Subject: RE: SKOS & SIMILE, concepts, terms, URIs, mappings
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hi Alistair
> > 
> > > I have some ideas about how to express lexical mappings 
> > > that does not require the altLabels to have their own URI.
> > 
> > I would be interested to hear your proposals here?
> > 
> > Here is the use case we had in SIMILE:
> > 
> > I have some Artstor data that uses the term "cadavers" (which 
> > is a preferred
> > term in the Artstor data), and I want to map onto the LOC TGM 
> > thesaurus. In
> > LOC TGM, cadavers is an alternative term for both "dead 
> > animals" and "dead
> > persons". Therefore, my guess is LOC decided that the term 
> > "cadavers" was
> > ambiguous, so they decided to encourage cataloguers to use 
> > the two less
> > ambiguous terms. However here the concept corresponding to 
> cadaver is
> > actually the union of the concepts that have "dead animals" 
> and "dead
> > persons" as their primary terms. 
> > 
> > So if I want to create a mapping between the Artstor data and 
> > the LOC TGM,
> > how should I do it using SKOS for the record that uses the 
> > term "cadavers"?
> > I think I want a semantic mapping here, even though I am 
> mapping to an
> > alternative term?
> > 
> > As well as the use case above, I think there are a number of 
> > other things
> > that seem difficult due to not giving altLabels their own 
> > URIs - perhaps you
> > also have workarounds for them?
> > 
> > - how can you provide versions of an altLabel in multiple languages?
> > 
> > - lots of web APIs (for example fetch, the Longwell and 
> > Brownsauce browsers)
> > use URIs to identify objects. Is there a way of identifying 
> > altLabels that
> > is compatible with these APIs?
> > 
> > BTW, I did discuss with Damian Steer, and he pointed out 
> the multiple
> > language problem could be solved using bNodes. This doesn't 
> > help the web API
> > problem, but FOAF uses bNodes in a similar way, so some web 
> > APIs are coming
> > up with ways to solve the problem for the FOAF case, so perhaps an
> > alternative solution might be to use a bNode?
> > 
> > > RE: lexical mappings
> > 
> > > This is splitting hairs a little bit, but I think it would 
> > > be more accurate to say that a lexical mapping may or may 
> > > not reflect a close semantic mapping.  So a lexical mapping 
> > > is never 'incorrect' if it captures some sort of lexical 
> > > similarity between labels, even if there is no semantic 
> > > mapping between the corresponding concepts. 
> > 
> > We used edit distance measures, so taking this approach 
> > "fountains" and
> > "mountains" are as close as "corpse" and "corpses". I was 
> > thinking of the
> > first one as being "incorrect" whereas the second one is "correct".
> > 
> > Now conceptually you are right that they are both correct 
> > lexical mappings.
> > So maybe what I am actually doing is generating lexical 
> > mappings, then human
> > reviewing them to turn them into semantic mappings, only the 
> > change from
> > lexical mappings to semantic mapping is not explicit (because 
> > I don't fancy
> > doing lots of retyping by change the property names in the N3!)
> > 
> > This is a pragmatic approach for now - longer term, I think 
> > SIMILE intends
> > to develop tools to do this type of task, so then it might be 
> > possible to
> > change the properties so they actually reflect when a mapping 
> > relation is
> > changed from being just a lexical mapping to a semantic mapping.
> > 
> > > Could you possibly provide me with a list 
> > > of all the types of useful lexical mapping you 
> > > can think of?  
> > 
> > No, sorry. I guess people like the WordNet and Cyc 
> > communities have thought
> > about this, and you may be more familiar with this work than I am?
> > 
> > best regards
> > 
> > Dr Mark H. Butler
> > Research Scientist, HP Labs Bristol
> > http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/marbut 
> > 
>

Received on Wednesday, 9 June 2004 13:44:56 UTC