Re: prov-dm derivation: three proposals to vote on (deadline Wednesday midnight GMT)

Hello Stian,

As you might expect, I'm supportive of your counter-proposal! I think
it lightly covers the key cases of derivation, and the suggested names
seem intuitive to me too.

The only thing that puzzled me was the use of 'dependedOn' in the
inference rules. Is this just a typo? I thought dependedOn was
replaced by wasBasedOn in your proposal? Or have I misunderstood
something here?

Thanks,
SImon

On 13 November 2011 13:28, Stian Soiland-Reyes
<soiland-reyes@cs.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'm with Simon on this. We need:
>
> 1) A way to say that A was derived from B, in the sense that B
> influence A somehow
> 1a) That this occurred by a single process which used B and later generated A
> 1b) That B was used arbitrary PE steps before A was generated (higher
> granularity does not break the derivation)
> 2) A way to say that A is part of B's lineage (arbitrary steps before)
> but not necessarily influenced it
>
> I don't think knowledge of which process execution or not it is
> matters. We know that there must have been a process execution to
> generate A. If A is derived (#1) or based on (#2) B - then there must
> exist a use/control-process-execution-generation path between A and B.
> The asserter might not know all these details.
>
> I suggest:
>
> wasBasedOn(A,B) (#2)
> wasDerivedFrom(A,B) (#1b)
>
> and that's it.
>
> wasBasedOn(A,B) states that there exists a PE which generated A, and a
> PE which B participated in (ie. was used by or controllled) - and
> these PEs are either the same, or it is possible to establish a chain
> of participation and generation of arbitrary entities and arbitrary
> PEs.
>
> wasBasedOn(A,B) is transitive and can be inferred iff:
> wasGeneratedBy(A, pe0)
> dependedOn(pe0, B)
> -or-
> wasGeneratedBy(A, pe0)
> dependedOn(pe0, x)
> wasBasedOn(x, B)
>
>
> There is no requirement that it is a single PE that used B and
> generated A - it might be a series of such inter-connected process
> executions.
>
> Unlike wasBasedOn() - wasDerivedFrom(A,B) is a stronger, explicit
> statement that adds information - it says that B influenced A. Without
> asserting wasDerivedFrom, a PE might have used B and generated A
> without such influence.
>
> As such it is not transitive, if wasDerivedFrom(A,x) and
> wasDerivedFrom(x,B) it does not follow that wasDerivedFrom(A,B).
> However wasDerivedFrom(A,x) always implies wasBasedOn(A,x) which *is*
> transitive, so you can at least conclude wasBasedOn(A,B).
>
> If the asserter wanted to include details that A was influenced by
> both B and x, then two wasDerivedFrom() assertions can be made.
>
> I think by keeping wasDerivedFrom() as such a subproperty of
> wasBasedOn() you allow the PE chain in both cases - and don't have to
> force a certain granularity of process executions.
>
>
> I can see the reason for qualifying which PE was involved in
> wasDerivedFrom(), because there could have been multiple PEs which
> used B - but not all of them contributed to the derivation that
> generated A. However I think it is too restrictive to lock this into a
> single PE.
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 14:58, Simon Miles <simon.miles@kcl.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hi Luc,
>>
>> Yes, I think the analogy is correct. I claim that C2 is not
>> necessarily derived from e, because of the nature of the collection. I
>> cannot claim that it is never derived from e.
>>
>> Being specific about the collection structure, maybe C0 is a tree, a
>> subtree e is added to make tree C1, then removed to make tree C2 (and
>> other changes might take place also). I claim that C2 was eventually
>> derived from C0 and from C1 but not e, as it wouldn't have made a
>> difference to C2 what subtree e contained or whether it had existed at
>> all. However, some might say it is odd to exclude e from C2's history
>> entirely as we don't know what would have occurred if e had not
>> existed, so we allow that C2 'depended on' e.
>>
>> I'm sure there are structures where adding then removing an element
>> has an effect on the eventual collection (the eventual collection
>> would not be as it is had it not been for the element). If so, then
>> the eventual collection would be derived from the element.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Simon
>>
>> On 10 November 2011 13:50, Luc Moreau <l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> Hi Simon,
>>>
>>> Still trying to understand what you wrote.
>>> Paraphrasing your example,
>>>
>>>  Someone asserts that a collection C2 is derived from collection C1 by
>>> removing e from C1
>>>  You claim that C2 is not necessarily derived from e,
>>>   or
>>>  do you claim that C2 is never derived from e,
>>>
>>> Is it a correct analogy?  which claim are you making?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Luc
>>>
>>> On 10/11/2011 10:46, Simon Miles wrote:
>>>> In my example, the designer may assert that the first draft page was
>>>> derived from the banner image ("DRAFT") that it contains, while the
>>>> publisher may assert that the published page (excluding the banner)
>>>> was derived from the first draft. But the published page is not
>>>> derived from the banner image, because it would not make any
>>>> difference should the banner have been different, or even not been
>>>> present at all, e.g. the first draft could still have existed even if
>>>> the banner had been deleted earlier. To allow a transitive
>>>> derivation-like relation to exist, it must have semantics so weak as
>>>> to allow the published page to be linked to the banner. I understood
>>>> this weakened relation to be dependedOn. This relation does not remove
>>>> the need for an actual derivation relation to be expressed. I don't
>>>> have a strong opinion on whether a transitive relation needs to exist.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr Simon Miles
>> Lecturer, Department of Informatics
>> Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
>> +44 (0)20 7848 1166
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Stian Soiland-Reyes, myGrid team
> School of Computer Science
> The University of Manchester
>



-- 
Dr Simon Miles
Lecturer, Department of Informatics
Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
+44 (0)20 7848 1166

Received on Sunday, 13 November 2011 13:42:59 UTC