Re: [OEP] n-ary relations and topic maps

I think this issue is more general than Topic Maps.  In both OWL and RDF, the
question is whether there should be a set of annotations to indicate that a
particular set of constructs is actually part of a larger pattern.  The n-ary
relation case is most obvious because other representations support n-ary
relations natively.  Users consistently ask to see ontologies at a higher level
of abstraction.  That's part of what patterns were about.  To achieve this, we
need annotations to indicate the patterns.

Would a sensible procedure be to seek to establish a namespace suggestion for
such annotation properties?  Is there any mechanism for doing so?

Regards

Alan


Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

> * Bernard Vatant
> |
> | For the record, the idea to add a note about TM to the n-ary
> | document arose before the TM Task Force was formed.
> |
> | I agree with Lars and Fabien.
>
> I'm glad to hear that.
>
> However, I think we now lost the point I *was* making. The n-ary
> document is presumably going to make recommendations about how to
> express n-ary relationships in RDF, and the RDFTM documents should
> note this and
>
>   1) explain how an RDF->TM converter can detect such relationships
>      and correctly convert them to n-ary topic map associations,
>
>   and
>
>   2) explain how a TM->RDF converter can represent n-ary topic map
>      association in RDF.
>
> It now seems like this is mostly something for the RDFTM TF to think
> about, but possibly with some consequences for the n-ary relations
> draft.
>
> --
> Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
> GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >

--
Alan L Rector
Professor of Medical Informatics
Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
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Received on Friday, 10 December 2004 11:13:16 UTC