Bags (was: closing semantic issues)

At 05:35 PM 11/6/01 -0600, Pat Hayes wrote:
>>If RDF is going to have something called rdf:Bag, then its *RDF* semantics
>>should conform to the generally-accepted meaning of bags, and not to some
>>other meaning.
>
>I disagree. rdf:Bag is a class, is all. RDF is no more obliged to say 
>precisely what it means than it is for any other class.

In view of your recent comments about bags and entailments I was wondering 
if *any* of the current container frameworks adequately capture the 
"generally-accepted" meaning of bags; e.g. (using {* ... *} to enclose 
members of a bag):

     {* a, a, b *}  being the same bag as  {* a, b, a *}

The problem you mentioned with ordinal member properties is that RDF 
inference doesn't provide for the retraction of statements.  In 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2001Nov/0150.html you 
said, in response to DanC:

[[[
DanC:
>         _:b rdf:type rdf:Bag.
>         _:b rdf:_1 "abc".
>         _:b rdf:_2 "def".
>
>entails
>
>         _:b rdf:type rdf:Bag.
>         _:b rdf:_2 "abc".
>         _:b rdf:_1 "def".
>
>and generally: the _n arcs of a bag can be permuted.

PatH:

That doesn't work. If it entails that, then it must also entail:

         _:b rdf:type rdf:Bag.
         _:b rdf:_1 "abc".
         _:b rdf:_2 "def".
         _:b rdf:_2 "abc".
         _:b rdf:_1 "def".

so just saying 'can be permuted' isn't enough. The fact is that we really 
shouldn't have indexed selectors on things that are supposed to be bags, 
since once you use those selectors once, the bag is ordered, whether you 
like it or not. You can only 'permute' it if you have state, and RDF has no 
states to permute over. Monotonic inference only adds conclusions, it can't 
do things like permutation.
]]]

I was thinking that a bag represented using a list-type expression might 
have the same problem:

Can:
       _:a list:head "abc" .
       _:a list:tail _:a1 .
       _:a1 list:head "def" .
       _:a1 list:tail list:Nil .

entail:
       _:a list:head "def" .
       _:a list:tail _:a2 .
       _:a2 list:head "abc" .
       _:a2 list:tail list:Nil .

without also entailing:
       _:a list:head "abc" .
       _:a list:head "def" .
       _:a list:tail _:a1 .
       _:a list:tail _:a2 .
       _:a1 list:head "def" .
       _:a1 list:tail list:Nil .
       _:a2 list:head "abc" .
       _:a2 list:tail list:Nil .

which looks to me like an ill-formed list.

...

One thought I has was a bag representation sort-of like a set but also 
having a repeat count for each member:

     _:a bag:contains _:a1 .
     _:a bag:contains _:a2 .
     _:a1 bag:value "abc" .
     _:a1 bag:count "1" .
     _:a1 bag:value "def" .
     _:a1 bag:count "1" .

No entailment is needed to represet the equivalkent of permutation.  I 
think other entailments here work fine;  consider {* _:b1, _:b2 *}:

     _:a bag:contains _:a1 .
     _:a bag:contains _:a2 .
     _:a1 bag:value _:b1 .
     _:a1 bag:count "1" .
     _:a2 bag:value _:b2 .
     _:a2 bag:count "1" .

if we then learn that _:b1 and _:b2 are equivalent, this could be said to 
entail:

     _:a bag:contains _:a1 .
     _:a1 bag:value _:b1 .
     _:a1 bag:count "2" .

but without retracting other statements, I think the following is also 
entailed, without problem:

     _:a bag:contains _:a1 .
     _:a bag:contains _:a2 .
     _:a1 bag:value _:b1 .
     _:a1 bag:count "1" .
     _:a1 bag:count "2" .
     _:a2 bag:value _:b2 .
     _:a2 bag:count "1" .

(i.e. all orginal statements still present), provided we are content to say 
that bag:count indicates that the bag contains *at least* the indicated 
number of given member value;  thus, for all _:ai :
     _:ai bag_count "2"
entails
     _:ai bag_count "1"

...

Another thought I had was to back of from direct entailment.  Returning to 
Dan's original formulation:

[[[
>         _:b rdf:type rdf:Bag.
>         _:b rdf:_1 "abc".
>         _:b rdf:_2 "def".
>
>entails
>
>         _:b rdf:type rdf:Bag.
>         _:b rdf:_2 "abc".
>         _:b rdf:_1 "def".
]]]

to say instead that:

        ex:subj ex:prop _:b1.
         _:b1 rdf:type rdf:Bag.
         _:b1 rdf:_1 "abc".
         _:b1 rdf:_2 "def".

entails:

        ex:subj ex:prop _:b2.
         _:b2 rdf:type rdf:Bag.
         _:b2 rdf:_1 "def".
         _:b2 rdf:_2 "abc".

#g


------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Klyne                    MIMEsweeper Group
Strategic Research              <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
<Graham.Klyne@MIMEsweeper.com>
------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Wednesday, 7 November 2001 05:33:00 UTC