RE: data smushing

At 09:37 AM 1/3/01 +0000, Bill dehOra wrote:

> > If
> >    [nodeX, propertyY, whatever] and;
> >    [nodeY, propertyY, whatever] and;
> >    [nodeX, rdf:type, nodeZ] and;
> >    [nodeY, rdf:type, nodeZ] and;
> >    [propertyY, atMostOneEntityValue, "yes"];
> > then
> >    smush (nodeX, nodeY).
>
>
>Isn't 'smushing' just unification hacking; am I missing something?

That's an interesting thought.

I think, however, that there's more to smushing (which I understand to mean 
detection of equivalent resources from their description and/or usage).

Unification uses a sequence of variable->subexpression substitutions to 
make two expressions the same, and is based entirely on the form of the 
expressions concerned.

Smushing, OTOH:
(a) operates in the other direction -- i.e. it seeks to determine 
equivalent identifiers rather than equivalent expressions.
(b) may depend on more than just the form of expressions used.  In some 
cases, I think domain knowledge may be needed (at least, in some levels of 
DanBri's taxonomy 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2000Dec/0191.html>)

However, Unification and examination of the resulting substitution set 
might prove to be an interesting technique here.

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
(GK@ACM.ORG)