RE: Including Semantics

Including Semantics
  -----Original Message-----
  From: www-ws-arch-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-arch-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Burdett, David
  Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 4:30 PM
  To: 'Duane Nickull'
  Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org
  Subject: Including Semantics


  Duane asked ...

  >>>One missing component I would like to see is semantics.  David - do you
  think there is a way to leverage the semantics of UBL, CCTS for the
WSAG?<<<

  Semantics is a whole big topic on its own, but here's my take of the
semantic information that you might need to define. Note I'm looking at this
from a "business use" perspective:

  1. Document Semantics. At the highest level a namespace identifies a
document as consisting of a set of fields. Within this there are two
additional levels to consider:

    a) Individual fields. Each field needs to be defined, e.g. what does
"CustomerId" mean, e.g. is it the ID by which the Customer identifies
themselves or the id which the supplier uses to identify the customer?

    b) Fields within a document, e.g. The Customer ID could appear can
appear in multiple places in the document - how does its meaning vary
depending on where it exists.

  2. Context Dependent Semantics. The content of a message can also depend
on the context in which it is being used, for example an Invoice in Europe
is different from an Invoice in the US as it contains different fields.
Similarly an Invoice used in the travel industry contains additional line
item information (e.g flight segments) that other industries (e.g. the
chemical industry) don't need.

  3. Message Semantics. Messages >can< consist of multiple parts where you
could describe each "part" as a document. You then need to, in the context
of the message, define what each document mean, for example you might want
to attach a supplier generated delivery note when requesting a "return
materials advice" for some faulty goods. In this case the delivery note is
evidence that delivery occured. This is different from its first use when
the delivery note informs the buyer of what the supplier has shipped, but
not yet delivered.

  4. Transaction Semantics. The same message with the same structure and
same semantics can be treated differently depending on where it is being
sent and the context in which it is being used. For example sending an Order
Message to an off-site archival service for archiving would have different
meaning than sending the "identical" message to a supplier.

  So yes I think you could leverage the semantics of UBL etc, but that is
just the start and my best >guess< is that you could use header information
in a SOAP message to codify the semantics of the message ... although this
sound very non-RESTafarian ;)

  Also ... this is a trout hole ... how does the W3C work on the Semantic
Web fit in with all of this ;)

  Just looking at the perspective of Semantic Web, could we not use RDF to
create maps of semantic information?

  For example, I can describe the semantics of a type using RDF (customerID)
by referencing the type definition, but also the semantics of the content of
a type (order/billing/address vs. order/shipping/address) if I can reference
an XSD particle. And I can have both semantics, one that applies to address
in isolation, and one that extends that semantics when address is used in
some context.

  I would guess that the same is possible for transactions. For example,
e.g. the address of the invoice that is sent by activity X of transaction Y.
All I need is a way to reference a resource that can be part of a larger
resource in the RDF description and then provide that semantic in the RDF.

  arkin







  David



  -----Original Message-----
  From: Duane Nickull [mailto:duane@xmlglobal.com]
  Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 4:00 PM
  To: Burdett, David
  Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org
  Subject: Re: Layers in the WSA (was RE: [Fwd: UN/CEFACT TMG Releases
  e-Bus ines s Architecture Technical Specification for Public Review])

  <SNIP/>