Re: dwbp-ISSUE-134 (BernadetteLoscio): About Formats, schemas, vocabularies and data models [Best practices document(s)]

Dear All,

The key is to talk about meaning.

A vocabulary is not *simply* a set of terms, ... it is a set of
*meaningful* terms.

Thus, we can only talk about a vocabulary if there is a set of terms and
some means to establish their intended (or agreed) meaning. This means may
be simply descriptions of the terms in natural language and/or some kind of
formal structure (e.g., an axiomatic theory with meaning postulates).

best regards,
João Paulo


On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Laufer <laufer@globo.com> wrote:

> Hi, All,
>
> I am a little bit confused. Reading the  discussions it seems (to me) that
> vocabulary would be strictly the nouns.
>
> If I understood correctly, I disagree.
>
> Maybe in natural languages this is the meaning of vocabulary but I don't
> think this is the meaning in our community.
>
> Best,
> Laufer
>
> 2015-02-12 12:52 GMT-02:00 Bernadette Farias Lóscio <bfl@cin.ufpe.br>:
>
> Hi Antoine,
>>
>> I agree with you that schema and vocabulary are defined in the same
>> place. A schema defined in XML Schema, a relational database schema or an
>> ontology define both the structure of data and the vocabulary.
>>
>> Maybe, its better to say that the schema defines both the structure used
>> to validate the data together with the vocabulary, i.e, the set of terms
>> used to specify this structure. Is it ok for you?
>>
>> cheers,
>> Bernadette
>>
>>
>>
>> 2015-02-09 18:34 GMT-03:00 Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>:
>>
>> Hi Bernadette,
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> I'm afraid it's still not clear. In Semantic Web parliance, both what
>>> you call the schema and the vocabulary would be defined in the same place -
>>> an ontology. I have the feeling that in other technologies that would be
>>> the same: in XML schema the terms would be introduced and given a
>>> definition (and a role in the data structure) in an XSD file, wouldn't they?
>>>
>>> Antoine
>>>
>>> On 2/6/15 5:38 PM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Antoine,
>>>>
>>>> I'm sorry, it was my mistake: Person is part of the vocabulary.
>>>>
>>>> Person(name, age, sex, id) defines the schema of the relation, where
>>>> Person is the name of the relation and (name, age and sex) are attributes
>>>> of Person.
>>>>
>>>> person, name, age, sex, id are terms that compose the vocabulary.
>>>>
>>>> cheers,
>>>> Bernadette
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2015-02-06 11:40 GMT-03:00 Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl <mailto:
>>>> aisaac@few.vu.nl>>:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         - the structure of the data should be referred to as the data
>>>> schema
>>>>         - the collection of terms used in the schema to describe how to
>>>>         interpret data values should be refered to as the vocabulary
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         Person(name, age, sex, id) --> this is the schema
>>>>         terms name, age, sex and id --> this is the vocabulary
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     I am sorry but I don't understand the proposal! Is the definition
>>>> 'Person' part of the schema but not in the vocabulary? The definition of
>>>> 'name' is in the vocabulary and not in the schema?
>>>>
>>>>     Antoine
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     On 2/3/15 5:02 PM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         Hi all,
>>>>
>>>>         I'd like to discuss with you the difference between vocabulary,
>>>> data
>>>>         schema, data model and data format. João Paulo started this
>>>> discussion
>>>>         earlier in this message:
>>>>         https://lists.w3.org/Archives/__Public/public-dwbp-wg/
>>>> 2015Jan/__0195.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-dwbp-
>>>> wg/2015Jan/0195.html>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         It is worth to read the whole message to better understand the
>>>>         definitions. In the following, I show just parts of the message
>>>> with
>>>>         some definitions:
>>>>         -------------------------
>>>>         - About data representation and data format
>>>>
>>>>         "By "data representation" we mean any convention for the
>>>> arrangement of
>>>>         symbols in such a way as to enable information to be encoded by
>>>> a data
>>>>         producer and later decoded by data consumers.
>>>>
>>>>         A particular convention for data representation is often
>>>> referred to as a
>>>>         "data format"."
>>>>
>>>>         ....
>>>>
>>>>         - About schemas
>>>>
>>>>         For example, an XML-based format can be
>>>>         specified with a "schema document" in the XML Schema Definition
>>>> language,
>>>>         enabling XML documents to be checked for conformance to the
>>>> format defined
>>>>         in the schema document [XML-SCHEMA].
>>>>
>>>>         "schemas" are often used as a means to anchor natural language
>>>>         descriptions to guide humans in the interpretation of data
>>>> produced using
>>>>         the format. Often, labels are used in these schemas to convey
>>>> intuitive
>>>>         meaning and guide interpretation, in which case these labels
>>>> serve the role
>>>>         of "terms" in communication. The collection of terms as used in
>>>> the schema
>>>>         is then referred to as a "vocabulary".
>>>>
>>>>         ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>         The notion of schema presented above is similar to the one of
>>>>         relational schema in the database world. A relational database
>>>> schema
>>>>         describes the set of relation schemas of a given database. A
>>>> relation
>>>>         schema is composed by the name of the relation together with its
>>>>         attributes. This specifies how to interpret instances of a given
>>>>         relation (or table). In the database world, a data model
>>>> consists of a
>>>>         set of constructs to build databases. For example, in the
>>>> relational
>>>>         model, databases are represented as a collection of relations
>>>> (or
>>>>         tables).
>>>>
>>>>         IMO vocabularies may be used to describe data schemas even when
>>>> the
>>>>         RDF model is not being used. Vocabularies should be used to
>>>> help tasks
>>>>         like data integration and to improve data interoperability.
>>>>
>>>>         In this case, I suggest:
>>>>
>>>>         - the structure of the data should be referred to as the data
>>>> schema
>>>>         - the collection of terms used in the schema to describe how to
>>>>         interpret data values should be refered to as the vocabulary
>>>>         - the abstract syntax to define schemas should be referred to
>>>> as data model
>>>>
>>>>         Example  (relational schema defined according to the relational
>>>> data model):
>>>>
>>>>         Person(name, age, sex, id) --> this is the schema
>>>>         terms name, age, sex and id --> this is the vocabulary
>>>>
>>>>         cheers,
>>>>         Bernadette
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         2015-01-22 13:46 GMT-03:00 Data on the Web Best Practices
>>>> Working
>>>>         Group Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org <mailto:
>>>> sysbot%2Btracker@w3.org>>:
>>>>
>>>>             dwbp-ISSUE-134 (BernadetteLoscio): About Formats, schemas,
>>>> vocabularies and data models  [Best practices document(s)]
>>>>
>>>>             http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/__track/issues/134 <
>>>> http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/track/issues/134>
>>>>
>>>>             Raised by: Joao Paulo Almeida
>>>>             On product: Best practices document(s)
>>>>
>>>>             The group needs to settle on some concepts (and ultimately
>>>> terms) that should help us to structure our discussions,  give us a basis
>>>> to communicate and help our audience to understand us.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Bernadette Farias Lóscio
>>>> Centro de Informática
>>>> Universidade Federal de Pernambuco - UFPE, Brazil
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> ----------------
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Bernadette Farias Lóscio
>> Centro de Informática
>> Universidade Federal de Pernambuco - UFPE, Brazil
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
>
>
> --
> .  .  .  .. .  .
> .        .   . ..
> .     ..       .
>

Received on Thursday, 12 February 2015 16:19:35 UTC