RE: candidate and deprecated concepts

No time to explore this in detail. But there is a grey area in the
definition of "concept", concerning broad concepts and narrow concepts.
The concept of Tropical products is quite a broad one, broader than
Tropical fruits and much broader than Bananas. So in one sense it holds
all those narrower concepts within it, and the broader term becomes the
preferred term for those narrower concepts. In this sense, the narrower
concepts are still there, whether or not their presence is revealed by
providing a non-preferred term. Another way to look at it is to say No,
you should use Tropical products only in the context of queries or
documents that deal with the subject broadly. And when narrower
preferred terms are present, that is what we do say. But when the
narrower terms are non-preferred, pointing to the broader one, we
usually allow that broader term to be used for all the narrower concepts
within its scope. Sorry, I am not articulating this well. It is just a
pragmatic way of dealing with concepts that works fine when you have
trained people using the thesaurus. But open to all sorts of hazards
when the process is automated.
Must dash. Not sure if that helps.
Stella

*****************************************************
Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
*****************************************************



-----Original Message-----
From: Miles, AJ (Alistair) [mailto:A.J.Miles@rl.ac.uk] 
Sent: 08 October 2004 15:44
To: 'Stella Dextre Clarke'; 'Leonard Will'; public-esw-thes@w3.org
Subject: RE: candidate and deprecated concepts


Hi Stella,

> It is unusual to drop a concept altogether.
> Normally one
> provides a lead-in entry pointing to the broader concept that 
> covers the
> scope of the preferred term that is now to be "deprecated".

... but this *is* to drop a concept, and say 'now use this concept
instead', surely?
 
> Much more likely would be to decide that that subject area should be 
> indexed at a much shallower level of specificity. So, for example, in 
> a thesaurus for agricultural products, it might be decided that 
> tropical products should no longer be covered in detail. Where
> previously you had
> Bananas, Pineapples, Brazil nuts etc as preferred terms ( with a
> hierarchy of BTs such as Tropical fruits all the way up to Tropical
> products), you might leave just one term "Tropical products" to cover
> all of these. In the thesaurus you would organise entries such as
> "Bananas USE Tropical products" - perhaps hundreds of such 
> entries. Now
> where is the "deprecated concept"? 

The 'deprecated concepts' are all of the concepts that where previously
reified in the thesaurus by the presence of a preferred term which is no
longer preferred.

(I.e. Every preferred term in a thesaurus reifies a concept.
Non-preferred terms expand upon and refine the meaning of a concept.  If
you change a term from preferred to non-preferred, you are essentially
dropping a concept from the thesaurus.)

> I don't warm, either, to the idea of a concept getting "replaced" by 
> another one, unless they are so close that you would treat the two as 
> quasi-synonymous. You are hardly going to replace Bananas with Washing

> machines?

But in the above example, you are suggesting that the concept with
prefLabel 'Bananas' should be replaced (in indexing metadata) by the
concept with prefLabel 'Tropical products'.

> So the idea of a "deprecated concept" just feels a bit alien.

I am sensitive to this.  I'm just looking to find a way to model and to
represent (in RDF) at least some of the features of the change process
... I have the idea that this information explicitly captured would be
valuable.

Al. 

> 
> Stella
> 
> *****************************************************
> Stella Dextre Clarke
> Information Consultant
> Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
> Tel: 01235-833-298
> Fax: 01235-863-298
> SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
> *****************************************************
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Miles, AJ
> (Alistair)
> Sent: 07 October 2004 15:42
> To: 'Leonard Will'; 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
> Subject: RE: candidate and deprecated concepts
> 
> 
> 
> I'm actually thinking about supporting candidate/deprecated *concepts*

> (and not terms), which brings a slightly different set of 
> requirements.
> 
> Al.
> 
> ---
> Alistair Miles
> Research Associate
> CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
> Building R1 Room 1.60
> Fermi Avenue
> Chilton
> Didcot
> Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
> United Kingdom
> Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
> > [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Leonard Will
> > Sent: 07 October 2004 15:20
> > To: 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
> > Subject: Re: candidate and deprecated concepts
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > In message 
> > <350DC7048372D31197F200902773DF4C05E50C7D@exchange11.rl.ac.uk>
> >  on Thu, 7
> > Oct 2004, "Miles, AJ (Alistair)" <A.J.Miles@rl.ac.uk> wrote
> > >
> > >The paradigm (as I understand it) in the thesaurus world is
> > for terms (or
> > >concepts) to go through three stages: candidate, accepted,
> > deprecated (i.e.
> > >replaced).
> > >
> > >We can use dcterms:replaces and dcterms:isReplacedBy to
> > describe concept
> > >replacements I think (although how to handle replacement
> > with combinations
> > >is uncertain yet).
> > 
> > If use of a term is discontinued, it is good practice to retain it 
> > as a non-preferred term, with a USE pointer to the term or
> combination of
> > terms that should be used in future for the concept that it
> > represented. 
> > A history note should indicate when it was used for indexing.
> > 
> > I don't think that you need to distinguish between "deprecated" and 
> > "non-preferred" terms, which you would express as altLabels. As you 
> > have noted, you do however have to handle combinations such as:
> > 
> > "physics education  USE  physics  AND  education"
> > 
> > Leonard
> > -- 
> > Willpower Information       (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, 
> > Sheena E Will)
> > Information Management Consultants              Tel: +44 
> > (0)20 8372 0092
> > 27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex EN2 7BQ, UK. Fax: +44 (0)870 051 
> > 7276
> > L.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk               
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> > ---------------- <URL:http://www.willpowerinfo.co.uk/>
> > -----------------
> > 
> 
>

Received on Friday, 8 October 2004 15:51:07 UTC