RE: SKOS and MeSH qualifiers

This is not a direct comment on Robert's proposal for SKOS, but a note
of caution concerning the term "qualifier".

In ISO 2788, BS 5723 and the forthcoming BS 8723, "qualifier" means
something slightly different from the usage described for MeSH. In the
standards, a qualifier is a string which is added in parentheses to a
proposed thesaurus term, usually to distinguish it from homographs. For
example, the terms: 
	pitch (sound)
	pitch (gradient)
	pitch (mineral)
	pitch (sports)
could be preferred or non-preferred terms in a thesaurus, showing four
different qualifiers added to "pitch" for disambiguation purposes. In
all cases, the qualifier forms part of the term and cannot be separated
from it.

MeSH is an admirable and sophisticated vocabulary with quite a few
special features to enhance retrieval, and I am in no way trying to
deprecate them. But if SKOS is adapted in some way to accommodate this
particular feature, I suggest it would be helpful to avoid calling the
feature a qualifier ( or else to explain that it applies only to MeSH).
Cheers
Stella

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org [mailto:public-esw-thes-
> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Robert Watkins
> Sent: 08 July 2005 14:53
> To: public-esw-thes@w3.org
> Subject: SKOS and MeSH qualifiers
> 
> 
> SKOS was brought to my attention yesterday, and I've been looking at
> it in relation to the controlled vocabulary with which I have the most
> experience, namely MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). For the most part
it
> is
> immediately evident how to represent MeSH using SKOS, but one aspect
of
> MeSH,
> qualifiers, makes me want to use SKOS differently that what appears
right
> at
> first glance. For anyone not familiar with MeSH, here is a brief
> description
> of MeSH qualifiers from the MeSH site (http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/):
> 
>   "There are 83 topical qualifiers used for indexing and cataloging in
>   conjunction with descriptors. Qualifiers afford a convenient means
of
>   grouping together those citations which are concerned with a
particular
>   aspect of a subject."
> 
> MeSH descriptors are the main concepts in MeSH, and when searching
with
> MeSH
> one usually selects a descriptor and may restrict the search using one
or
> more
> of the qualifiers that are allowed for that descriptor.
> 
> The most obvious way I could see to represent qualifiers using SKOS
would
> be
> to use collections, with each descriptor that allows a particular
> qualifier
> as a member of that collection. So for the qualifiers 'standards' and
> 'administration & dosage', and the descriptor 'Calcimycin':
> 
> <skos:Concept
> rdf:about="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/descriptors#Calcimycin">
> 	<skos:prefLabel>Calcimycin</skos:prefLabel>
> </skos:Concept>
> 
> <skos:Collection>
> 	<rdfs:label>standards</rdfs:label>
> 	<skos:member
> rdf:resource="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/descriptors#Calcimycin" />
> 	<!-- other descriptors that allow the qualifier 'standards' -->
> </skos:Collection>
> 
> <skos:Collection>
> 	<rdfs:label>administration &amp; dosage</rdfs:label>
> 	<skos:member
> rdf:resource="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/descriptors#Calcimycin" />
> 	<!-- other descriptors that allow the qualifier 'administration
&
> dosage' -->
> </skos:Collection>
> 
> What I was wondering is whether it would be possible to represent that
> same
> relationship inversely. That is, not to list the members of the
qualifier
> collections within the skos:Collection element, but rather to list,
within
> a descriptor's skos:Concept element, which collections that descriptor
is
> a member of (note the use of the imaginary element skos:isMemberOf):
> 
> <skos:Concept
> rdf:about="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/descriptors#Calcimycin">
>     <skos:prefLabel>Calcimycin</skos:prefLabel>
> 	<skos:isMemberOf
> rdf:resource="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/qualifiers#standards" />
> 	<skos:isMemberOf
>
rdf:resource="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/qualifiers#administration%20&%
20
> dosage" />
> </skos:Concept>
> 
> <skos:Concept
> rdf:about="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/qualifiers#standards">
> 	<skos:Collection>
> 		<rdfs:label>standards</rdfs:label>
> 	</skos:Collection>
> </skos:Collection>
> 
> <skos:Concept
>
rdf:about="http://www.nlm.nig.gov/mesh/qualifiers#administration%20&%20d
os
> age">
> 	<skos:Collection>
> 		<rdfs:label>administration &amp; dosage</rdfs:label>
> 	</skos:Collection>
> </skos:Collection>
> 
> This is more in line with the way MeSH is described with its own DTDs,
> where
> each descriptor has a list of allowed qualifiers. Of course the idea
is
> not
> to try to bend SKOS every which way so that it looks like MeSH, but
this
> could
> be a useful construct for other controlled vocabularies.
> 
> Comments? (Flames?)
> -- Robert
> 
> --------------------
> Robert Watkins
> rwatkins@foo-bar.org
> --------------------

Received on Friday, 8 July 2005 16:25:34 UTC