- From: Stella Dextre Clarke <sdclarke@lukehouse.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 09:23:27 -0000
- To: "'Ron Davies'" <ron@rondavies.be>, "'Miles, AJ \(Alistair\)'" <A.J.Miles@rl.ac.uk>, <public-esw-thes@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <000201c51f09$7e054b10$0300a8c0@DELL>
Just a small addition to the modelling difficulties. For term-based models as well as for concept-based models, it is very hard to cope with "A USE B + C". Is the concept of A actually in the thesaurus or is it not? It is provided for, yes, by prescribing the combination of two concepts that are definitely "in". But do you treat A like any other concept, or does the model have to change? Traditional print-based thesauri provide inverse entries such as "B UF+ A". Thesaurus management software that can cope with these is hard to find. (Yes there are some, but not many). There's a lot to say on the topic of how to manage synthesised (rather than enumerated) concepts/terms/notations in knowledge organisation systems, but no time to say it all now... 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 Ron Davies Sent: 01 March 2005 21:00 To: Miles, AJ (Alistair); public-esw-thes@w3.org Subject: Models Al, Sorry, I had understood that there had been in the past some discussion of the 'concept-based model' underlying SKOS as opposed to the so-called 'term-based model' underlying the approach of many thesaurus practitioners, so I assumed that these differences were already known. The kinds of information elements not covered by the SKOS core model are things like History note, Source, Definition, Status, Editorial Note, Date of input and Date last modified for a non-descriptor. In some use cases, for example in providing a full thesaurus to another institution for use at the second institution, or to an organization for translation of the thesaurus, these could be considered as essential data elements which would mitigate against use of SKOS. But I can certainly understand that in the context of the Semantic web these might not be considered important use cases. In multilingual thesauri there is also the question of non-descriptors where there is an association between the non-descriptors, i.e. they describe a concept on the edge of the domain which has been treated as a non-descriptor not because there is not literary warrant for them to be considered as a concept in itself. For example, the OECD Macrothesaurus as developed by the OECD has Leeward Islands an a non-descriptor (though the concept is clearly defined, is distinct from other related concepts and can be expressed in several languages) simply because there is not enough material to justify it as a concept, though when it is used by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean the non-descriptor is switched over to become a descriptor. In these cases, it may be useful to associate the different non-descriptors together in a single non-descriptor record (which represent a concept, no matter how you define concept). I hesitate to mention this case because the importance that I accord to this use is not shared by all my colleagues, but it may still be an important point of consideration for developers of some multilingual thesauri. I hope this helps. Ron At 22:03 28/02/2005, Miles, AJ \(Alistair\) wrote: Ron, Would you mind writing up in short exactly which parts of the BS8723 model are not covered by the SKOS Core model? Thanks, 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 Ron Davies Sent: 27 February 2005 09:09 To: public-esw-thes@w3.org; Thomas Baker Cc: public-esw-thes@w3.org Subject: Re: Quick Guide to Publishing a Thesaurus on the Semantic Web At 14:16 25/02/2005, Thomas Baker wrote: Hmm, it feels to me that the notion of converting between XML and RDF automatically opens a can of worms. For starters, what is an "XML version of a thesaurus"? Such a document could presumably take on any number of forms since the document models expressible in XML are theoretically quite diverse. Even assuming that a conversion could be done automatically, there is also the question of what information might be lost in doing so. The model underlying SKOS, for instance, does not include all of the information in the BS 8743 model, which might make it unsuitable for certain kinds of uses. Ron Ron Davies Information and documentation systems consultant Av. Baden-Powell 1 Bte 2, 1200 Brussels, Belgium Email: ron(a)rondavies.be Tel: +32 (0)2 770 33 51 GSM: +32 (0)484 502 393
Received on Wednesday, 2 March 2005 09:23:28 UTC