RE: RE : Issue : unicity of prefLabel per language per concept scheme

Hi Antoine,

> Hi all,
> 
> @Margherita:
> - although I prefer 1 and 3, I think the current SKOS 
> labelling semantics do not formally prohibit 2. Alistair, 
> could you confirm that they say that concept scheme should 
> have unambiguous labels, and that they don't say that concept 
> scheme must have unambiguous labels?

Actually, the SKOS Reference currently says *nothing at all* about the interaction between lexical labels and concept schemes. 

I raised an issue to capture this a while ago, see <http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/32>, we haven't officially opened it yet.

I'd be more than happy for you to write something on this in a section of the Primer ... :)

Cheers,

Al.


--
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman
Email: a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440  

> - I think the argument about burro/burro and bank/bank is not 
> exact: we have burro@it/burro@es on the one side, and 
> bank@en/bank@en on the other side. There is a crucial 
> difference in terms of RDF literal equality!
> - actually I buy your point about merging the two canyon 
> concepts in this specific case, which someone already hinted 
> at on the list before ;-)
> 
> @Stella:
> There are indeed some good reasons for introducing something 
> like a "notation" property. But I don't know if we want to 
> add this in the SKOS recommendation, and encourage all SKOS 
> implementations to deal with one property which even if often 
> enountered might not be so frequent. The reason for which I'm 
> uncomfortable this specific notation stuff problematic, is 
> that its presence interfere with the way other labelling 
> statements should be dealt with.
> Perhaps we could just provide the pattern, and update the 
> semantics as you suggest: "preferred labels should be 
> unambiguous, unless an alternate property provides an 
> unambiguous token for the concept". But in that case the 
> concept scheme might be not so well managed by other standard 
> SKOS tools.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Antoine
> 
> 
> 
> > Hi all,
> >  
> > I also like this topic as I had to deal with it a lot of times... 
> > working with AGROVOC in 18 languages....
> >  
> > My suggestions:
> >  
> > 1) disambiguate the label inside the vocabulary itself:
> >     example "canyon (planet)" and "canyon (satellite)"
> > Not very elegant and this may be complicated for searching, 
> mappings, etc.
> >  
> > 2) just leave the possibility of duplicating strings.... 
> and leave the 
> > applications to disambiguate by asking the user to disambiguate....
> > I know this may be revolutionary, maybe also is going 
> agains the ISO 
> > rules..., but i think that this depends on the use we want 
> to make of 
> > the thesauri: if the future is to make URI or concept 
> > indexing/searching and not anymore string-indexing, then 
> this solution 
> > may be acceptable...
> > The applications can tell the user, when he enter  
> "canyon", "do you 
> > mean planet canyon or satellite canyon?" and this can be done by 
> > taking in consideration the broad concept....
> > Is possible in SKOS to have this duplications on the 
> labels? I think 
> > depends only on the applications that manage the SKOS 
> data.... In any 
> > case there is no ambiguities as far as the definition of a
> > concept(term) is given with BT, NT, RT and alternativeLabels... 
> >  
> > 3) add as Stella was mentioning an element or attribute or 
> something 
> > that helps on identifying the context... although i think 
> the BT may 
> > be enough...
> >  
> > In any case I do not think that within a language or across 
> languages 
> > is a problem... Because if we can allow duplications 
> between languages 
> > (e.g. Burro in Spanish, and Burro in Italian), why we cannot also 
> > allow duplications within a language (e.g. "bank" and "bank" -of the
> > river- in English) ?
> >  
> > By the way, to solve the canyon problem I have also an 
> idea: although 
> > I know that multiple BT are not to be preferred... would anyway be 
> > possible to make a unique term (or concept) "canyon" be related 
> > (whatever the relations is BT, RT...) to both planet and also 
> > satellite? I mean, do not have 2 prefLabels, but have only 
> 1 as there 
> > will be a unique concept...
> > Just a though...
> >  
> > Regards
> > Margherita
> >  
> >
> >     -----Original Message-----
> >     *From:* public-swd-wg-request@w3.org
> >     [mailto:public-swd-wg-request@w3.org] *On Behalf Of 
> *Stella Dextre
> >     Clarke
> >     *Sent:* 07 December 2007 18:20
> >     *To:* 'Antoine Isaac'; 'Alasdair Gray'; 'SKOS'
> >     *Cc:* public-swd-wg@w3.org
> >     *Subject:* RE: RE : Issue : unicity of prefLabel per 
> language per
> >     concept scheme
> >
> >     Antoine/Alasdair,
> >     Just a brief comment on the proposal below. I have a lot of
> >     sympathy with the general sentiment, but some doubts 
> about simply
> >     treating the notation as another language version. Why not
> >     introduce it straightforwardly as notation, another (optional)
> >     element of SKOS? Some thesauri (especially multilingual 
> ones) have
> >     a notation as well as terms, so would sometimes use it.
> >     Classification schemes would almost all use it. Some taxonomies
> >     would use it. Of course, the different vocabulary types may each
> >     use it in slightly different ways! (For example, in MeSH, a
> >     given term may have more than one notation.)
> >     The general guideline would be something like: "Each concept
> >     should have either a prefLabel which is unique within any one
> >     language, or a unique notation." There would need to be an
> >     explanation somewhere of whether the notation or the 
> prefLabel was
> >     to be used for purposes of conveying uniqueness.
> >     All the best
> >     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 *Antoine
> >         Isaac
> >         *Sent:* 03 December 2007 11:19
> >         *To:* Alasdair Gray; SKOS
> >         *Cc:* public-swd-wg@w3.org
> >         *Subject:* RE : Issue : unicity of prefLabel per 
> language per
> >         concept scheme
> >
> >
> >         Hi,
> >
> >         I bumped into the same problem as well with a classification
> >         scheme. But it had actually context-independent labels in
> >         addition to the context-dependent ones, so I could deal with
> >         it, even though in a not-that-satisfactory way.
> >
> >         Notice however that the sentence Bernard quotes is 
> only about
> >         recommendation:
> >         "It is recommended that no two concepts in the same concept
> >         scheme be
> >         given the same preferred lexical label in any given 
> language."
> >         My guess is that a SKOS validator would just issue warnings
> >         when the situation occurs.
> >         Also, an important point: the sentence is not even 
> in the SKOS
> >         current reference draft [1]!
> >
> >         Perhaps we could change the sentence, wherever it appears in
> >         the end, to fit the usual classification scheme situation as
> >         Stella presents it. I would propose something like
> >         "It is recommended that there is one language for 
> which no two
> >         concepts in the same concept scheme be
> >         given the same preferred lexical label."
> >         assuming that the notation language is this language, for
> >         classification schemes (btw I always use the zxx 
> language tag
> >         for notations)
> >
> >         Now, for vocabularies that do not have unique 
> prefLabels, even
> >         taking into account notations, my first reaction would be
> >         similar to  Alasdair's: are such "canyon" and "canyon"
> >         concepts really distinct in the end? ;-)
> >
> >         Cheers,
> >
> >         Antoine
> >
> >         [1]
> >         
> > 
> http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/wiki/SKOS/Reference#head-1c19f19602cc0ce
> > 6e7c77c86c170c95e8e16873b
> >
> >         -------- Message d'origine--------
> >         De: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org de la part de 
> Alasdair Gray
> >         Date: lun. 03/12/2007 11:39
> >         À: SKOS
> >         Objet : RE: Issue : unicity of prefLabel per language per
> >         concept scheme
> >
> >
> >         Hi,
> >
> >         I have come across the same issue in the astronomy
> >         vocabularies that I have been working on. As yet, I have not
> >         come up with a good solution either.
> >
> >         I did try using preferred label with no context path
> >         information, but this proved to be very confusing 
> in the user
> >         interface that I am preparing (where currently just 
> a list of
> >         preferred labels is shown): there was no way to distinguish
> >         between a Canyon on the surface of a planet and a Canyon on
> >         the surface of a satellite. However, I agree that including
> >         the context in the preferred label is cumbersome.
> >
> >         One thing that I have not completely cleared up in 
> my own mind
> >         yet is whether the concepts are really disjoint. 
> After all, in
> >         the astronomy situation, a canyon is a canyon 
> whether it is on
> >         a planet or a satellite. In this situation, would 
> some sort of
> >         compound label which uses both canyon and planet/satellite
> >         make sense (this hopefully can be easily translated into the
> >         child custody example or are your concepts actually 
> disjoint?).
> >
> >         Cheers,
> >
> >         Alasdair
> >
> >         Alasdair J G Gray
> >         Research Associate: Explicator Project
> >         http://explicator.dcs.gla.ac.uk
> >         Computer Science, University of Glasgow
> >         0141 330 6292
> >
> >
> >         -----Original Message-----
> >         From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
> >         [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Bernard
> >         Vatant
> >         Sent: 3 December 2007 09:54
> >         To: SKOS
> >         Subject: Issue : unicity of prefLabel per language 
> per concept
> >         scheme
> >
> >
> >         I've several current SKOS use cases making me 
> wondering about this
> >         recommendation in
> >         
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-swbp-skos-core-guide-20051102/#secmulti
> >
> >         "It is recommended that no two concepts in the same concept
> >         scheme be
> >         given the same preferred lexical label in any given 
> language."
> >
> >         This recommendation follows the thesaurus standard practice,
> >         but other
> >         types of structured vocabularies which seem to be 
> in the scope
> >         of SKOS
> >         don't follow this practice. I've in mind controlled
> >         vocabularies in law,
> >         where the same term is used in different contexts to label
> >         different
> >         concepts, the disambiguation being by context. The context
> >         itself is
> >         usually formally represented by a path to the concept in the
> >         broader-narrower tree, e.g., the following are four distinct
> >         concepts
> >         all using the term "Children custody" in different contexts,
> >         but in the
> >         same Concept Scheme "Divorce".
> >
> >         Contentious divorce: Temporary arrangements: 
> Children custody
> >         Contentious divorce: Definitive arrangements: 
> Children custody
> >         Non-contentious divorce: Temporary arrangements: 
> Children custody
> >         Non-contentious divorce: Definitive arrangements: Children 
> > custody
> >
> >         In such cases, encapsulating the context in the prefLabel
> >         string is
> >         rapidly cumbersome in interfaces, the context chain 
> can become
> >         arbitrarily long in such matters.
> >
> >         How would one SKOS-ify such a vocabulary? If "Children
> >         custody" is used
> >         as prefLabel, the recommendation of unicity is obviously
> >         broken, if not,
> >         what should be the recommended value of prefLabel?
> >
> >         Bernard
> >
> >         --
> >
> >         *Bernard Vatant
> >         *Knowledge Engineering
> >         ----------------------------------------------------
> >         *Mondeca**
> >         *3, cité Nollez 75018 Paris France
> >         Web:    www.mondeca.com <http://www.mondeca.com>
> >         ----------------------------------------------------
> >         Tel:       +33 (0) 871 488 459
> >         Mail:     bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
> >         <mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
> >         Blog:    Leçons de Choses <http://mondeca.wordpress.com/>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 18 December 2007 18:17:39 UTC