Re: Request for Feedback, Suggestions on TaxonConcept Species Concepts

Pete,

I notice that you use skos:closeMatch (instead of owl:sameAs) to assert 
near equivalence amongst species concepts. E.g.,

<owl:Class rdf:about="http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp#Species">
 	<skos:closeMatch 
rdf:resource="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Monarch_(butterfly)"/>

In an area as tricky as species concepts, I agree that skos:closeMatch 
has advantages over owl:sameAs. (For example, closeMatch is not 
transitive, which makes it harder for errors to propagate.)

You then make a series of foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf statements, such as

<owl:Class rdf:about="http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp#Species">
 	<foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf 
rdf:resource="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_(butterfly)"/>

But foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf is an inverse functional property. Since I 
assume you agree with the assertion (from dbpedia) that

<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_(butterfly)">
 	<foaf:primaryTopic 
rdf:resource="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Monarch_(butterfly)"/>

you are, in fact, asserting that your Monarch Butterfly and dbpedia's 
Monarch Butterfly are owl:sameAs each other. (Is there a reason you need 
foaf:primaryTopic, instead of, say, dc:subject?)

I look forward to using this dataset -
Regards,
Joel.



On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Peter DeVries wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I am working on a new model for species concepts at TaxonConcept.org.
>
> These are an extension of my work on GeoSpecies, and are also designed to
> investigate mapping names to concepts as part of the Global Names
> Initiative<http://gni.globalnames.org/>
> .
>
> The main difference between these and GeoSpecies are that each species
> concept is a class.
>
> This is to address some users who feel that species are best modeled as a
> class.
>
> Other groups would like species modeled as an instance.
>
> This is mainly those groups that are dealing with large numbers of species
> occurrence records.
>
> To deal with these different needs I have come up with the following
> solution.
>
> Each species concept has related "Tags" that are instances.
>
> For example
>
> In this RDF there is a description of the following species concept
>
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp.rdf
>
> there is a description of the following species concept
>
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp#Species
> URIBurner <
> http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http/lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp%01Species
>>
>
> <txn:speciesConceptHasSpeciesTopicTag rdf:resource="
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp#Topic"/>
>
> <txn:speciesConceptHasSpeciesOccurrenceTag rdf:resource="
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp#Occurrence"/>
>
> <txn:speciesConceptHasSpeciesIndividualTag rdf:resource="
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/mCcSp#Individual"/>
>
> I created the #Topic tag because I originally was thinking about using that
> to label those resources that have that species as a topic.
>
> Some think this may be unnecessary, but I have left it in for now while I
> think about it.
>
> The "mCcSp#Occurrence" tag is to indicate that the entity is an occurrence
> of that species.
>
> These are instances of the class txn:SpeciesOccurrenceTag, which allows
> someone to partition the data set into only the information that is about
> species occurrence records.
>
> The "mCcSp#Individual" tag is to represent individuals of that species.
>
> Another feature of the species concept RDF is that it maps the species
> concept to related entities on the LOD and as foreign keys in other data
> sets.
>
> The data set is available via my semantic site map at:
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/sitemap.xml.gz
>
> And is currently live on the LOD. A SPARQL Endpoint is being setup.
>
> The data set contains about 86,000 species concepts.
>
> ** We have notice that there maybe some problems with the Fungi section, so
> I would avoid those for the time being. **
>
> I have created a smaller example RDF dump file at:
> http://lod.taxonconcept.org/taxonconcept_subset.rdf.gz
>
> This contains a combination of species concepts and related linked data
> including Image galleries and a small sample of occurrence records.
>
> Here are some examples as viewed through the Sigma service.
>
> Monarch Butterfly Danaus plexippus <
> http://sig.ma/search?pid=5d903f44eb963350b77074b7d9e80ff9 >
>
> Eastern Tree Hole Mosquito Ochlerotatus triseriatus  <
> http://sig.ma/search?pid=5d903f44eb963350b77074b7d9e80ff9 >
>
> Additional Examples can be found at:
>
> http://www.taxonconcept.org/example-taxa/
>
> I also have some example SPARQL Queries that work on the LOD.
>
> http://www.taxonconcept.org/example-sparql-queries/
>
> I would appreciate feedback on these models and any suggestions for how they
> could be improved. :-)
>
> Thank you for your time and consideration.
>
> - Pete
>
> Ontology: http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/txn.owl
>
> Ontology Doc: http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/doc/index.html
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Pete DeVries
> Department of Entomology
> University of Wisconsin - Madison
> 445 Russell Laboratories
> 1630 Linden Drive
> Madison, WI 53706
> GeoSpecies Knowledge Base
> About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://about.geospecies.org/>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>

Received on Saturday, 5 June 2010 02:00:54 UTC