RE: Specifiying that an individual has a set of values

Hi, Matt...
	I can't readily think of a nice, clean solution, but I'm also
not clear on whether you want *every* instance in the "Increase in..."
class to have a "refersTo" to every instance in "Breast Cancer", or only
certain instances.  If it's the latter, you could declare "Breast
Cancer" to be a subclass of a hasValue Restriction that would link all
of the "BC" instances to that one instance, but I believe that would
require use of an inverse to "refersTo", which may be undesirable.
	The alternative would be to go with a more indirect route, such
as establishing a "group" instance corresponding to the "BC" class, have
the hasValue Restriction make each "BC" instance a "memberOf" the group
and then have the "Increase in..." instance "refersTo" the group.  This
approach would also work in the case that you want every instance to
have the "refersTo", as a similar hasValue Restriction could be used.
As long as your queries could handle the extra step in finding the
relationship, this should be relatively easy to maintain, though you
would not be able to take advantage of property chains in OWL 1.1 to
automatically infer the direct relationship, since the "refersTo" and
"memberOf" properties would be pointing in opposite directions, to avoid
inverse properties.  You may also need to think about how the "group"
instance would be tied to the corresponding class, if something like a
naming convention is not enough.  It could be as simple as making the
group a member of the class (in which case it would end up being a
"memberOf" itself, as well, which might not be so bad) or something more
elaborate, such as making use of punning.
	'nuf rambling... hope this all gives you some ideas, if nothing
else.

-Brandon :)

-----Original Message-----
From: public-owl-dev-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-owl-dev-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Matt Williams
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 11:12 AM
To: Owl Dev
Subject: Specifiying that an individual has a set of values


Dear All,

I don't think this is possible, but thought I would ask.

I am trying to define an ontology which discusses both some cancers and 
changes in survival due to the cancers. I am interested in 
"prototypical" cancers rather than individual people's tumours.

I have a T-Box which defines certain classes of cancer, which is ok. 
Then I have some of these prototypical instances, which is also ok.

The problem comes when I try and discuss changes in survival. I have a 
class of "Increase in Breast Cancer Disease Free Survival" (and others 
of Decrease and No change). However, what I would like to to say is that

an individual in this class refers to all of the prototypical instances 
of breast cancer.

At the moment, I have to do this manually; I would like to be able to 
state that an individual in "Increase in BrCa DFS" is linked by the 
"refersTo" property to every instance in the "Breast Cancer" class.

Has anyone else had an issue like this? Or does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks a lot,

Matt


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Received on Thursday, 23 August 2007 18:13:46 UTC