RE: specializationOf and inference

Thanks for your comments!

BTW - in PROV-DM the attributes of entities do *not* include the PROV relations, so the prov:specializationOf (and other PROV relations) are not directly inherited. (The whole purpose of specialization is to provide alternate histories or timelines of a thing)

In a way just the attributes “describing” the entity are inherited. So I think your N3 rule is a bit too simple.


If you include OWL functional properties as part of these attributes, then you are combining two semantic schemes, mixing PROV Constraints and OWL.  I think the ‘easy’ way out here is to then use only OWL2 semantics – which in PROV-O do not imply anything from  prov:specializationOf on OWL level (beyond domain/range prov:Entity  and subproperty of prov:alternateOf).


We did have a think about expressing the PROV Constraints in OWL – but wanted to keep that as an optional extra so it was not added to PROV-O and some of the constraints could be non-trivial in OWL2. Contributions welcome!

If you want to do a richer semantics integration of PROV Constraints and OWL then you have to ensure any OWL-reasoned “sameness” don’t leak over.

--
Stian Soiland-Reyes, eScience Lab
School of Computer Science, The University of Manchester
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9842-9718

From: Pierre-Antoine Champin<mailto:pierre-antoine.champin@univ-lyon1.fr>
Sent: 26 July 2017 15:35
To: public-prov-comments@w3.org<mailto:public-prov-comments@w3.org>
Subject: specializationOf and inference

Hi all,

I'm currently interested in using prov:specializationOf, as it seems to provide a weaker (and hence more flexible) "sameness" as owl:sameAs. Indeed, the "specializer" inherits the properties of the "specializee", but not the other way around (as would be the case for owl:sameAs).

More precisely, I interpret inference rule 21 [1] as the following N3 rule:

   { ?x1 prov:specializationOf ?x2. ?x2 ?p ?o } => { ?x1 ?p ?o }

So, from

  <#me-today> prov:specializationOf <#me> .
  <#me-today> :mood :happy.
  <#me> foaf:name "Pierre-Antoine".

I could infer

  <#me-today> foaf:name "Pierre-Antoine".

That's very well. But now, assume that I have

  :ssn a owl:InverseFunctionalProperty .
  <#me> :ssn "123456789".

Similarly, I would also infer

  <#me-today> :ssn "123456789".

But this would also lead me to infer

  <#me> owl:sameAs <#me-today>.

which is precisely why I wanted to avoid :-(


What is wrong in my reasoning?


[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/REC-prov-constraints-20130430/#specialization-attributes-inference