Re: PROV-ISSUE-4: Defining Agent using FOAF's definition

Hi all,

To answer Luc's question I originally intended to say that I thought an agent can be defined independently of process execution and I agreed that an agent should be a node whose relationship to a process execution should be defined by a control/participation/influence(?) edge.

As I thought about it a bit more I began to wonder if agent was better described as a role (active participant) a thing takes in the context of some specific action (in this case a process execution).  An agent is definitely a thing, but is that thing always an agent?  Or is it an agent within the context/scope of the act it has participated in?  

A thing assumes the role of agent when actively participating in a process execution?

I think I am leaning towards making 'agent' status of a thing dependent upon active participation in a process execution.

--Stephan

On Jun 20, 2011, at 11:28 PM, Luc Moreau <L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Reiterating a previous comment I made, can an Agent be defined independently of process execution?
> 
> We can use the definitions of Control/Participation to define an agent's involvement in process execution.
> 
> If we see agents/things/process executions as nodes and Control/Generation/... as edges of a graph,
> it would be nice if nodes could be defined independently of edges.
> 
> Luc
> 
> 
> On 21/06/11 02:33, Satya Sahoo wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Paul and Stephan,
>> In both your definitions, what criteria distinguishes an "agent" from a "process" - in terms of "do stuff"/"active role or produces a specified effect"?
>> 
>> Reviewing the candidate definitions of Agents, I see that Jun's, Khalid's and my definitions use an explicit reference to a process (execution).
>> 
>> What do you think?
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> 
>> Best,
>> Satya
>> 
>> On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Stephan Zednik <zednis@rpi.edu> wrote:
>> I like this definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary because it ties in nicely with provenance
>> 
>> "A person on thing that takes an active role or produces a specified effect."
>> 
>> --Stephan
>> 
>> On Jun 20, 2011, at 2:08 PM, Paul Groth wrote:
>> 
>> > Hi All,
>> >
>> > What would people think of just adopting FOAF's definition of Agent for now:
>> >
>> > The Agent class is the class of agents; things that do stuff. A well known sub-class is Person, representing people. Other kinds of agents include Organization and Group.
>> >
>> >
>> > thanks,
>> > Paul
>> >
>> >
>> 
>> 
>> 
>