Re: concept illustrations for the data journalism example

Hi Martin,

FWIW, one of the themes I have at the back of my mind is to assess how the 
emerging provenance model and vocabularies can be used with the CIDOC-CRM style 
of event-mediated structure, but not as something I think should be a prime 
concern of this working group ... at least not at this early stage.

I've noticed that there seem to be some subtle differences of expectation around 
the term "provenance" between the CompSci "provenance" community (mostly 
represented here), and the other communities who use CRM and similar descriptive 
frameworks.  I haven't yet fully recognized the extent of the differences; it's 
something else I hope to tease out over time.

It's a nice point you make about the "terminal" nature of raw observations, 
though I'm wondering how clear the dividing line will be.  Imagine things like 
the Large Hadron Collider experiments where what is being observed is a 
secondary effect of some primary event, the data from which is passed through 
several stages of detection and correlation/condensation hardware before getting 
close to being presented to a computer.  I think there's scope here to move the 
provenance terminal boundary according to one's current needs.

#g
--


martin wrote:
> We have provenance applications of data capturing and scientific 
> observation
> in medicine, archaeology and even some in satellite data, and a major 
> application
> in empirical and synthetic creation of 3D Models by various methods.
> 
> I regard it as important to include and differentiate sufficiently the 
> event of
> capturing digital data via devices in a physical environment.
> 
> Whereas in Digital-to-Digital processing the environment and place of 
> the event
> plays a neglectable role, the scientific or even forensic interpretation 
> of measured
> data critically depends on environmental factors, and of analogue 
> characteristics of
> involved devices. We may even regard the individual history of 
> calibration or
> degradation of an individual device as relevant.
> 
> It is not the challenge to register in the provenance data
> all those factors explicitly per event, but to provide a few core data 
> that can lead the interested
> user to find such details in other sources. For instance, a date-time, 
> place (geo-reference) and/or
> the observed object (patient!) may already be sufficient, depending on 
> the case.
> This would provide the interested scientist with enough clues to find 
> more data about the conditions at
> that place and time from other sources.
> 
> Another distinct feature of measurement or digitization events 
> ("acquisition")is that they are
> by nature terminal in the provenance chain: They are the unique 
> transition from the real to
> the digital, and all derivatives should include reference to this 
> ultimate source and
> their circumstances. For instance, an image of Obama typically stays an 
> image of Obama
> independently from the number of processing steps. So, the reference to 
> the object captured
> in the initial event is a vital parameter for the whole chain to follow. 
> Querying an
> provenance chain should ultimately stop at the acquisition event or the
> invention of data, which may be due to an artistic process, a scientific 
> simulation process
> or a technical planning process. Therefore reasoning on "terminal" 
> events differs from
> that about general processing events.
> 
> To make things as simple as possible, I propose to include the simple 
> taking of a news photo
> in the journalism example. This is simple, but includes all necessary 
> features to discuss
> the core concept.
> 
> It needs not be as weird as : 
> http://www.cidoc-crm.org/crm_core/core_examples/hoagland.htm
> or http://www.cidoc-crm.org/crm_core/core_examples/henrichsen.htm.....
> 
> Best,
> 
> Martin
>

Received on Friday, 13 May 2011 07:01:04 UTC