Re: PROV-ISSUE-6 (define-location): Definition for Concept 'Location' [Provenance Terminology]

Martin -

All you state is correct. Since then, the OGC definition work in the has 
gone much more "relative" :-) This because we now have folks implementing 
OGC standards for brain scan applications, blood circulatory systems, the 
moon, Mars, inside buildings (local engineering CRS) and so forth.

However, please note that a CRS does not mean earth centric! A CRS can be an 
engineering coordinate system for a building design, local such as in 
surveying, dynamic such as for moving satellite platforms, and so forth.

There is a very interesting ISO standards that I have been involved in on 
ubiquitous location and spatial reference systems. The are looking at a 
model that allows for easy transition say from the usual earth centric 
reference system (such as WGS 84-2d) into a shipboard reference and so 
forth.

Cheers

Carl

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "martin" <martin@ics.forth.gr>
To: "Graham Klyne" <GK@ninebynine.org>
Cc: "Carl Reed" <creed@opengeospatial.org>; <public-prov-wg@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: PROV-ISSUE-6 (define-location): Definition for Concept 
'Location' [Provenance Terminology]


>I agree with the points given by Graham, with minor exceptions.
> The ISO21127 elaboration is not a specialization of the OGC definition for
> a community, just the opposite. When we discussed in the CRM working Group 
> adopting the OGC definition,
> we found it too narrow because it seems to be restricted to locations that 
> can
> be expressed in coordinate reference systems and geographic-scale,
> but ISO21127 explicitly intended to comprise
> OPENGIS at that time, in particular for dealing with relative coordinate 
> systems.
>
> We found that references to locations in terms of characteristic features 
> of an object, such as
> "bow of a ship", "inner side of a wedding ring" "room G161" "front of a 
> house" are not only culturally but also technically
> important. They are referred to in ontological literature as segments, 
> sections, portions or parts.
> There are elaborate ontologies of such kind. In the proceedings of the ER 
> Conference series,
> many of these are published.
>
> This is exactly example (2) by Graham below, and I strongly support it. .
>
> I'd suggest something like that:
>
> "A location is an identifiable extent in space, in particular on the 
> surface of the earth, in the sense of physics.
> Typically a location is a physically fixed point, typically on the surface 
> of the
> Earth, though locations can be relative to other, local or global 
> non-earth centric coordinate reference systems
> or be relative to persistent features on material objects other than the 
> earth. Non-earth centric coordinate reference systems may be
> fixed on persistent mobile material objects."
>
> cheers,
>
> martin
>
>
> On 5/24/2011 1:33 PM, Graham Klyne wrote:
>> I think the notion of location should be as generic as possible.
>>
>> To this end, I'd like to pose an additional example, which comes from a 
>> real scenario I've worked with, which suggests possible further uses
>> of location provenance.
>>
>> I raise this because I think it's important that whatever definition we 
>> adopt for location does not rule out using the information suggested
>> by this use case as part of a record of provenance information.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Researcher H is investigating genomics in Drosophila (fruit flies), 
>> specifically genetic factors affecting spermatogenesis that may cause
>> sterility. To this end, she creates in situ hybridization 
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_hybridization) images of Drosophila 
>> testes.
>> Location information arises in a number of different ways:
>>
>> (1) starting from a microscopic image of testes treated to reveal gene 
>> expression, the researcher looks for occurrences of interesting and
>> clearly exposed gene expression patterns. These occurrences are recorded 
>> as a slide number and a coordinate location within the slide image.
>>
>> (2) the spatial location of the gene expression within the testis 
>> structure gives a direct visual indication of the sperm development stage
>> at which a target gene is being expressed. This location is observed and 
>> recorded as a keyword from a controlled vocabulary that relates the
>> gene expression to a developmental stage.
>>
>> As well as creating microscopic images, the tissue samples are subjected 
>> to a real-time PCR process
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction) that gives a 
>> quantitative indication of the levels of a particular gene expression
>> product present in a sample. PCR is a batch process, where preparations 
>> based on different samples (targetting different genes, or different
>> Drosophila species) are placed into different wells in a tray. This leads 
>> to:
>>
>> (3) The PCR analyzer presents by reference to the location of the various 
>> wells (identified by label or row/column position). The well
>> locations are in turn linked to details of the sample that has been 
>> placed in that well.
>>
>> Of these examples, I think that (1) and (3) are definitely part of the 
>> provenance information for a result. (2) is less clear, and I'd judge
>> it to be part of the data rather than provenance information. But 
>> researcher H has also performed some follow-on research to analyzes
>> particular spatial patterns of gene expression, in which the 
>> location-based developmental stage might conceivably be considered to be
>> provenance information, in the sense of where the phenomenon was observed 
>> to occur.
>>
>> #g
>> --
>>
>>
>> Carl Reed wrote:
>>>
>>> Martin -
>>>
>>> A shorter version as defined in ISO 19112 and used by the OGC (since 
>>> this was a jointly developed definition) is:
>>>
>>> Location: Identifiable geographic place [ISO 19112]. Typically a 
>>> location is a physically fixed point, typically on the surface of the
>>> Earth, though locations can be relative to other, non-earth centric 
>>> coordinate reference systems.
>>>
>>> I also noticed that the the European INSPIRE community working on 
>>> cultural heritage sites are using CIDOC/21127 as well as additional OGC
>>> references, such as the URN syntax for spatial reference systems.
>>>
>>> Suffice to say, the definition for location in 21127 is a community 
>>> elaboration of the more general OGC/ISO definition. We may need some
>>> such additional clarification for the provenance work - such as dealing 
>>> with data provenance for articles, maps, charts, etc for the moon,
>>> Mars, and so forth.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Carl
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>  Dr. Martin Doerr              |  Vox:+30(2810)391625        |
>  Research Director             |  Fax:+30(2810)391638        |
>                                |  Email: martin@ics.forth.gr |
>                                                              |
>                Center for Cultural Informatics               |
>                Information Systems Laboratory                |
>                 Institute of Computer Science                |
>    Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)   |
>                                                              |
>  Vassilika Vouton,P.O.Box1385,GR71110 Heraklion,Crete,Greece |
>                                                              |
>          Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl               |
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>

Received on Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:05:28 UTC