Re: prov-dm derivation: three proposals to vote on (deadline Wednesday midnight GMT)

Hi Simon,

Err.. no. I think dependedUpon is useful. It's a way of saying 
derivation without implying that there's some activity underneath.

I can imagine a hierarchy like

wasBasedUpon
---dependedUpon
------derivedFrom

I just don't get why you need wasBasedUpon?

cheers,
Paul

Simon Miles wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> I take your question to be saying - can't we remove dependedUpon, right?
>
> This was not something added by me, but I can sort of see the point of
> it. If you query some provenance data, you might be looking for
> connections, e.g. "find everyone who has been in contact or met
> someone who has been in contact with suspected terrorist T". You are
> not looking only for those that T has had some effect on, but merely
> any leads to pursue in finding T. There are probably better examples
> others can give.
>
> No obviously better suggestion for wasEventuallyDerivedFrom as yet...
> wasBasedOn?
>
> Thanks,
> Simon
>
> On 9 November 2011 20:17, Paul Groth<p.t.groth@vu.nl>  wrote:
>> Hi Simon,
>>
>> Couldn't you model the case of the banner image by saying that it was
>> used in the activity that generated the page. There is no concrete
>> derivation there?
>>
>> Also, do you have a better name for wasEventuallyDerivedFrom? :-)
>>
>> thanks,
>> Paul
>>
>> Simon Miles wrote:
>>> Hi Luc,
>>>
>>> Responses interleaved.
>>>
>>>> We didn't have transitivity on derivation because of the constraint on attributes but it was dropped last week.
>>> Yes, but I thought that relaxation merely didn't constrain when
>>> transitivity held, not that all derivation was transitive.
>>>
>>>> If you think that we need a non-transitive relation wasEventuallyDerivedFrom, can you explain why?
>>> I've been drafting some text for the primer on derivation that
>>> includes an example:
>>>
>>> "When one entity's existence, content, characteristics and so on are
>>> at least partly due to another entity, then we say that the former is
>>> derived from the latter. For example, one document may contain
>>> material copied from another, a child is derived from his/her
>>> ancestors, and a page displayed in a browser is derived from the same
>>> page on the web server from which it was downloaded, as well as from
>>> the designer's original sketches of what the page would look like.
>>>
>>> There are different kinds of derivation expressible in Prov-DM.
>>> Consider the case of the page in the browser above. It is derived from
>>> the designer's sketch in the strictest sense, i.e. if the sketch had
>>> been different so would the page. On the other hand, there are
>>> entities that are part of the page's history but which did not inform
>>> the content of that page, i.e. the page would have been the same even
>>> if the earlier entity changed. For example, on creating the original
>>> draft of the page, the designer may have included a banner image
>>> saying "DRAFT - FOR REVIEW ONLY". This banner was not part of the
>>> sketch, nor part of the published page downloaded to the browser, but
>>> was part of the page's history, and while not affecting the browsed
>>> page's content may have been a factor in its existence. Finally, in
>>> some cases, we may be able to say not only that one entity was derived
>>> from another, but also how it was derived, i.e. by what process
>>> execution. For example, the page in the browser is derived from the
>>> page on the web server because a download process sent the bytes of
>>> the latter across an HTTP connection to the browser client.
>>>
>>> In Prov-DM terms, we say that the page in the browser was eventually
>>> derived from the sketch, depended on the banner image, and was derived
>>> from the page on the web server due to the download process."
>>>
>>> I still can't agree with Proposal 3 - dependedUpon and
>>> wasEventuallyDerivedFrom seem distinct concepts and both important.
>>>
>>>> Why do you come back on something you had agreed upon?
>>> I'm not sure which agreement you are referring to?
>>>
>>>> If you don't make the link to the PE, how can you decide which PE underpinned the derivation?
>>> I don't always want to, I merely want to know from what something is
>>> derived (I believe Paul said the same [1]).
>>>
>>> But on reconsideration, I was wrong that A wasDerivedFrom B could be
>>> captured by just A wasEventuallyDerivedFrom B, P used B and A
>>> wasGeneratedBy P. I think the difference is only apparent when B
>>> occurs multiple times in one account of A's history - if B only
>>> occurred once, then I see no need for wasDerivedFrom as only P can be
>>> the underpinning of the derivation. But in the case where an account
>>> contains A dependedUpon B by multiple paths, then I agree
>>> wasDerivedFrom states something otherwise inexpressible.
>>>
>>> The Prov-O (Stian's) proposal for encoding wasDerivedFrom [2] looks
>>> very like my proposed replacement, so might not resolve the ambiguous
>>> situation mentioned above.
>>>
>>>> To me, when generating provenance in a computational context, eg workflow, it's the only derivation that is grounded and can be verified.
>>> Sorry, I'm not clear what you mean here - "only derivation" and not what?
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> Simon
>>>
>>> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-prov-wg/2011Nov/0170.html
>>> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-prov-wg/2011Nov/0126.html
>>>
>>>
>>>> Professor Luc Moreau
>>>> Electronics and Computer Science
>>>> University of Southampton
>>>> Southampton SO17 1BJ
>>>> United Kingdom
>>>>
>>>> On 7 Nov 2011, at 17:57, "Simon Miles"<simon.miles@kcl.ac.uk>    wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello Luc,
>>>>>
>>>>> +1 for Proposal 1; 0 for Proposal 2; -1 for Proposal 3
>>>>>
>>>>> Proposal 1 sounds fine, but in what way do Proposals 1 and 2 differ
>>>>> from what exists at the moment?
>>>>>
>>>>> More importantly, I can't see anything in the text about
>>>>> wasEventuallyDerivedFrom being transitive, or see why it would be, so
>>>>> why does Proposal 3 make sense?
>>>>>
>>>>> With the two separate links, we are able to assert and query for an
>>>>> actual connection between one entity's content and another's
>>>>> (wasEventuallyDerivedFrom), while also allowing the entities involved
>>>>> somewhere in an entity's history to be browsed (dependedUpon). This
>>>>> seems to allow for two clear classes of use case for two common
>>>>> interpretations of provenance.
>>>>>
>>>>> The one I still don't see the value of is wasDerivedFrom. If you can
>>>>> say that A wasEventuallyDerivedFrom B, that P used B and P generated
>>>>> A, then what more is there to say? If wasDerivedFrom is just a
>>>>> shortcut for this information, why is it significant enough to warrant
>>>>> being added to the model? Why would you assert an account where you
>>>>> can say A wasDerivedFrom B, because you know about P, but you do not
>>>>> say P used B and P generated A?
>>>>>
>>>>>>   From our earlier discussions, I understand the distinction of
>>>>> derivation types, but wasDerivedFrom just seems a less useful and more
>>>>> complex to understand version of wasEventuallyDerivedFrom.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Simon
>>>>>
>>>>> On 7 November 2011 10:06, Luc Moreau<l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>    wrote:
>>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can you express your support or not for the following proposals. We will
>>>>>> confirm
>>>>>> the outcome at the teleconference.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>> Luc
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the interest of simplification, we would like to make the following
>>>>>> proposal about derivations in prov-dm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Context: prov-dm currently contains 3 different notions of
>>>>>> derivations, in particular with names that are not intuitive.  The
>>>>>> constraint derivation-attributes [1] prevented derivations to be
>>>>>> transitive. These constraints were removed from the prov-dm document
>>>>>> last week [2].
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Proposal 1. Transitive derivation is expressed using 'dependedUpon'
>>>>>>               between two entities.  dependedUpon can be asserted or
>>>>>> inferred.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Proposal 2.  There exists a special case of derivation, where a
>>>>>>                process execution is known or known to exist.  This is
>>>>>> expressed using:
>>>>>>                wasDerivedFrom(e2,e1,[pe, ...])  and its compact form
>>>>>>                wasDerivedFrom(e2,e1).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>                Furthermore, there exists an inference:
>>>>>>                wasDerivedFrom(e2,e1,[pe, ...]) implies dependedUpon(e2,e1).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Proposal 3.  In the current version of the document,
>>>>>> wasEventuallyDerivedFrom and dependedOn intended to
>>>>>>                 express the same notion of (transitive) derivation, and
>>>>>> thus can be
>>>>>>                 removed as redundant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Instead of 3 relations wasDerivedFrom, wasEventuallyDerivedFrom, and
>>>>>> dependedOn, we would now only have 2 relations wasDerivedFrom and
>>>>>> dependedUpon. The awkward term 'wasEventuallyDerivedFrom' is also
>>>>>> abandonned.  Overall, this should contribute towards a simplification
>>>>>> of the model.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Note: the text will describe the conditions under which the binary
>>>>>> form of wasDerivedFrom is transitive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#derivation-attributes
>>>>>> [2] http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/meeting/2011-11-03#resolution_5
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dr Simon Miles
>>>>> Lecturer, Department of Informatics
>>>>> Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
>>>>> +44 (0)20 7848 1166
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> Dr. Paul Groth (p.t.groth@vu.nl)
>> http://www.few.vu.nl/~pgroth/
>> Assistant Professor
>> Knowledge Representation&  Reasoning Group
>> Artificial Intelligence Section
>> Department of Computer Science
>> VU University Amsterdam
>>
>>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 9 November 2011 20:53:34 UTC