Re: actions related to collections

Dear all,

I just wanted to throw a few ideas/questions to defend collections as 
they currently are.

1. prov:Collection is similar to rdfs:Container [1] :
the properties rdf:_1, rdf:_2, ...[2]  map naturally to keys in 
prov:Collection.

2. RDF collections [3] can also be described by prov:Collection, using 
rdf:first and rdf:rest
     as keys for a collection of two elements, and allowing nesting of 
collections.

So a few questions:

1. Is it being suggested that rdfs:Container and rdf:List are not 
appropriate, and we
     should look at other forms of "collections"?

2. Has the prov-o ontology encoded prov-dm collections in a way that is 
lightweight enough?
     Could we for instance restrict the keys to be mapped to  properties 
such as rdf:_1, rdf:_2?


I however acknowledge that prov:Collection is not "natural" to model a 
set. I suppose that
like  "rdf:Bag class is used conventionally to indicate to a human 
reader that the container is intended to be unordered",
we would need a similar notion for expressing sets with prov:Collection.

Cheers,
Luc

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/#ch_container
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/#ch_containermembershipproperty
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/#ch_collectionvocab


On 18/04/12 19:39, Stephan Zednik wrote:
>
> On Apr 18, 2012, at 12:24 PM, Timothy Lebo wrote:
>
>> I've had similar concerns that the definitions for collections are 
>> "too heavyweight" to manage the membership of sets.
>>
>> But while ignoring is name and looking at the modeling construct it 
>> provides, it's clear that this construct will be very useful in many 
>> real provenance problems (for example, the very ubiquitous need for 
>> provenance of function calls with their argument names and bindings).
>>
>> Perhaps we can avoid the "too heavyweight for set membership" 
>> concerns raised by Satya and Jun by renaming what we have 
>> (prov:Collection) to something more appropriate, like prov:Dictionary?
>
> +1
>
> Jim is right that you can model collections with enumerated classes, 
> but I am not sure about stating the provenance of a collection defined 
> by an enumerated class.
>
> We could also define a much simpler prov:Collection class that does 
> not force map/dictionary conventions to go along with prov:Dictionary.
>
> --Stephan
>
>>
>> -Tim
>>
>> On Apr 18, 2012, at 2:12 PM, Jim McCusker wrote:
>>
>>> I think a set of key-value pairs is what's known as a map or 
>>> dictionary. A collection is a set of things with a defined 
>>> membership. In OWL it would probably be represented as an enumerated 
>>> class.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Jun Zhao <jun.zhao@zoo.ox.ac.uk 
>>> <mailto:jun.zhao@zoo.ox.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>     Dear all,
>>>
>>>     I concur with what Satya wrote. And the example I had in mind is
>>>     collection type of entities on the blog sphere of the Web.
>>>
>>>     As we all know SIOC is a widely used vocabulary to describe
>>>     entities in the online community sites, like blogs, wikis, etc.
>>>     It has the concept of sioc:Container, which is defined as "a
>>>     high-level concept used to group content Items together". The
>>>     relationships between a sioc:Container and the sioc:Items or
>>>     sioc:Posts that belong to it are described using
>>>     sioc:container_of and sioc:has_container properties.
>>>
>>>     The provenance of a sioc:Container could be who is/are
>>>     responsible for the container, who created this container, and when.
>>>
>>>     The provenance of a sioc:Post could include when the posted was
>>>     published, when it was modified, by whom, based on which other
>>>     posts, document or data.
>>>
>>>     As you see, I am struggling to see how the key-value pair kind
>>>     of structure could play in the above simple scenario. But please
>>>     correct me if I am wrong.
>>>
>>>     HTH,
>>>
>>>     Jun
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     On 18/04/2012 18:35, Satya Sahoo wrote:
>>>
>>>         Hi all,
>>>         The issue I had raised last week is that collection is an
>>>         important
>>>         provenance construct, but the assumption of only key-value
>>>         pair based
>>>         collection is too narrow and the relations
>>>         derivedByInsertionFrom,
>>>         Derivation-by-Removal are over specifications that are not
>>>         required.
>>>
>>>         I have collected the following examples for collection,
>>>         which only require
>>>         the definition of the collection in DM5 (collection of
>>>         entities) and they
>>>         don't have (a) a key-value structure, and (b)
>>>         derivedByInsertionFrom,
>>>         derivedByRemovalFrom relations are not needed:
>>>         1. Cell line is a collection of cells used in many
>>>         biomedical experiments.
>>>         The provenance of the cell line (as a collection) include,
>>>         who submitted
>>>         the cell line, what method was used to authenticate the cell
>>>         line, when was
>>>         the given cell line contaminated? The provenance of the
>>>         cells in a cell
>>>         line include, what is the source of the cells (e.g. organism)?
>>>
>>>         2. A patient cohort is a collection of patients satisfying
>>>         some constraints
>>>         for a research study. The provenance of the cohort include, what
>>>         eligibility criteria were used to identify the cohort, when
>>>         was the cohort
>>>         identified? The provenance of the patients in a cohort may
>>>         include their
>>>         health provider etc.
>>>
>>>         Hope this helps our discussion.
>>>
>>>         Thanks.
>>>
>>>         Best,
>>>         Satya
>>>
>>>
>>>         On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Luc
>>>         Moreau<L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk
>>>         <mailto:L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>             Hi Jun and Satya,
>>>
>>>             Following today's call, ACTION-76 [1] and ACTION-77 [2]
>>>             were raised
>>>             against you, as we agreed.
>>>
>>>             Cheers,
>>>             Luc
>>>
>>>             [1]
>>>             https://www.w3.org/2011/prov/**track/actions/76<https://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/actions/76>
>>>             [2]
>>>             https://www.w3.org/2011/prov/**track/actions/77<https://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/actions/77>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Jim McCusker
>>> Programmer Analyst
>>> Krauthammer Lab, Pathology Informatics
>>> Yale School of Medicine
>>> james.mccusker@yale.edu <mailto:james.mccusker@yale.edu> | (203) 
>>> 785-6330
>>> http://krauthammerlab.med.yale.edu <http://krauthammerlab.med.yale.edu/>
>>>
>>> PhD Student
>>> Tetherless World Constellation
>>> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
>>> mccusj@cs.rpi.edu <mailto:mccusj@cs.rpi.edu>
>>> http://tw.rpi.edu <http://tw.rpi.edu/>
>>
>

Received on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 20:19:56 UTC