From: Paolo Missier <paolo.missier@newcastle.ac.uk>
To: Provenance Working Group <public-prov-wg@w3.org>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:49:47 +0100
Subject: Re: actions related to collections
Thread-Topic: actions related to collections
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Hi,

on the question of whether or not part-of relations (in general) belong in =
the DM:

To be honest, I don't mind either way. I know I need to extend Derivation w=
ith the specific relations for expressing state change in=20
part-of relations, because they have a more specific meaning, so I would ju=
st use these. If they are not part of a recommendation,=20
then another set may emerge to achieve a similar effect. That's fine, as lo=
ng as we can still interoperate. Perhaps this is a part=20
of the W3C process I don't understand: to what extent can you still pursue =
interop with some chance of success, in areas that are=20
not covered by a recommendation. Is a Note the right way? If so, why not.

And another (genuine!) question: what's the rationale for having Collection=
s in RDFs, in fact there's rdf:Bag, rdf:Set, rdf:Seq, and=20
rdf:List.  I imagine, because those are data structures that one naturally =
wants to map to RDF graphs. So the question is, is it=20
legitimate to transpose this argument to the provenance space?

-Paolo


On 4/19/12 9:45 PM, Timothy Lebo wrote:
> On Apr 19, 2012, at 10:56 AM, Miles, Simon wrote:
>
>> Hello Curt,
>>
>> I don't have a particular problem with collections being described in a =
separate document from the DM.
>>
>> However, I would still argue that they are special for provenance and it=
 is not merely about the prevalance or importance of collections across dom=
ains where provenance is used.
> +1. Dictionaries provide a much richer notion of provenance that is not i=
mmediately available in the "fundamental" constructs.
> It should be in the Recommendation to establish this important second lay=
er. The fact that it also uses the "fundamental" constructs is an eloquent =
side benefit, not a case to argue that it is superfluous.
>
> -Tim
>
>
>> In particular:
>>
>> 1. Almost everything has parts, and the provenance of something is partl=
y the provenance of its parts. If I ask for the provenance of a webpage, I =
don't just want to know who designed the page as a whole, but also where th=
e images came from, what license they were published under etc. The latter =
provenance descriptions concern the images, but the question is about the p=
age, so the relation between them is directly relevant to provenance.
>>
>> 2. Because of the first point above, knowing when parts are inserted or =
removed is also important to understanding something's provenance. What hap=
pened to an image after it was removed is not relevant to the provenance of=
 the page that contained the image. What happened to the image before it wa=
s inserted did not affect the page until it was inserted, while every chang=
e to the image after insertion affects the page at the same time.
>>
>> I'd therefore argue that collections, including membership, insertion an=
d deletion, are vital to understanding provenance, not just coincidentally =
prevalent.
>>
>> thanks,
>> Simon
>>
>> Dr Simon Miles
>> Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics
>> Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
>> +44 (0)20 7848 1166
>>
>> Automatically Adapting Source Code to Document Provenance:
>> http://eprints.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/1397/
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Curt Tilmes [Curt.Tilmes@nasa.gov]
>> Sent: 19 April 2012 15:35
>> To: public-prov-wg@w3.org
>> Subject: Re: actions related to collections
>>
>> On 04/12/2012 05:06 PM, Luc Moreau wrote:
>>> Hi Jun and Satya,
>>>
>>> Following today's call, ACTION-76 [1] and ACTION-77 [2] were raised
>>> against you, as we agreed.
>>>
>>> [1] https://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/actions/76
>>> [2] https://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/actions/77
>> I've been going over the "collections" traffic.
>>
>> I mentioned this briefly on the call last week, but I'll state it
>> once more for the record, then keep my peace.
>>
>>
>> The bulk of PROV-DM is describing what I'll call core or fundamental
>> concepts for describing provenance.
>>
>> You have a general 'entity', it gets 'used' by an 'activity' and
>> 'generates' a new 'entity'.  Those concepts are all necessary to the
>> data model, and it doesn't hold together without them.
>>
>>
>> Collections, IMHO, don't fall into that category.
>>
>> They should be a layer on top of the DM, not a set of fundamental
>> concepts beside the others or integrated with them.
>>
>>
>> A collection is simply another type of entity, it changes in several
>> ways, the previous instance of it getting used by various activities,
>> resulting in the generation of a new entity.
>>
>> We should model that just like any other entity that gets changed in
>> any number of ways.  Insertion/Removal are just like any other
>> activities.  They use one entity (the previous collection), make some
>> changes, and generate a new entity (the next version of the
>> collection).  They aren't 'special' enough to include in PROV-DM.
>>
>>
>> One could argue (several of you have) that collections are very
>> important, since they cross so many domains. I could buy that, but
>> there are also many different types of collections (touched on by the
>> discussion) and the types of representations and changes that happen
>> to the collections, and importance of various aspects of provenance of
>> those changes are different for each of them.
>>
>>
>> Take what we have here, make it a Collection Provenance Model or
>> something like that, and propose it separately as a middle layer on
>> top of PROV, below all the "Provenance of XXX"s that will be needed
>> for various domains, but leave it out of PROV-DM.
>>
>>
>> My 2 cents,
>>
>> Curt
>>
>


--=20
-----------  ~oo~  --------------
Paolo Missier - Paolo.Missier@newcastle.ac.uk, pmissier@acm.org
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University,  UK
http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/Paolo.Missier