- From: Farrukh Najmi <Farrukh.Najmi@Sun.COM>
- Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 10:26:17 -0400
- To: Rob Shearer <Rob.Shearer@networkinference.com>
- Cc: RDF Data Access Working Group <public-rdf-dawg@w3.org>
Rob Shearer wrote: >Greetings, Farrukh! > >Apologies for not initiating contact myself. > >Your use case came up at the face-to-face, and I was curious whether >there were alternative ways to achieve the results you were trying to >get. > >You suggest a method of "query refinement" to select the elements of an >ontology in which you're interested: first do a general query, then add >a few more qualifying predicates, then add a few more, each time taking >a look at the result set and figuring out what to add to prune out the >results in which you're not interested. (Please correct the most >offensive bits of this crude summary.) > >In traditional description logics systems, the process of "concept >refinement" is most commonly implemented by traversing a concept >taxonomy using not just "subclass"-style edges, but rather >"direct-subclass" relationships. For example, a taxonomy of "Worker", >"White-Collar Worker", and "Accountant" would include both "White-Collar >Worker" and "Accountant" as subclasses of "Worker", however only >"White-Collar Worker" would be a direct subclass. > >The common use pattern would be a user interested in "Worker", so the >user asks for the direct subs of worker and finds that they are "White >Collar", "Blue Collar", "Service", and "Military". He can then drill >down on whichever of these he wishes, each time getting a fairly small >and easily-consumed result set. This is usually much easier to manage >than trying to figure out how to refine hundreds, thousands, or millions >of results by hand somehow. > >Is any approach along these lines applicable to your use case? > I totally agree with sub-class refinement as the most common narrowing technique. The use case envision the query to have zero or more parameters. Any one of the parameters MAY be a Concept in a taxonomy (or a class in an Ontology). This is implied but not stated in the use case as I was trying to have a minimalistic description that was easy to follow and conveyed the core use case. If you would like to propose a modified version to the use case text send me a draft and we can try and reach closure on the issue before the next DAWG meeting if possible. -- Regards, Farrukh
Received on Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:27:02 UTC