Re: Does 'Feature' = 'Real World Thing'?

If we use feature to refer to the information resource, then we'll be at odds with OGC/ISO usage. It's more compatible to equate feature to thing / real world thing / spatial thing as long as we avoid the conceit that thing is somehow separate from perception / cognition. Of course if the information resource is termed feature representation, then it can get confused with Fielding's resource-representation conceptualization. It would be best to call it a feature resource or feature model, but common parlance is unfortunately to confuse all of these terms together and refer to them all as feature. What's in a name?

Josh

Joshua Lieberman, Ph.D.
Principal, Tumbling Walls Consultancy
Tel/Direct: +1 627-431-6431
jlieberman@tumblingwalls.com

> On Oct 22, 2015, at 05:29, Jeremy Tandy <jeremy.tandy@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> All- many thanks again for contributions to this topic! I think that we have a resolution- or at least sufficient resolution for us to move forward.
> 
> @Clemens ... you said:
> 
> > there is no concept that would support using the same identifier for both features [...]. A feature instance is of exactly one feature type, it cannot be of the feature type "light house" from application schema A and "vertical obstruction" of application schema B.
> 
> I think that this relates to the frame-based _information_ modelling approach used for creating Application Schema. And yes- this is different to the approach taken with RDF. 
> 
> @Simon ... based on going back to the spec, you conclude:
> 
> > the term ‘Feature’ clearly refers to the abstraction, information, data. [... So we must] Use ‘Thing’ for the real-world (including fictional) thing, and ‘feature’ for an information object that describes it, according to some viewpoint.
> 
> > regarding Jeremy’s ‘what is the subject’ question, a case could be made for using a URI for the real-world thing as the subject in RDF statements in all cases, regardless of the model or ‘feature-type’ in use, while the set of statements relating to a specific viewpoint (feature-type) comprises a graph. The URI for a graph identifies the ‘feature’, while the URI for a thing in the world can be subject of statements from all viewpoints.
> 
> +1 from me. This is the conclusion that I had also reached ...
> We identify the real-world (including fictional) Thing.
> We identify a collection of statements (e.g. a graph) that describe the Thing according to a given perspective; the Feature. The Thing is the subject of the statements.
> This works for me. 
> 
> Regarding point (2) it's worth noting that (at least from my pov) it is best practice for Application Schema to be solely concerned with the conceptual model (the 'universe of discourse'); attributes of the Thing that are deemed important in the application domain. That said, I often see Application Schema with Feature Types that conflate the 'Thing' and 'Feature' (aka information resource) subjects so that the collection of properties defined by the Feature Type are a mixture of those that talk about the 'Thing' (e.g. height; an instance might assert height = 37ft ... this is clearly about the 'Thing') and those that are metadata about the 'Feature' (information object) itself (e.g. creation date, last update time, license, owner, maintainer etc.). This makes it very difficult to merge data from such instances of those Feature Types because the subject isn't clear. 
> 
> [OK- if that passed you by, don't worry]
> 
> @Josh ... you said:
> 
> > We can happen to recognize two things that have close the same spatial extent (and temporal extent). That doesn’t make them the same “thing”. [...] We learn something by interpreting the collocation, just as layering features in a map brings insight.
> 
> Indeed. Collocation is a useful indicator but, by itself, is often insufficient to determine 'sameness'. 
> 
> If we apply Simon's proposal that the 'Thing' is the subject of the statements in the Feature, two (or more) Features may use the same 'Thing' as their subject. This is an explicit assertion of sameness and is achieved either by both Features using the same identifier for their subject, or by using the 'sameAs' assertion to say that the two identifiers actually refer to the same Thing. These are very strong assertions, not to be taken lightly. 
> 
> Regarding the reconciliation of data that is apparently talking about the same thing, Ed previously said "here be dragons" [1]. 
> 
> @Lars ...
> 
> > Does that mean that if I want to express this in RDF, I need three URIs? One for the real-world-thing, one for the feature and one for the feature representation?
> 
> Hopefully you're a little less confused. In my mind we have just two URIs:
> URI identifying 'Thing'
> URI identifying 'description of Thing' / 'Feature' / 'graph'
> Why two URIs? Why can't we just have one? It's clear that we have two resources: the 'Thing' and 'description of Thing'. The Web Architecture [2] (that we agreed forms a foundational aspect of our best practice) states: 
> Constraint: URIs Identify a Single Resource
> 
> Assign distinct URIs to distinct resources.
> 
> 
> 
> Furthermore, the need to treat 'Thing' and 'description of Thing' as disjoint resources is the subject of W3C URLs in Data Primer [3]. 'Feature' is synonymous with the term 'Record' [4] defined therein.
> 
> Section 4 'Documenting Properties' [5] notes that:
> 
> "A data format that mixes properties about [...] records and properties about the things those [...] records describe is not necessarily ambiguous: all that's required for developers to understand what the properties actually apply to is for the meaning of the property to be documented."
> 
> This is exactly the situation we have with many existing (GML) Application Schema. URLs in Data proposes how to declare which property is which type. Section 5.3 'Publishing Data' [6] says that:
> 
> "Publishers can help enable more accurate merging of data from different sites if they support URLs for each entity they or other sites may wish to describe, separate from the [...] records that they publish."
> 
> So it's best two have 2 URIs; one for each of Thing and Feature.
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> [1]: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sdw-wg/2015Sep/0059.html 
> [2]: http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#id-resources 
> [3]: http://www.w3.org/TR/urls-in-data/
> [4]: http://www.w3.org/TR/urls-in-data/#dfn-record 
> [5]: http://www.w3.org/TR/urls-in-data/#documenting-properties 
> [6]: http://www.w3.org/TR/urls-in-data/#publishing-data 
> 
>> On Thu, 22 Oct 2015 at 07:37 Svensson, Lars <L.Svensson@dnb.de> wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 21, 2015 10:38 PM, Joshua Lieberman wrote:
>> [...]
>> 
>> [Clemens]
>> > > But first of all, the feature is an information object describing a real-world
>> > thing.
>> >
>> > That's consistent with the definition of Spatial Object in INSPIRE. Restated:
>> > • Feature != Real-World Thing
>> > • Feature = Information Resource that _describes_ Real-World Thing
>> > @Josh, @Simon: can you confirm this meets your expectations?
>> 
>> [Josh]
>> > Almost. There are two feature statements needed to get from the world to
>> > spatial data:
>> >
>> > 1. Feature = discernment of a type of Real-World Thing (as distinct from Not
>> > Thing)
>> > 2. Feature Data = representation of a Feature (as an information resource)
>> 
>> Does that mean that if I want to express this in RDF, I need three URIs? One for the real-world-thing, one for the feature and one for the feature representation?
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> Lars (who starts to feel confused...)