Re: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN integration) : issue-87 only

> FWIW, my experience of people using O&M is that "Property" was too 
> ambiguous and people used it in rather arbitrary fashion

Agreed. Property is often the top-concept for predicate hierarchies the 
same way "Thing" works for classes. I would try to avoid using 
"Property" whenever possible.


> So I would suggest the current long-hand name of "ObservableProperty" 
> is helpful -

Agreed. Ant it also makes clear that there are properties that are not 
observed (see Simon's list before).


On 02/06/2017 11:07 PM, Rob Atkinson wrote:
> FWIW, my experience of people using O&M is that "Property" was too 
> ambiguous and people used it in rather arbitrary fashion - strictly is 
> should relate to a property of the feature being observed, but with 
> intermediate sampling features, and in general the model of the 
> observed feature not being available formally this was generally too 
> hard to unravel - and people tend to use it as a surrogate for the 
> procedure, or a generalised classification of the subject, or just 
> their cat's name or something.
>
> So I would suggest the current long-hand name of "ObservableProperty" 
> is helpful - and its an opportunity to educate that "observations" may 
> be performed by physical sensors or via models. IMHO there are 
> actually a chain of scientific models in play for every physical 
> sensor, and its all the same thing and a distinction is meaningless. 
> Sensors are a way to give a shorthand identifier to part of such a 
> chain, because the sensor construction makes that chain immutable.
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 at 13:44 Armin Haller <armin.haller@anu.edu.au 
> <mailto:armin.haller@anu.edu.au>> wrote:
>
>     Kerry, you seem to be ok with recasting uses of Property in SSN,
>     as below. I note here that it does not have to be a recasting of
>     **all**, only where appropriate. There are already several other
>     subclasses of Property in SSN, e.g. SurvivableProperty,
>     OperatingProperty etc. which seem to be introduced in SSN to make
>     it easier for the user of the ontology to know what is meant with
>     “Property” in a specific use of the class. The same would apply to
>     ObservableProperty that is introduced in the core, making it
>     easier for the user to know what this class means, in the absence
>     of OWL axioms that give the informed user a clue on its intended use.
>
>     *From: *"Simon.Cox@csiro.au" <Simon.Cox@csiro.au>
>     *Date: *Tuesday, 7 February 2017 at 1:29 pm
>     *To: *Kerry Taylor <kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au
>     <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>>, Armin Haller
>     <armin.haller@anu.edu.au <mailto:armin.haller@anu.edu.au>>,
>     "janowicz@ucsb.edu <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>" <janowicz@ucsb.edu
>     <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>>, "maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr
>     <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>" <maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr
>     <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>>, "public-sdw-wg@w3.org
>     <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>" <public-sdw-wg@w3.org
>     <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>>
>
>
>     *Subject: *RE: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN
>     integration) : issue-87 only
>
>     Thanks for exploring this Kerry.
>
>     I agree that at least some ‘derivation’ processes fall into our
>     broad definition of ‘sensing’ and ‘observation’.
>
>     Note that I did hedge the subclassing with the statement
>
>     “These are not necessarily disjoint …”.
>
>     But it is clear that some properties definitely are not
>     “observable” in any normal sense (e.g. “name”, “owner”, “creator”)
>     and could never be associated with sensing procedures or instruments.
>
>     So there is a spectrum, but I would suggest that in the SSN layer
>     at least we really are only interested in Observable Properties,
>     and it is likely that inventories of these could be usefully
>     assembled, alongside catalogues of sensors. And that it is useful
>     to keep these clear of the non-observable properties.
>
>     On subclassing: why is it that you dislike having these in
>     alignments? Is there a principled reason for this application, or
>     does subclassing introduce some general difficulty that I’m not
>     familiar with?
>
>     Simon
>
>     *From:*Kerry Taylor [mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au
>     <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>]
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, 7 February, 2017 12:37
>     *To:* Armin Haller <armin.haller@anu.edu.au
>     <mailto:armin.haller@anu.edu.au>>; janowicz@ucsb.edu
>     <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>; Maxime Lefrançois
>     <maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>>;
>     Cox, Simon (L&W, Clayton) <Simon.Cox@csiro.au>;
>     public-sdw-wg@w3.org <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>     *Subject:* RE: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN
>     integration) : issue-87 only
>
>     This  subclass means that ssn instance data does not become
>     sosa-compliant instance data (I would love to have that if you
>     take all the instances of all the core terms out of an ssn full
>      instance you also have a usable sosa instance. I know this is
>     asking a lot… but I want bi-directional interoperability which is
>     implied by my proposal for integration. I should have spelled this
>     out earlier – and I suppose it needs some formalisation to be useful.
>
>     In this case if we really need “ObservableProperty)”  ( and my own
>     view is that this is just silly vocabulary, and I’d much rather
>     keep “property” for O&M compliance anyway, nevertheless I can live
>     with it)  I would like to check again whether **all** SSN uses of
>     Property could be recast as “Observable property”. They are
>     certainly not all  “Observed” properties, but given an explanation
>     of what distinguishes “observable” from others kind of properties
>       I would look at the implications.
>
>     OTOH looking at Simon’s ISO list :
>
>     >-Observation
>
>     >-Assertion (e.g. name, price)
>
>     >-Derivation (e.g. classifications based on combinations of observed
>     properties)
>
>     >- Inheritance/instantiation (e.g. where a property value is assumed
>     on the basis of class membership)
>
>     >These are not necessarily disjoint, and it is likely that observable properties are the
>     most interesting (depending on you epistemological viewpoint) >but
>     it is useful to recognize that observable properties are a
>     distinct class.
>
>     It is very clear that in sosa we do **not** want “observable
>     properties”  because we have sensors that are computational
>     simulations making observations by ‘Derivation” so this may not be
>     Observable at all. And surely ours can also can be “Assertion” (in
>     the case the sensor is a human, for example). Maybe even
>     inheritance/instantiation too.  For the latter if we want to
>     observe that some animal  instance  (such as animals caught in my
>     trap) has the property of being a member of some species (e.g.
>     “Homo Sapiens” ) on the basis of class membership --Why not? Why
>     should we prohibit that property being observed?
>
>     So this is a really strong reason why we should stick to
>     “Property” surely! If “Observable property” in this ISO  vocab
>     means anything at all then it must be distinc t from  the union
>      “Property” and so “Property” is what we need!
>
>     I really  dislike subclass alignments….and I dislike
>      equivalentclass almost  as much, wherever they actually sit. I
>     way prefer using the same terms throughout,
>
>     Which I tried to show in my proposal.
>
>     Just catching up here so maybe I missed something.
>
>     Thoughts?
>
>     -Kerry
>
>     *From:*Armin Haller
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, 7 February 2017 11:49 AM
>     *To:* janowicz@ucsb.edu <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>; Maxime
>     Lefrançois <maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr
>     <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>>; Simon.Cox@csiro.au
>     <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>; Kerry Taylor <kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au
>     <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>>; public-sdw-wg@w3.org
>     <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>     *Subject:* Re: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN
>     integration) : issue-87 only
>
>     The sub-class relation would only be introduced in SSN not SOSA. I
>     should have been more explicit in the second dot-point. The third
>     dot-point means to say that.
>
>     *From: *Krzysztof Janowicz <janowicz@ucsb.edu
>     <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>>
>     *Reply-To: *"janowicz@ucsb.edu <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>"
>     <janowicz@ucsb.edu <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>>
>     *Date: *Tuesday, 7 February 2017 at 11:44 am
>     *To: *Armin Haller <armin.haller@anu.edu.au
>     <mailto:armin.haller@anu.edu.au>>, Maxime Lefrançois
>     <maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>>,
>     "Simon.Cox@csiro.au <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>"
>     <Simon.Cox@csiro.au <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>>, Kerry Taylor
>     <kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>>,
>     "public-sdw-wg@w3.org <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>"
>     <public-sdw-wg@w3.org <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>>
>     *Subject: *Re: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN
>     integration) : issue-87 only
>
>     Not sure, whether I am fully understanding this.
>
>         -ObservableProperty is a subclass of ssn:Property
>
>
>     This would violate one of our design principles, namely that SOSA
>     does not make use of SSN.
>
>
>     On 02/06/2017 04:41 PM, Armin Haller wrote:
>
>         It looks like we have a proposal here to resolve issue 87:
>         https://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/track/issues/87
>
>         Please let me try to restate what was proposed:
>
>         -ObservableProperty is introduced in SOSA (as is currently
>         implemented in:
>         https://github.com/w3c/sdw/blob/gh-pages/ssn/rdf/sosa.ttl)
>
>         -ObservableProperty is a subclass of ssn:Property
>
>         -ObservableProperty is introduced in SSN as well and the
>         subclass relation to ssn:Property is stated within
>
>         That leaves the door open to have another property in SSN
>         (and) SOSA concerned with ActuableProperties.
>
>         This should also mean that SSN instances are SOSA instances,
>         since no axioms in SOSA are violated.
>
>         Is my understanding correct?
>
>         *From: *Maxime Lefrançois <maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>
>         <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>
>         *Date: *Tuesday, 7 February 2017 at 10:14 am
>         *To: *"Simon.Cox@csiro.au" <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>
>         <Simon.Cox@csiro.au> <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>,
>         "janowicz@ucsb.edu" <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>
>         <janowicz@ucsb.edu> <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>, Kerry Taylor
>         <kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au> <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>,
>         "public-sdw-wg@w3.org" <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>         <public-sdw-wg@w3.org> <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>         *Subject: *Re: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN
>         integration) : issue-87 only
>         *Resent-From: *<public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>         <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>         *Resent-Date: *Tuesday, 7 February 2017 at 10:15 am
>
>         Yes indeed, this is what I meant. Thanks.
>
>         Le lun. 6 févr. 2017 à 23:50, <Simon.Cox@csiro.au>
>         <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au> a écrit :
>
>             Øit appears very strange to me to state that a
>             ssn:property is a sub property of a sosa:ObservableProperty
>
>             ØThis is what can be read at [1]
>
>             Assuming you mean “it appears very strange to me to state
>             that a ssn:Property is a sub class of a
>             sosa:ObservableProperty” then I agree. That looks like my
>             error.
>
>             Simon
>
>             *From:*Maxime Lefrançois [mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr
>             <mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr>]
>             *Sent:* Monday, 6 February, 2017 17:55
>             *To:* janowicz@ucsb.edu <mailto:janowicz@ucsb.edu>; Cox,
>             Simon (L&W, Clayton) <Simon.Cox@csiro.au>
>             <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>; kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au
>             <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>; public-sdw-wg@w3.org
>             <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>
>
>             *Subject:* Re: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of SOSA/SSN
>             integration) : issue-87 only
>
>                     ØAnd it appears very strange to me to state that
>                     an observable property is a sub property of a
>                     property.
>
>             That was a slip of the tongue, I meant:
>
>                 it appears very strange to me to state that a
>                 ssn:property is a sub property of a
>                 sosa:ObservableProperty
>
>             This is what can be read at [1] and is also what I would
>             model when Phil says:
>
>             >>> Looking at the two definitions, there are differences but
>             they look
>
>                 >>> very minor to my eyes with sosa:ObservableProperty
>             looking slightly
>
>             >>> more general, so, again, I'd delete ssn:Property.
>
>             [1] -
>             https://github.com/w3c/sdw/blob/gh-pages/ssn/rdf/ssn-sosa.ttl
>
>             but anyways, +1 in favour of your arguments, and I propose
>             that:
>
>              - we update sosa-ssn.ttl to reflect what we all agree on;
>
>              - we also consider either to add sosa:ActuableProperty,
>             or roll back to just sosa:Property.
>
>             Kind regards,
>
>             Maxime
>
>                     Not strange actually – not all properties are
>                     observable. In the revision of ISO 19109:2015 we
>                     distinguished between
>
>                     -Observation
>
>                     -Assertion (e.g. name, price)
>
>                     -Derivation (e.g. classifications based on
>                     combinations of observed properties)
>
>                     -Inheritance/instantiation (e.g. where a property
>                     value is assumed on the basis of class membership)
>
>                     These are not necessarily disjoint, and it is
>                     likely that observable properties are the most
>                     interesting (depending on you epistemological
>                     viewpoint) but it is useful to recognize that
>                     observable properties are a distinct class.
>
>                 Yes, not strange at all. I agree with all of Simon's
>                 arguments and we also made them in one of our telco's
>                 half a year ago.
>
>
>
>
>                 On 02/05/2017 04:57 PM, Simon.Cox@csiro.au
>                 <mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au> wrote:
>
>                     ØAnd it appears very strange to me to state that
>                     an observable property is a sub property of a
>                     property.
>
>                     Not strange actually – not all properties are
>                     observable. In the revision of ISO 19109:2015 we
>                     distinguished between
>
>                     -Observation
>
>                     -Assertion (e.g. name, price)
>
>                     -Derivation (e.g. classifications based on
>                     combinations of observed properties)
>
>                     -Inheritance/instantiation (e.g. where a property
>                     value is assumed on the basis of class membership)
>
>                     These are not necessarily disjoint, and it is
>                     likely that observable properties are the most
>                     interesting (depending on you epistemological
>                     viewpoint) but it is useful to recognize that
>                     observable properties are a distinct class.
>
>                     Simon
>
>                     *From:*Maxime Lefrançois
>                     [mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr]
>                     *Sent:* Monday, 6 February, 2017 00:22
>                     *To:* Kerry Taylor <kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>
>                     <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>; SDW WG Public
>                     List <public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>                     <mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
>                     *Subject:* Re: Proposals (was Re: Architecture of
>                     SOSA/SSN integration) : issue-87 only
>
>                     +1 for Kerry's arguments.
>
>                     And it appears very strange to me to state that an
>                     observable property is a sub property of a property.
>
>                     I just changed to sosa:Property instead of
>                     sosa:ObservableProperty in the proposal I am
>                     currently working on.
>
>                      + add relations and classes that are missing
>
>                     best,
>
>                     Maximle
>
>                     Le dim. 5 févr. 2017 à 13:44, Kerry Taylor
>                     <kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au
>                     <mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>> a écrit :
>
>                         PhilA has said
>
>                         >>> Looking at the two definitions, there are
>                         differences but they look
>
>                         >>> very minor to my eyes with
>                         sosa:ObservableProperty looking slightly
>
>                         >>> more general, so, again, I'd delete
>                         ssn:Property.
>
>                         This is issue-87. As you can see by my
>                         analysis last November in the tracker
>                         https://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/track/issues/87 ,
>
>                         (1). A sosa: Observable Property is NOT an O&M
>                         property. The O&M standard has no such term.
>
>                         (2) The ssn:Property  has the same intended
>                         meaning as an  an O&M Property (and, yes it is
>                         an O&M “Property”) and this is explicit by the
>                         annotation  within ssn  “<dc:source> skos:exactMatch 'property' [O&M]http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/om  </dc:source>”
>
>                           
>
>                         (3) What is shown in the mapping table is  not
>                         the complete annotation for  ssn:Property –
>                         just an extract. However that very paragraph
>                         deserves improvement.
>
>                         (4) ssn:Property is used in other places
>                         throughout ssn that have nothing to do with
>                         the narrow context associated with Observation
>                          as it is used in SOSA.
>
>                         In particular, nothing to do with a
>
>                         (5) ssn:Property cannot be deleted --- many,
>                         many things will break. Nor can it be replaced
>                         by sosa:ObservableProperty (see 4).  Maybe it
>                         is possible to say sosa:Property
>                         rdfs:SubclassOf  ssn:Property but this has its
>                         problems too (ssn instances would not be sosa
>                         instances). A more sophisticated  workaround
>                         is required if we head that direction.
>
>                         (6) ssn users know it as “Property” . So do
>                         O&M users. Why change, who are we serving?
>
>                         (6) OTOH a simple name change  in sosa to
>                         “Property” and some clarification on the
>                         rdfs:comments in both places would work – and
>                         then ssn and sosa can use the very same term.
>                         This is the essence of my proposal on the wiki
>                         as a pattern to solve all these many problems.
>                         https://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/wiki/Proposals_for_rewriting_SSN#Compromise_Proposal_6_made_by_Kerry_January_2017
>
>                         In this case the rdfs:comment suggested by
>                         Armin looks very close  but I prefer
>                         abbreviated as follows (due to (4) )  “An
>                         observable quality of a real world phenomena
>                         (thing, person, event, etc.) “ or here is
>                         another idea  that I propose “An observable
>                         quality of a real world phenomena (object,
>                          person, or event), typically a
>                         FeatureOfInterest” . That works well  in the
>                         context for my proposal that also shows how to
>                         use it in the simple core.
>
>                         -Kerry
>
>                         Dr Kerry Taylor
>
>                         Associate Professor (Data Science)
>
>                         Research School of Computer Science
>
>                         ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science
>
>                         Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
>
>                         +61 2 6125 8560 <tel:+61%202%206125%208560>
>
>                 -- 
>
>                 Krzysztof Janowicz
>
>                   
>
>                 Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
>
>                 4830 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060
>
>                   
>
>                 Email:jano@geog.ucsb.edu <mailto:jano@geog.ucsb.edu>
>
>                 Webpage:http://geog.ucsb.edu/~jano/
>                 <http://geog.ucsb.edu/%7Ejano/>
>
>                 Semantic Web Journal:http://www.semantic-web-journal.net
>
>                   
>
>     -- 
>
>     Krzysztof Janowicz
>
>       
>
>     Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
>
>     4830 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060
>
>       
>
>     Email:jano@geog.ucsb.edu <mailto:jano@geog.ucsb.edu>
>
>     Webpage:http://geog.ucsb.edu/~jano/ <http://geog.ucsb.edu/%7Ejano/>
>
>     Semantic Web Journal:http://www.semantic-web-journal.net
>


-- 
Krzysztof Janowicz

Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
4830 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060

Email: jano@geog.ucsb.edu
Webpage: http://geog.ucsb.edu/~jano/
Semantic Web Journal: http://www.semantic-web-journal.net

Received on Tuesday, 7 February 2017 16:27:48 UTC