- From: Bijan Parsia <bparsia@cs.man.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:13:26 +0000
- To: W3C HCLSIG hcls <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org>
On 25 Mar 2009, at 10:41, Phillip Lord wrote: > "Michel_Dumontier" <Michel_Dumontier@carleton.ca> writes: >> And I'm trying to explain that there is no pragmatic reason to make >> explicit the distinction between a biomolecule (and what we know >> about >> it) and a database record (and what we know about the biomolecule) >> unless they are actually different. It just complicates things in a >> wholly unnecessary way. > > > I've given a clear example. Where two databases exist, with two > records, > which appear to be referring to the same (class of) molecules. [snip] This is the key example. But there's the other key example, where one record exists which appear to be referring to multiple entities (either by ambiguity or by composition). This is a generalization of your point about ill definedness of the very idea of a gene. To paraphase you (I think), introducing a resource in the latter case takes you from 1 mapping problem to 2 mapping problems. This is why the the Boothian line is quite naive. If it's just the case that you have 1 (or more) records and a clear relationship better the record(s) and the object described by the record, then it may (or may not!, by often will) make sense to distinguish them and name each, esp. for the purpose of entity reconciliation, record reconciliation, entity exploration, etc. However, if you are forced to do so without a clear purpose, then you just add more noise to the overall system. You are likely to make brute errors and you are likely to make choices that conflict with those motivated by different applications. This is why clear empirical data is important. It's perfectly possible to do harm (in aggregate) by following a rule intended to produce good. Cheers, Bijan.
Received on Wednesday, 25 March 2009 14:16:20 UTC