Re: [OEP] "Classes as values": comments on draft

I'd like to address a couple of points here. First, how much should the  
notes on patterns promote specific vocabulary, such as SKOS? For  
instance, your second solution is almost identical to approach 3 in the  
note and the only difference (it seems to me) is using a specific SKOS  
vocabulary (and making all concepts/subjects to be instances of  
skos:Concept) rather than local concepts that I made up.

Should the pattern be using that vocabulary, thus encouraging others to  
use it? With SKOS in particular, I am pledging ignorance and have to  
ask: how accepted is it and would it be premature to refer to it in the  
note? On the one hand, using concepts from other ontologies in the  
patterns that we produce is a great show-case for the whole SW idea. On  
the other, we don't want to have patterns rely on more transient  
ontologies (I am not trying to imply that SKOS is transient, just  
wondering about the general policy). Any policy on that that we should  
have?  For example, should I change the approach 3 in the pattern to  
use skos vocabulary as Alistair suggests below?

For the specific use case, as I've pointed out earlier, what I was  
trying to use the pattern for is to talk about images/books, etc that  
are not about specific lions (and book is a better example here), but  
rather about a class of lions. That said, the solution like your first  
one, comes up often enough (even though it's a different "ontological  
pattern", to use Aldo's terminology), that it should be included in the  
note. Look for it in version 3.

Natasha

On Apr 29, 2004, at 7:36 AM, Miles, AJ (Alistair) wrote:

>
> Sorry, resending this correcting some N3 syntax mistakes ...
>
> I believe the best way to express the fact that a particular image  
> depicts a
> thing which is a member of the class of Lions would be to say (this is  
> the
> FOAF model):
>
> LionImage
> 	a	AnimalImage;
> 	foaf:depicts	[a	Lion].
>
> Lion
> 	a	owl:Class;
> 	subClassOf	Mammal.
>
> Mammal	a	owl:Class.
> AnimalImage	a	owl:Class.
>
>
> The alternative way of expressing similar information is to use the
> dc:subject property along with the SKOS model [2] for describing  
> concepts
> that are intended to act as 'subjects' or 'topics' for information
> resources.
>
> LionImage
> 	a	AnimalImage;
> 	dc:subject	LionConcept.
>
> LionConcept
> 	a	skos:Concept;
> 	skos:prefLabel	'Lions';
> 	skos:broader	MammalConcept.
>
> MammalConcept
> 	a	skos:Concept;
> 	skos:prefLabel	'Mammals';
> 	skos:narrower	LionConcept.
>
> The SKOS vocab already defines a class 'Concept' and a set of  
> properties for
> organising concepts into a hierarchy, without demanding that the  
> hierarchy
> implies a subclass relationship.  I refer the WG to the document [2]  
> which
> outlines the SKOS-Core schema, although you should currently ignore the
> final section on 'using SKOS-Core with DC and FOAF' as this will change
> shortly to be in line with the model of usage that I have briefly  
> described
> here.
>
> Yours,
>
> Alistair.
>
> [1]
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2004Apr/att-0061/ 
> ClassesAsVa
> lues.html
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/1.0/guide/
>

Received on Sunday, 2 May 2004 16:13:34 UTC