ISSUE-131: Last Call Comment: mappings with a boolean expression

Dear Johan,

Many thanks for your comment and suggestions, your attention to detail
is appreciated.

In respect of your comment:

"""
The mapping constructs are not practical for expressing the mapping between
concepts in the following use case.
(maybe this use case is not considered as part of the skos objective, then
please ignore the remark)

- ConceptSchema csA, csB, ... are used to classify content
  Typically csA, csB, ... are large and complex content schemes, used by
experts and/or expert tools
- Taxonomies tM, tN, ... are used in a an custom [i.e. target audience
specific] application
  Typically tM, tN, are made at hoc and are not used for direct content
classification (This exclusion need not be absolute)
- A seach expressed in terms/concepts of tM, tN, ... 
  must be resolved by a one-way mapping (tN & tM & ...) ->
boolean-expression-of(csA * csB * ... )

Multiple of these mappings allow content to be uniquely indexed (indexed
over csA, cs B, ...)
While supporting reuse of that indexed content in different search
strategies for different audiences
(user query specifies concepts from tM, tN, ...)

The current mapping does not address such mappings (with a boolean
expression)
"""

The Working Group has considered mappings between concepts and
Boolean-like expressions. This fell within the scope of two issues:
[ISSUE-39] and [ISSUE-40].

In [1] it was proposed not to include any boolean-like grouping
constructs in SKOS, because this would require a substantial addition
to the theoretical foundations of SKOS. This was discussed during the
2007-12-18 telecon and became part of the resolution to ISSUE-39
adopted by the Working Group.

Any third party is, of course, free to define an extension for SKOS
which provides a vocabulary for complex, boolean-like mapping
expressions, and which ideally would also develop the necessary theory
to allow those expressions to be used in query translation
software. This, however, has been deemed out of scope for the current
SKOS Recommendation Track work.

Can you live with this?

Thanks again, 

Alistair Miles
Sean Bechhofer 

[ISSUE-39] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/39
[ISSUE-40] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/40
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2007Dec/0025.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/2007/12/18-swd-minutes

-- 
Alistair Miles
Senior Computing Officer
Image Bioinformatics Research Group
Department of Zoology
The Tinbergen Building
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PS
United Kingdom
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman
Email: alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1865 281993

Received on Thursday, 6 November 2008 17:57:22 UTC