Sustainable Codes vs Volatile URIs Re: URIs / Ontology for Physical Units and Quantities

Dear all

This issue has been surfacing again and again lately, and I would like to
support Martin. I've already pushed this viewpoint here and there, I
understand the reaction of "orthodox" linked data supporters for whom
"things must be identified by URIs", period. But to put in bluntly, in many
cases, well-maintained codes for standardized identities (languages,
countries, towns, units ...) are more sustainable ways to share identities
than URIs, for the obvious reasons given by Martin (URIs are volatile) plus
three other ones at least.

- Codes are not tied to any technical architecture, they can be used and
exchanged across any information system, not only the Web (semantic or
not). They allow to "weave beyond the Web" [1] any kind of data using them.

- Codes have minimal semantics (if any), they just carry shared identities,
and that's great. Different data publishers can propose different
representations, identified by different URIs, and sharing the same
standard code. The sharing of a code via a common property/value pair is
the best way to provide loose coupling between those entities without
engaging into the neverending ontological and technical debate of knowing
if those representations represent the same/similar/equivalent thing(s),
and catastrophic chaining triggered by such hazardous equivalences.

Let me take just one example. Is not it safer to tie
http://id.insee.fr/geo/commune/21231 to http://dbpedia.org/resource/Dijon
by the common value of INSEE code "21231" (standardized by INSEE) than to
rely on cascading sameAs leading to the stupid semantic black hole at
http://sameas.org/html?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%2Fresource%2FDijon
which is the patent proof of the failure of a dogmatic and positivist use
of URIs.

[1] http://bvatant.blogspot.fr/2015/04/weaving-beyond-web.html


2015-05-07 0:31 GMT+02:00 martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org <
martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org>:

> The problem is not the one time generation. The problems are as follows:
>
> 1. Copyright - Are you allowed to republish the code set as RDF?
> 2. Sustainability - Are you commited to keep the URIs dereferencable, or
> will some domain grabber take the domain name once the creator has
> completed his/her PhD and lost interest.
> 3. Updates - Will you keep the RDF version in sync whenever the standard
> changes?
>
> Unless there is a clear "yes" to all three questions, it is better to use
> the official codes than derived URIs.
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> > On 06 May 2015, at 23:56, Wes Turner <wes.turner@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > How much time do you think it would take to generate RDF (and namespaced
> URIs) from the linked spreadsheet?
> >
> > Mappings to/from UN/CEFACT codes (as owl:sameAs mappings to strings)
> could certainly be useful.
> >
> > On May 6, 2015 4:31 PM, "martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org" <
> martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org> wrote:
> > I think a validator should simply use the list of valid codes from the
> most recent UN/CEFACT document (available as MS Excel from
> http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/codes_index.html).
> >
> > There might be unit of measurement ontologies out there that hold the
> UN/CEFACT Common Code string for a subset of all units as a literal value.
> But for validation, one should use the authoritative list from the Excel
> files (since they are updated from time to time).
> >
> > URIs are not better than strings for validation, because URIs are
> strings.
> >
> > Best wishes / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
> >
> > Martin Hepp
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > martin hepp
> > e-business & web science research group
> > universitaet der bundeswehr muenchen
> >
> > e-mail:  martin.hepp@unibw.de
> > phone:   +49-(0)89-6004-4217
> > fax:     +49-(0)89-6004-4620
> > www:     http://www.unibw.de/ebusiness/ (group)
> >          http://www.heppnetz.de/ (personal)
> > skype:   mfhepp
> > twitter: mfhepp
> >
> > Check out GoodRelations for E-Commerce on the Web of Linked Data!
> > =================================================================
> > * Project Main Page: http://purl.org/goodrelations/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On 06 May 2015, at 20:34, Wes Turner <wes.turner@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > I notice that with QUDT there are SI conversion factors and complete
> URIs for each unit.
> > >
> > > Is there a schema for validation of "schema:QuantativeValues supports
> all UN/CEFACT Common Codes"?
> > >
> > > (A similar quandry as with MedicalCode; where URI namespaces (like
> icd10:) would be more helpful for terminological validation and
> disambiguation than plain string keys)
> > >
> > > On May 6, 2015 4:26 AM, "martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org" <
> martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Wes,
> > > > sorry for a very late reply:
> > > >
> > > > Actually you could easily use schema:QuantitativeValue for both time
> and volume, with SEC as the unit code for t and LTR as the unit code for
> liters, and link both via schema:valueReference, or better, and
> owl:subProperty thereof.
> > > >
> > > > For the principle, see
> > > >
> > > >
> http://wiki.goodrelations-vocabulary.org/Documentation/Structured_values_and_value_references
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > schema:QuantativeValues supports all UN/CEFACT Common Codes for
> units, which should cover all you need:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> http://wiki.goodrelations-vocabulary.org/Documentation/UN/CEFACT_Common_Codes
> > > >
> > > > (Mind the full list in the public Excel files, the page just
> highlights a small subset.)
> > > >
> > > > Best wishes / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
> > > >
> > > > Martin Hepp
> > > >
> > > > -------------------------------------------------------
> > > > martin hepp
> > > > e-business & web science research group
> > > > universitaet der bundeswehr muenchen
> > > >
> > > > e-mail:  martin.hepp@unibw.de
> > > > phone:   +49-(0)89-6004-4217
> > > > fax:     +49-(0)89-6004-4620
> > > > www:     http://www.unibw.de/ebusiness/ (group)
> > > >          http://www.heppnetz.de/ (personal)
> > > > skype:   mfhepp
> > > > twitter: mfhepp
> > > >
> > > > Check out GoodRelations for E-Commerce on the Web of Linked Data!
> > > > =================================================================
> > > > * Project Main Page: http://purl.org/goodrelations/
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > On 01 May 2015, at 13:45, ☮ elf Pavlik ☮ <
> perpetual-tripper@wwelves.org> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi Wes,
> > > > >
> > > > > On 01/26/2014 07:20 AM, Wes Turner wrote:
> > > > >> Say I am trying to share a tabular dataset. [1] There's metadata
> for
> > > > >> the Dataset, and there's metadata for the particular columns
> (which
> > > > >> applies to the particular data items).
> > > > >>
> > > > >> For example:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> t   volume (liters)
> > > > >> -----------------
> > > > >> 1  1
> > > > >> 2  0.7
> > > > >> 3  0.5
> > > > >> 4  0.3
> > > > >> 5  0.1
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Questions
> > > > >> ===========
> > > > >> # Is there (a good) way to specify these units and quantities (in
> > > > >> addition to XSD datatypes)?
> > > > > You might like to check out
> > > > > * https://iotdb.org/pub/iot-unit.html
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers!
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> >
>
>
>


-- 

*Bernard Vatant*
Vocabularies & Data Engineering
Tel :  + 33 (0)9 71 48 84 59
Skype : bernard.vatant
http://google.com/+BernardVatant
--------------------------------------------------------
*Mondeca*
35 boulevard de Strasbourg 75010 Paris
www.mondeca.com
Follow us on Twitter : @mondecanews <http://twitter.com/#%21/mondecanews>
----------------------------------------------------------