RE: Remarks on OWL Guide and question about AS&S

Antoine,

Thanks for your comments.  I will get back to you soon with a detailed
response to those re the Guide.

- Mike

Michael K. Smith, Ph.D., P.E.
EDS - Austin Innovation Centre
98 San Jacinto, #500
Austin, TX  78701

phone: +01-512-404-6683
email: michael.smith@eds.com
  

-----Original Message-----
From: Antoine Isaac [mailto:aisaac@ina.fr] 
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 9:50 AM
To: public-webont-comments@w3.org
Subject: Remarks on OWL Guide and question about AS&S



Hi folks,

After the reading of the last versions of OWL Guide and OWL AS&S, I have
some basic remarks, some of them due to typo errors, others not. Maybe they
are mainly due to some english (or more fundamental) misunderstandings of
mine.

Concerning OWL Guide :

-> sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3

In section, 3.2.2, yearValue is specified has having a xsd:positiveInteger
range. In the next section, the individual Year1998 id defined by :

[
<VintageYear rdf:ID="Year1998">
  <yearValue rdf:datatype="&xsd;positiveInteger">1998</yearValue>
</VintageYear>
]

Is the specification of rdf:datatype="&xsd;positiveInteger" mandatory? Is is
linked to RDF syntax considerations or just an examplification of what could
optionnally be written? Is <VintageYear rdf:ID="Year1998">
  <yearValue>1998</yearValue>
</VintageYear>
correct?


-> section 3.3, InverseFunctionalProperty subsection

[
<owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="producesWine">
  <rdf:type rdf:resource="&owl;InverseFunctionalProperty" />
  <owl:inverseOf rdf:resource="#hasMaker" />
</owl:ObjectProperty>                                     ¬

Think of the elements of the range in an inverse functional property as
defining a unique key in the database sense. owl:InverseFunctional implies
that the elements of the range provide a unique identifier for each element
of the domain. ]

In this case, a Wine can be used to identify a Winery, but it is not a
*unique* key, since several wines can be produced by a single winery (which
seems to be allowed by the last sentence of the previous section).

I have understood that there has been lots of arguing about the meaning of
this property (I know this issue has been largely discussed in the rdf-logic
list, but I do not find the thread....). Indeed I believed I had got it,
until I saw the two last paragraph of the subsection. In my understanding of
the definitions, an InverseFunctionalProperty gives a key provided it has an
exactly-one cardinality restriction on its range. Now I am not sure of
anything...


-> section 3.4.1

[
The maker of a Wine must be a Winery. The allValuesFrom restriction is on
the hasMaker property of this Wine class only. Makers of Cheese are not
constrained by this local restriction. ]

Indeed makers of Cheeses should NOT be concerned, for in 3.3 (and in
wine.owl) producesWine has been defined by :

[
<owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="producesWine">
  <owl:inverseOf rdf:resource="#hasMaker" /> </owl:ObjectProperty> ]

That implies that any cheese that would be made by a maker of cheese would
be in the range of a "producesWine" property, which is quite disturbing.


-> section 3.4.2

[
owl:maxCardinality can be used to specify an upper bound. owl:minCardinality
can be used to specify a lower bound. In combination, the two can be used to
specify a range. ]

Perhaps a typo : "cardinality" (or "owl:cardinality") instead of "range" ?


-> section 5.1

[

 <owl:Class rdf:ID="ConsumableThing" />

  <owl:Class rdf:ID="NonConsumableThing">
    <owl:complementOf rdf:resource="#ConsumableThing" />
  </owl:Class>

The class of NonConsumableThing includes as its members all individuals that
do not belong to the extension of ConsumableThing. This set includes all
Wines, Regions, etc ]

Is a wine non consumable ? Anyway, when I searched in wine.owl for further
examplification I couldn't find the above definitions. I found it in
food.owl, only to discover it was not a subclass of PotableLiquid. If it is
a modelisation choice, it looks strange.


-> appendix C

[
<owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="&vin;regionOf">
    <rdf:type rdf:resource="&owl;FunctionalProperty" />
    <owl:inverseOf rdf:resource="&vin;hasRegion"/>
    <owl:range rdf:resource="&vin;Country"/> </owl:ObjectProperty> ]

There is a typo. the range is "&vin;region", as it is specified in the
following triple definition :

[
vin:hasRegion owl:range vin:Region.
]


Concerning OWL AS & S

I have not clearly understood the goal of section 4.1 (I must recognize I am
far from being an expert in those matters). If it is to obtain (when
possible) equivalent RDF triples for OWL definitions, why not using RDF
abilities at best ? In particular, could an equivalent for
"EquivalentClasses (D1...Dn)" be
"T(Di) rdfs:subclassOf T(Di+1); T(Di+1) rdfs:subClassOf T(Di),1<=i<n" or
would a RDFS-guru find it really stupid ?

Regards.

Antoine Isaac

Received on Friday, 11 April 2003 10:56:58 UTC