Re: Overview presentation

Hi All,

This alignment with W3C architecture is the missing point for the group 
to better appreciate what PML has accomplished in terms of provenance. 
For instance, we already have PML services wrapping key scientific 
repositories in the US (the USGS gravity and magnetic database, 
NSF-funded IRIS repository of seismic data, NCAR CHIP processes) and 
scientists are capable of retrieving either data or data and their 
provenance in form of PML. Please note that it was possible to implement 
these services because we spent a long time understanding these 
databases were put together, which kind of processing the raw data went 
through and so on.

Another interesting result of this W3C architecture alignment is the 
introduction of the notion of a question/answering context. For 
instance, in PML, we often assume provenance to be the provenance of a 
resource and the resource to be the outcome of some question that was 
asked. For example, a person may want to know the provenance of a given 
route provided by a GPS system because the route appears to be 
incorrect. In PML, we consider to be important to encode the fact that 
the allegedly incorrect route was generated because this person was 
asking for directions between points A and B.

In the example above, for instance, it may be hard or impossible to 
infer from an OPM provenance what was the original motivation for the 
system to generate such route and more specifically to know that the 
original goal was to get an accurate direction between points A and B. 
Moreover, when it comes to workflow systems, we see that workflows 
produce results that are not necessarily the final answer that the 
scientist have in mind at the time the scientist asked for workflow 
execution. In fact, the knowledge of this original motivation may be key 
for one to see what is going wrong with the derivation of a scientific 
product.

Many thanks,
Paulo.

On 10/29/2010 11:21 AM, Yolanda Gil wrote:
> All,
>
> A few months back I mentioned it would be good to have a slide
> presentation of the activities in our group.  I have been collecting
> materials over the last few months, and I have posted such a
> presentation at:
>
> 	http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/wiki/File:Provenance-XG-Overview.pdf
>
> Feel free to use it, with proper credit to the group.
>
> I will update it once more before we finalize our activities.
>
> Yolanda
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 29 October 2010 17:34:44 UTC