Re: Handling multiple rdfs:ranges

Ross,


The conclusion here is that Bioportal wrongly uses rdfs:domain. The 
provenance ontology uses it correctly, and if DBpedia does not have 
multiple domains or ranges, then no problem.

There are certainly many more mistaken datasets with this respect, as 
there are many other kinds of errors in datasets. There are also many 
misinterpretations of HTML markups, mistakes in CSS files, and in fact, 
all Web standards are misused to some extent. If the wrong use of 
multiple domains / ranges was largely predominant, it would be a source 
of concern for the standardisation groups of future versions of RDF. But 
your observations in your email are not sufficient to indicate that.

In any case, your suggestion:

 >    "Where P has more than one rdfs:range property, then the resources
 > denoted by the objects of triples with predicate P are instances of
 > *some* class stated by the rdfs:range properties."

would not work well with the inherent incompleteness of knowledge on the 
Web and with the distributed nature of Web data. If I see:

ex:myProperty  rdfs:domain  ex:Person .

somewhere on the Web, I would like to conclude something about those 
individuals who have the property ex:myProperty. Then I may find the 
following:

ex:myProperty  rdfs:domain  ex:Female .

Now I know more than before, so I should infer more about those who have 
the property. With your suggestion, every time I would know more about 
the domain of a property, I would know less about those who have the 
property.


Best,
AZ

On 23/02/2016 03:36, Ross Horne wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'm wondering if many people here use multiple rdfs:domain/rdfs:range
> properties in RDF Schema?
>
> The RDF Schema spec is clearly worded: "Where P has more than one
> rdfs:range property, then the resources denoted by the objects of
> triples with predicate P are instances of *all* the classes stated by
> the rdfs:range properties." [similarly for rdfs:domain]
>
> However, this doesn't quite match the usage of multiple
> rdfs:domain/rdfs:range properties in several popular datasets.
>
> For example, in Bioportal, the property bpo:has_event has three classes
> indicated as its domain: bpo:person, bpo:event and
> bpo:disease_or_disorder. Following the wording of the spec, it would
> appear that any resource that appears in the subject position of a
> triple with property bpo:has_event is an instance of all three types
> bpo:person, bpo:event and bpo:disease_or_disorder. However, common sense
> says that the resource cannot simultaneously be a person, event and disease.
>
> Elsewhere, the provenance ontology avoids the problem by explicitly
> using owl:unionOf. For example, prov:wasInfluencedBy has rdfs:range such
> that it is the owl:unionOf the classes prov:Activity, prov:Agent and
> prov:Entity. DBpedia avoids the problem entirely, since I cannot find
> any multiple rdfs:domain/rdfs:range properties in their ontologies.
>
> The interpretation of multiple rdfs:range properties in the above
> datasets, either implicitly or explicitly imply an alternative spec such as:
>
>    "Where P has more than one rdfs:range property, then the resources
> denoted by the objects of triples with predicate P are instances of
> *some* class stated by the rdfs:range properties."
>
> I'm wondering whether anyone else has observed this mismatch between the
> spec and real world datasets; and what the official line would be on
> avoiding this conflict?
>
> Regards,
>
> Ross
>
>
> Note I'm using the following prefixes in examples:
> bpo: <http://www.semanticweb.org/ontologies/2010/10/BPO.owl#>
> prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#>
> rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>

Received on Tuesday, 23 February 2016 08:38:27 UTC