RE: (Round 2) Proposed Extensions to OWL

> It *would* work-- even if that's less attractive-- if we did this:
>
> <River rdf:ID="Yangtze">
>      <length>
>          <Length len:lengthInMiles="3914"/>
>      </length>
> </River>
>
> Then we could state that both lengthInMiles and lengthInKilometers are
> 1:1 properties, and thus conclude equivalence by example as above.

This has advantages of brevity. However we can't deal as well with:

<River rdf:ID="Yangtze">
    <length>
        <Length len:lengthInMiles="3914"/>
    </length>
    <length>
        <Length len:lengthInMiles="3900"/>
    </length>
</River>

(Which might occur if we had two sources for lengthInMiles with different
degrees of precision).

We could deal with:

<River rdf:ID="Yangtze">
  <length>
    <Length>
      <measurement>
        <LengthInMiles number="3914">
      </measurement>
      <measurement>
        <LengthInMiles number="3900">
      </measurement>
    <\Length>
  </length>
</River>

Because the two measurements are (at least possibly) distinct despite their
being only one length with only one Length. This also gives us somewhere to
put information about the degree of precision, whether the application
producing the value is authorised and/or tested by some organisation (say
NIST, NWML, LMS etc.) and so on.

The greater notational and processing burden is appropriate for something
that intends to cope with a large range of needs for measurements and
conversions. A more abbreviated version like len:lengthInMiles would be more
appropriate much of the time, allowing support for both styles would be
ideal.

Received on Friday, 4 July 2003 06:34:09 UTC