Re: Expressing mathematical relationships in an ontology?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

"Roger L. Costello" <costello@mitre.org> writes:

> Hi Folks,
>

> But suppose that I want to express a mathematical relationship.  For
> example, consider these two instances:
>
> Instance 1:
>
>    <Distance>
>       <rdf:value>2.54</rdf:value>
>       <units>centimeters</units>
>    </Distance>
>
> Instance 2:
>
>    <Distance>
>       <rdf:value>1.0</rdf:value>
>       <units>inches</units>
>    </Distance>
>
> It would be nice if this mathematical relationship could be
> declaratively expressed:
>
>     2.54 centimeters = 1.0 inches
>
> What is the recommended practice for expressing such mathematical
> relationships?  I don't want to hardcode them in my application.
>
> Is RuleML intended to express such things?  /Roger

Perhaps datatyping is better here? 

My thinking is that you're trying to say "X distance (1 inch)", "X
distance (2.54 cm)" are equivalent. If the objects in each case
have the same referent (i.e. the distance 1 inch) then that is
correct, but that requires understanding the datatype. I don't know
how you define datatypes, but that's presumably where the mathematical
relationship would come in.

I'm probably hopelessly wrong about the capabilities of datatyping, so
I'll let someone more knowledgeable correct me.

OTOH I believe cwm may be able to do this kind of thing.

Damian
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (Darwin)
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.6 and Gnu Privacy Guard <http://www.gnupg.org/>

iD8DBQE+6dDhAyLCB+mTtykRArarAJwKGIBJJYlJm4PcuBP1QKWG3O9RQgCfWRVB
cGzKDY83+b8W80mXHyiQNxc=
=QJd+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Received on Friday, 13 June 2003 09:42:43 UTC