Re: question concerning owl editor implementation

From: Benjamin Nowack <office@e-senses.de>
Subject: question concerning owl editor implementation
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 17:33:22 +0200

> hi all,
> 
> already posted a related msg to rdf-interest but unfortunately
> the list of replies (rdf:parseType=Collection) was the extension
> of owl:Nothing. So, I'll be happy about just any comment. My 
> basic question is if
> 
> ------------------
> ns1:A owl:equivalentClass ns2:B
> ns2:C rdfs:subClassOf ns2:B
> 
> implies
> 
> ns2:C rdfs:subClassOf ns1:A?
> ------------------

Yes.  If all instances of C are also instances of B, and the instances of B
are the same as the instances of A, then the instances of C are also
instances of A, which is sufficient for C to be a subClassOf A in OWL.

Note that this would not be valid in RDFS.

> ---hierarchical---
> - ns1:A
> - ns2:B
>    - ns2:C
> 
> (with A equiv B) implies
> 
> - ns1:A
>    - ns2:C
> - ns2:B
>    - ns2:C
> ------------------
> 
> And would that additionally mean, that properties of 
> ns1:A should be applyable to ns2:C and ns2:B?

Well, if every instance of C is also an instance of A, then every instance
of C must satisfy the constraints on instances of A.

> And finally, should these relations be visualized in
> an OWL editor?

Well, that is up to you.

> 
> ---background---
> I'm currently trying to implement a (d)html-based OWL editor
> that does some internal reasoning in order to render treeviews
> correctly (e.g. multiple subClassOf statements lead to multiple
> appearances of classes in the taxonomy tree). Now I came 
> across the following (namespaces: sc=SemanticCampus, foaf=FOAF):
> 
> My project's ontology has a class sc:Organization with
> subclasses sc:University, sc:Faculty and sc:Company. FOAF has
> a Class foaf:Organization, which is defined as a 
> subClassOf foaf:Agent (=things that actively do something).
> If I now relate foaf:Organization to sc:Organization via 
> owl:equivalentClass, I'm not sure If I should make the editor
> display sc:University etc. as subclasses of foaf:Organization,
> and if I should automatically generate html form fields for
> the properties of foaf:Agent when I add a new sc:Organization 
> individual to my KB...
> ------------------
> 
> 
> Thanx a lot in advance,
> Benjamin

Peter F. Patel-Schneider

Received on Tuesday, 16 September 2003 12:09:50 UTC