<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Thanks for this helpful suggestion, Paul. I have a question related to
what you said. As a general practice, DSW "imported" class terms from
DwC to use as the basic classes in the ontology. This seemed like a
relatively "safe" thing to do, since the RDF definitions of the class
terms in DwC don't really say anything restrictive about how they are
used. We then basically tried to describe (using properties) how those
classes were connected and put in some restrictions intended to prevent
people from calling apples oranges (range/domain restrictions coupled
with disjoin declarations). However, we went beyond that in the Taxon
class. We declared that dwc:Taxon was equivalent to tc:Taxon (Taxon in
the TDWG ontology, which is declared within the TDWG ontology to be the
same thing as tc:TaxonConcept). Our motivation was to try to add some
clarity to what exactly the dwc:Taxon class was (that wasn't exactly
clear to us) and also to avoid having to try to describe the properties
of the Taxon class since they were already described (to some extent)
within the TDWG ontology. However, from what you have said below, it
sounds like it might have been a better idea to have declared the
equivalency of dwc:Taxon and tc:Taxon outside of the main ontology
document to allow further development of the Taxon class within DSW
without causing a conflict with the description of Taxon within the
TDWG ontology. <br>
<br>
I guess the wisdom of doing this partially depends on the future of the
TDWG ontology, which is not within our (Cam and my) hands. We didn't
really want to get into describing Taxon (not our area of specialty)
and the tc:Taxon class and terms were in use by some people (you, for
example). But if the TDWG ontology is permanently "frozen" (a.k.a.
abandoned), then maybe tying Taxon to it was not wise. I would be
interested in your opinion on this. <br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<br>
Paul Murray wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4F70865B-C881-49E5-A13F-E34DA087FFB1@anbg.gov.au"
type="cite"><br>
<div>
<div>On 05/05/2011, at 1:13 PM, Steve Baskauf wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Peter DeVries wrote:<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTinFfhHuy=DoLU+tW+17kunbKn2byA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">I
also don't seem to understand why if someone can find some missing
utility in existing vocabularies, and mints one starting with txn, it
is seen by some as an act of heresy, while the minting a new vocabulary
starting with dsw is not.</span></font></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I might jump in and make a technical point about OWL/RDF here.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>One of the strengths of OWL is that you can define equivalencies
between your own vocabulary and someone else's. You can declare that
your own "Taxon" notion is narrower or broader than some other notion
of taxon. The power of this is that if someone attempts to reason over
some well-known vocabulary and you define semantic relationships, their
rules will also reason over your dataset - as far as is possible.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>However, what you can do, and what I think would be a very
sensible thing to do, is to keep your vocabulary terms and your
semantic equivalencies in separate ontology documents. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>For instance:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Lets say you have a predicate "isVoucherFor", and it's quite
obvious that it is pretty much the same thing as <span
class="Apple-style-span"
style="color: rgb(119, 119, 238); font-family: monospace;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Specimen#i">http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Specimen#i</a></span><span
class="Apple-style-span"
style="color: rgb(119, 119, 238); font-family: monospace;">sVoucherFor</span>,
but slightly more specific. For instance, your "isVoucherFor" might
apply only to specimens that are RegisteredSpecimens in your
vocabulary. It has a range declaration on it. In this case, it seems
obvious that your isVoucherFor is a subproperty of the tdwg
isVoucherFor. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm suggesting suggest that the declaration of your
'isVoucherFor' probably should include your range specifier (it's part
of the way your vocabulary works), but the declaration of the
subproperty relationship should be put in some other file/ontology,
which would import both your vocabulary and the TDWG vocabulary (or DwC
vocabulary, in this case). Any RDF files containing data should
probably import your vocabulary but not the equaivalency semantics.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This allows you to "plug in" sets of equivalencies. A sparql
query can drag in some data using your vocabulary, and can separately
drag in your rules. Or not. That way:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>* if the other vocabulary changes in ways that break things, you
can define new equivalencies without disturbing an existing ruleset
that people might be using</div>
<div>* people who want to use your terms but have their own ideas as
to what the equivalencies are can do their own reasoning</div>
<div>* if someone's data uses your terms but using the equivalencies
results in inconsistencies, a querent can plug in a stripped-down set
of semantics and reason over that</div>
<div>* the act of simply reading and processing your data does not
cause the other vocabulary to be dragged into the engine</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The ongoing problem is management: what rules are applicable?
What rule sets are there? The TDWG site itself (or any webserver
anywhere) can serve as an aggregator for bioinformatic RDF/OWL
semantics simply by hosting empty ontologies that import others . Thus
"Old-tdwg-and-DwC.owl", "DwC-and-taxonconcept(lax).owl",
"rulesets-that-pertain-to-occurence.owl",
"absolutely-everything-ever.owl", and so on.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The work , of course, is in thrashing out the equivalencies - an
ongoing job.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="color: rgb(119, 119, 238); font-family: monospace;"></span></div>
<p>If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or
any attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not
constitute waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in
respect of information in the e-mail or attachments.
Please consider the environment before printing this email.</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
postal mail address:
VU Station B 351634
Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A.
delivery address:
2125 Stevenson Center
1161 21st Ave., S.
Nashville, TN 37235
office: 2128 Stevenson Center
phone: (615) 343-4582, fax: (615) 343-6707
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu">http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu</a>
</pre>
</body>
</html>