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Just to further elaborate on the example:<br>
If we assert:<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">dwc:HumanObservation
rdfs:subClassOf dwc:Event.</font><br>
<br>
and then someone stated:<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><birdObservation1>
rdf:type dwc:HumanObservation.</font><br>
<br>
I think that would entail:<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><birdObservation1>
rdf:type dwc:Event.</font><br>
<br>
because of the semantics of <font
face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">rdfs:subClassOf</font><br>
<br>
On the other hand, if we assert something like<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">dwc:HumanObservation
skos:narrower dwc:Event.</font><br>
<br>
that would NOT entail<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><birdObservation1>
rdf:type dwc:Event.</font><br>
<br>
but instead would entail different stuff like:<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">dwc:Event skos:broader
dwc:HumanObservation.<br>
dwc:HumanObservation skos:narrowerTransitive dwc:Event.</font><br>
etc.<br>
<br>
None of these entailments are intrinsically good or bad. But if we
make assertions like<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">dwc:HumanObservation
rdfs:subClassOf dwc:Event.</font><br>
or<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">dwc:HumanObservation
skos:narrower dwc:Event.</font><br>
we must be aware that a machine could reason the entailed
relationships, and should only make those assertions if we want a
machine to be able to do those kinds of reasoning. In other words, we
should only make assertions with semantic implications to accomplish
some purpose related to machine reasoning, and not just because it
seems like it might be a good idea. If our purpose is just to make
things more clear to a human, then providing a better human-readable
definition would be a better way to accomplish that. <br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<br>
Richard Pyle wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:002301d0d1fe$ba600e20$2f202a60$@bishopmuseum.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">dwc:HumanObservation rdfs:subClassOf dwc:[Occurrence]
But what would I gain by doing that? What would it prevent me from doing?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I'm not technically savvy enough to answer that question from an
implementation perspective; but from a DwC comprehension perspective, it
moves us a step closer to mutual understanding of how to transform DwC
content into a functional data model. We all kinda/sorta know that already,
but as evidenced by the different perspectives of "HumanObservation as a
subclass of Event" vs. "HumanObservation as a subclass of Occurrence" just
now revealed & expressed, it probably wouldn't hurt to be more explicit
about these sorts of things in DwC documentation.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
postal mail address:
PMB 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) 322-4942
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</pre>
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