[tdwg-tag] RE: tdwg-tag Digest, Vol 22, Issue 5

Thu Oct 11 22:12:22 CEST 2007

2+ thoughts.

Why is region/geography a special case and not covered like any other  
kind of context with a subjectTag? It could point to a polygon or  
TDWG geographic region or whatever.

The same could be argued for associatedTaxon. (I prefer  
associatedTaxon to organismInteraction - the two taxa concerned  may  
not interact we may just be saying they occur in the same habitat or  
that Taxon A has some shared characteristic with  taxon B - though of  
course every atom in the universe does interact with every other in  
some way I suppose.)

What is the difference between tagging something with a geographic  
region and tagging it with a taxon?

If this is boiled down far enough we don't need the InfoItem as a  
container and can use common vocabularies (DublinCore) for most of  
this stuff.

<tdwg:SpeciesProfile rdf:about="http://my.guid.could.be.lsid.org">
	<tdwg:aboutTaxon rdf:about="urn:lsid:of:some:taxon" />
	<tdwg:associatedTaxon rdf:about="urn:lsid:of:some:other:taxon" />
	<dc:description>
		This is some text about how good this is to eat and other stuff.
	</dc:descriptiono>
	<dc:subject  rdf:about="http://my.controlled.list.of.terms#cooking" />
	<dc:subject  rdf:about="http://my.controlled.list.of.terms#Brazil" />
</tdwg:SpeciesProfile >

If we want to express Taxon-Taxon interactions Kevin Richards and I  
already came up with something to use for the HerbIMI LSID Authority

http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonOccurrenceInteraction

Note that this defines interactions between *occurrences* not taxa  
and the occurrences provide the context. I am not sure that this is  
the place to get into defining interactions other than in the most  
general way.

I feel we a washing around without the metric of a use case to test  
these ideas against.

The use case we started with was blocks of text that describe a  
particular aspect of a taxon in a particular context. That can be  
done really simply perhaps with just DublinCore and only a couple of  
our own predicates but we seem to be getting off the path and to be  
starting to over complicating things.

If you look at the DublinCore definition of "subject" it says:  "The  
topic of the resource. Typically, the topic will be represented using  
keywords, key phrases, or classification codes. Recommended best  
practice is to use a controlled vocabulary. To describe the spatial  
or temporal topic of the resource, use the Coverage element." The  
coverage element says "Spatial characteristics of the intellectual  
content of the resource."

Could SPM just boil down to a "controlled vocabulary" for DublinCore  
metadata tags on chunks of text plus a predicate to indicate the  
taxon we are talking about? We could just do an applicability  
statement on how to tag them in HTML!

Roger

On 11 Oct 2007, at 16:28, Eamonn O Tuama wrote:

> Gregor's wrote:
> "That may be an excellent idea indeed. But then we should call it a
> "tag" and not "category" or "class", and make clear that adding
> multiple tags will remain uninterpretable - other than as you
> indicated."
>
> I don't really mind what we call our terms but if they are coming  
> from a
> non-hierarchical, controlled vocabulary (a class?)
> (http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/SPMInfoItems.rdf)  don't we leave  
> open the
> possibility that these may eventually be arranged into an OWL  
> ontology?
>
> Gregor's wrote:
> "That would mean an InfoItem = tagged free-form text, and a
> Distribution and OrganismInteraction class, which could be similar,
> but don't have to be, and may grow into different directions."
>
> So,  both Gregor and Marcus are suggesting reducing the number of  
> properties
> for an InfoItem to the following four (related properties in  
> parentheses):
>
> - organismInteraction (associatedTaxon)
> - subjectTag (category, context, contextValue)
> - region (contextOccurrence)
> - info (hasContent, hasValue)
>
> I like the simplicity and do not think we are losing too much.
>
> Éamonn
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org
> [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of
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> Subject: tdwg-tag Digest, Vol 22, Issue 5
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: RE: tdwg-tag Digest, Vol 22, Issue 2 (Gregor Hagedorn)
>    2. Re: RE: tdwg-tag Digest, Vol 22, Issue 1 (Gregor Hagedorn)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:48:47 +0200
> From: "Gregor Hagedorn" <g.m.hagedorn at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] RE: tdwg-tag Digest, Vol 22, Issue 2
> To: tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> Message-ID:
> 	<5ebbead70710100048v4de595sf594cd36a3f4830d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/
>> Gregor will especially like it.   :-)
>
> :-)
>
> Indeed, the document convinced me that http+purls+content negotiation
> (which is the chosen protocol for the semantic web!) would have been a
> better choice than LSIDs. The document is referenced on several Wiki
> pages, e.g.
> http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/GUID/CommunityPracticesForHttp- 
> basedGUID
> s;
> it helped me understand why the semantic web can be based on http at
> all and that the perceived problems, that initially lead us to opt for
> LSIDs, probably do not exist.
>
> Gregor
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:00:20 +0200
> From: "Gregor Hagedorn" <g.m.hagedorn at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] RE: tdwg-tag Digest, Vol 22, Issue 1
> To: tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> Message-ID:
> 	<5ebbead70710100100j13d6a70ctd177ea11527fe30d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 10/10/07, Eamonn O Tuama <eotuama at gbif.org> wrote:
>> Can't we keep the model simple and mandate that we are offering a  
>> faceted
>> classification, similar to a general tagging system like  
>> folksonomies?  So
> a
>> particular InfoItem might have content which pertains to both  
>> genetics and
>> ecology and when tagged with those two categories, the only  
>> inference that
>> can be drawn is that the content is relevant to both.  In a  
>> search, that
>> InfoItem would be returned for either of those categories, but is  
>> also
> very
>> likely to be appropriate to someone interested in "ecological  
>> genetics"
> who
>> would search on the categories "ecology + genetics" or vice versa.
>
> That may be an excellent idea indeed. But then we should call it a
> "tag" and not "category" or "class", and make clear that adding
> multiple tags will remain uninterpretable - other than as you
> indicated.
>
> What worries me is that too much seems to be desired in terms of using
> the vocabulary, i.e. we have been discussing what the category (and
> also the context...) could all be used for, and as I tried to show in
> my talk, sometimes the semantics of what subclasses or modifies what
> seem to be reversed already in the examples. My goal is to make this
> clear.
>
> The question remains what SPM is for. As you explain, it is more for
> finding information than algorithmically aggregating information. I
> understood the EOL/other taxon page use case to be about automatic
> aggregation.
>
>> In either case, I find it hard to see how anything useful can be  
>> derived
>> from such aggregations without human interpretation, e.g., someone
> preparing
>> a species page for EOL might harvest multiple InfoItems and  
>> arrange/edit
>> them as appropriate. Just being able to harvest data through the  
>> SPM is
>
> But that would be a one-time copy process. I think it would be
> important to clarify whether this is the use case or not. If it is, I
> am completely in favor of Eamonns "tagging approach".
>
>> surely helpful. In certain cases, where the domain might be  
>> restricted (an
>> invasive species group), the community may achieve more automated
>> aggregation by agreeing on how to use certain categories, e.g.,  I  
>> can see
>> benefit in being able to list multiple distributions of a particular
> species
>> one after the other, especially if biologists are tracking this  
>> over time
>> and the information is being continually updated.
>
> I think it would be beneficial to define specific kinds of infoitems
> for these use cases (especially distribution and organism
> interaction), to make it clear how the information is to be
> interpreted, and how it is extended.
>
> That would mean an InfoItem = tagged free-form text, and a
> Distribution and OrganismInteraction class, which could be similar,
> but don't have to be, and may grow into different directions.
>
> Essentially, this would allow to add further classes, which have even
> stronger differently structure for higher-structured data (categorical
> or quantitative data).
>
> How about that?
>
> Gregor
>
>
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