[sc34wg3] new working draft of 13250-5 (Reference Model)

Robert Barta sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org
Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:11:21 +1000


On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 at 12:45:39PM +0100, Bernard Vatant wrote:
> Anyway I would like here to make the case for a shift from the static notion of "Subject
> Identity Properties" (SIP) to the dynamic one of "Subject Identification Rules" (SIR, yes
> Sir). I already happily notice that the notion of "rules" has explicitly appeared in many
> parts of the draft. I will focus on demanding that TMA disclose, among other things, "the
> rules for determining when multiple proxies are surrogates for the same subject".

Patrick, SteveN,

I would like to _strongly_ support this. It would _drastically_
streamline TMRM: SIPs and OPs would collapse into Ps (properties). 
TMAs would become ontology definitions, including disambiguiting
rules.

> Exemple 1 : Identifying books :
> How do you make sure that a book X you find on Amazon is the same as the book Y you are
> looking for?
> I will use "X :: Y" to indicate that you decide that they are actually the same (watever
> this sameness means).
> 
> I guess you could apply a kind of following heuristic (succession of rules)
> 
> 	if ISBN (X) = ISBN (Y)
> 		     then  X :: Y
> 
> 	else 	if ISBN (X) or ISBN (Y) is not specified
> 		and AuthorName(X) = AuthorName(Y)
> 		and Title(X) = Title (Y)
> 		and PublicationDate(X) = PublicationDate(Y)
> 		and EditorName(X) = EditorName(Y)
> 			then  X :: Y
> 
> In the TMA disclosure, ISBN would be defined as a SIP, whereas AuthorName, Title,
> PublicationDate, EditorName are OPs, although together they "act as" a SIP.

Yes, preoccupied SIPs do not make any sense at all.

> Of course you can create a complex SIP from this actual combination,
> but it looks more natural to present it like an identification rule
> rather than a "property" in the object-oriented sense of the term,
> or it's a "complex property", a notion more difficult to explain and
> grasp than the notion of identification rule.

Well, Patrick probably would claim that one would make a 'conferred
property' like this first

   ISBN_or_what_else (X) := if defined ISBN (X) then ISBN (X)
                            else HASH_VALUE_OF (AuthorName(X), Title(X), PublicationDate(X), EditorName(X))

and then use 'ISBN_or_what_else' as SIP. But, seriously, why would I
have to define these baroque constructs first?

\rho