Re: [egov] Representing polyhierarchical taxonomies in XML

[Duane Nickull <dnickull@adobe.com>]

Expanding upon Farrukh's email:

I concur that the ebXML RR is an ideal mechanism for use managing such 
taxonomies.  Whether used in production or not, it can represent this. 
 If each data object is an independent node in the taxonomy, the 
associations mechanism can be used to declare that item "X" is a child 
of "A" and also a child of "C", independent of the relationship between 
"A" and "C". Like wise, one object in the registry can have multiple 
classification nodes and multiple unilateral or bilateral (reciprocal) 
associations with each other.  Since the associations are named by 
users, you can easily customize this to represent concepts like "F" is 
only a child of "G" when "G" is a child of "D", otherwise there is no 
relationship.  Such conditional hierarchic containership is usually used 
in the presence of a context mechanism. (I can put this in the email 
since it is July 4th holiday and I have no worries about David piping in 
with CAM ;-)

Perhaps this sounds a little much like Farrukh and I have succumbed to 
the "everything looks like a nail when you have a hammer" syndrome but I 
truly believe in this case, the ebXML regrep makes sense.

Duane

Farrukh Najmi wrote:

> Paul Spencer wrote:
>
>> The UK e-GMS metadata standard is a polyhierarchical taxonomy* in 
>> which an
>> item in the hierarchy can have more than one parent. What would people
>> consider the best way to represent this in XML? One option is 
>> DAML+OIL, but
>> I am not sure of the status of this and defer to those with greater
>> knowledge of representing taxonomies in XML.
>>
>> My aim is to be able to navigate through the taxonomy, in particular, to
>> find the parent(s) of a known taxonomy item. However, I am sure there 
>> are
>> further applications in the taxonomy reconciliation work.
>>
>> * see
>> http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/Tomatoes%20are%20not%20the%20only%20frui 
>>
>> t%202002-12-19.doc
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Paul Spencer
>> Director
>> Boynings Consulting Ltd
>> http://www.boynings.co.uk
>>
>>  
>>
> In ebXML Registry Semantic Content Management work we are likely to 
> support OWL for this purpose.
> In current ebXML Registry a ClassificationScheme may have a 
> ClassificationNode that can typically have only one parent.
> However, by using EquiovalentTo Associations you can have the same 
> logical node as multiple equivalent physical nodes under different 
> parents this achieving some modicum of a polyhierarchical taxonomy.
>

-- 
Senior Standards Strategist
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://www.adobe.com