RE: [regrep] Presentations and questions : taxonomy vs. classification

["Berry, Nicholas F" <nicholas.f.berry@boeing.com>]

Joe,

With all due respect, taxonomies and classification systems are an order of magnitude apart.  Here are some simplistic definitions.  They progress from the actual to the theoretical in this manner:

Taxonomy: a hierarchical arrangement of topics that imposes topical structure on information in a specific body of knowledge. 

Classification (system):  the process of dividing objects or concepts into logically hierarchical classes, subclasses, and sub-subclasses based on the characteristics (attributes) they have in common and those that distinguish them.   Note, this is the model upon which individual taxonomies may be built.

Ontology:  An ontology is a knowledge representation system which presents the key concepts and relationships relevant to a body of knowledge. Ontologies represent a conceptual consensus of topics (concepts) and their related attributes within a community of interest (domain).   They are based upon Formal Logic.  Note, this is a theoretical construct which can be used to build classification systems.


Sincerely,
Nicholas Berry
Librarian
Boeing XML Registry

-----Original Message-----
From: Chiusano Joseph [mailto:chiusano_joseph@bah.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 11:43 AM
To: Breininger, Kathryn R
Cc: ebXML Regrep (E-mail); sang.shin@sun.com; weida@apelon.com;
akotok@disa.org; lane.derek@epa.gov
Subject: Re: [regrep] Presentations and questions


Please see comments below:

> *       Taxonomies and classifications, what's the difference?

From my experience, these terms are used interchangeably.  If there is a
difference between the two, I believe it is very subtle.

> *       OAIS: integrity of objects over time

I believe this can be addressed by our existing security features
(Suresh, please correct me if I am wrong!).  While digital signatures
help ensure that the message is not corrupted during transfer, access
control policies help ensure that objects are not altered by
unauthorized parties while in the registry.  Beyond that, I believe it
would be an implementation issue - that is, ensuring that objects do not
become "corrupted" at the operating system level.  Each OS will have its
own unique way of ensuring this.

> *       How to integrate 11179 and ebXML

If this question is at the specification level, there is already
integration between the two (our classification and registration
concepts are influenced by 11179).  If it addresses the interaction
between an 11179 registry (such as EPA's EDR) and an 11179 registry,
then that interaction can occur by implementing a "bridge mechanism"
(gateway) between the 2 registries that maps the metadata between the
registries, and fills in any gaps as feasibly as possible.  Thus,
objects that are registered in an 11179 registry can be propagated to an
ebXML registry (real-time or batch), and vice-versa.  Since the EDR is
data element-based, the ebXML-to-11179 interplay would involve a gateway
accessing a newly registered XML Schema (for instance) from the ebXML
registry, "parsing" it into its data elements, and automatically
registering each of the elements (if not already registered) in the
EDR.  Additionally, there could be a validation that ensures that all
elements used in a submitted schema are already registered in EDR - and
if an element is found to be "in violation", the schema would not be
able to be registered in the ebXML registry.  If schemas are added to
the EDR, the EDR-registered schemas could be propagated to the ebXML
registry, and any gaps in metadata could be assigned default values
along the way.

There are many other possibilities - these are just a few ideas that
came to me.

> *       How to register namespaces?

This capability does not yet exist - I hope we can add it in V4.  Now
that the content management functionality is in V3, it is possible to
drill down to the more granular level (elements, attributes, etc.), and
we will now be able to recognize things such as the namespace with which
an XML artifact is associated.  The registration of namespaces was part
of the Namespace Management function I proposed for V3
(http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/regrep/200201/msg00061.html -
exactly one year ago today!) - but we couldn't include it in V3 because
it was dependent on the content management functionality.

Kind Regards,
Joe

"Breininger, Kathryn R" wrote:
> 
> The overview presentation I gave and the tutorial presentation and case studies Monica presented are now posted on the ebXML Registry home page under the "Documents" section, in a subsection titled "Presentations" http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/regrep/#documents .  In addition, here are the questions that were raised during the panel discussion.
> 
> *       Use of packages, how to organize items in a registry?
> *       Taxonomies and classifications, what's the difference?
> *       OAIS: integrity of objects over time
> *       How to integrate 11179 and ebXML
> *       Persistent locations in registries (DRIve)
> *       How to register namespaces?
> *       Multi-lingual capabilities
> *       URI for RegistryObject
> 
> The third question (Integrity of objects over time) was asked specifically by Derek Lane, from EPA.  More detail on his question follows:
> 
> 1. Comparison between the two concepts ebXML Reg/Rep with OAIS [Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)]
> 2. Capability to ensure integrity of objects over time
> 3. If a checksum may be required to ensure that the object is what was submitted over time (mentioned by Lane in discussion).
> 
> Please respond with answers on the third question (details 1-3 above) directly to the list and Derek Lane at lane.derek@epa.gov  The link to OAIS is at: http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/isoas/overview.html
> 
> Please also feel free to discuss each of the other questions above on the list.  This is a good opportunity to address some of these questions, and possibly consider for version 4.0 or as topics of best practice papers!
> 
> Kathryn
> 
> Kathryn Breininger
> CENTRAL Project Manager
> Emerging Technologies
> Boeing Library Services
> 
> 425-965-0182 phone
> 425-237-3491 fax
> kathryn.r.breininger@boeing.com
> 
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