RE: [xtm-wg] Knowledge management claims re XTM (and Topic Maps...)

["Eric Freese" <eric@isogen.com>]

I agree with Dale that not specifying anything is perhaps not the best
route.  While I am not advocating a change to the ISO standard, I do believe
that there are some useful constructs which could be defined, using public
subjects for example, by which some common semantics could be defined.  This
would greatly improve the interchange and interoperability of topic map
based data - no matter what application it is used for (indexing, knowledge
representation, etc.).  Holger Rath's talk at Montreal was a step in the
right direction, IMHO.

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dale Hunscher [mailto:dale@supportability.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 11:24 AM
> To: xtm-wg@egroups.com
> Subject: RE: [xtm-wg] Knowledge management claims re XTM (and Topic
> Maps...)
>
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Wrightson's concerns. As a lurker for the
> most part on this list, I have felt similar concerns and not
> expressed them.
>
> I hear people saying that the way to solve this problem is to shy
> away from
> including any meaningful semantics in TMs (e.g., transitivity,
> symmetry; the
> ability to specify abstract association types for prototyping and
> validation
> purposes; etc.), leaving all that to be specified by
> applications. There is
> a danger in that approach that is at least as great as specifying
> too much;
> from the perspective of the work I am doing as a consultant for
> pharmaceutical publications, TMs contain too little information
> to be useful
> for our purposes (merging knowledge/content bases, unifying lexicons and
> thesauri, etc.)
>
> Hand Holger-Rath and Steve Pepper did a paper a while ago called
> Topic Maps:
> Introduction and Allegro that contained some suggestions for TM templates
> and validation
> (http://www.topicmaps.com/content/resources/mt99/hhr-stp.pdf). Rather than
> repeat what they said there, I would simply second their concerns and hope
> that XTM can address them.
>
> It sounds like your meetings went well, and rest assured I will be on here
> the sidelines cheering you on!
>
> -Dale Hunscher
> South Wind Design, Inc.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wrightson, Ann [mailto:Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 11:09 PM
> To: 'xtm-wg@egroups.com'
> Subject: [xtm-wg] Knowledge management claims re XTM (and Topic Maps...)
>
>
> Hi folks...
>
> I don't know if you discussed this at all in Montreal, but I am very
> concerned that XTM should encourage/facilitate good working-with the
> long-standing academic knowledge-engineering community by
> a) being (very) moderate and realistic in its claims for XTM *by
> itself* as
> a knowledge modelling technique - XTM's main strength could well be in
> providing the "hooks" which enable the wide range of established knowledge
> modelling techniques to link to Web resources, and also in
> providing simple
> exchangeable *static* representations of (some) such models;
> b) working with folks who have done eg semantic modelling for
> years, rather
> than trying to (re)invent ways of doing it without the benefit of that
> experience.
>
> This concern is based on back-of-room conversations at XML Europe, where I
> found myself trying to bring some experienced knowledge engineers
> "back down
> off the ceiling", and into a more realistically appreciative frame of mind
> regarding Topic Maps, after some rash claims from the podium...
>
> Cheers
>
> Ann W.
>
>
>
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> 
>
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