Re: [xtm-wg] [xtm-wg/xtm-iss/xtm-cms] Regarding associations as t opics

["Nikita Ogievetsky" <nogievet@cogx.com>]

Ann, you wrote:
> There is a very specific formal reason why topic-associations have to be
> topics (possibly under some view of the topic map) - which I have made to
> CMS - and I was glad to see Matthew West, with his wider experience than
> mine in modelling real & seriously complex information domains, agreeing
at
> once from a modelling point of view. The relevant mails are copied below.

Lets take an example of
a marriage A to B again.
What do we know about it?
It occurred in City X, Country Z, - occurrence
Was registered in file 1234567, - occurrence
It refers to association between A and B, - occurrence
(it occurred in marriage A to B)

I would love to here a use case from CMS where
the above speculation does not work.

One basic feature of association prevents it from
becoming a topic on its own:
Associations occur within a scope.

> I am concerned that an apparent implicit requirement from some members
that
> topic-mapping must make immediate sense in English, may be scuppering
> important formal properties for interrelating (not necessarily merging)
> topic maps & topic maps, & also for interrelating topic maps and other
> structured information domains.

I think it is the opposite!
I value "scopability" of association higher then its "topicability".
Especially because "topicability" can be easily solved:

To the four solutions suggested in prior e-mails
(by Michel Biezunski, Steve Pepper, Geir Ove Grønmo and Nikita Ogievetsky)
1)Explicitly regarding associations as topics
2)Adding required attribute "id" to associations
3)Adding attribute "topic" to associations
4)Using "singleton" topic for associations type

I want to propose yet another one:

5)Add association to the optional topic content.
In other words instead of using "id"-s or "type"-s
to link associations to topics, physically (or syntactically :-))
bring association link as another child content of
topic link element (along with "topname" and "occurs")
Semantically it is the same as
treating association as topic occurrence,
but syntax may seam friendlier for you?

Something like:

<topic id="a" types="marriage">
  <topname>...</topname>
  <occurrs>
    <occurrl type="location" href="cityZ countryX"/>
    <occurrl type="registered" href="file#1234567@cityZregCenter"/>
  </occurrs>
  <assocs>
    <assoc>
        <assocrl type="she" href="A.B."/>
        <assocrl type="he" href="D.C."/>
    </assoc>
  </assocs>
</topic>

Important:
One topic link in this approach can contain several association links in
different scopes.


Note that this is just another alternative to
solutions 2),3),4)
All proposed solutions can be used in order to
> saying something like:
> For each link of type X in model A make a link of type Y in model B, or a
> link of type X in model A is equivalent to a link of type Y in model B.

Thanks,

Nikita.



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