RE: [xtm-wg] ANNOUNCE: Update of XTM Repository (new XTM prototype DTD)

["Graham Moore" <gdm@empolis.co.uk>]

I would be interested in hearing peoples thoughts on the idea that topics
are not containers for occurrences, that occurences can be seen as links
between topics and reified resources. And that topic is not a link in the
xlink sense, in fact in any sense.

cheers

graham
gdm@empolis.co.uk


-----Original Message-----
From: sentto-1553146-809-973684717-gdm=stepuk.com@returns.onelist.com
[mailto:sentto-1553146-809-973684717-gdm=stepuk.com@returns.onelist.com]
On Behalf Of Kal Ahmed
Sent: 08 November 2000 11:58
To: xtm-wg@egroups.com
Subject: RE: [xtm-wg] ANNOUNCE: Update of XTM Repository (new XTM
prototype DTD)


>
> [Murray:]
> > [Preface: I may be slightly wrong in some of these answers, but
> essentially
> > I'm hoping to describe what I believe we have in xtm07.dtd. The sample
> > instance xtm07.xml might help a bit, although I don't know if
> Steve, Michel
> > and Sam have looked that hard at the sample. Perhaps one of
> them can chime
> > in on my weaknesses...]
>
> I'm just going to quibble a little.
>
> [Kal Ahmed:]
> > > ...I am assuming that only
> > > baseNameString's are subject to the topic naming constraint
> and that this
> > > would be described more clearly in the accompanying prose text.
>
> Right.
>
> > > I think, however that it might be useful to define two new PSIs for
> > > 'displayable' and 'sortable' to use as <parameter>'s to partition the
> > > variantNames in some consistent manner.
>
> You read our minds, or we read yours.
>
> > > 3) Identity
> > > Where did it go ? Perhaps I'm missing something in my reading
> of the spec,
> > > but it seems that I have no way to declare the subject of a
> topic. This is a
> > > major concern
> >
> > The <instanceOf> child element in <topic> says what the subject of the
> > topic is:
> >
> >    <topic>
> >      <instanceOf><topicRef xlink:href="#us-railroad"/></instanceOf>
> >      <baseName>
> >        <baseNameString>Union Pacific</baseNameString>
> >      </baseName>
> >      ...
> >    </topic>
> >
> >  could be translated to:
> >
> >    "this topic's subject is an instance of 'U.S. Railroad'."
>
> No.  <instanceof> establishes a class-instance relationship between
> the topic node corresponding to the containing <topic> element
> (playing the role of "instance"), and the topic node corresponding to
> the <topic> element that plays the "class" role in the same
> relationship.  That has nothing to do with the subject
> identity of the <topic>.
>
>
> Whatever happened to the -identity- attribute of <topic> in 13250?
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
<snip> lots of good stuff cut out for brevity </snip>

> So here's what happened to 13250's -identity- attribute, according to
> me.
>
> * To specify the subject descriptor of a topic, make the subject
>   descriptor an occurrence of that topic.  However, instead of using
>   <resourceRef> to point at the subject descriptor, use <topicRef>
>   instead.
>

Firstly, as Nikita has pointed out topicRef is missing from the content
model of either resource or occurrences.

As you say, <scope> really has nothing to do with identity, therefore I
assume that topicRef should be added to the content model of occurrences. If
this is not the case, then what is the processing model for this ?

<topic>
	<baseName>techquila.com</baseName>
	<occurrences>
		<resource>
			<scope>
				<topicRef xlink:href="#some-topic"/>
			</scope>
			<topicRef xlink:href="http://www.techquila.com/" referent="isSubject"/>
		</resource>
	</occurrences>
</topic>

Assuming that <topicRef> is actually part of the content model of resource,
I still have a couple of further questions.

Is it correct that despite the name, topicRef can reference anything which
can be used as a subject descriptor (i.e. anything at all) and not just a
topic. Furthermore, given that the xlink:href is a URI, is it possible to
use a URN syntax for the reference.

In other words, can I do this:

<topic>
	<baseName>Kal Ahmed</baseName>
	<occurrences>
		<topicRef xlink:href="http://www.ontopia.net/people/kal_ahmed/"/>
		<topicRef xlink:href="urn:ontopia.net:20001108:people:kal_ahmed"/>
		<topicRef
xlink:href="http://www.ontopia.net/people/topicmap.xtm#kal_ahmed"/>
	</occurrences>
</topic>

Where the first two are simply URI syntax PSIs in the ISO13250 sense but the
third is a <topic> which describes the subject should be merged with this
<topic>. And can I also do this:

<topic>
	<baseName>techquila.com</baseName>
	<occurrences>
		<topicRef xlink:href="http://www.techquila.com/" referent="isSubject"/>
	</occurrences>
</topic>

Where the subject *is* the internet resource located at
http://www.techquila.com

Now, assuming that I have got this straight I have just one concern, which
stems from this question. Is a conformant XTM processing application
*required* to familiarise itself with all of the subject descriptors in a
given topic map and to perform the appropriate merging ? While I can see
that this processing model would be desirable, I would hope not that it
would not be required for conformance, especially if
http://www.ontopia.net/people/topicmap.xtm is several MB is size...

Cheers,

Kal



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