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Subject: [topicmaps-comment] Challenge Part 1 - Variable Values
Hello folks A challenge in two parts, to try and prevent the community to fall into some long deep winter sleep. Part 1. What shall we do with variable values, and singularly numeric values? Let's take the following assertion, and try to turn the information it contains into a topic map representation. "By the end of 2001, France Telecom will control more than 30% of the Swedish phone market" This is no academic exercise. Mondeca works with a partner on data mining tools, and that is the kind of things we have to transfer on the fly in the data base, without losing any critical information. We think this kind of situations should be addressed in some standard or at least consensual way, that's why I put this on the table. We can create some topics and their classification: "France Telecom" (instanceOf "company") "Sweden" (instanceOf "country") "phone market" (instanceOf "market sector") And create a simple association linking those three guys, asserting that FT is present in the phone market in Sweden. (So far, so good) -- What shall we do with "by the end of 2001"? Create an ad hoc temporal topic, and scope the association with it? Doable but not very clean. And how will I merge that with other infos using "2001Q4" or any other time appellation? -- And what about "more than 30%"? It sounds silly to create a topic "more than 30%". Assuming we do that, how do we use it? As another member in the association? But what does that mean? When processing this topic, we'll catch together all associations where "something is more than 30% of some other thing". Speak about semantics ... The only proper way to do it seems to reify the association, and attach to it this "more than 30%" as an occurrence of a definite type, through a <resourceData> element. Bottom line(s). 1. Is treating values through <occurrence> and <resourceData> to be systematic for any kind of numeric assertion? 2. Should not there be some annex to the spec recommending standard practises for handling numeric values? Cheers Bernard Bernard Vatant - Consultant bernard.vatant@mondeca.com Mondeca - "Making Sense of Content" www.mondeca.com
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