Re: [topicmaps-comment] Mapping Topics to Cyc: How To Handle Scope?

[Murray Altheim <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>]

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

> * Thomas B. Passin
> |
> | I think there is need to have it either way for different purposes
> | (such as queries), but aside from that I have always understood it
> | to be an "OR" situation just as you do.  The XTM spec says the the
> | context is the union of all the individual scopes, so it really has
> | to be a "OR" doesn't it?
> 
> XTM doesn't say that. It says very clearly that "This specification
> places no constraints on how applications interpret scope."
> 
> If you look at section 2.2.1.6 you'll also see that there is nothing
> at all about this issue there.


My recollection of discussions during the development of XTM (which
was based on my conversations including the originators of the ISO
standard) was that it was the *union* of the scopes, and in practice
I have difficulty understanding it any other way.

If I have, for example, a topic "Jimmy Carter" with a base name
"President" (since he could be called that after he was elected)
whose scope is

      scope of titles
      scope of English
      scope of time "after 1977"

we couldn't very well allow merging if only *one* of the scopes
match, otherwise merging might occur simply on "English" (and
have all presidents' topics merged into one. Thomas confuses me
in saying 'it really has to be a "OR"' as I would consider that
a logical "AND".

Then again I haven't had my morning coffee.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

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