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

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

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

[...]
> What the standard *should* say is a SAM issue. Input on that is very
> much welcome. (Which reminds me: can I consider what you write below
> to be your official opinion on this, and record it in the issues topic
> map?)
>  
> | 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".
> 
> I think Thomas means what he says, and that he disagrees with you.
> (He agrees with ISO 13250:2000, BTW.)


I guess I was just confused on the way he phrased it.


> BTW, here's a reference table to the terminology:
> 
>   +---------------------+--------------+-------+
>   | Deprecated          | Intersection | Union |
>   +---------------------+--------------+-------+
>   | Sub-optimal         | Or           | And   |
>   +---------------------+--------------+-------+
>   | Currently preferred | Any          | All   |
>   +---------------------+--------------+-------+


Thanks. Yes, inasmuch as my opinion on this is recorded, I think
what I wrote accurately sums up my understanding of the issue: ie.,
I believe unwarranted merging would occur if it weren't "All," as
you suggest. All scopes (though the word "union" still makes sense
to me here, and seems to be borne out in other ontology languages
AFAIK, in OCML for example where "union" or "set" suffices).

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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