Re: PROV-ISSUE-30 (name-for-bob): What name do we use for the BOB construct? [Conceptual Model]

I think we're still going around in circles.

Entity: A thing in the world, can be represented by, for instance, a
URI. That URI, in PIL, is a pil:Entity.

BOB: A description of an entity constrained by context (including time
and place). The description is not the entity, even within our
information representation. A BOB must be able to refer to something.
That BOB is a description of an entity, but does not REPRESENT the
entity.

Jim

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Paolo Missier <Paolo.Missier@ncl.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would advise against using the same terms with different typographical
> convention :-)
>
> what the document perhaps needs to clarify more upfront is that there is a
> "real world" and then a model of it, and the constructs of the language are
> about the model. It does say that but perhaps not strongly enough.
> - Characterized entity belongs in the world
> - BOBs belong in the data model that is a representation of the world.
> These two levels are never conflated.
>
> The good old "record linkage" community (data quality in databases) never
> had any qualms about using "real-world entities", as in "reconciling
> different records (BOBs?) that represent the same real-world entity".
> In their world (pun intended :-)), a record is a very concrete data
> structure that sits in a data store and you can display on a screen.
> Now, we cannot use "record", we have ruled out "information(al) resource"...
> but isn't that basically the territory?
> Entity representation?
>
> -Paolo
>
>
> On 7/21/11 8:33 PM, Luc Moreau wrote:
>
> Hi Khalid,
> OK.  This said we have over 20 occurrences of "characterized entity" in the
> text.
>
> We can't simply use the "expansion" everywhere. Having some terminology is
> desirable.
>
> Do you have a suggestion?
>
> We could also go for a typographic difference:
>   BOB -> CharacterizedEntity
> and we keep 'characterized entity' elsewhere.
>
> Luc
>
> On 21/07/2011 20:27, Khalid Belhajjame wrote:
>
> Hi Luc,
>
> I guess I used the wrong term, "interchangeable". I guess that what I meant
> is that "Characterized Entity" can be considered as a candidate to replace
> "BOB". Of course, in that case, we will need to avoid the usage of the the
> term "characterized entity" in the core of the definition. E.g., we can use
> the following definition:
>
> A "Characterized Entity" is a description of the situation of an entity in
> the world.
>
> Or something in these lines.
>
> Thanks, khalid
>
> On 21/07/2011 19:54, Luc Moreau wrote:
>
> Hi Khalid,
>
> As far as I know, they are *not* interchangeable. One is the language
> construct, the other is "in the world".
>
> cf. definition:
>
> A BOB represents an identifiable
> characterized entity.
>
> Should we go for "Characterized Entity", we need a typographic
> convention to distinguish between
>
> the construct and the world-thing, otherwise, the reader will never
> know whether this is language construct
>
> or not.
>
>
> Luc
>
> On 21/07/2011 19:45, Khalid Belhajjame wrote:
>
> In the Provenance Model initial draft, the terms "Bob" and "characterized
> entity" are used interchangeably.
> Characterized entity seems then to be a candidate for replacing BOB.
>
> Thanks, khalid
>
> On 21/07/2011 19:30, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:
>
> PROV-ISSUE-30 (name-for-bob): What name do we use for the BOB construct?
> [Conceptual Model]
>
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/30
>
> Raised by: Luc Moreau
> On product: Conceptual Model
>
> How do we call the construct referred to as BOB.  "BOB" was introduced as a
> placeholder at F2F1. Before F2F1, we use to refer to it as thing.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> -----------  ~oo~  --------------
> Paolo Missier - Paolo.Missier@newcastle.ac.uk, pmissier@acm.org
> School of Computing Science, Newcastle University,  UK
> http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/Paolo.Missier
>



-- 
Jim
--
Jim McCusker
Programmer Analyst
Krauthammer Lab, Pathology Informatics
Yale School of Medicine
james.mccusker@yale.edu | (203) 785-6330
http://krauthammerlab.med.yale.edu

PhD Student
Tetherless World Constellation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
mccusj@cs.rpi.edu
http://tw.rpi.edu

Received on Thursday, 21 July 2011 20:10:02 UTC