Re: PROV-ISSUE-153 (complementarity): Complementarity description differs from model definition [Primer]

Hello Graham,

I don't think either the complementarity concept in Prov-DM or the
wasComplementOf relation in Prov-O are symmetric are they? The Prov-DM
description of complementarity specifically includes "In the
particular case where the set P of attributes of B is a strict
superset of A's attributes, then we say that B is-complement-of A, but
in this case the opposite does not hold." If complementarity is
asymmetric in any case, then it is an asymmetric relation in general.
The Prov-O wasComplementOf relation has a direction and it isn't said
to imply the inverse.

More importantly, the primer intuition section should not try to cover
all the possible cases or make normative statements, but illuminate
the key idea with a simple example. I believe the key idea of
complementarity is that two entities may be perspectives on the same
thing, and I think the first paragraph does describe this key idea.
The second paragraph in the primer is then a more detailed example,
using the asymmetric case. I agree that complementarity is not
necessarily asymmetric, but I think that case is the easiest to
briefly explain why prov:wasComplementOf has direction in the worked
example.

I'm open to suggestions on how to be clearer and more complete in this
section as long as we keep it non-technical.

Thanks,
Simon

On 18 November 2011 09:17, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker
<sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:
>
> PROV-ISSUE-153 (complementarity): Complementarity description differs from model definition [Primer]
>
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/153
>
> Raised by: Graham Klyne
> On product: Primer
>
> Primer section: 2.7 Complementarity
>
> While I personally think the notion of complementarity described here is the
> more useful one, I don't think it agrees with the current PROV-DM
> (http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/prov/raw-file/tip/model/ProvenanceModel.html#record-complement-of).
>
> (What you describe here might be termed "characterizationOf" (of "viewOf"),
> which notion I see as being foundational to the way entities are related to
> things.)
>
> To clarify: in my reading, primer defines complementarity as an asymmetric relationship, where one characterization is subsumed by the other.  But the model definition is symmetric,  simply saying that the characterizations overlap in some sense.
>
>
>
>



-- 
Dr Simon Miles
Lecturer, Department of Informatics
Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
+44 (0)20 7848 1166

Provenance in Agent-mediated Healthcare Systems:
http://eprints.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/1273/

Received on Monday, 21 November 2011 21:10:49 UTC