Fwd: activity delegation (ISSUE-522)

I realised I sent this to the wrong mailing list. So sending it again.

Professor Luc Moreau
Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom

Begin forwarded message:

From: Luc Moreau <l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>>
Date: 25 October 2012 10:15:34 GMT+01:00
To: <public-prov-comments@w3.org<mailto:public-prov-comments@w3.org>>
Subject: activity delegation (ISSUE-522)


Dear all,

In response to the further feedback on ISSUE-522, I have extended our response to this issue,
as follows.

(see http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/ResponsesToPublicComments#ISSUE-522_.28Activity_Delegation.29)
It is true that, in a delegation, activity is optional. The reviewer suggests "Therefore, it is possible to state that one agent is the delegate of another, irrespective of any activity. This delegation likely is not indefinite, however, and is bounded by some context (e.g., time, role within an organization, etc). It should be possible to describe the bounds of the delegation.". But it is not the intended semantics:

  *   PROV constraints defines the semantics of optional arguments, and specifically, in Table 3, explains that activity in delegation is expandable.
  *   It means that an absent activity can be replaced by an existential variable. Hence,
  *   actedOnBehalfOf(ag2,ag1) really means that agent ag2 acted on behalf of agent ag1 in the context of some unspecified activity. Some activity, not all activity.
  *   This (unspecified) activity defines the bounds of the delegation. If these bounds need to be made explicit, than an activity also needs to be made explicit.

Feedback welcome,
Luc

On 10/25/2012 12:39 AM, Freimuth, Robert, Ph.D. wrote:

  *   1.1.25 ISSUE-522 (Activity Delegation)<http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/ResponsesToPublicComments#ISSUE-522_.28Activity_Delegation.29>
  *   There were two parts to my comment.  First, agents can be either entities or activities.  Does delegation apply to only those agents that are entities, or can activity-agents also delegate?
  *   Second, the definition of delegation includes only the delegate and responsible agents; activity is optional.  Therefore, it is possible to state that one agent is the delegate of another, irrespective of any activity.  This delegation likely is not indefinite, however, and is bounded by some context (e.g., time, role within an organization, etc).  It should be possible to describe the bounds of the delegation.  This might be done using user-defined attributes, but interoperability would suffer without some guidance within the spec.
  *


--
Professor Luc Moreau
Electronics and Computer Science   tel:   +44 23 8059 4487
University of Southampton          fax:   +44 23 8059 2865
Southampton SO17 1BJ               email: l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
United Kingdom                     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lavm

Received on Thursday, 25 October 2012 10:10:03 UTC