Modelling the universe

Post Reply
Message
Author
Andrew.Prosser

Modelling the universe

#1 Post by Andrew.Prosser »

I'm concerned that with all of our best efforts we are not constraining ISO15926 RDL content to a practical working set but are regularly expanding it beyond reasonable and necessary limits. There are significant issues with maintaining the current RDL content, I don't need to remind anyone of that and yet in recent work I see concepts such as Language, Font Family, Paper Size, Pen styles... requiring class definitions in the RDL.

We need to find a way to utilise the technologies that we are embracing as intended and avoid the redefinition of terms already well described, documented and standardised within the technical communities that we work. For example language qualification is built into the heart of the semantic web technologies but recent template work when implemented with Part 8 as it currently stands requires a totally different approach.

Is there a way that Part 2 practices, template definition work and Part 8 implementation can refocus it's efforts to reduce the size, cost and effort involved in RDL maintenance by not requiring such contents to be defined in ISO15926 repositories?

HansTeijgeler
Posts: 283
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:02 pm

Re: Modelling the universe

#2 Post by HansTeijgeler »

@Andy - The problems with the RDL quality have been brought to our attention with the MRAIL initiative. Unfortunately that seems to have died already, for some reason unknown to me (although I can guess).

Classes like Font Family, Paper Size, Pen styles are not originating from any template. To me these are too silly in the context of lifecycle information integration. The problem is that as long as you are close to PCA you seem to have the privilege to add whatever you want, without due quality checks like the approvals of templates in the MMT Forum.

If you poke around in the RDL you will find some weird stuff, like a large number of instances of RealNumber. But how many instances of Language will be required in practice? Just a few.

To answer your question: push hard to revitalize MRAIL.

vvagr
Posts: 282
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:01 pm
Location: Moscow, Russia
Contact:

Re: Modelling the universe

#3 Post by vvagr »

There are general hopes in the ontology communities that such problems can be resolved through ontology reuse. If you can locate somewhere a domain ontology with concepts required in your project - just use it in your ISO15926 data, never attempting to add it formally to PCA RDL.

Andrew.Prosser

Re: Modelling the universe

#4 Post by Andrew.Prosser »

With standard semantic exchange there is no issue in incorporating classes for other domains from other sources. But in a Part 8 implementation that is presenting graphical content I can't see how such things can be used without making that Part 8 implementation somehow non-conformant/compliant/Invalid. Unless there are clear guidelines on what is and what isn't in the RDL and how to reference non-part 4 (part 2 grounded) terms in Part 8 templates I have no freedom to just reference say a html predicate. If I do use external terms for styling or use a standard language qualification that semantic web tools understand with a Part 8 template I would expect a number of complaints. I can push for use of styling predicates and values from other sources but in doing so feel that without guidelines/boundaries I will just be viewed as a heretic.

Post Reply