Mary Poppins-11143435085969103
The above default String is a typical SAID - a SELF-ANNOTATING Identifier
which not only uniquely names its intended meaning, but overtly describes it
by using a controlled word (red), semantic axioms it obeys
(blue), and other required metadata outlined below.
The Shape = Mary Poppins-1
The symbol to be defined, in lexicography, is sometimes called a shape.
One generally can assign no unique meaning to a shape lifted out of context,
but a well-chosen numeric suffix can be a work-around to that problem.
If a full suffix is known separately (a namespace file), a UI may truncate it
to one digit - the relative order of creation among the SAIDs for each defined term.
This yields a simpler unique shape for that term's "senses", as in ontology-1
or apple-2.
Assertion Time = 1143435085969
Declaring intended meaning for an identified subject is a deliberate act at a
specific time. Recording the time plays an indirect role in SAID semantics, by
clarifying the specific version of everything that was formally involved
in creating that symbol. Potentially, this can help widely distributed SAIDs
evolve smoothly over time when future changes occur in definitions.
On more basic levels, time tags make each SAID nearly unique independent of a
namespace. Long numbers (msecs. since 1970) are awkward, however, so they
are often seen in sense notation, or as the age of the SAID in hours.
The Axioms = 103
The last 3 characters in our suffix represent basic semantic predicates
true of the shape's meaning. The author of the identifier deliberately
encoded them by using
this web form,
and declared its intended meaning to be as described here:
| | Individual |
vrs |
Collective | | Specific |
vrs |
Indefinite | | Imaginary |
vrs |
Real |
| | | Natural |
vrs |
Artificial | | Concrete |
vrs |
Information | | Basic |
vrs |
Mediating |
| | | Composite |
vrs |
Characteristic | | Persistent |
vrs |
Incidental | | Discrete |
vrs |
Continuous |
|
The Interpretation = the imaginary physical Object
Axioms are okay for digital reasoners, but most people may relate more
easily to a phrase-like summary of the merged facet meanings.
These combined approaches should semantically qualify
a SAID's shape enough to indicate its intended sense. The referent of that
word sense - its conceptual meaning TO ITS PUBLISHER - is what the
identifier properly denotes. This is the identified "Subject".
Upper Ontology Facets = Nature, Realm, Type
The Axioms and Interpretation tap a very powerful indexing technique known as
faceted classification [1], which is now making resources much easier
to find in advanced libraries, web sites and data bases. Instead of one
taxonomy (notoriously hard to create "by committee"), this approach classifies
concepts simultaneously in several smaller, orthogonal ones called facets.
Each Axiom and Facet assertion can be separately added to range or domain constraints, and
used in faceted queries of the problem space. More flexible than "class" in such
usages, they often split up team disagreements into more tractible chunks as well.
All these effects have led well known authorities on modeling [2], [3], [4] to advocate
such techniques in the uppermost layers of ontologies.
To be used widely, per many tools, a SAID requires a namespace. Above is the
one currently in use here. To change it, visit the INDEX page.
A random namespace could work syntactically ([5], [6]), but to be truly
a "published subject identifier" (PSID) takes more than URI syntax. Subtle
issues of trust, authority, accuracy and stability arise, which many feel
the authority [7] of the namespace must resolve. This has led to
numerous "URI-registry" plans (e.g., [8], [9]), often complex to support.
The nicely crafted alternative standard above has emerged, which this
page informally extends. It makes web-wide URI identifiers of any style
easy to post as open standards, even by small businesses [10]. Yet it still
offers a way to verify that such "published" URIs are backed by the authority
of the namespace creator, who professionally endorses them.
Specifically, the namespace for any valid published subject identifier should
resolve to decent documentation on the namespace, its publisher, its planned
lifespan, and any custom namespace-specific extensions [11]. It not, users
are warned by the non-compliance to beware: either the publisher has failed
to follow standards, or the PSAIDs are bogus.
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[1]
Faceted Classification - The Wikipedia, 2006
[2]
Top Level Categories - Upper Ontology Facets. Sowa. 1999
[3]
Formal Ontology - see esp Individuals, Universals & Collections. Smith. 2006
[4]
Simple Bio Upper Ontology - guidance. Rector, Stevens, Rogers. 2006
[5]
Namespace Specs - The W3C standard. Bray, Hollander, Layman, 1999
[6]
Myths on Namespaces - They ONLY name XML nodes. Bourret, XML.com, 2000
[7]
URI syntax - scheme:/authority/path/query/fragment. INet Soc., 2005
[8]
DOI Handbook - Digital Object Identifers are persistent, 2005
[9]
Electronic Stnd. Book Number - Another software registry - Wikipedia
[10]
Lexikos PSIs - Examples for CTM & WORDS constraints. Corwin. 2004
[11]
Lexikon Standards - Senses, extra facets, web services. Corwin. 2006
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