[topicmapmail] Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus On Line

[Kal Ahmed]

On Sun, 2003-08-31 at 09:23, Nagarjuna G. wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 09:10:12PM -0400, Thomas B. Passin wrote:
> > 
> > "... concepts may have Associative Relationships, which are various types of
> > ties or connections between concepts, excluding hierarchical genus/species
> > relationships. "
> > 
> > http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/about.html#scope
> > 
> > One very interesting feature is that they distinguish a hierarchy - for
> > which they have the equivalent of instanceOf - from the non-hierarchical
> > relationships.  They laso have multiple instanceOfs.  This suggests to me
> > that there is some rationale for considering instanceOf as being something a
> > bit different from just another association.
> > 
> 
> This is an important distinction to make, because I also maintain this
> distinction.:-).  Well, in the design of GNOWSYS classification is
> done separately by adding ObjectTypes and Objects, and associations as
> other kind of relations..  This is to essentially take care of the
> most widely used knowledge organizer `instanceOf'.  Logically
> instanceOf is a kind of transitive relation, but it is good to have
> this widely used relation separate for pratical reasons.
> 

Is instanceOf really a transitive relation ? I don't believe it is. 

Kal instanceOf Homo Sapiens

Homo Sapiens instanceOf Species

Kal instanceOf Species ?

Subclass/superclass *is* transitive, but not instanceOf. Unless you mean
something different to a class-instance relationship by 'instanceOf'

Cheers,

Kal

-- 
Kal Ahmed, Techquila
Standards-based Information Management
e: kal@techquila.com
w: www.techquila.com
p: +44 7968 529531