[topicmapmail] Subject Identifiers metadata

[Nikita Ogievetsky]

Thomas,
I think that Kal is referring to the topic in a topic map,
Which means: occurrences, base names, and roles played in associations...

Kal,
For this in the early days of XTM one could supply a scoping topic "A" to
all topic assertions brought over (merged) from source "A". That should be
enough if I understood you correctly. What you are asking for means talking
about a topic in the scope "A". This will bring us back to the notion of
structured scopes, but it is another story. Some times the simpler the
better.

Cheers,

--Nikita

! -----Original Message-----
! From: topicmapmail-admin@infoloom.com [mailto:topicmapmail-
! admin@infoloom.com] On Behalf Of Thomas B. Passin
! Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 6:44 PM
! To: topicmapmail@infoloom.com
! Subject: Re: [topicmapmail] Subject Identifiers metadata
! 
! Kal Ahmed wrote:
! 
! > I'm not talking about reifying a <topic> element or reifying some
! > construct in a topic map processing engine. I'm talking about reifying a
! > topic construct. In the "binding point" model of topic maps, the topic
! > is essentially nothing but a place to hang assertions - in other words
! > it comes into being by a user making an assertion about a subject. So it
! > is the assertion that is created by the user, the topic being a
! > side-effect.
! >
! 
! Well, now I don't undersatnd what you mean by "topic construct".  If you
! don't mean a topic element in an xtm document, and you don't mean a
! structure in a computer (that we conventionally call a "topic"),
! whatever do you mean?
! 
! In topic maps, a topic represents a subject for the purposes of computer
! processing.  If by "come into being by a user making an assertion about
! a subject" you mean that id a topic id is refered to (say, in an
! association) and no topic with that id is yet known to the system, then
! the system would construct a topic with that id, I would say that you
! now have a topic, so what is the problem (although you don't necessarily
! know its subject at this point)?
! 
! If you mean that some set of associations imply the existence of a
! subject that is up to now not represented in the computer by a topic,
! then you could have the computer create such a topic.
! 
! If you mean something else, would you please explain some more?
! 
! And I think we have to be careful about the use of the word "assertion".
!   It might be used to mean specifically an association in a topic map,
! generally in a normal English usage sense, or colloquially as a
! ahorthand for "statement" or "claim".  In the strict topic map sense,
! you can have associations (or call the "assertions" if this is the new
! jargon), but that refers to computer structures relating topics in the
! topic map.  They are but proxies for  the real subjects and the real
! relations between them.
! 
! I have a sense that several uses of the word are being mixed together
! here, but I may be wrong about that because I'm not sure quite what you
! are getting at.
! 
! Cheers,
! 
! Tom P
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