[topicmapmail] interoperability of topicmaps

[Stefan Henke]

Hi,
regarding my thesis about a "topicgrid" which creates a virutal topic map of
topic maps that are distributed in a network, I had some basic ideas about
the architecture. The basic principle is that a query or request which is
made by an user will be dispatched to every node that wants to participate
in the grid. The results are collected from each node and presented to the
user. As I want to present one big virtual topicmap that span over all
nodes, itīs bad to work with the topic ids of each topic that is returned.
For my current understanding subject identities and indicators are excellent
to provide a certain level of interoperability and reusability of topicmaps.
Would you agree that it makes sense to resolve all topic ids that are part
of the query into subject indicator or identities before performing the
actual query. Iīm not sure what the best choice is to achieve this to
prevent a big amount of overhead in network communication.
By the way, would you agree that the purpose of topicmaps is to build
ontologies and relate the concepts inside this ontology with appropriate
information resources about these concepts? Does anybody of you know if
there is a structure like subject identity and subject indicator in the
terminology of ontologies?
I would happy about any feedback. And donīt hesistate to critizise this
approach if it doesnīt look suitable for you.
Regards,
Stefan