[topicmapmail] graphic language for describing TopicMaps

[Bernard Vatant]

Just a reminder that we've made a bit of work about Hypergraphs vs TM in Mondeca in the
past ...
See http://www.mondeca.com/lab/mondeca_publis.htm
And in particular:
http://www.mondeca.com/english3/published-doc/CombinatorialHypermapsvsTopicMaps.htm
http://www.mondeca.com/english3/published-doc/aformalmodelfortm.pdf

For people curious about software genealogy, hypergraph structures have actually been the
foundation of Mondeca ITM metamodel since the beginning, even before Mondeca was aware of
Topic Maps at all. And it's still there under the hood, alive and well :))

BTW hypergraphs have to do with modeling, graphical representation is a side effect.

Cheers

Bernard

Bernard Vatant
Senior Consultant
Knowledge Engineering
Mondeca - www.mondeca.com
bernard.vatant@mondeca.com


> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : topicmapmail-admin@infoloom.com
> [mailto:topicmapmail-admin@infoloom.com]De la part de Murray Altheim
> Envoye : jeudi 13 mai 2004 01:42
> A : Thomas Schwotzer
> Cc : Are Gulbrandsen; Stefan Lischke; topicmapmail@infoloom.com
> Objet : Re: [topicmapmail] graphic language for describing TopicMaps
>
>
> Thomas Schwotzer wrote:
> [...]
> > I have doubts that RDF visualization can easily be applied to
> > Topic Maps. The RDF triples can be visualized as graphs.
> > That's straightforward.
> >
> > In Topic Maps, associations define relations between an arbitrary
> > number of topics. TMs are hypergraphs.
>
> Thomas,
>
> My understanding of hypergraphs (as defined e.g., by W.T. Tuttle
> in "Graph Theory" and elsewhere) is that it is a graph containing
> a graph. This is assuming that hypergraphs and subgraphs are
> essentially the same thing viewed from opposite sides of a mirror.
>
> I don't see that the number of topics in an association would
> constitute a hypergraph. It can still be considered as one, flat
> graph structure. There are certainly specific ontological constructs
> where a hypergraph visualization might provide an improved match
> between the representation and the constructs being represented,
> and the idea of being able to collapse a portion of a visualized
> graph can be quite valuable.
>
> But on the whole, while RDF and TM have decidedly different graph
> structures, both seem to have a flat graph, not a hypergraph, as
> their basic structure. Since Topic Maps can't actually contain
> other Topic Maps, except by reference, this would seem to be the
> case.
>
> Is there something I'm missing?
>
> Murray
>
> ......................................................................
> Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
> Knowledge Media Institute
> The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .
>
>    The Resume of George W. Bush
>    http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/04/23_resume.html
>
>                     The sleep of reason brings forth monsters -- Goya
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