[topicmapmail] relationships: one-way and two-way

[Simon Grant]

Hello from someone relatively new to Topic Maps.

I wanted to test out an insight.

I have read that one of the issues between RDF and TM is the way that 
relationships/associations are handled.
RDF being based around one-way relationships does seem problematic, 
though it looks like OWL covers that.

I just realised that this could be seen as a great value in the topic 
- occurrence distinction.
Within topics, associations are naturally defined so that the 
association has an independent existence, relieving individual topics 
of the burden of containing representations of what they are 
associated with and how.

But when it comes to occurrences, out there in the world, one can 
only claim, from one direction, that a particular resource is an 
occurrence of a topic. That resource itself is not part of the TM, 
and within the resource, one cannot expect to find any representation 
of the fact that it is an occurrence of a particular topic, according 
to a particular topic map.

Does that make sense? Apologies for any naivety or ignorance.

Simon

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Simon Grant  http://www.simongrant.org/home.html
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