IAU thesaurus in RDF (an update)

[Alasdair Gray]

Hi,

It seems to me that the VOEvent problem requires a scaled down
vocabulary that allows them to describe the issues that they are
actually encountering. This should not contain all the historical
baggage which, by my reading of the mails on the VOEvent and the
semantics list, is contained in the IAU Thesaurus.

That is not to say that updating and standardising the IAU Thesaurus is
a bad thing. In fact, I think that it is a valuable contribution. What
is required are mappings that relate concepts in the VOEvent vocabulary
with concepts in the IAU Thesaurus and for the vocabularies to be in a
standardised, machine processible format such as SKOS. This will allow
increased interoperability. For example, if there are other groups using
their own tailor made vocabularies with mappings between them then a
VOEvent can link to relevant articles in the literature by linking in
with the journal keywords thesaurus.

Cheers,

Alasdair

Alasdair J G Gray
Research Associate: Explicator Project
Computer Science, University of Glasgow
0141 330 6292

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-semantics at eso.org [mailto:owner-semantics at eso.org] On Behalf
Of Rob Seaman
Sent: 9 October 2007 05:20
To: IVOA List VOEvent; IVOA semantics
Subject: Re: IAU thesaurus in RDF (an update)

Rick wrote:

> The present IAU/IVOA list is already too large to be handled easily

Perhaps we should just start with the IAU Thesaurus SKOS'ed  
verbatim?  (With errata, I suppose?)  The initial VOEvent namespace  
(that we actually need) would then be the SV with terms from the  
Thesaurus removed.  Call these both v1.0, with the obvious intent of  
updating them down the road.  In the mean time we can discuss all the  
vasty and profound philosophic issues, while actually having a useful  
work product released into the wild.

Rick had a good start at a useful list of sky transient concepts  
shortly after the first VOEvent workshop in April 2005.  We should  
fish or cut bait.

- Rob