Theoretical Data UCD Proposal

[Alasdair Gray]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-semantics at eso.org [mailto:owner-semantics at eso.org] On Behalf Of Brian Thomas
Sent: 24 October 2007 19:25
To: IVOA semantics
Subject: Re: Theoretical Data UCD Proposal

> On Wednesday 24 October 2007, Rob Seaman wrote:
>> A star is like a planet in that we all want it to have a detailed  
>> definition, even if we disagree on those details.  For most of us,  
>> however, a star's energy budget includes nuclear reactions.  By such  
>> a definition, compact post-nuclear residue such as white dwarfs and  
>> neutron "stars" may be stellar objects, but are not stars.  
>> [snip]

> Ah, I had not considered that point of view, and it is clear, and I agree
> with you. But what did the theorists mean to imply? I guess this (further)
> indicates to me that having a textual description of the term is 
> invaluable, and while that may not be 'in scope' for a thesaurus, its
> ultimately needed.

A textual description is very much 'in scope' for a vocabulary which is ultimately what a skos encoding would enable us to achieve. In fact, the list of concept names only really becomes useful if we have the definitions (textual descriptions) together with their aliases and the relationships with regard to broader/narrower and related terms.

>> 
>> If we don't want to recognize aliases, perhaps we should have no  
>> interest in the IAU Thesaurus.

> I think you misread my point. I wasn't saying aliases are useless, only that
> I generally want to see this "straitforward" project terminated as rapidly as
> possible, and, as such, I would desire to see very little editing of the IAU 
> Thesaurus. Sure, without aliases, a thesaurus is basically a vocabulary, and
> yes, we will want to add more of them, just not in the IAU Thesaurus (at this
> time). 

> Lets put a 'stable in the document', give it a version, and post a VO Note so we
> can move the process forward towards getting some standard published. 
> Recognize that editing will be an ongoing (and probably) never-ending process.
> We cant wait for 'the perfect' document before pushing this forward.

I completely agree that maintaining the vocabulary/thesaurus will be an ongoing, never-ending process and that we need to provide a first version of this in the form of a VO Note.

Alasdair

> =brian



> 



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