SIOC Post profile for "AI3:::Adaptive Information"
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primary topic: Conceptual and Practical Distinctions in the Attributes Ontology
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Conceptual and Practical Distinctions in the Attributes Ontology
type: Post
has container: weblog
has creator: Mike Bergman
maker: Mike Bergman
created: 2015-03-03T06:53:25Z
content: Reasons for the Relations and Attributes Split Logicians going back at least as far as Charles S. Peirce [1] -- and computer scientists as early as the entity-relationship (ER) model from the mid-1970s [2] -- have made the relations-attributes distinction for predicates relating to data objects. There are both conceptual and practical bases for these distinctions. This article elaborates upon the relations-attributes distinction in the UMBEL Attributes Ontology. I also try to precisely define my terms because terminology is overlapping and confusing amongst competing data models and standards. In one of its first communiques in 1999 regarding the Resource Description Framework, its sponsor, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), noted the RDF data model was a member of the entity-relationship modeling family [3]. Though for its own reasons the W3C chose to label the relationships between things as "properties" in RDF [4], for practical modeling reasons the E-R model distinction into attributes and relations provides additional explanatory power. It also provides a more useful and tractable means for modeling the connections between things, an essential requirement for efficient data interoperability. Understanding these distinctions is an important basis for understanding the structure and design of UMBEL's Attributes Ontology. Recap of the UMBEL Attributes Ontology My prior article introduced the Attributes Ontology (AO), a new module and extension about to be released for UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer). UMBEL is both a vocabulary and an ontology reference structure for concepts. UMBEL's role is to help match the discussion of topics and things across the Web. The spoke-and-hub design [5] that UMBEL provides for concepts led to an obvious question of how the relationships ("properties") of things can be similarly organized and managed. Referring again to the prior article, we put forward the following stack (as initially informed by Pietranik and Ng…
encoded: Reasons for the Relations and Attributes Split Logicians going back at least as far as Charles S. Peirce [1] — and computer scientists as early as the entity-relationship (ER) model from the mid-1970s [2] — have made the relations-attributes distinction for predicates relating to data objects. There are both conceptual and practical bases for these distinctions. This article elaborates upon the relations-attributes distinction in the UMBEL Attributes Ontology. I also try to precisely define my terms because terminology is overlapping and confusing amongst competing data models and standards. In one of its first communiques in 1999 regarding the Resource Description Framework, its sponsor, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), noted the RDF data model was a member of the entity-relationship modeling family [3]. Though for its own reasons the W3C chose to label the relationships between things as “properties” in RDF [4], for practical modeling reasons the E-R model distinction into attributes and relations provides additional explanatory power. It also provides a more useful and tractable means for modeling the connections between things, an essential requirement for efficient data interoperability. Understanding these distinctions is an important basis for understanding the structure and design of UMBEL’s Attributes Ontology. Recap of the UMBEL Attributes Ontology My prior article introduced the Attributes Ontology (AO), a new module and extension about to be released for UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer). UMBEL is both a vocabulary and an ontology reference structure for concepts. UMBEL’s role is to help match the discussion of topics and things across the Web. The spoke-and-hub design [5] that UMBEL provides for concepts led to an obvious question of how the relationships (“properties”) of things can be similarly organized and managed. Referring again to the prior article, we put forward the following stack (as initially informed by Pietranik and Nguy…
topic: Big Structure
topic: Ontologies
topic: UMBEL
links to: Charles S. Peirce
links to: [1]
links to: entity-relationship (ER) model
links to: [2]
links to: UMBEL
links to: Resource Description Framework
links to: W3C
links to: [3]
links to: [4]
links to: prior article
links to: [5]
links to: [6]
links to: [7]
links to: [19]
links to: [8]
links to: [9]
links to: URI
links to: [18]
links to: [10]
links to: lumpers and splitters
links to: [11]
links to: [12]
links to: entity-relationship model
links to: [13]
links to: common noun
links to: proper noun
links to: transitive verb
links to: intransitive verb
links to: adjective
links to: adverb
links to: [14]
links to: [15]
links to: [16]
links to: [17]
links to: semantic heterogeneities
links to: Attribute (computing)
links to: Attribute-value pair
links to: Attribute-value system
links to: Concept map
links to: Conceptual model
links to: Description logic
links to: Formal concept analysis
links to: Functor
links to: Intensional definition
links to: Intension
links to: Intensional logic
links to: Intrinsic and extrinsic properties (philosophy)
links to: Predicate (mathematical_logic)
links to: Property (philosophy)
links to: Qualitative property
links to: Quantity
links to: Theory of relations
links to: Variable and attribute (research)
links to: Frege
links to: Russell
links to: Carnap
links to: The Entity-Relationship Model – Toward a Unified View of Data
links to: The Cambridge Communiqué
links to: ttp://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/
links to: spoke-and-hub design
links to: Attribute Mapping as a Foundation of Ontology Alignment
links to: OpenCyc
links to: Cyc knowledge base
links to: Give Me a Sign: What Do Things Mean on the Semantic Web?
links to: Advantages and Myths of RDF
links to: W3C Recommendation
links to: English, Chinese and ER diagrams
links to: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Properties
links to: An Ontological Analysis of the Relationship Construct in Conceptual Modeling
links to: Attribute-Based Semantic Reconciliation of Multiple Data Sources

Mike Bergman
type: User

Mike Bergman
type: Person

entity-relationship (ER) model
label: ER model entry

prior article
label: introduction to the Attributes Ontology

entity-relationship model
label: Entity-relationship model

Intrinsic and extrinsic properties (philosophy)
label: Level of measurement

DERA: A Faceted Knowledge Organization Framework

S.R. Ranganathan

Metamodeling in Domain Ontologies