After following this discussion, and having some conversations with Jack Hodges (as he mentioned in an earlier post), I feel moved to voice an opinion. My understanding, for a long time now, has been that QuantityKind is a context-free concept closely tied to, and defined by, a dimension-vector which is some combination of the 7 basic dimensions. A Quantity, on the other hand, is a contextual concept that relates an application to the QUDT ontology.
Easy examples are things like “Steve’s height”. More controversial are concepts like “height”. In my view, height is a contextual concept, and thus should be an instance of Quantity. Height depends on what you consider to be “up” or “down”. Length is a context-free concept and ties directly to one of the basic dimensions. Recalling an earlier discussion among a few of us, I would call pulse-rate or heartbeat-rate examples of Quantity, with a corresponding QuantityKind of Dimensionless. This doesn’t mean we can’t curate collections of Quantity instances for various domains. I know this is not entirely consistent with some of the current population in QUDT. But the reason I have this position is that it avoids the slippery slope of trying to decide how contextual you get before something stops being a QuantityKind and starts being a Quantity. My view: More contextual Steve’s height - Quantity Person height - Quantity height - Quantity length – QuantityKind (dimension Length**1) Less contextual I’m willing to reconsider if presented with a compelling argument! - Steve Steven R. Ray, Ph.D. Distinguished Research Fellow Carnegie Mellon University NASA Research Park Building 23 (MS 23-11) P.O. Box 1 Moffett Field, CA 94305-0001 Email: [email protected] Phone: (650) 587-3780 Cell: (202) 316-6481 Skype: steverayconsulting cid:[email protected] From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Irene Polikoff Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2017 8:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [topbraid-users] RE: owl modelling issue in tbc Yes, possibly. As I said "Or may be some variation on the above that distinguishes between bridge heights and other height measurements.” I didn’t find a height quantity kind in QUDT. My main point on how a restriction could look like, however, was that there would be some class, instances of which are certain quantities e.g., bridge heights. Thus, a restriction on the class Bridge could point to that class. I think other modeling patterns are also possible with QUDT. I t would be good to have a few examples of how to use it. On May 9, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Jack Hodges <[email protected]> wrote: Irene, It seems to me that 'height' should be a quantity kind and not a quantity. A bridge's height could be a quantity but height is too general. The question to ask of qudt is whether there are like quantity kinds, such as weight, size, velocity, etc., which there are. A quantity kind is more of a type that is associated with a dimensionality but no value. A quantity has a value, which makes it contextual. I could see Michael creating a bridge class in some kind of device taxonomy (since it has functionality), and I could see a device having any number of named quantities that are causally related to its functionality. After all, height and weight are of little value unless we are talking about how they impact a design or use of an object. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Group "TopBraid Suite Users", the topics of which include the TopBraid Suite family of products and its base technologies such as SPARQLMotion, SPARQL Web Pages and SPIN. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TopBraid Suite Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient> Virus-free. <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient> www.avg.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Group "TopBraid Suite Users", the topics of which include the TopBraid Suite family of products and its base technologies such as SPARQLMotion, SPARQL Web Pages and SPIN. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TopBraid Suite Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Group "TopBraid Suite Users", the topics of which include the TopBraid Suite family of products and its base technologies such as SPARQLMotion, SPARQL Web Pages and SPIN. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TopBraid Suite Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
