Concerning representation of the UBL Core Components: (01)
Adam Pease's note (Feb. 20) has given a good listing of the ultimate
referents within SUMO for the UBL Core Components. This is helpful. (02)
My own interpretation of the Core Component specification is that the
elements are almost all intended to represent text fields within
business documents. The ultimate referents of the text fields are,
I think, pretty much as Adam has listed. But I think it will also
be essential to represent the text fields directly.
We do not, of course, need to adhere strictly to the UBL specification
in creating our own representation of business-related informational entities –
my suggestions do not correspond one-to-one to the UBL structures -- but I
think
that there is a good reason to create concept classes that have most or all of
the conceptual content of the UBL concepts, because they do to some extent
capture concepts that will be useful in reasoning about transactions,
and especially about documents transmitted for use in transactions. (03)
There has already been a great deal of work on representing the format
of texts -- HTML, for example. XML tried to capture more of the
semantics, but it still is concerned largely with text. As I interpret
it, the UBL specification is trying to capture even more of the
semantics of texts -- specifically business documents -- that XML.
I think our goal is to complete the semanticization by linking all
these texts and their content and referents to an upper ontology. (04)
But texts they are, as best I can tell. So in addition to
providing links to the ultimate referents, as Adam has done,
I wold recommend that we also deal explicitly with the issue
of representing fields in a business document. (05)
Given that interpretation, as best I can tell, the semantics of
the UBL core components appears to be something like this: (06)
(1) The Fundamental elements are all text fields in a document. These
correspond to classes, and the UBL name of each ends in “.Type”: (07)
Measure
Quantity
Amount
Indicator
Numeric
DateTime (08)
(2) These text field classes appear to be subclasses of “Text” in the Core
Components.
The link is only explicit for “Indicator”, “Numeric” and “DateTime”, but
implied
for the other three classes (09)
(3) each of these text fields is formatted. The three “quantity” fields have
component parts (subfields): (010)
Field has subfields
------------ -------------------------------------
Measure Content MeasureUnit
Quantity Content QuantityUnit
Amount Content AmountCurrency (011)
In each of these cases, “Content” is a numeric field
The differences in the unit subfields of these classes seem to come from
their different
roles (locations) in an invoice or order document: as I interpret them: (012)
Quantity is used to specify the number of units of an item ordered.
Measure is used to specify numerical measured attributes of objects in an
order (e.g. diameter or length of a pipe, size of a container).
Amount is a currency amount, which may or may not have the currency unit
explicitly mentioned. (013)
(4) The Units are also text fields, and the text symbols representing those
units are all instances of “Code”, which is a special kind of text string which
must be on a CodeList approved by a Agency. (014)
(5) Though not explicit in the UBL scheme, it seems best to treat Code as a
subclass of Identifier, which is also a text field. In this interpretation, an
Identifier may or may not be restricted to words on a list approved by an
Agency, whereas a code must
be on such a list. (015)
(6) A Code is an element of a Code List. (016)
(7) A Code List is part of (specified by) a Code List Scheme. It is written in
a specific language. (017)
(8) A Code List Scheme is a Type of Identification Scheme. An Identification
Scheme must also be approved by an Agency. (018)
(9) A BinaryObject is anything that is represented as sequences of bytes. It
may represent a Text. The implication is that this is always a computer file,
but for precision it is best to think of it as a more general binary-encoded
object with Computer files as subtypes. I have included ComputerFile as a
subclass of BinaryObject in the
SMINK009 ontology. (019)
(10) All of these text fields ***refer conceptually*** to entities (numbers,
objects) that
are not texts, but are not explicitly described as Types within the Core
Components
specification. (020)
******************************************** (021)
Using this interpretation, I have created classes and instances that I think
best represent the conceptual content of the core components, and have linked
them to the SUMO/MILO ontology. The resulting files are posted at the links
below. (022)
In doing the linkage, I have found it useful to add some concepts that are
peripheral to the core components themselves. I hope we can focus on the UBL
core components and not be distracted by the peripherally related concepts. (023)
In the SMINK009min ontology, the UBL concepts are represented as
instances of ":UBL-Synonym" and when one views those in the
"Instances" window of Protege, one will see the ontology class which
is the synonymous concept for the UBL concept. In the
"samin009min.txt" file, the list of UBL concepts starts after
the string "<module>UBL-Synonyms" (024)
=================================================== (025)
The files available are:
ftp://micra.com/ontolog/smink009min.zip -- the WinZipped Protege
files for the combined SUMO, Mid-Level,
and Invoices ontology: SMINK009min
This version has “Context” removed to avoid
distraction by
issues not of immediate concern.
ftp://micra.com/ontolog/skifcore.zip -- the WinZipped Protege
SKIFcore.* files (3) for the base Protege
ontology required to import a SKIF file
using the SKIF tab
ftp://micra.com/ontolog/skif_tab.jar -- the jar file for the
SkifTab plugin which will import a SKIF
file into Protege (if it follows the
SUMO-SKIF conventions)
ftp://micra.com/ontolog/samin009min.zip -- a zipped text file
"samin006.txt", which is the
SKIF-format file for the combined
SUMO, Mid-Level, and Invoices
ontologies (the SKIF-text version of
Protege ontology SMINK006) (026)
As usual, I am eager to get any kind of feedback, positive or negative,
about the ontology or its Protege or SKIF representations.
I will also be happy to answer general questions about Protege or the
plugin that converts SKIF to Protege formats. (027)
If we can block out an hour or so sometime I will be happy to do a quick
run through on these suggestions. If Peter sets it up, we can use
the tight VNC so that I can show how they are displayed in Protégé.
If someone will load the file into another browser, I will also be happy to
look at that display together with the group. (028)
Pat (029)
--
=============================================
Patrick Cassidy (030)
MICRA, Inc. || (908) 561-3416
735 Belvidere Ave. || (908) 668-5252 (if no answer)
Plainfield, NJ 07062-2054 || (908) 668-5904 (fax) (031)
internet: cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
============================================= (032)
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