.
authorPaolo Missier <pmissier@acm.org>
Sat, 25 Feb 2012 21:00:29 +0000
changeset 1691 80831f0159c3
parent 1690 e1f5882757a3 (current diff)
parent 1689 9b4e5ef2849d (diff)
child 1692 0fc6749ae432
.
model/prov-dm.html
model/working-copy/towards-wd4.html
--- a/model/prov-dm.html	Sat Feb 25 20:54:12 2012 +0000
+++ b/model/prov-dm.html	Sat Feb 25 21:00:29 2012 +0000
@@ -382,7 +382,17 @@
 
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-activity"></span> Activities that operate on digital entities may for example move, copy, or duplicate them.
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-activity">
+An <dfn id="concept-activity">activity</dfn> is anything that acts upon or with
+entities; this action can take multiple forms:  consuming them,  processing them, 
+transforming them,  modifying them,  relocating
+them,  using them,  generating them, being associated with them,
+etc. Activities that operate on digital entities may for example move, copy, or duplicate them.
+</div>
+>>>>>>> other
 </p>
 
 
@@ -393,6 +403,7 @@
 
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-agent">
 </span>
 </p>
@@ -422,11 +433,48 @@
 
 <p>
 <div class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-generation">
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-agent">
+An <dfn id="concept-agent">agent</dfn> is a type of entity that takes an active role in an activity such that it can be assigned some degree of responsibility for the activity taking.
+>>>>>>> other
 </div>
 </p>
 
+<<<<<<< local
+=======
+
+<p>The key purpose of agents is to assign responsibility
+for activities. 
+The definition of agent intentionally stays away from using concepts such as enabling, causing, initiating, affecting, etc, because many entities also enable, cause, initiate, and affect in some way
+the activities.  So the notion of having some degree of responsibility is really what makes an agent.</p>
+
+
+<p>An agent is a particular type of Entity. This means that the model can be
+ used to express provenance of the agents themselves.  </p>
+
+<div class="anexample" id="agent-example">
+>>>>>>> other
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <div class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-usage">
+=======
+For
+ example, software for checking the use of grammar in a document may be defined as an agent of a document preparation activity, and at the same time one can describe its provenance, including for instance the vendor and the version history.</p>
+</div>
+</section>
+
+
+
+    <section id="section-generation-usage-derivation"> 
+<h2>Generation, Usage, Derivation</h2>
+
+<p>Activities and entities are associated with each other in two different ways: activities are consumers of entities and activities are producers of entities.  For provenance purpose, we define the following notions of generation and usage. </p>
+
+<p>
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-generation">
+<dfn title="concept-generation">Generation</dfn> is the completed production of a new entity by an activity.
+ This entity becomes available for usage after this generation. This entity did not exist before generation. 
+>>>>>>> other
 </div>
 </p>
 
@@ -450,7 +498,13 @@
 <p>Activities are consumers of entities and producers of entities. In some case, the consumption of an entity influences the creation of another in some way. This notion is captured by derivations, defined as follows.</p>
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-derivation">
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-derivation">
+<dfn title="concept-derivation">Derivation</dfn> is something by which some entity is transformed from, created from, or affected by another entity in the world.  
+</div>
+>>>>>>> other
 </p>
 
 
@@ -546,7 +600,11 @@
 validate the execution as represented in the provenance record, to  
 manage expectation failures, or to provide explanations.</p>
 
+<<<<<<< local
 <!-- <div class="note">Proposal: remove the above para as it repeats from 2.3. Proposed text: "the <em>activity association</em> relation provides a way to indicate that an agent is responsible for an activity, possibly with an associated plan."[PM]</div> -->
+=======
+
+>>>>>>> other
 
 
 <p>
@@ -564,6 +622,7 @@
 </div>
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-responsibilityChain">
 </span> The nature of this relation is intended to be broad,  including delegation or a contractual relation. </p>
 
@@ -574,6 +633,13 @@
 </div>-->
   
 
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-responsibilityChain">
+A <dfn title="concept-responsibilityChain">responsibility chain</dfn> is a relation between two agents,
+indicating that a "subordinate" agent acted on behalf of a "responsible" agent, in the context of an activity.  The nature of this relation is intended to be broad,  including delegation or a contractual relation.
+</div>
+</p>
+>>>>>>> other
 
 
 
@@ -1463,7 +1529,11 @@
 
 <ol>
   <li>e1 and e2 refer to Bob in two contexts (as Facebook and Twitter users, respectively)
+<<<<<<< local
   <li> both of e1 and e2  are more detailed than e3.
+=======
+  <li> both of e1 and e2  are more detailed then than e3.
+>>>>>>> other
 </ol>
 
 
@@ -1621,7 +1691,7 @@
 <p>An <dfn title="dfn-attribute">attribute</dfn> is a <a>qualified name</a>. 
 
 
-<p>The PROV data model introduces a pre-defined set of attributes in the <a href="#prov-dm-namespace">PROV-DM namespace</a>, which we define below. 
+<p>The PROV data model introduces a fixed set of attributes in the <a href="#prov-dm-namespace">PROV-DM namespace</a>, which we define below. 
 The interpretation of any attribute declared in another namespace is out of scope.</p>
 
 <section id="term-attribute-role">
@@ -1946,14 +2016,10 @@
 </div>
 
 
-<p>Further considerations:</p>
-<ul>
-  <li>Traceability is more general than <a href="#Derivation-Relation">Derivation</a>.
-</ul>
 
 
 <div class='note'>
-  I propose to delete the following, given that this document does not mention inferences.  [LM]
+  I propose to delete the following, given that this document does not mention inferences.
 <p>Further considerations:</p>
 <ul>
   <li>Traceability is more general than <a href="#Derivation-Relation">Derivation</a>. This means that an assertion of the form: <span class="name">tracedTo(...,e2,e1,...)</span> can be inferred from an assertion of the form:
@@ -1963,8 +2029,6 @@
 </ul>
 </div>
 
-<div class="note">looking at the definition, there is something wrong. It's not true that e2 was neceaary for e1 (in the transitive case) and
-that e1 bears responsibility. [LM]</div>
 </section>
 
 
@@ -2234,15 +2298,15 @@
 descriptions that would not make sense: for instance, one could
 express that an entity was used before it was generated, or that the
 activity that generated an entity began its existence after the entity
-generation.  A set of consistency constraints have been defined for PROV-DM and
+generation.  A set of constraints have been defined for PROV-DM and
 can be found in a companion specification [[PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS]].
-They can be used by asserters as a guideline for composing provenance descriptions that are consistent, and
+They can be used by asserters  as a guideline for composing provenance descriptions and
 by implementers of reasoning engines. </li>
 
 
 
 <li>
-<p> The example of <a href="#prov-dm-example">section 3</a> contains identifiers such as <span class="name"><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111215">tr:WD-prov-dm-20111215</a></span>, which denotes a specific version of a technical report.  On the other hand, a URI such as <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/">http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/</a> points to the latest version of a document. One needs to ensure that provenance descriptions for the latter document remain valid as denoted resources change. </p>
+<p> The example of <a href="#prov-dm-example">section 3</a> contains identifiers such as <span class="name"><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111215">tr:WD-prov-dm-20111215</a></span>, which denotes a specific version of a technical report.  On the other hand, a URI such as <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/">http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/</a> points to the latest version of a document. One needs to be cautious about provenance descriptions for the latter document, to ensure that they remain valid as denoted resources change. </p>
 
 <p>To this end, PROV-DM allows asserters to describe "<em>partial states</em>" of entities by means of attributes and associated values. Some further constraints apply to the use of these attributes, since the values associated with them are expected to remain unchanged for some period of time. The constraints associated to attributes are also specified in the companion specification [[PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS]].</p>
 
--- a/model/working-copy/towards-wd4.html	Sat Feb 25 20:54:12 2012 +0000
+++ b/model/working-copy/towards-wd4.html	Sat Feb 25 21:00:29 2012 +0000
@@ -356,7 +356,17 @@
 
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-activity"></span> Activities that operate on digital entities may for example move, copy, or duplicate them.
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-activity">
+An <dfn id="concept-activity">activity</dfn> is anything that acts upon or with
+entities; this action can take multiple forms:  consuming them,  processing them, 
+transforming them,  modifying them,  relocating
+them,  using them,  generating them, being associated with them,
+etc. Activities that operate on digital entities may for example move, copy, or duplicate them.
+</div>
+>>>>>>> other
 </p>
 
 
@@ -367,6 +377,7 @@
 
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-agent">
 </span>
 </p>
@@ -396,11 +407,48 @@
 
 <p>
 <div class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-generation">
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-agent">
+An <dfn id="concept-agent">agent</dfn> is a type of entity that takes an active role in an activity such that it can be assigned some degree of responsibility for the activity taking.
+>>>>>>> other
 </div>
 </p>
 
+<<<<<<< local
+=======
+
+<p>The key purpose of agents is to assign responsibility
+for activities. 
+The definition of agent intentionally stays away from using concepts such as enabling, causing, initiating, affecting, etc, because many entities also enable, cause, initiate, and affect in some way
+the activities.  So the notion of having some degree of responsibility is really what makes an agent.</p>
+
+
+<p>An agent is a particular type of Entity. This means that the model can be
+ used to express provenance of the agents themselves.  </p>
+
+<div class="anexample" id="agent-example">
+>>>>>>> other
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <div class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-usage">
+=======
+For
+ example, software for checking the use of grammar in a document may be defined as an agent of a document preparation activity, and at the same time one can describe its provenance, including for instance the vendor and the version history.</p>
+</div>
+</section>
+
+
+
+    <section id="section-generation-usage-derivation"> 
+<h2>Generation, Usage, Derivation</h2>
+
+<p>Activities and entities are associated with each other in two different ways: activities are consumers of entities and activities are producers of entities.  For provenance purpose, we define the following notions of generation and usage. </p>
+
+<p>
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-generation">
+<dfn title="concept-generation">Generation</dfn> is the completed production of a new entity by an activity.
+ This entity becomes available for usage after this generation. This entity did not exist before generation. 
+>>>>>>> other
 </div>
 </p>
 
@@ -424,7 +472,13 @@
 <p>Activities are consumers of entities and producers of entities. In some case, the consumption of an entity influences the creation of another in some way. This notion is captured by derivations, defined as follows.</p>
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-derivation">
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-derivation">
+<dfn title="concept-derivation">Derivation</dfn> is something by which some entity is transformed from, created from, or affected by another entity in the world.  
+</div>
+>>>>>>> other
 </p>
 
 
@@ -520,7 +574,11 @@
 validate the execution as represented in the provenance record, to  
 manage expectation failures, or to provide explanations.</p>
 
+<<<<<<< local
 <!-- <div class="note">Proposal: remove the above para as it repeats from 2.3. Proposed text: "the <em>activity association</em> relation provides a way to indicate that an agent is responsible for an activity, possibly with an associated plan."[PM]</div> -->
+=======
+
+>>>>>>> other
 
 
 <p>
@@ -538,6 +596,7 @@
 </div>
 
 <p>
+<<<<<<< local
 <span class="glossary-ref" ref="glossary-responsibilityChain">
 </span> The nature of this relation is intended to be broad,  including delegation or a contractual relation. </p>
 
@@ -548,6 +607,13 @@
 </div>-->
   
 
+=======
+<div class="glossary" id="glossary-responsibilityChain">
+A <dfn title="concept-responsibilityChain">responsibility chain</dfn> is a relation between two agents,
+indicating that a "subordinate" agent acted on behalf of a "responsible" agent, in the context of an activity.  The nature of this relation is intended to be broad,  including delegation or a contractual relation.
+</div>
+</p>
+>>>>>>> other
 
 
 
@@ -1437,7 +1503,11 @@
 
 <ol>
   <li>e1 and e2 refer to Bob in two contexts (as Facebook and Twitter users, respectively)
+<<<<<<< local
   <li> both of e1 and e2  are more detailed than e3.
+=======
+  <li> both of e1 and e2  are more detailed then than e3.
+>>>>>>> other
 </ol>
 
 
@@ -1595,7 +1665,7 @@
 <p>An <dfn title="dfn-attribute">attribute</dfn> is a <a>qualified name</a>. 
 
 
-<p>The PROV data model introduces a pre-defined set of attributes in the <a href="#prov-dm-namespace">PROV-DM namespace</a>, which we define below. 
+<p>The PROV data model introduces a fixed set of attributes in the <a href="#prov-dm-namespace">PROV-DM namespace</a>, which we define below. 
 The interpretation of any attribute declared in another namespace is out of scope.</p>
 
 <section id="term-attribute-role">
@@ -1920,14 +1990,10 @@
 </div>
 
 
-<p>Further considerations:</p>
-<ul>
-  <li>Traceability is more general than <a href="#Derivation-Relation">Derivation</a>.
-</ul>
 
 
 <div class='note'>
-  I propose to delete the following, given that this document does not mention inferences.  [LM]
+  I propose to delete the following, given that this document does not mention inferences.
 <p>Further considerations:</p>
 <ul>
   <li>Traceability is more general than <a href="#Derivation-Relation">Derivation</a>. This means that an assertion of the form: <span class="name">tracedTo(...,e2,e1,...)</span> can be inferred from an assertion of the form:
@@ -1937,8 +2003,6 @@
 </ul>
 </div>
 
-<div class="note">looking at the definition, there is something wrong. It's not true that e2 was neceaary for e1 (in the transitive case) and
-that e1 bears responsibility. [LM]</div>
 </section>
 
 
@@ -2208,15 +2272,15 @@
 descriptions that would not make sense: for instance, one could
 express that an entity was used before it was generated, or that the
 activity that generated an entity began its existence after the entity
-generation.  A set of consistency constraints have been defined for PROV-DM and
+generation.  A set of constraints have been defined for PROV-DM and
 can be found in a companion specification [[PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS]].
-They can be used by asserters as a guideline for composing provenance descriptions that are consistent, and
+They can be used by asserters  as a guideline for composing provenance descriptions and
 by implementers of reasoning engines. </li>
 
 
 
 <li>
-<p> The example of <a href="#prov-dm-example">section 3</a> contains identifiers such as <span class="name"><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111215">tr:WD-prov-dm-20111215</a></span>, which denotes a specific version of a technical report.  On the other hand, a URI such as <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/">http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/</a> points to the latest version of a document. One needs to ensure that provenance descriptions for the latter document remain valid as denoted resources change. </p>
+<p> The example of <a href="#prov-dm-example">section 3</a> contains identifiers such as <span class="name"><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111215">tr:WD-prov-dm-20111215</a></span>, which denotes a specific version of a technical report.  On the other hand, a URI such as <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/">http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/</a> points to the latest version of a document. One needs to be cautious about provenance descriptions for the latter document, to ensure that they remain valid as denoted resources change. </p>
 
 <p>To this end, PROV-DM allows asserters to describe "<em>partial states</em>" of entities by means of attributes and associated values. Some further constraints apply to the use of these attributes, since the values associated with them are expected to remain unchanged for some period of time. The constraints associated to attributes are also specified in the companion specification [[PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS]].</p>