--- a/ontology/prov-o-html-sections/description-starting-points.inc.html Tue May 29 16:07:27 2012 -0400
+++ b/ontology/prov-o-html-sections/description-starting-points.inc.html Tue May 29 17:10:56 2012 -0400
@@ -4,16 +4,25 @@
Three classes provide a basis for the rest of PROV-O:
</p>
<ul>
- <li> <a class="qname" href="#Entity">prov:Entity</a>: An entity is a thing one wants to provide provenance for. Things can be physical, digital, conceptual, or otherwise.
+ <li>An <a class="qname" href="#Entity">prov:Entity</a> is a thing one wants to provide provenance for. Things can be physical, digital, conceptual, or otherwise.
</li>
- <li> <a class="qname" href="#Activity">prov:Activity</a>: An activity is something that occurs over a period of time and acts upon or with entities; it may include consuming, processing, transforming, modifying, relocating, using, or generating entities.
+ <li>An <a class="qname" href="#Activity">prov:Activity</a> is something that occurs over a period of time and acts upon or with entities; it may include consuming, processing, transforming, modifying, or relocating entities.
</li>
- <li> <a class="qname" href="#Agent">prov:Agent</a>: An agent is something that bears some form of responsibility for an activity taking place or for the existence of an entity.
+ <li>An <a class="qname" href="#Agent">prov:Agent</a> is something that bears some form of responsibility for an activity taking place or for the existence of an entity.
</li>
</ul>
- <p>These three classes and the properties that relate them are illustrated in the following figure.
+ <p>The three primary classes relate to one another and to themselves using the properties shown in the following figure.</p>
+
+ <p>Activities start and end at particular points in time (described using properties <a href='#startedAtTime' class="qname">prov:startedAtTime</a> and <a href='#endedAtTime' class="qname">prov:endedAtTime</a>, respectively). Activities can use Entities during their lifespan and can also generate other Entities (described using <a href='#used' class="qname">prov:used</a> and <a href='#wasGeneratedBy' class="qname">prov:wasGeneratedBy</a>, respectively). For example, a blog writing activity may use a particular dataset and generate a bar chart. When an Activity uses an Entity that was generated by another Activity, we say it <a href='#wasInformedBy' class="qname">prov:wasInformedBy</a> the other Activity. This allows provenance chains of just Activities, in addition to provenance chains of Entities linked by the Activities that used or generated them.
</p>
+ <p>
+ The provenance among Entities can also be expressed without mentioning the Activities involved, using the property <a href='#wasDerivedFrom' class="qname">prov:wasDerivedFrom</a>. A derivation is a transformation of an entity into another.
+ Entities are described using any number of existing or newly-created RDF properties.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>An Agent can be responsible for an Activity or an Entity (described using the properties <a href='#wasAssociatedWith' class="qname">prov:wasAssociatedWith</a> and <a href='#wasAttributedTo' class="qname">prov:wasAttributedTo</a>, respectively). Agents can also be responsible for other Agents' actions. In this case, the Agent involved with an Activity or Entity <a href='#actedOnBehalfOf' class="qname">prov:actedOnBehalfOf</a> another Agent that may have been less involved, but still bears some responnsibility for the Activity or Entity.
+
<div style="text-align: center;" class="figure">
<!-- When publishing to w3c: replace prov-o-diagrams/ with diagrams/ -->
<!--img src="prov-o-diagrams/Starting-points-terms.png"-->
@@ -23,41 +32,6 @@
<div class="figcaption">Figure 1. The three Starting Point classes and the properties that relate them.</div>
</div>
- <p>
- Entities are related to each other using derivation, which is used to
- specify that the creation/existence of an entity was influenced in some
- way by the consumption of another entity.
- An entity can be attributed to an agent to specify that the entity was
- generated by some activity that the agent in question was associated
- with.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- Activities may depend on each other. This dependency is expressed using the property
- <a href="#wasInformedBy" class="qname">prov:wasInformedBy</a>, which specifies that one activity used an entity that was
- generated by previous activity.
- </p>
-
- <!--div class="issue">
- Luc has general comments in <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/117">ISSUE-117</a>
- </div>
- <div class="issue">
- Vanilla RDF versus OWL <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/119">ISSUE-119</a>
- </div>
- <div class="issue">
- Location concerns <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/128">ISSUE-128</a>
- </div>
- <div class="issue">
- Diagram consistency <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/227">ISSUE-227</a>
- </div>
- <div class="issue">
- Eric's comments <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/250">ISSUE-250</a>
- </div>
- <div class="issue">
- Conforming to W3C Style guides <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/308">ISSUE-308</a>
- </div-->
-
-
<div about="#narrative-example-simple-1" typeof="prov:Entity" class="exampleOuter" xmlns:prov="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#">
<p>The following PROV-O describes the resources involved when creating a chart about crime statistics. The example uses only Starting Point terms and serves as a basis for elaboration that will be described in subsequent sections. In the example, Derek performs an aggregation of some government crime data, grouping by national regions that are described in a separate dataset by a civil action group.
</p>