--- a/ontology/ProvenanceFormalModel.html Sat Oct 29 16:46:33 2011 -0400
+++ b/ontology/ProvenanceFormalModel.html Mon Oct 31 12:08:45 2011 -0400
@@ -125,8 +125,7 @@
<body>
<section id="abstract">
-<p> The PROV Ontology Model (also PROV ontology) encodes the PROV Data
-Model [[!PROV-DM]] in the OWL2 Web Ontology Language (OWL2). The PROV ontology consists of a set of classes, properties, and restrictions that can be used to represent provenance information. The PROV ontology is specialized to create domain-specific provenance ontologies that model the provenance information specific to different applications. The PROV ontology supports a set of entailments based on OWL2 formal semantics and provenance specific inference rules. The PROV ontology is available for download as a separate OWL2 document.</p>
+<p> The PROV Ontology (also PROV-O) encodes the PROV Data Model [[!PROV-DM]] in the OWL2 Web Ontology Language (OWL2). The PROV ontology consists of a set of classes, properties, and restrictions that can be used to represent provenance information. The PROV ontology is specialized to create domain-specific provenance ontologies that model the provenance information specific to different applications. The PROV ontology supports a set of entailments based on OWL2 formal semantics and provenance specific inference rules. The PROV ontology is available for download as a separate OWL2 document.</p>
</section>
@@ -136,10 +135,10 @@
<section id="introduction">
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>
- PROV Ontology Model (also PROV ontology) defines the normative modeling of the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]] using the W3C OWL2 Web Ontology Language. This document specification describes the set of classes, properties, and restrictions that constitute the PROV ontology, which have been introduced in the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]]. This ontology specification provides the foundation for implementation of provenance applications in different applications using the PROV ontology for representing, exchanging, and integrating provenance information. Together with the PROV Access and Query [[PROV-PAQ]] and PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]], this document forms a framework for provenance information management in domain-specific Web-based applications.
+ PROV Ontology (also PROV-O) defines the normative modeling of the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]] using the W3C OWL2 Web Ontology Language. This document specification describes the set of classes, properties, and restrictions that constitute the PROV ontology, which have been introduced in the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]]. This ontology specification provides the foundation for implementation of provenance applications in different domains using the PROV ontology for representing, exchanging, and integrating provenance information. Together with the PROV Access and Query [[PROV-PAQ]] and PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]], this document forms a framework for provenance information interchange and management in domain-specific Web-based applications.
</p>
<p>
- The PROV ontology classes and properties are defined such that they can be specialized for modeling application-specific provenance information in a variety of domains. Thus, the PROV ontology is expected to serve as a <i>reference model</i> for domain-specific provenance ontology and thereby facilitate consistent provenance interchange. This document uses an example <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario"> provenance scenario </a> introduced in the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]] to demonstrate the specialization of PROV ontology.
+ The PROV ontology classes and properties are defined such that they can not only be used directly to represent provenance information, but also can be specialized for modeling application-specific provenance details in a variety of domains. Thus, the PROV ontology is expected to be both directly usable in applications as well as serve as a <i>reference model</i> for creation of domain-specific provenance ontology and thereby facilitate interoperable provenance modeling. This document uses an example <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario"> provenance scenario </a> introduced in the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]] to demonstrate the use PROV-O classes and properties to model provenance information.
</p>
<p>
Finally, this document describes the formal semantics of the PROV ontology using the OWL2 semantics, [[!OWL2-DIRECT-SEMANTICS]], [[!OWL2-RDF-BASED-SEMANTICS]], and a set of provenance-specific inference rules. This is expected to support provenance implementations to automatically check for consistency of provenance information represented using PROV ontology and explicitly assert implicit provenance knowledge.
@@ -151,11 +150,7 @@
<section>
<h3>Guide to this Document</h3>
- <p> This document is intended for provide an understanding of
- the PROV ontology and how it can be used by various applications
- to represent their provenance information. The intended audience
- of this document include users who are new to provenance
- modeling as well as experienced users who would like their provenance model compatible with the PROV ontology to facilitate standardization.This document assumes a basic understanding of the W3C OWL2 specification , including modeling of classes, properties, and restrictions in an OWL2 ontology. Readers are referred to the OWL2 documentations, starting with the [[!OWL2-PRIMER]], for the OWL2 specification.
+ <p> This document is intended for provide an understanding of the PROV ontology and how it can be used by different applications to represent their provenance information. The intended audience of this document include users who are new to provenance modeling as well as experienced users who would like their provenance model compatible with the PROV ontology to facilitate standardization. This document assumes a basic understanding of the W3C RDF(S) and OWL2 specification. Readers are referred to the OWL2 and RDF(S) documentations, starting with the [[!OWL2-PRIMER]] and [[!RDF-PRIMER]], for further details about the OWL2 and RDF(S) specifications respectively.
</p>
<p><a href="#prov-ontology--owl-encoding-of-prov-data-model">Section 2</a> describes the mapping of the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]] to the PROV ontology. <a href="#specializing-provenance-ontology-for-domain-specific-provenance-applications">Section 3</a> introduces the classes and properties of the PROV ontology. <a href="#specializing-provenance-ontology-for-domain-specific-provenance-applications">Section 4</a> describes the approach used to specialize the PROV ontology create a domain specific ontology for an example <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario">provenance scenario</a> introduced in the PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]]. The PROV ontology supports a set of provenance entailments and these are described in <a href="#entailments-supported-by-the-provenance-model">Section 5</a>.
</p>
@@ -169,36 +164,25 @@
<h2>PROV Ontology</h2>
<p> The PROV Data Model [[PROV-DM]] introduces a minimal set of concepts to represent provenance information in a variety of application domains. This document maps the PROV Data Model to PROV Ontology using the OWL2 ontology language, which facilitates a fixed interpretation and use of the PROV Data Model concepts based on the formal semantics of OWL2 [[!OWL2-DIRECT-SEMANTICS]] [[!OWL2-RDF-BASED-SEMANTICS]].
</p>
- <p>The PROV Ontology is not designed to be used directly in a domain application and its Classes and Properties represent "higher-level" or abstract level concepts that can be specialized further for representing domain-specific provenance information. We briefly introduce some of the OWL2 modeling terms that will be used to describe the PROV ontology. An OWL2 <i>instance</i> is an individual object in a domain of discourse, for example a person named Alice or a car, and a set of individuals sharing a set of common characteristics is called a <i>class</i>. Person and Car are examples of classes representing the set of individual persons and cars respectively. The OWL2 object properties are used to link individuals, classes, or create a property hierarchy. For example, the object property "hasOwner" can be used to link car with person. The OWL2 datatype properties are used to link individuals or classes to data values, including XML Schema datatypes [[!XMLSCHEMA-2]].
+ <p>The PROV Ontology can be used directly in a domain application, though many domain applications may require specialization of PROV-O Classes and Properties for representing domain-specific provenance information. We briefly introduce some of the OWL2 modeling terms that will be used to describe the PROV ontology. An OWL2 <i>instance</i> is an individual object in a domain of discourse, for example a person named Alice or a car, and a set of individuals sharing a set of common characteristics is called a <i>class</i>. Person and Car are examples of classes representing the set of individual persons and cars respectively. The OWL2 object properties are used to link individuals, classes, or create a property hierarchy. For example, the object property "hasOwner" can be used to link car with person. The OWL2 datatype properties are used to link individuals or classes to data values, including XML Schema datatypes [[!XMLSCHEMA-2]].
</p>
- <p>The PROV Data Model document [[PROV-DM]] introduces an example <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario"> provenance scenario </a> describing the creation of crime statistics file stored on a shared file system and edited by journalists Alice, Bob, Charles, David, and Edith. This scenario is used as a running example in this document to describe the PROV ontology classes and properties, the specialization mechanism and entailments supported by the PROV ontology.
+ <p>The PROV Data Model document [[PROV-DM]] introduces an example <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario"> provenance scenario </a> describing the creation of crime statistics file stored on a shared file system and edited by journalists Alice, Bob, Charles, David, and Edith. This scenario is used as a running example in this document to describe the PROV ontology classes and properties, the specialization mechanism, and the entailments supported by the PROV ontology.
</p>
<section>
<h3>OWL2 Syntax Used in this Document</h3>
- <p>This document uses the RDF/XML syntax, which is the mandatory syntax
- supported by all OWL2 syntax [[!OWL2-PRIMER]] to represent the
- PROV ontology. Provenance assertions using PROV-O can use any
- RDF syntax.
+ <p>This document uses the RDF/XML syntax, which is the mandatory syntax supported by all OWL2 syntax [[!OWL2-PRIMER]] to represent the PROV ontology. Provenance assertions using PROV-O can use any of the RDF syntax defined in the RDF specification [[!RDF-PRIMER]].
</section>
<section>
<h3>Namespace and OWL2 version</h3>
<p>
- The corresponding OWL2 version of this PROV Ontology is
- available at [[PROV-Ontology-Namespace]] and as
- <a href="ProvenanceOntology.owl">ProvenanceOntology.owl</a>. The namespace for
- the PROV ontology and all classes/properties defined in this
- document is <code>http://www.w3.org/ns/prov-o/</code> [[PROV-Ontology-Namespace]]
- and is in this document denoted by the prefix <code>prov</code>.
+ The corresponding OWL2 version of this PROV Ontology is available at [[PROV-Ontology-Namespace]] and as <a href="ProvenanceOntology.owl">ProvenanceOntology.owl</a>. The namespace for the PROV ontology and all classes/properties defined in this document is <code>http://www.w3.org/ns/prov-o/</code> [[PROV-Ontology-Namespace]] and is in this document denoted by the prefix <code>prov</code>.
</p>
<div class="issue">
- It has been suggested that [[PROV-DM]] and PROV-O should instead use
- the namespace <code>http://www.w3.org/ns/prov/</code> for terms that are
- common in both models. This is <a
- href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/90">ISSUE-90</a>
+ It has been suggested that [[PROV-DM]] and PROV-O should instead use the namespace <code>http://www.w3.org/ns/prov/</code> for terms that are common in both models. This is <a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/90">ISSUE-90</a>
</div>
</section>
</section> <!-- PROV Ontology -->
@@ -206,16 +190,17 @@
<section id="prov-ontology--owl-encoding-of-prov-data-model">
<h2>PROV Ontology: Classes and Properties</h2>
- <p> We now introduce the classes and properties that constitute the PROV ontology. We first give a textual description of each ontology term, followed by OWL2 syntax representing the ontology term and an example use of the term in the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario">provenance scenario</a>.
+ <p> We now introduce the classes and properties that constitute the PROV ontology. We first give a textual description of each ontology term, followed by OWL2 syntax representing the ontology term and an example use of the class in the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-prov-dm-20111018/#a-file-scenario">provenance scenario</a>.
</p>
<section>
<h3>Classes</h3>
- <p>The PROV ontology consists of classes that can be organized in a taxonomic structure.
- </p>
+ <p>The PROV ontology consists of classes that can be organized into a hierarchical structure using the <code>rdfs:subClassOf</code> property.
+
<img src="diagram-history/khalidDiagrams/Ontology_hierarchy.png"
style="width: 50%; min-width: 25em; max-width: 37em"
alt="Class hierarchy of the PROV ontology"/>
<br>
+ </p>
<p><i>Note: CamelBack notation is used for class names</i></p>
<section id="entity">
<h4>Entity</h4>