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Summary

Summary

A structured vocabulary is a description of concepts and their relations in a domain. Concepts are vocabulary words or terms with an accession and a definition. Concepts within the same domain (namespace) may have relations to each other, such as concept B is-a concept A and concept C is-part-of concept B. Concepts in different domains may have projections to each other through a mapping across domains. For example, concept A in domain 1 is-similar-to concept A in domain 2 through a mapping of domain 1 to domain 2. Domains and mappings have an authority.

Assignable entities can be annotated with structured vocabularies by assignment to a concept. For example, a business object can be assigned to concepts A and C in domain 1 and to concept A in domain 2. Assignments are supported by evidence and have an authority.

Bookmark example

As a concrete example, consider topics for categorizing bookmarks. A bookmark that can be annotated using a structured vocabulary can be implemented in one of two designs, either by extending the AbstractAssignable class: 

class Bookmark
  extends AbstractAssignable
{
  private String name;
  private String description;
  private URL url;

  public Bookmark(final String name,
                  final String description,
                  final URL url)
  {
    super();

    this.name = name;
    this.description = description;
    this.url = url;
  }

  // ...
}

or by creating an AssignableBookmark class that extends a simple bookmark class and adds assignable support via delegation to AssignableSupport: 

class Bookmark
{
  private String name;
  private String description;
  private URL url;

  public Bookmark(final String name,
                  final String description,
                  final URL url)
  {
    this.name = name;
    this.description = description;
    this.url = url;
  }

  // ...
}

class AssignableBookmark
  extends Bookmark
  implements Assignable
{
  private AssignableSupport assignableSupport;

  public AssignableBookmark(final String name,
                            final String description,
                            final URL url)
  {
    super(name, description, url);

    assignableSupport = new AssignableSupport(this);
  }

  /** @see Assignable */
  public Set<Assignment> getAssignments()
  {
    return assignableSupport.getAssignments();
  }

  /** @see Assignable */
  public void addAssignment(final Assignment assignment)
  {
    assignableSupport.addAssignment(assignment);
  }
}

Define a structured vocabulary with a local authority. 

Authority localhost = new SimpleAuthority("localhost");

Domain topics = localhost.createDomain("topics");

Concept viz = topics.createConcept("data visualization", ...);
Concept gd = topics.createConcept("graph drawing", ...);
Concept hci = topics.createConcept("human-computer interaction", ...);
Concept net = topics.creatConcept("complex networks", ...);

// graph drawing is part of data visualization
topics.createRelation("part-of", gd, viz);

// data visualization is a human-computer interaction
topics.createRelation("is-a", viz, hci);

// graph drawing is part of complex networks
topics.createRelation("part-of", gd, net);

// data visualization is part of complex networks
topics.createRelation("part-of", viz, net);

Assign bookmarks to the various topics with evidence. 

Bookmark b0 = new Bookmark(...);
Bookmark b1 = new Bookmark(...);
Bookmark b2 = new Bookmark(...);
Bookmark b3 = new Bookmark(...);

Set<Evidence> weak = Collections.singleton(new Evidence("weak assertion", 0.5d, 1.0d));
Set<Evidence> strong = Collections.singleton(new Evidence("strong assertion", 1.0d, 1.0d));

localhost.createAssignment(gd, b0, strong);
localhost.createAssignment(gd, b1, weak);
localhost.createAssignment(viz, b1, strong);
localhost.createAssignment(net, b2, strong);
localhost.createAssignment(gd, b2, weak);
localhost.createAssignment(net, b3, strong);

Define a mapping from an external structured vocabulary, the ACM Computing Classification System ( http://www.acm.org/class/1998 ) for example, to the local topics. Create projections from concepts in the external domain to those in the local one. 

Authority acm = new SimpleAuthority("www.acm.org");

Domain ccs = acm.createDomain("1998 ACM Computing Classification System");

Concept g = ccs.createConcept("G. Mathemetics of Computing", "G.", ...);
Concept g2 = ccs.createConcept("G.2 DISCRETE MATHEMATICS", "G.2", ...);
Concept g22 = ccs.createConcept("G.2.2. Graph Theory", "G.2.2", ...);

ccs.createRelation("part-of", g2, g);
ccs.createRelation("part-of", g22, g2);

Mapping mapping = localhost.createMapping(ccs, topics);

mapping.createProjection("is-similar-to", g22, net, strong);

The assignments, relations, and projections can then be traversed in either the forward or reverse direction to annotate entities or concepts as necessary.

Acknowledgements

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