Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

Topic Maps – Human-oriented Semantics?

Lars Marius Garshol has a topic maps presentation tomorrow in Sogndal.

I won’t be in Norway tomorrow but there will be a streaming video of the presentation.

Despite the 7 AM start time on the East Coast of the US I plan on attending.

Lars has either authored or contributed to every aspect of the topic maps effort for the past decade.

I will find something to disagree with in his presentation, for old times sake if nothing else, but I am sure it will be an interesting presentation.

Please spread the word about this presentation.

Wikileaks has continued posting US diplomatic cables.

The stories read like Extra but with less attractive people.

According to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, one counterpart said of the Wikileaks’ posting of US diplomatic cables:

Well, don’t worry about it, you should see what we say about you

It’s not clear if they meant Hillary or the United States. 😉

But I’m curious either way. Let’s see diplomatic cables from other countries.

Imagine the Guardian map with cables from multiple countries?

Or mapping relationships between the various people and current government figures?

Or mapping those relationships over careers of toleration or even encouragement of repressive or brutal regimes?

Disclosure of diplomatic cables should be encouraged.

For the same reason disclosure is feared. Accountability.

Such as judging why the United States and other countries have tolerated post WWII episodes of ethnic cleansing.

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PS: This would make good subject matter for a public authoring interface to invite contributions from others.

Take some paper and write down your definition of a “peer-to-peer” network. No more than a paragraph and certainly not more than a page.

Then answer the following questions:

1. Is sharing data essential to your definition?
2. Are libraries peers if they have common users?
3. Are books/journals peers if they have common readers?
4. How should we deal with semantic inconsistency between peers?

Suggestion: Don’t confuse how something is done with it being done. Technique is important in terms of performance and other trade-offs but the question here is one of underlying principles. Once those are uncovered, then we can discuss how best to put them into practice.

For example, would you consider ants and bees to have social networks? Perhaps even peer-to-peer networks? Leaving aside swarm theory for the moment, just think about how you think information is conveyed in a colony/hive.

Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset

Not strictly relevant to topic maps per se, but it does illustrate the sort of demonstration of power that would make an excellent marketing tool for topic maps.

As a “text” person, I then to think of things I would want with a text but that isn’t likely to be exciting for the average customer for topic maps.

What about “interchangeable” mashups? People do mashups all the time (or so I am told) but re-use is about 0 unless you are wiling to simply accept the other mashup.

Even if you watch to see what is being mashed together, that doesn’t mean the same rule will be applied tomorrow. Or that your reliance on it will stop should the rule change.

Questions:

1. What is your favorite mashup? What is the most popular mashup?
2. What facts would you want to add to either mashup to make it re-usable? (3-5 pages, citations)
3. How would you demonstrate graphically the impact a topic map had on your favorite mashup? (Presentation, mock-up acceptable, real time much better)

PS: If anyone is working on this, I would be more than happy to volunteer some time to assist.

PPS: More of a long term idea than an immediate project but the “Plum Book” lists all the positions that are appointed by Presidents. It is published every four (4) years and is available as HTML starting with 1996.

Thinking that presents very amusing possibilities combined with campaign finance disclosures. Could answer important questions like: Have the prices of positions, adjusted for inflation, fallen in 2014?

Publication, Publication is the location of Gary King’s paper by the same title, with updates to the paper and related resources.

The paper is details how to take students through replication of an existing published article. In order to teach students how produce professional quality papers by having the original and their attempt to replicate it.

I mention it because topic maps are sorely lacking in a publication record. At least in professional, trade and popular literature.

Maybe due to the lack of a marketing person, something that was mentioned recently. 😉

But, like a blog, it could not be just one piece replicated a bunch of times or just an occasional blurb.

It would have to be a steady drum beat, both theoretical (yes, I used the “T” word) as well as practical pieces.

I will be looking for takers in professional and trade literature, not in replies here.

Questions (of course there are questions, this is a topic maps class):

1. What journal or magazine (print/online) would you suggest for a topic map article? What should that article focus on and why? (2-3 pages)
2. What federal or state agency do you think needs a topic map? Be specific with references to resources illustrating the problem to be solved. (3-5 pages, citations)
3. What is the most compelling story line for topic maps in general? For a specific case? Write 1 pagers for both.
4. Replicate a paper (chosen with instructor, semester project).

Maintainability, Auditability, eXtensibility – MAX Reconciliation

Don’t take this the wrong way, Google Refine 2.0 is a nice piece of work.

But for:

Maintainability

Auditability

eXtensibility

or MAX Reconciliation,

you are going to need something more.

I am not going to pitch an Ur data model to “bind them and in the darkness rule them.”

You and your users understand their subjects and can create the best subject identity model for their data.

I am suggesting that you leave room to make explicit the implicit knowledge that identifies your subjects.

How much of that you want to make explicit is a design choice.

The more subject identifications you do make explicit, the easier reliable reconciliation that can be audited and extended will become.

None of those may be values for your project, but if they are…, well, you know what comes next.

Your boss tells you another group in your company is “reconciling” data from a “different” perspective.

His boss wants both sets of data reconciled with each other. And to have the separate views as well.

How hard could it be?

You have free software in the form of Google Refine 2.0

This is beginning to sound like a Ballywood horror movie.

You have no explicit basis for reconciling your data, no documented rules* and the other project is in the same shape.

It will take endless meetings to thrash out an implicit mapping that enables the “reconciliation” of the “reconciliations.”

Which works until either group encounters new data that needs to be “reconciled.”

If you could only treat data structures as first class subjects, which have sets of key/values pairs, then reconciliation and new data would not be such a pain.

Then your reconciliation would be extensible.

Well, it is extensible now, but it is painful and error prone.

Unfortunately that thought comes as you are getting another Botox shot so you can sit through another “reconciliation” meeting.

*No documented rules. To say “When you see X, do Y.” is a recipe, not a rule. Rules imply some modicum of understanding.

You made it back from your down time and your employer is glad to see you back.

“Some of the “reconciled” data we have been getting looks odd. Can you audit the data to make sure it is being reconciled correctly? Thanks!”

You remember that all you have are bare tokens.

AnHai Doan’s observation about after the fact mappings:

…the manual creation of semantic mappings has long been known to be extremely laborious and error-prone. For example, a recent project at the GTE telecommunications company sought to integrate 40 databases that have a total of 27,000 elements (i.e., attributes of relational tables) [LC00]. The project planners estimated that, without the database creators, just finding and documenting the semantic mappings among the elements would take more than 12 person years.

is ringing in your ears.

Mapping and creating sets of key/values has to be an augmented process, but the existence of sets of key/values pairs enables auditing of the “reconciled data.”

Sets of key/value pairs you don’t have.

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PS: Sets of key/value pairs = subject proxies, with rules for “reconciliation” to use Googleease.

To say “key/value pairs” does not presume any particular methodology for storage or processing. Pick one. Let usefulness be your guide.

You have downloaded Google Refine 2.0 and are busy “reconciling” data.

Say you are one of the lucky ones and this is for your employer. 😉

Now you need to work on another project or even take some downtime.

So, how do you hand off maintenance of “reconciling” data?

A reconciliation on which your employer now relies.

You recognize the data to be reconciled but there are two problems:

1. The raw data has implied properties you are using to reconcile the data. That means there isn’t anything for you to point anyone to as a basis for reconciliation. Just as well because:
2. The rules for reconciling the data exist only in your head. So, the properties being implicit isn’t such an issue, the rules for handling it aren’t written down either.

Flatland identity as far as the eye can see.

If you had a defined set of properties (key/value pairs) as the basis for reconciliation, you could also say how to carry out the reconciliation.

And your data would be maintainable.

Best of luck with your downtime.

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PS: BTW, if you think documenting the names and locations of the data you are integrating counts as documentation, think again. What happens when new data comes along? Data your boss is going to expect to be integrated.