So it is clear, instance_of, when translated to OWL, has generally been written as the predicate rdf:type. There is no specific instance_of relation defined as a property in OWL versions.
There is still a difference between rdf:type and instance_of, which is that it is ternary temporally indexed relation as defined in BFO *Alan* instance_of* Researcher* in *2014*. Unfortunately there is no clear way to translate this into OWL. Fixing that is among the work being done for BFO2
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 9:25 PM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with using "instance of" as RO prescribes, also because it would clarify its use.
Regarding #2, what is the difference between stating "<ethanol> instance of <type of chemical compound>" or "<ethanol> type of <chemical compound>? We have some antecedents using ad-hoc typing properties, that perhaps could be merged into a more generic property: https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=p%3Atype&title=Special%3ASea...
Cheers, Micru
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 3:51 AM, Emw emw.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I have removed the statement *"instance of* chemical compound" from ethanol (Q153) [1].
A few proposals have been made in this thread about how -- or whether -- to use *instance of* (i.e. rdf:type, P31) to classify 'ethanol' and other chemical compounds, but there seems to be consensus that "*instance of* chemical compound" is not the way to do it.
Summary of proposals:
- *Do not use instance of for chemical compounds*. Such statements
make Wikidata incompatible with many major scientific ontologies, like ChEBI, Gene Ontology and Disease Ontology, which use *instance of* as defined in the Relation Ontology (RO) [2]. Note that RO defines instances as particular things that have a unique location in space and time, whereas classes are universal, general entities which have particular instances. Instances and classes are thus disjoint, so RO-based ontologies cannot have entities that have both *instance of* (rdf:type, P31) and *subclass of* (rdfs:subClassOf, P279) statements as is possible in OWL 2 DL via punning.
- *Use statements like "instance of type of chemical compound" for
chemical compounds*. Doing so makes it easier to generate lists of chemical compounds, and is valid in OWL 2 DL -- it is metamodeling via punning.
Let's build consensus for how (or whether) we want to use *instance of* for chemical compounds before any mass edits to remove or replace the 14969 other "*instance of* chemical compound" claims [3] or adding statements like "*instance of *type of chemical compound" to ethanol.
Micru has a different proposal for how to model items, which incidentally does not represent "ethanol" as an instance [4]. However, that proposal is clearly a more radical vision for Wikidata, and probably warrants a separate thread for discussion.
Eric
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Emw [1] Removal of "*instance of* chemical compound" from ethanol: https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q153&diff=162563849&oldid... [2] Barry Smith et al. (2005). *Relations in Biomedical Ontologies*. http://genomebiology.com/2005/6/5/r46 [3] All "*instance of* chemical compound" claims on Wikidata. http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/autolist.html?q=claim%5B31:11173] [4] "'ethanol' is no longer an instance, but a class". https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-l/2014-October/004691.html
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