Sameas subject expander

Topic map is basically a graph where topics are nodes and associations edges between nodes. A topic is a reification of it's subject and the subject is expressed using URIs. A topic has always one subject identifier URI but the number of subject identifier URIs is not limited to one. Sometimes it is convenient and even necessary to attach several subject identifier URIs into a topic. Linked data is a movement in computing that bridges URIs that should be thought as same. Sameas.org is a linked data web service that stores and distributes URIs linked with the sameness relation. For example, the sameas.org service can be requested for the URI http://dbpedia.org/resource/Edinburgh . The response contains more that 170 linked URIs.

Wandora's Sameas subject expander is tool that is used to retrieve all linked URIs from the sameas.org service and attach retrieved URIs into the given topic. Usually the effect is that the number of topic's subject identifiers is increased. The effect suggests that topic's subject expands.

As Wandora automatically merges all topics that share same subject identifier, expanding a subject may result topic merges if the topic map contains a topic with subject identifier in received URI set.

The subject expander can be executed in context of a subject identifier list and in context of any topic selection. First menu option is Expand identity > Expand with Sameas.org and the latter menu option is Subject identifiers > Expand identity > Expand with Sameas.org. Executing the subject expander in context of a topic selection option allows mass operations for several topics at once.

Example

In this example the user has created a topic in Wandora with a basename Alvar Aalto and a subject identifier http://dbpedia.org/resource/Alvar_Aalto. Alvar Aalto is Finnish architect and designer, as well as a sculptor and painter. Next, the user right mouse clicks the label Subject identifiers and Wandora opens a popup menu. The user selects menu item Expand identity > Expand identity with sameAs.org. Wandora performs API requests and receives several URIs that are same as the original one (http://dbpedia.org/resource/Alvar_Aalto). Wandora adds all received URIs to the topic as additional subject identifiers.

Notes

• The sameas.org doesn't contain all possible URIs but a curated set of URIs. Thus, the user is using her own URI vocabulary, the subject expander may have no effect at all.