Issue 15403: 'quantity' and 'number' are not formal logic concepts (sbvr-rtf) Source: NIST (Mr. Edward J. Barkmeyer, edbark(at)nist.gov) Nature: Uncategorized Issue Severity: Summary: In SBVR clause 8.7, the terms 'quantity' and 'number' are marked as "FL", which means that they are formal logic concepts that are defined in Clause 10. The same is true of 'quantity equals quantity' and 'quantity is less than quantity'. Formal logic does not deal with physical quantities -- there is a whole science for that. And formal logic per se does not deal with numbers other than non-negative integers. The 'signed integer' concept is part of a specific mathematical theory. There is not, and should not be, any definition of these concepts in Clause 10. The FL marks should be removed. Further, these concepts should not be part of the Meaning and Representation Vocabulary, although they are useful business concepts that might be appropriate in Clause 11. Nonnegative integer is needed for the 'cardinality' concept; 'positive integer' is used in quantifications. 'Positive integer' is misused to represent an ordinal concept in 'starting character position' and as an identifier convention for instances of 'variable'. Resolution: Revised Text: Actions taken: August 6, 2010: received issue Discussion: End of Annotations:===== te: Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:28:50 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: issues@omg.org CC: SBVR RTF Subject: SBVR Issue: 'quantity' and 'number' are not formal logic concepts X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: o76GStsc027090 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1281716936.6956@3+EXf4itjE+0n6I++MdFaQ X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov Title: 'quantity' and 'number' are not formal logic concepts Specification: SBVR Version: 1.0 Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov Summary: In SBVR clause 8.7, the terms 'quantity' and 'number' are marked as "FL", which means that they are formal logic concepts that are defined in Clause 10. The same is true of 'quantity equals quantity' and 'quantity is less than quantity'. Formal logic does not deal with physical quantities -- there is a whole science for that. And formal logic per se does not deal with numbers other than non-negative integers. The 'signed integer' concept is part of a specific mathematical theory. There is not, and should not be, any definition of these concepts in Clause 10. The FL marks should be removed. Further, these concepts should not be part of the Meaning and Representation Vocabulary, although they are useful business concepts that might be appropriate in Clause 11. Nonnegative integer is needed for the 'cardinality' concept; 'positive integer' is used in quantifications. 'Positive integer' is misused to represent an ordinal concept in 'starting character position' and as an identifier convention for instances of 'variable'. -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:35:09 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: SBVR RTF Subject: Draft resolutions for SBVR Issues 15403 and 15404 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: o8NMZEbc024253 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1285886117.9615@NvfF4c+0FywYeXmH9lsfpQ X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov At today's meeting, I agreed to draft the resolutions to Issues 15403 and 15404 as discussed in the RTF. For 15404, I noticed that the term "distinct" was left out of the definition of 'cardinality', and I added that. For the record, the adopted resolution of 13804 (placeholder has starting character position) was No change. The problem with the Issue as stated was that it suggested modeling expression structure/syntax, which, as Don observed, the RTF (properly) rejected. But what is in 8.3.4 is a model of SBVR Structured English syntax. So I will create a replacement issue. -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 Issue 15404.doc Issue 15403.doc Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:21:00 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: SBVR RTF Subject: SBVR Follow up to Issue 15403 (new Issue) X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: o8NNL6on027872 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1285888871.65044@7eJOPDrJd99tpoSwQG0t7A X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov I created this issue formally via the new OMG 'submit issue' web page. This is a follow up to Issue 15403, and a corrected replacement for 13804, which died in March. In clause 8.3.4 of SBVR v1.0, the concepts: 'placeholder has starting character position' and 'placeholder uses designation' model the syntax of the non-normative Structured English language described in Annex C of the spec. These may not be properties of the syntax of other vocabulary and rules languages, and are unsuitable for graphical languages. The abstract syntax of any such language must be that a placeholder is an expression and must be unique within the fact type form. These requirements should be stated in the definition of placeholder. The placeholder expression is a designation for the role that is used only in definitions of the fact type, and its forms and roles. The idea of its "character position" is meaningless in graphical languages. The idea specified in 'placeholder uses designation' is a language convention that is not consistently used in SBVR and may well be different in other languages. The semantics of that syntactic construct is captured by 'role ranges over object type' in 8.1.1. Any convention for the syntax used by a tool is out of scope for SBVR. Therefore, both of these fact types should be deleted from the normative specification. -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694