Well, in the world of OOP, objects only have properties (other than a pointer to their class metadata).
Given this, a role is as much a property of the Person object as much as title is.
Lin's statement refers to the notion that in the world of RDBs, one creates an intersection table between its Person table and its Case table, each row of which contains the Role being played by the Person in the case (as well as pointers to specific Case and Person rows).
Of course in XML we don't worry about tables per se but we still worry about the cardinality of each property associated with an object.
For example, Lin's system probably doesnt allow multiple titles for a given individual, but I think one should, in an XML encoding, because that is the reality -- people are able to claim multiple honorific titles -- while most RDB systems store multiple honorifics, comma-separated, in a single field (a huge no-no for XML encoding), because it's not worth the effort to establish a separate table keyed by Person.
I think a key question is whether in fact multiple Roles can be played by a single Person in a single Case.
Since I am but a neophyte in case management systems, I haven't a clue.
If the answer is yes, but very infrequently, I still take that to be a yes, and would recommend that markup allow such statements of fact.
Besides that, I'd suggest that the name of what's being discussed be sharpened to include the event in which the role is being played by the actor.
For instance, CriminalTrialRole would identifiy all the roles found in the generic criminal trial.
By 'chunking' the discussion in this way, much benefit and faster progress is readily assured.
If one is using a metadata markup language that provides multiple inheritance (like, RDF), then the same role can be a subclass of multiple categories.
If not (like, XML Schema), then there's a considerable challenge ahead.
I substantially agree with Roger's explanations of the distinction between Role and Title.
The statement about a "Judge" -- that one owns the title throughout it all -- needs much more refinement I believe.
To me, a Judge is BOTH an honorific AND an occupation (as defined by the US Government).
Yes, any Judge can be an ElectedOfficial or an AppointedOfficial but, as you might suspect, I would establish these as sub-terms of a QualifiedOfficial term, applicable as they would be to any subclass of Judge (as an occupation).
Anyway, what is crystal clear to me is that "Judge" is not an example of a Role.
Rather, for the role fulfilled by a Judge in a CriminalTrial, I would suggest that such be called a CriminalTrialJudge, a term within the CriminalTrialRole category, which is a subcategory of LegalRole (or CourtRole or JudicialSystemRole), which is a subclass of Role, which is a subclass QualifiedActor.
[Aside: a Judgeship is another interesting item, because it refers to the jurisdiction had by a judge...] For the honorific case, I wouldn't establish Judge as a subterm of Honorific -- rather, "Judge" is an *instance of* an Honorific and I suggest publishing such as a resource standardized by LegalXML, like <Honorific rdf:ID=' http://www.legalxml.org#Judge '><en>Judge</en></Honorific> which can be referenced then by systems in a standard way such as <Person><addressedUsing rdf:resource=' http://www.legalxml.org#Judge '/></Person>. While I'm at this, for a role, I would hardly recommend a <Role> tag, but rather a more readable, more intuitive, more explicit, RDF treatment, as in <Judge><actedAs rdf:resource=' http://www.legalxml.org/dictionary.rdf#CriminalCourtJudge '/></Judg e> for the simple, non attributed referential statement, and for the more complex statements that are sure to occur: <Person rdf:ID='Person1234567'> <LegalName><en>John Marshall</en></LegalName> <addressedUsing rdf:resource=' http://www.legalxml.org#Judge '/> <employedAs rdf:resource=' http://www.legalxml.dictionary.rdf#Judge '/> <actedAs> <CriminalCourtJudge> <addressedAs><Honorific><en>Your Honor</en></Honorific></addressedAs> <at rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Location12345 '/> <occurred><ElapsedPeriod><iso>2002-12-12/P4D</iso></ElapsedPeriod></occurred> <forEvent rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Case1234567 '/> </CriminalCourtJudge> </actedAs> </Person> <CriminalCase rdf:ID='Case1234567'> <occurred><ElapsedPeriod><iso>2002-12-12/P4D</iso></ElapsedPeriod></occurred> <at rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Location12345 '/> <presidedBy rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person1234567 '/> <prosecutedBy rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person7654321 '/> <answeredBy rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen12345 '/> <arguedBy rdf:resource=' http://www.MaineBarAssociation#Attorney321 '/> <decidedBy rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Jury12345 '/> </CriminalCase> Of course, this can be equally exchanged as <CriminalCase rdf:ID='Case1234567'> <occurred><ElapsedPeriod><iso>2002-12-12/P4D</iso></ElapsedPeriod></occurred> <at> <CourtHouse rdf:about=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Location12345 '> <PhysicalAddress/> </CourtHouse> </at> <presidedBy> <CriminalCourtJudge rdf:about=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person1234567 '> <LegalName><en>John Marshall</en></LegalName> <addressedAs><Honorific><en>Your Honor</en></Honorific></addressedAs> </CriminalCourtJudge> </presidedBy> <prosecutedBy> <CriminalProsecutor rdf:about=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person7654321 '> <LegalName><en>Joe Prosecutor</en></LegalName> </CriminalProsecutor> </prosecutedBy> <answeredBy> <Defendant rdf:about=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen12345 '> <LegalName><en>Jill Defendant</en></LegalName> <defendedBy> <PublicDefender rdf:about=' http://www.MaineBarAssociation#Attorney321 '> <LegalName><en>Jane Attorney</en></LegalName> </PublicDefender> </defendedBy> </Defendant> </answeredBy> <decidedBy> <Jury> <consistedOf> <rdf:bag> <LeadJuror rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0121 '/> <AlternateLeadJuror rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0122 '/> <Juror rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0123 '/> <AlternateJuror rdf:resource=' http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0124 '/> </rdf:bag> </consistedOf> </Jury> </decidedBy> </CriminalCase> The whole POINT of a dictionary then is to identify the range of elements that can validly be referenced by, or within, the "predicate elements" <occurred>, <at>, <presidedBy>, <prosecutedBy>, and the others that "connect" two nouns. Creating a hiearchical dictionary of terms is not merely an intellectual exercise of passing interest -- it relates directly to the validation of XML streams emanating from the judicial system. Now, it's been said that this seems pretty wordy, but I daresay that such explictness should be an ongoing requirement as more and more complex information structures are desired to be transmitted in a reasonable, stable, fashion. Simply having a <Role> element won't cut the mustard in the final analysis in my view.
For more information about this "style" of markup, please reference
1. "Make Your XML RDF-Friendly" at http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/30/rdf-friendly.html
2. "RDF - What's it good for?" at http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/13/deviant.html
3. "Ontology Building: A Survey of Editing Tools" at http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/06/ontologies.html Regards, John >
