An ;oc; provides the link between a topic and it’s real-world occurrences. It solves the problem of :pb: thoughts having only a single file link or web page associated to them.
Intent
The purpose of an ;oc; thought is to explicitly link a Thought’s topic with multiple and varied real-world occurrences, overcoming the limit of one file link or web page link.
A quick primer on Topics, Occurrences and Associations
:pb: files are a subset of the full ISO Topic Map Standard. As such we can make use of the Topic Map constructs to extend the power of our brains.“Topic maps are a new ISO standard for describing knowledge structures and associating them with information resources. As such they constitute an enabling technology for knowledge management. Dubbed ?the GPS of the information universe?, topic maps are also destined to provide powerful new ways of navigating large and interconnected corpora.” For our purposes we can think of Topics as analagous to Thoughts in :pb:. Topics represent things. Ideas, concepts, people, places. Whatever really. If you think of a brain file as a map, then Topics help us to identify where we want to go.
Occurrences on the other hand are what we find when we get there. They provide a link between the Topic and a resource (physical or otherwise). Harry Potter is a topic. The two movies, four (almost five) books, character actors, scripts etc. are all occurrences. In PersonalBrain and outside of the ;oc; pattern, Topics are limited to a single occurrence via a file link or web page reference. Occurrences are used when you do not want to make a Topic in its own right.
Associations link Topics. With Topic Maps they are typed and provide valuable information in our map because they tell you why you may want to follow a link. Parent, child and jump links in PersonalBrain serve the same purpose but are untyped by default. Associations play no part in the ;oc; pattern.
Occurrences are created by attaching one or more child Thoughts to a parent Topic thought. Each ;oc; thought points to a resource on the topic.
In the example below, the key thought is Bendigo, my home town. There is more to describing Bendigo than a single web page can hold so the ;oc; pattern has been implemented. Occurrence thoughts are shown in dark grey using PersonalBrain 3.0′s type feature. There are five occurrences in this case.
- The City Council
- The current local time
- Some history
- News from the local paper
- A list of tourist attractions
Additionally, Bendigo has been :dt: into a listing of the suburbs and the people I know there. Neither of these are occurrences as such (aside: you will find that your definition is case dependent and what will be an occurrence in one model won’t be in another). The following image shows this in more detail.
Also Known As
There are no other names for this pattern.
Motivation
The motivation behind ;oc; is explicit clarification. :pb: does not impose restrictions on how Thoughts are linked. Therefore it is possible to have multiple thought types in a parent/child/jump thought relationship. The aim of this pattern is to distinguish the occurrence thoughts from the rest.
Applicability
The ;oc; pattern is applicable whenever there is more than one resource which describes a Thought.
Collaborations
;oc; supports most other patterns without interference.
Consequences
None.
Implementation
Requires PersonalBrain 3.0
1. Create a specific occurrence type
2. Assign the new occurrence type to any child thoughts that are occurrences.
Sample Plex
See above.
Known Uses
Mimicing Topic Map behaviour within PersonalBrain. Specific use is to identify resources associated with a Thought.
Related Patterns
None specific. Can work with many others.
Other References
