Codex Resonance
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Codex Commons
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CC-EXTRACT-ARQUA-01 — Commons Candidate Extraction from Recent Arqua–CR Work v0.1
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CC-EXP-C03-01 — Reference / Designed / Implemented / Observed — Generality & Stability Experiment v0.1
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CC-EXP-C03-02 — Representation Standing Roles — Prior-Art & Existing Vocabulary Review v0.1
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CC-EXP-C03-02 — Representation Standing Roles — Prior-Art & Existing Vocabulary Review v0.1

Experiment ID: CC-EXP-C03-02

Version: 0.1

Date: 19 September 2026

Candidate: CC-C03 — Reference / Designed / Implemented / Observed semantic roles

Standing: INTERNAL — EXECUTED PRIOR-ART / EXISTING-VOCABULARY REVIEW. NO COMMONS ADMISSION OR PUBLICATION AUTHORISED.

Question

Does Codex Commons need to mint new core vocabulary for CC-C03, or is the useful contribution a semantic profile/pattern over established vocabularies?

Sources reviewed

Official W3C sources were used for this first prior-art pass:

  • PROV-O — Entity, Activity, Agent; derivation, revision, specialization, alternate, attribution, usage/generation and qualified relations.
  • SOSA/SSN — Observation, Feature of Interest, Property, Result, Procedure, phenomenon/result time, sampling/actuation; current 2026 draft retains/extends modular observation/execution modelling.

This is not exhaustive. Digital-twin, software, construction/as-built and other vocabularies still require later review.

Executive result

PASS WITH REDUCTION — DO NOT MINT FOUR NEW UNIVERSAL ONTOLOGY CLASSES YET.

The distinctive Commons contribution is better framed as:

a reusable standing-role profile that qualifies representations/evidence relative to a declared subject/proposition/context, while reusing PROV-O for provenance and SOSA/SSN for observations where applicable.

PROV-O comparison

PROV-O provides strong primitives for:

  • things/representations as Entity;
  • transformations/processes as Activity;
  • responsibility as Agent;
  • derivation/revision;
  • specialization/alternate views;
  • primary source;
  • generation/use;
  • attribution/association;
  • qualified relations.

It can express how an artefact came to exist, what influenced it and who/what was responsible.

It does not by itself resolve the exact institutional role distinction:

this entity is being treated as Reference vs Designed vs Implemented vs Observed for this proposition/purpose.

Finding: reuse PROV provenance; do not duplicate it.

SOSA/SSN comparison

SOSA/SSN provides rich semantics for:

  • observation act/procedure;
  • feature/ultimate feature of interest;
  • observable property;
  • result;
  • sensor/procedure;
  • phenomenon/result time;
  • sampling/proxy relationships.

For physical/sensor/measurement observations, Commons should not invent a competing generic Observation ontology.

Observed role ≠ SOSA Observation class.

An evidence artefact may carry an Observed standing role while detailed observation semantics are expressed using SOSA/SSN.

Candidate reduction

Original candidate looked like four classes:

REFERENCE · DESIGNED · IMPLEMENTED · OBSERVED.

Prior-art review suggests:

StandingRoleAssignment with controlled role values:

  • REFERENCE
  • DESIGNED
  • IMPLEMENTED
  • OBSERVED

attached to:

  • subject/feature;
  • proposition/aspect;
  • representation/evidence entity;
  • purpose;
  • context;
  • time;
  • provenance;
  • acceptance/standing authority where relevant.

This avoids claiming that a thing is intrinsically “Observed” or “Implemented”.

Candidate pattern

Assignments are contextual and may coexist.

Why not four prov:Entity subclasses?

REJECT FOR NOW.

Reasons:

  1. roles are contextual, not intrinsic;
  2. one entity can carry multiple roles;
  3. role can vary by proposition/purpose/time;
  4. subclasses encourage false mutual exclusivity;
  5. domain ontologies may already type the entity appropriately.

Why not redefine Observation?

REJECT.

SOSA/SSN already provides a mature observation model for many cases. Commons should add standing/interpretation context around observation evidence, not compete with observation semantics.

Candidate interoperability

Possible future pattern — not yet schema:

  • role assignment can itself carry provenance;
  • source evidence/mapping can use PROV derivation/attribution;
  • represented artefact retains its domain type;
  • observation evidence may reference SOSA Observation/Result;
  • time/source/agent semantics reuse established vocabularies.

Exact RDF/OWL design is deferred.

Remaining semantic contribution

The value is not the words reference/design/implementation/observation.

The candidate contribution is the anti-collapse standing discipline:

Declare the role under which a representation/evidence item is being relied upon for a specific subject/proposition/purpose, and do not infer another role merely from provenance or availability.

Examples:

  • reference standard does not become accepted design;
  • accepted design does not prove implementation;
  • implementation claim does not prove observed runtime behaviour;
  • observed evidence does not automatically rewrite accepted design.

Collision test

<table fit-page-width="true" header-row="true"><tr><td>Need</td><td>Existing vocabulary</td><td>Commons action</td></tr>

<tr><td>provenance / derivation / attribution</td><td>PROV-O strong coverage</td><td>REUSE</td></tr>

<tr><td>observation / result / feature / time</td><td>SOSA/SSN strong coverage</td><td>REUSE where applicable</td></tr>

<tr><td>role relative to proposition/purpose</td><td>not resolved by reviewed sources alone</td><td>CANDIDATE PROFILE CONTRIBUTION</td></tr>

<tr><td>reference/design/implementation/observation anti-collapse</td><td>not found as one reviewed cross-domain pattern</td><td>CANDIDATE PROFILE CONTRIBUTION</td></tr>

<tr><td>institutional acceptance/standing</td><td>outside reviewed core provenance/observation semantics</td><td>KEEP SEPARATE / further review</td></tr></table>

Revised name

Do not call this an ontology yet.

Preferred working name:

Codex Commons — Representation Standing Role Profile (RSRP)

Roles:

REFERENCE · DESIGNED · IMPLEMENTED · OBSERVED

“RDIO” is not preferred because it implies sequence.

Stage result

ADVANCE TO ADMISSION STAGE 3 — SEMANTIC STABILITY / FORMAL COUNTEREXAMPLE TESTING, with constraints:

  1. roles are contextual assignments, not universal classes;
  2. reuse PROV-O;
  3. reuse SOSA/SSN where observation semantics apply;
  4. broader prior-art review still required;
  5. do not mint RDF/OWL terms yet;
  6. do not publish.

Next experiment

Test RSRP against:

  • same entity simultaneously Reference + Designed;
  • observed evidence contradicts implemented claim;
  • authoritative legal instrument used as Reference;
  • simulated vs production observation;
  • inferred vs directly observed state;
  • implementation with no explicit design;
  • design with multiple competing implementations;
  • temporal supersession;
  • conflicting observers;
  • observed non-event/absence;
  • AI-generated design proposal;
  • digital twin representation vs physical twin state.

Goal: determine minimum qualifiers and whether the assignment model remains stable.

Decision

CC-EXP-C03-02 — PRIOR-ART PASS WITH REDUCTION.

The candidate survives as a profile of contextual standing roles over existing provenance/observation vocabularies, not four new universal ontology classes.

No Commons admission/publication is authorised.

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