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At 08:10 AM 7/20/00 +1000, Kevin Thiele wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>At 11:56 PM 18/7/00 -0300, Bob Allkin
wrote:</blockquote><br>
[...]<br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite><blockquote type=cite cite>1) description of
distribution (a hierarchical descriptor - with attributes<br>
attached to each substate such as native/introduced/etc)<br>
<br>
2) description of use [e.g. taxon- plantpart(eg leaf) - forwhom (eg<br>
children) - forwhat (eg sorethroat) - how (eg infusion)]<br>
<br>
3) description of ecology - requiring links between two
"descriptors" (eg.<br>
plant A is a tree at altitude X BUT plant A is a bush at altitude
Y)<br>
<br>
then Im less clear how these would be accomodated. Is
there elsewhere a<br>
set of descriptor/state structures that I could see?</blockquote><br>
[...]<br>
Can you suggest a way to accommodate your suggestions?</blockquote><br>
The examples Bob gives are very complicated (higher order logic? [he
suggests quickly getting in over his head in formalisms!]). At
least part of the complication derives from the fact the
"subject" is a species (or taxon) rather than a specimen, and
is necessarily a summary of primary data. <br>
<br>
I think we talked earlier about the simplest sorts of statements taking
the form of a logical triple: <br>
<br>
<tt>[THING] has [ATTRIBUTE
CLASS] of [ATTRIBUTE VALUE]<br>
[fish-123] --> [dorsal
spines] --> [11]<br>
<br>
</tt>A simple (minded?) solution to Bob's example #3 might be to
accommodate the complexity by narrowing the scope of the THING:<br>
<br>
<tt>[plant A at altitude X] --> [growth form] -->
[tree]<br>
[plant A at altitude Y] --> [growth form] --> [bush]<br>
<br>
</tt>This might be a bad approach... whatever. The point I
want to make is that the statements above are simple, whereas statements
like<br>
<br>
<tt>PART-A of TAXON-B is used by CULTURE-C for FUNCTION-D in
SITUATION-E<br>
<br>
</tt>are so close to natural language, that the software/standards
problem is WAY beyond our capabilities. I think we should designate
this level of complexity as "out of scope". <br>
<br>
I would rather see us focus on the scope implied by the union of: 1)
basic description (Delta), 2) identification (IntKey, Lucid, etc.), and
3) phylogenetics (PAUP and McClade). I think that's a pretty
significant challenge.<br>
<br>
<br>
-- finally -- <br>
<br>
Would it be possible to get "data models" (or at least
simplified "core" models) of the relevant applications posted
or pointed to? I think we're operating with a severe handicap until
we have them.<br>
<br>
-Stan</html>