An individual may be represented in several occurrence records.<div><br></div><div>You might have a bird that was photographed in one study.</div><div><br></div><div>Banded in another study.</div><div><br></div><div>Then later, preserved in a museum.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I think there is a case for being able to track this individual over time.</div><div><br></div><div>- Pete</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Richard Pyle <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org">deepreef@bishopmuseum.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">> What is a bit frustrating to me is that ideas like these<br>
> aren't laid out in an easy-to-understand fashion and<br>
> placed in easy-to-find places. I have spent much of<br>
> that last year and a half trying to understand how<br>
> the whole TDWG/DwC universe is supposed to fit together.<br>
<br>
</div>Understood, and agreed. Part of the problem is that a lot of this stuff is<br>
driven by passionate individuals, who also happen to be highly<br>
over-committed. There's barely enough time available to do the interesting<br>
bits (conceptualizing, experimenting with implementations), let alone the<br>
less-interesting bits (documentation). Having said that, there are some<br>
early documents that go into a lot of this in great detail. One is Stan<br>
Blum's description of the ASC model. Another are a series of publications<br>
from Walter Berendsohn on "potential taxa". A lot of other stuff is<br>
floating around the Specify project, and there are some other earlier<br>
sources. But I agree, it's not easy to find, and it doesn't always cover<br>
the details we need it to in today's context.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> The point that I was trying to get at (eventually) was that it<br>
> was inconsistent to say that images need to be referenced as<br>
> associatedMedia and sequences needed to be referenced as<br>
> associatedSequences, and yet not say that specimens needed<br>
> to be referenced as "associatedSpecimens".<br>
<br>
</div>Hmmmm...not sure I agree. If it is so that Occurrence=Individual+Event,<br>
then a Specimen can be said to *be* the Individual, whereas images, DNA<br>
sequences, and the like are the tokens. In other words, Individual "is a"<br>
Specimen; but Individual "has a" image. Now that I think about it, perhaps<br>
Specimens should not be treated on an equal par with other tokens; and<br>
indeed, maybe specimens aren't tokens (per your definition) at all. This is<br>
not consistent with how I've always thought about it (see my previous<br>
email), but if the elusive "Individual" is key to this relationship, then<br>
perhaps Specimens serve as bot "evidence" of an occurrence, and the "stuff"<br>
of the Individual represneted by the Occurrence.<br>
<br>
My brain hurts.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> I guess I'm thinking about this in terms of a token being<br>
> something to which we can assign an identifier and retrieve<br>
> a representation (a la representational state transfer).<br>
> Although I don't deny the existence of memory patterns in<br>
> neurons that are associated with a HumanObservation,<br>
> there isn't any way that we can receive a representation<br>
> of that memory directly.<br>
<br>
</div>I guess it depends on what you mean by "representation". We can't retrieve<br>
a specimen directly either -- but we can retrieve a database record that<br>
represents the specimen, and metadata associated with it. I think the same<br>
can be said about a human mmory (as the foundation of an observation). That<br>
is, there is a species identification, number of individuals, etc.,<br>
associated with an observation that is based on the memory of the person who<br>
made the observation, and that memory is represented by a database record<br>
with associated metadata.<br>
<br>
This conversation could go very weird, very quickly -- and maybe I'm just<br>
being difficult (in which case I apologize). But now that I see that a<br>
specimen may, in fact, be fundamentally different from other kinds of<br>
evidence supporting an occurrence, I'm not longer sure what I believe<br>
anymore (especially after the 11-hr flight from Berlin I just got off of).<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> > Maybe the answer to this is to treat different versions of DwC as<br>
> > concurrent, rather than serial.<br>
</div>[etc.]<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Yes, I agree about this concept. I think that what I'm really<br>
> advocating for is that we agree on what the most normalized<br>
> model is that will connect all of the existing Darwin Core<br>
> classes and terms. In that sense, when I'm asking for<br>
> Individual to be accepted as a class, I'm not arguing for<br>
> a "new" thing, I'm arguing for a clarification of what<br>
> we mean when we use the existing term dwc:individualID.<br>
<br>
</div>Makes sense to me.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
Aloha,<br>
Rich<br>
<br>
<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>---------------------------------------------------------------<br>Pete DeVries<br>Department of Entomology<br>University of Wisconsin - Madison<br>445 Russell Laboratories<br>
1630 Linden Drive<br>Madison, WI 53706<br><a href="http://www.taxonconcept.org/" target="_blank">TaxonConcept Knowledge Base</a> / <a href="http://lod.geospecies.org/" target="_blank">GeoSpecies Knowledge Base</a><br><a href="http://about.geospecies.org/" target="_blank">About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base</a><br>
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