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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=770372807-25102010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Hi Pete,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=770372807-25102010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=770372807-25102010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Yes, that's basically where the conversation on "Individual"
began several weeks ago (i.e., that the same Individual could participate in
more than one Occurrence). As we've mentioned, DwC already accomodates
individualID, but there is no class for an individual. If there were, several of
the properties of Occurrence would over.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=770372807-25102010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=770372807-25102010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Aloha,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=770372807-25102010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Rich</FONT></SPAN></DIV><BR>
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<FONT size=2 face=Tahoma><B>From:</B> Peter DeVries
[mailto:pete.devries@gmail.com] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, October 24, 2010 1:18
PM<BR><B>To:</B> Richard Pyle<BR><B>Cc:</B> Steve Baskauf;
tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [tdwg-content] Treatise on
Occurrence, tokens, and basisOfRecord<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>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>
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<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>_______________________________________________<BR>tdwg-content
mailing list<BR><A
href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</A><BR><A
href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content"
target=_blank>http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content</A><BR></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>------------------------------------------------------------<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>