I agree with John and Gregor. The term "individual" doesn't quite seem to capture the concept or usage. However, I think there is more general agreement that there is a pressing need - and immediate value - for a term to represent "material sample" and derivaties. It seems that the proposal on the table serves that need with the right definition, that is explicit, and that provides necessary linkages to other related domains.
Best, Rob
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 1:47 AM, Gregor Hagedorn g.m.hagedorn@gmail.comwrote:
Basically, we’ve been running with the idea of an “Individual” class – as originally proposed by Steve and discussed at some length on this list a while ago. This has been documented for DSW:
We define an “Individual” as the physical “something” that underpins an Occurrence. In the case of organisms, this can be a group (herd, school, flock, etc.), specimen (either a single specimen, or a lot of multiple specimens), or any sort of derivative of a specimen (part, tissue sample, dna extraction, etc.). It corresponds to the intended meaning of
I disagree with using "Individual" for sets of objects. It is surprising, and lacking any clear definition when to stop, that means a taxon is an individual, a collection is an individual, etc. _______________________________________________ tdwg-content mailing list tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content