Before finishing the Paris minutes, I have just finished the last remaining bit from Brazil. On the last day we discussed special states, which was not really in the minutes released before Paris. I have written it as a separate document and have tried to work through some of the issues and scenarios we touched upon in Brazil. These include character scoping, default or implicit states, inheritance from taxonomic hierarchy, and a bit on character dependency. The result is a bit lengthy, but it did help _me_ a lot. I hope that the document can be pruned down when some parts can be moved elsewhere.

I would love get your comments and feedback. Either sent them to the list, or if you have small corrections to help me you can write them into the document (Bob already did a first review helping to remove the worst logic and language errors!) and send it back to me.

It is available at:

http://160.45.63.11/Projects/TDWG- SDD/Docs/SDD_P_Data_SpecialStates.html

Thanks

Gregor ---------------------------------------------------------- Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn@bba.de) Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA) Koenigin-Luise-Str. 19 Tel: +49-30-8304-2220 14195 Berlin, Germany Fax: +49-30-8304-2203

Often wrong but never in doubt!