Morphological Data Representation
Leigh Dodds
ldodds at INGENTA.COM
Fri Nov 23 16:56:06 CET 2001
This nicely demonstrates the point that the syntax is
only a way to encode a particular model. I'd previously
cast the same basic Lepidoptera data into XML (with
some additional data, such as images) using XDelta:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/delta/lep.xml
I'm sure the following is wrong in places and/or overly simplistic,
and deliberately so:
A Character has
- a Character Type (one of Ordered or Unordered or Real, or ...)
- a Character Identifier (a number)
- a Short Description (free text)
- a Long Description (free text)
- an Order Identifier (a number)
- a State Descriptor (free text)
A State has
- a State Value (free text)
- a State Identifier (a number)
- an Order Identifier
An Item has
- An Item Type (free text)
- An Item Identifier (a number)
- A Description (free text)
- One or more Characteristics (observed values of states for
specific characters)
Characters describe a list of properties for some Type of Thing
might have. States describe the list of (observed) values
of that property for a specific Type of Thing (avoiding the
word Class as it's an overloaded term).
An Item is the specific instances of those properties, with
some specific Thing.
What did I get wrong?
L.
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