[tdwg-content] practical details of recording a determination What is an Occurrence?

[Kevin Richards]

I can't help but feel we are getting into a much more complicated area of biodiversity ( or any observation oriented field for that matter ) and that there must be other ontologies or models that we could follow or reuse.
Our strength at TDWG is  obviously the more biodiversity specific details such as taxonomy, invasiveness, etc.
I might have an investigation of possible models to reuse - unless someone has already done this and has a suggestion.

Kevin

Sent from my HTC

----- Reply message -----
From: "Richard Pyle" <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
Date: Thu, Oct 21, 2010 8:11 pm
Subject: [tdwg-content] practical details of recording a determination What is an Occurrence?
To: "&apos;Steve Baskauf&apos;" <steve.baskauf at vanderbilt.edu>
Cc: "tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org" <tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org>


I see dwc:establishmentMeans as being very clearly a property of "Individual
At Place" (again, scoping "Individual" up to at least population).  The
closest thing we have to that in the diagram1 is Occurrence.  The only hitch
is that Occurrence isn't exactly "Individual At Place", so much as
"Individual At Event[=Place+Time]" Some people have suggected that
dwc:establishmentMeans is a function of Time as well as Place, in which case
it is very clearly (to me) a property of Occurrence.

Rich

________________________________

        From: Steve Baskauf [mailto:steve.baskauf at vanderbilt.edu]
        Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 3:25 PM
        To: Richard Pyle
        Cc: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
        Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] practical details of recording a
determination What is an Occurrence?


        Well, I also feel pretty good about most of that diagram, but I'm
still struggling with the whole "token" thing.  I feel the need to discuss
basisOfRecord=LivingSpecimen which is the most complicated case and is also
related to the previous discussion about dwc:establishmentMeans as well as
my proposal to move it to the proposed Individual class.  It is also related
to another issue that I haven't broached here but which is discussed in my
paper - "Occurrences" that aren't directly derived from an individual.  I'm
beginning to think that part of what I wrote there (in the paper) was wrong,
but I'm not sure what the alternative is.  That issue will probably come up
if I comment about what Cam wrote in his email.  So there may be more to
hash out, but I can't handle it today because I've got too many other things
to do.  I've been mentally composing what I hope is a lucid presentation,
but it hasn't hit the keyboard yet.

        Steve


                I have to say, this has been about the most productive (if
volumunous)
                list-discussion I've had in...well...maybe ever.  It seems
we've both been
                equally persuasive, and equally willing to concede.  How
rare that happens
                in an internet forum!  I'm not sure there's anything left
that we disagee
                about.  If the "diagram1" seems to resonate with everyone as
the most
                "normalized" ER diagram we'll likely ever need, and if we
can somehow
                accommodate flexibility in RDF for collapsing attributes to
different
                classes (but only from the "one" side to the "many" side) --
then we might
                have achived the elusive Holy Grail of biodiversity
informatics: true
                consensus.



                        Thanks for your great feedback and for challenging
my statements.  I need


                that!

                Likewise!

                Aloha,
                Rich


                .




        --
        Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
        Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences

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