[tdwg-content] New Darwin Core terms proposed relating to material samples

[John Deck]

I agree with statements #1-#4... As for #5, i believe this was answered
with: http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2013-May/003006.html

John


On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 8:04 PM, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>wrote:

>
> Hmmmm.....
>
> > MaterialSample doesn't necessarily have to be an occurrence and
> > there could possibly be multiple occurrences in a sample (or vice versa).
>
> > Thus we need the Identifier to track this (especially in the context of
> > DwC represented as a flat-file)
>
> This is (again) 100% consistent with our interpretation of our
> "Individual",
> as I discussed previously.  I don't care what the term is (I agree that
> "Individual is potentially vague and misleading).  But whatever this
> "thing"
> is, it always includes "material", but depending on how one defines
> "sample", our "thing" may or may not always be sampled.
>
> Again, I don't want to re-define MaterialSample, and I don't want to
> obstruct it from being added to DwC.  But I *do* want to make sure I
> understand its full meaning and scope, so I can conceptually "Venn-diagram"
> it against the object that we call "Individual" in our model.
>
> Let me ask a few questions (through declarative statements):
>
> 1) An instance of MaterialSample may include zero, one, or many taxa
> represented among its material contents (zero taxa = no organisms).
> Correct?
>
> 2) An instance of MaterialSample may represent a portion or subsample of a
> whole organism, may be a whole organism, or may be a set of multiple whole
> organisms. Correct?
>
> 3) An instance of MaterialSample always represents material that is
> extracted from nature.  (e.g., a visual observation with no material
> extracted from nature is not an instance of Material Sample.) Correct?
>
> 4) An instance of MaterialSample may represent a subsample of (i.e., be
> derived from) another, more inclusive instance of a MaterialSample.
> Correct?
>
> 5) If an instance of MaterialSample is associated with an Occurrence, it
> would be an Occurrence that explicitly involved that instance of
> MaterialSample (e.g., an Occurrence at which the MaterialSample was
> extracted from nature).  Correct?
>
> The last one probably needs a bit more elaboration.  Suppose a whole
> organism was observed 20 times over 10 years, representing 20 different
> Occurrences.  On the 5th (chronologically) Occurrence, a sample was
> extracted from the whole organism, and we represent it as an instance of
> MaterialSample. I would assume that we would also establish some sort of
> relationship between the MaterialSample instance, and the 5th Occurrence.
> But would we also directly associate the MaterialSample instance with the
> first four Occurrences (the implication being that this sample had been
> part
> of that whole organism during those first four Occurrences)?  What about
> directly associating the MaterialSample instance with the other Occurrences
> of the same whole organism that happened chronologically after the
> MaterialSample was extracted from nature?
>
> By "directly" associate, I mean "represent as a property of", rather than
> some sort of inherited property through some sort of intermediate object
> (e.g., the whole organism as a separate object).
>
> Don't get bogged down on this being an Edge Case, because I can come up
> with
> hundreds of other such examples, which, while perhaps being Edge Cases
> individually, collectively add up to non-Edge Cases in aggregate.
>
> Aloha,
> Rich
>
>
>


-- 
John Deck
(541) 321-0689
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