[tdwg-content] Fwd: [dwc] quantity (#12)

Éamonn Ó Tuama [GBIF] eotuama at gbif.org
Tue Dec 23 14:46:06 CET 2014 

Based on the feedback to make the labels more explicit and also remove examples from the definitions, here are the revised labels and definitions for what were originally "quantity" (now "organismQuantity") and "quantityType" (now "organismQuantityType"): 

organismQuantity

#Definition
A number or enumeration value for the quantity of organisms. Use with organismQuantityType to indicate the type of entity that is being quantified.

#Comment
The terms organismQuantity and organismQuantityType are required to be used as a pair. The value of organismQuantity is a number or enumeration, e.g.,  “27” for an organismQuantityType “individuals”, “12.5” for an organismQuantityType “%biomass”, or “r” for an organismQuantityType “BraunBlanquetScale”.


organismQuantityType

#Definition
The type of entity to which the number or enumeration value reported for the quantity of organisms in organismQuantity refers.

#Comment
The terms organismQuantity and organismQuantityType are required to be used as a pair. The value of organismQuantityType (i.e., the entity being measured) is expected to be drawn from a small controlled vocabulary with terms such as “Individuals”, “%Biomass”, “%Biovolume”, “%Species”, “%Coverage”, “BraunBlanquetScale”, “DominScale”. Examples when combined with organismQuantity values: + on DominScale; 5 on BraunBlanquetScale; 45 for %Biomass.


-----Original Message-----
From: Eamonn O Tuama [GBIF] [mailto:eotuama at gbif.org] 
Sent: 17 December 2014 18:13
To: tuco at berkeley.edu
Cc: Eamonn O Tuama [GBIF]; Markus Döring; Paul J. Morris; TDWG Content Mailing List
Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Fwd: [dwc] quantity (#12)

"Tweaking the terminology" as suggested by Simon looks like the solution.
Those more explicit labels should work. I will revise the definitions and examples accordingly.
Eamonn

> Then is there anything wrong with giving more explicit labels, such as 
> "organismQuantity" and organismQuantityType?
>
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Eamonn O Tuama [GBIF] 
> <eotuama at gbif.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> The intent is to capture just one measurement (i.e., 
>> abundance/density/coverage - however the dataset is reporting 
>> quantitative information on organism presence in a sampling event) - 
>> hence the proposal to place the terms quantity and quantityType in 
>> the Occurrence class as properties on an equal footing with 
>> individualCount, etc. By "buried", I was just contrasting with the 
>> more generic properties of MeasurementOrFact where you have to look 
>> up the value of measurementType to determine the entity. In contrast, 
>> our quantityType (i.e., abundanceType) is more direct. I can see that 
>> use of the word "quantity" can make quantityType seem very generic 
>> but it was the best and most neutral one we came up with to cover the 
>> various ways of reporting organism numbers in a sample.
>>
>> Eamonn
>>
>> > Hi Éamonn,
>> >
>> > Your reference to "buried" makes me curious. If you create the 
>> > terms quantity and quantityType, they could appear as two "columns" 
>> > in a
>> Simple
>> > Darwin Core record. That is, they could accommodate only one type 
>> > of measurement per record. To do other than that the terms would 
>> > have to
>> go
>> > into an extension, where they would be exactly as "buried" as they
>> would
>> > if
>> > you used measurementOrFact. Am I missing something?
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> > John
>> >
>> > On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 9:02 AM, Éamonn Ó Tuama [GBIF] 
>> > <eotuama at gbif.org>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Simon's distinction of scaled number vs discrete set could 
>> >> probably
>> be
>> >> captured using DWC MeasurementOrFact properties. However, as
>> discussed
>> >> previously, we felt that because measurements of 
>> >> abundance/density/coverage were of fundamental importance in field 
>> >> studies, and in the spirit of DwC's pragmatic approach, they 
>> >> merited their own high level term(s), rather than "burying" them 
>> >> under MeasurementOrFact - hence the proposal of "quantity"
>> >> and "quantityType" where the term "quantity" seems the most 
>> >> inclusive label for what we are trying to express.
>> >>
>> >> Following John's recommendation, we have removed the references to 
>> >> examples in the definitions and expanded the examples in the 
>> >> comment section so it is clear how they are to be used.
>> >>
>> >> quantity
>> >>
>> >> #Definition
>> >> A number or enumeration value for the entity being quantified in 
>> >> quantityType.
>> >> #Comment
>> >> The terms quantity and quantityType are required to be used as a
>> pair.
>> >> The
>> >> value of quantity is a number or enumeration, e.g.,  “27” for 
>> >> a quantityType “individuals”, “12.5” for a quantityType 
>> >> “%biomass”, or “r” for a quantityType 
>> >> “BraunBlanquetScale”.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> quantityType
>> >>
>> >> #Definition
>> >> The entity to which the number or enumeration reported in quantity 
>> >> refers.
>> >> #Comment
>> >> The terms quantity and quantityType are required to be used as a
>> pair.
>> >> The
>> >> value of quantityType (i.e., the entity being measured) is 
>> >> expected
>> to
>> >> be
>> >> drawn from a small controlled vocabulary with terms such as 
>> >> “Individuals”, “%Biomass”, “%Biovolume”, 
>> >> “%Species”, “%Coverage”, “BraunBlanquetScale”, 
>> >> “DominScale”. Examples when combined with quantity values: + 
>> >> on DominScale;
>> >> 5 on BraunBlanquetScale; 45 for %Biomass.
>> >>
>> >> Éamonn
>> >>
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org [mailto:
>> >> tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Markus Döring
>> >> Sent: 15 December 2014 15:48
>> >> To: Paul J. Morris
>> >> Cc: TDWG Content Mailing List
>> >> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Fwd: [dwc] quantity (#12)
>> >>
>> >> "r" is a value for very few individuals in the Braun Blanquet 
>> >> cover abundance scale which is used a lot in vegetation studies. 
>> >> It is like various others a non continous scale with discrete 
>> >> values. I do not think we should restrict quantity to contious 
>> >> numeric scales.
>> >>
>> >> Markus
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > Am 15.12.2014 um 15:36 schrieb Paul J. Morris <mole at morris.net>:
>> >> >
>> >> > Markus can probably answer this question:
>> >> >
>> >> > What would be the expected value of QuantityType for a Quantity 
>> >> > of
>> >> "r"?
>> >> >
>> >> > A comment Bob Morris occasionally makes is: "1 is greater than 2
>> for
>> >> > sufficently large values of 1".  If some particular quantity 
>> >> > type
>> has
>> >> > a standard set of codes that represent numbers, then it might be 
>> >> > appropriate to use those standard codes as values of quantity.
>> >> >
>> >> > -Paul
>> >> >
>> >> > On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 12:48:06 +0100 John Wieczorek 
>> >> > <tuco at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> Der all,
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I am forwarding this comment from Simon Cox, which was 
>> >> >> submitted
>> to
>> >> >> the Darwin Core development site on Github.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Cheers,
>> >> >>
>> >> >> John
>> >> >>
>> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> >> >> From: Simon Cox <notifications at github.com>
>> >> >> Date: Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 4:47 AM
>> >> >> Subject: Re: [dwc] quantity (#12)
>> >> >> To: tdwg/dwc <dwc at noreply.github.com>
>> >> >> Cc: John Wieczorek <tuco at berkeley.edu>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> 'quantity' usually implies an amount, encoded as a scaled number.
>> >> >> In most other domains it does not include a value from an
>> enumerated
>> >> >> set. The latter may be called 'quality'.
>> >> >> Both quantity and quality are subclasses of 'property'.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> —
>> >> >> Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub 
>> >> >> <https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/12#issuecomment-66946784>.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Paul J. Morris
>> >> > Biodiversity Informatics Manager Harvard University 
>> >> > Herbaria/Museum of Comparative Zoölogy mole at morris.net  AA3SD  
>> >> > PGP public key available 
>> >> > _______________________________________________
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>> >> > tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> >> > http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
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>> >>
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>> >
>>
>>
>>
>

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