Well stated. I think it's key to layer these ontologies. If I could restate
and add one, starting from the lowest working up, I think we need: (01)
1) Values with Units (this is the very basic ontology that just allows us to
say "3 meters")
2) The measurement event (this just adds the temporal dimension, and recognizes
that there is an event for the measurement)
3) The measurement method
4) The thing being measured (02)
Each can be underspecified at the lower level (i.e. I could have a measurement
event at level 2 and say it's measuring "blood pressure" (a literal) without
having a complete ontology about what blood pressure is (at level 4) (03)
And as I think you were suggesting to make progress let's focus on level 1 (04)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: uom-ontology-std-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:uom-ontology-
> std-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Graybeal
> Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 4:32 PM
> To: uom-ontology-std
> Subject: Re: [uom-ontology-std] retitled: magnitude of a quantity
>
> On Jul 16, 2009, at 3:56 PM, David Leal wrote:
>
> > This introduces a larger point which we have only just touched upon,
> > which is how these domain specific, and often measurement method
> > specific categories are included in the ontology.
>
>
> To make sure I understand this point, allow me to start with an
> example.
>
> In dealing with measurements of things like chlorophyll, Roy Lowry and
> his team at BODC/NERC have come up with extensive vocabularies that
> take into account the mechanism by which a measurement was made (by
> evaporation, by 10um filtration, by 100um filtration, by in-situ
> reflectance, ...). The theory is that for the measurements to be
> comparable, the technique has to be known and comparable (if not
> identical).
>
> On the one hand, I firmly believe (a) it is important to track
> provenance of measurements, and (b) it is important to be able to
> document the measurement mechanism supported by a given device. So I
> understand that descriptives about the measurement technique belong
> in, say, a device ontology, or a description of the data set.
>
> On the other hand, they seem clearly orthogonal to the question of
> describing what is being measured (e.g., chlorophyll), and in turn
> even further from the units used to quantify the measurement (grams,
> or liters, or whatever). I don't think our ontology has to qualify
> what the units apply to, on the theory that an ounce is somehow a
> different quantify when applied to gold and lead.
>
> So now I'm thinking that you mean something else. Can you provide
> some specific examples?
>
> John
>
> --------------
> John Graybeal <mailto:graybeal@xxxxxxxxx> -- 831-775-1956
> Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
> Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org
>
>
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