[VOTE] restructure date-time value descriptions

[Peter McCartney]

grrrr...if values fall a coordinate system then they are INTERVAL!

duration is RATIO!! an event cannot have a duration of zero or less

Peter McCartney (peter.mccartney at asu.edu)
Center for Environmental Studies
Arizona State University
480-965-6791 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Jones [mailto:cjones at lifesci.ucsb.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 9:44 AM
> To: Matt Jones
> Cc: eml-dev
> Subject: Re: [VOTE] restructure date-time value descriptions
> 
> 
> Approve.  
> 
> In catching up with the subject, I'd have to agree that in theory 
> dateTimes (as timestamps) are ordinal and fall on a temporal 
> coordinate 
> system, whereas a duration of say 20 seconds is interval.
> 
> Thanks for all of in depth discussion.  It's a lot to wade through.
> 
> Chris
> 
> Matt Jones wrote:
> 
> > After our long discussions about date-time values, and 
> Tim's excellent 
> > treatises on that subject and units, I think we are 
> coalescing on the 
> > idea that date-time values are most appropriately modeled 
> as ordinal 
> > values (the deeper underlying issues with measurementScale 
> > notwithstanding).  Date-time values are ordered, but we 
> seem to agree 
> > that one cannot do arithmetic calculations on them without parsing 
> > them and converting them to an interval scale such as 
> "seconds since 
> > 1970".
> >
> > I have modified the eml-attribute.xsd file (yes, again!) to reflect 
> > this emerging concensus.  You can see it in cvs at:
> >
> > 
> http://cvs.ecoinformatics.org/cvs/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/eml/em
> l-attribute.xsd?rev=1.93&content-type=text/plain
> >
> > Using this new schema, a date-time attribute is described 
> in eml like 
> > this (taken from the eml-sample.xml file):
> >
> >       <attribute id="att.2">
> >         <attributeName>year</attributeName>
> >         <attributeLabel>year</attributeLabel>
> >         <attributeDefinition>The year the data was collected
> >         </attributeDefinition>
> >         <storageType>gYear</storageType>
> >         <measurementScale>
> >           <ordinal>
> >             <dateTimeDomain id="dd.2">
> >               <formatString>YYYY</formatString>
> >               <minimum>1944</minimum>
> >             </dateTimeDomain>
> >           </ordinal>
> >         </measurementScale>
> >       </attribute>
> >
> > I would like to ask for a vote to determine this issue once and for 
> > all so we can release EML, especially as we were scheduled 
> to release 
> > the final version of EML tomorrow!  So, here it is:
> >
> > VOTE: The final release of EML should include the changes to 
> > representation of date-time values that were made in 
> revision 1.93 of 
> > the eml-attribute.xsd file.  This includes moving date-time value 
> > descriptions to the ordinal measurementScale, and moving the format 
> > string into the DateTimeDomain description.
> >
> > You should vote one of the following before the end of business 
> > Wednesday:
> >    Approve: I understand and agree with the date-time 
> change proposal
> >    Neutral: I am neutral, or don't have a solution to propose
> > Disapprove: I block this from occurring, and have a 
> solution to propose
> >
> > If you vote Neutral or Disapprove, it would be great to get 
> comments 
> > from you as to why (e.g., if you vote neutral just because 
> you haven't 
> > been following the discussion, it would be good to know that), and 
> > proposed alternatives.
> >
> > Project member      Vote
> > ---------------     ---------
> > Tim Bergsma
> > Chad Berkley
> > David Blankman
> > Matthew Brooke
> > James Brunt
> > Scott Chapal
> > Corinna Gries
> > Daniel Higgins
> > Matthew Jones       approve
> > Chris Jones
> > Peter McCartney
> > Ken Ramsey
> > Mark Schildhauer
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Matt
> >
> 
> 
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