STMML units and date/time values

[Matt Jones]

Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
> Matt,
> When I replied to you I included eml-dev but it awaits to moderator. 
> I'll post to you but am happy to have my replies posted on if appropriate.
> 
> I've downloaded eml-unitDictionary and this looks excellent. One or two 
> comments:
> 
> (a) power. In some cases you create repeated elements such as
> <dimension name="length"/>
> <dimension name="length"/>
> 
> for area. We didn't think of this and had assumed that you would write
> 
> <dimension name="length" power="2"/>

Good point.  I think we should do it your way.  I don't see a reason for 
repeating dimensions as opposed to using power, but of course they are 
easily interconverted.

> Dimensions are tricky, however and you might be wanting to distinguish 
> between these two for some reason. If so, we would like to consider it. 
> The dimensionless  is very tricky.. I notice you had somewhere
> 
> <dimension name="length" power="3"/>
> <dimension name="length" power=-2/>
> 
> I like this - and would like to hear more...

Actually, I couldn't find that in our file.  What unitType was it used 
with?  I suppose someone might want to distinguish the dimensions in the 
numerator and denominator when they are the same because they might 
cancel, which would obscure the fundamental components of the calculation.

Matt

-- 
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Matt Jones                                    jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439   Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)

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