[seek-taxon] SEEK taxonomic model

Kennedy, Jessie J.Kennedy at napier.ac.uk
Fri Jul 18 08:52:12 PDT 2003


Hi Folks

Bob and I have had a good discussion about the proposed SEEK schema I
circulated earlier and in principal we both agree that it is a good model to
go ahead to the next prototype with. 

The schema can act as an XML transfer schema from existing taxonomic
databases and form the basis for our SEEK database schema into which the
data will be transferred.
I've added a couple of things I forgot which I mentioned to Bob on the phone
like type of synonymy (also added type of lineage), removed taxonomy entity
which I'd left by accident. Changed the annotations a bit to be more helpful
- I think. Added types (basic ones) that were missing. 
We need to translate this to a relational schema but have a couple of
details to fix yet - like our refs...

We do not believe this will be the final schema and that as we start trying
to do things will find that we need to add other attributes (especially to
the SEEK database schema but possibly less to the transfer schema).

There are a few things we discussed that we will follow up later.

1. It is possible that publication date and author should be the same as
concept date and author. 
In principal this is true but we're not sure whether or not for example we
might see an ITIS concept as an ITIS concept or maybe the inclusion in their
hierarchy of someone else's concept which is referred to in a publication by
the original author rather than seeing ITIS version xxx as the publication -
this will be tested.
2. Many taxonomic systems specify the status of a concept name). Currently I
have excluded this the reason being that if someone publishes a
classification then as far as they are concerned it is accepted (by them!)
If it is not accepted then it won't appear. We are unsure whether or not we
need to record the fact that someone (e.g. ITIS) thinks that a particular
concept does not exist. - this will be evaluated for importance in the SEEK
context.
3. Synonymy relationships are those defined by the original author of the
concept. When a third party wants to say that 2 taxa are synonymous we are
undecided as to whether or not this requires the creation of a new concept.
This will be explored further.
4. Bob has the notion of super taxon concepts to help stabilise taxon
concepts this will need to be explored further but we think that if it turns
out to be useful we will be able to extend what we've got to fit.
5. the publication entity hasn't been fully defined yet, Bob is going to
send me what he's got for VegBank and we'll look at adding this - apparently
it's an extension of what's in EML which we could've put in but it's a bit
much for what we need.

 <<concept_jk2.xsd>> 

Have a good weekend.......

Jessie

Prof. Jessie B Kennedy
School of Computing
Napier University
Merchiston Campus
10 Colinton Road	tel:	+44 (0)131-455-2772
Edinburgh		fax:   	+44 (0)131-455-2727
EH10 5DT		mobile:	07974948703
Scotland		email: j.kennedy at napier.ac.uk







-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: concept_jk2.xsd
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 14029 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics/pipermail/seek-taxon/attachments/20030718/07a2474e/concept_jk2.obj


More information about the Seek-taxon mailing list