Ontology

Overview / Open Energy Ontology / Class - data item

Label: data item

Definition:

A data item is an information content entity that is intended to be a truthful statement about something (modulo, e.g., measurement precision or other systematic errors) and is constructed/acquired by a method which reliably tends to produce (approximately) truthful statements.

Definition:

An information content entity that is intended to be a truthful statement about something (modulo, e.g., measurement precision or other systematic errors) and is constructed/acquired by a method which reliably tends to produce (approximately) truthful statements.

Editor note:

2/2/2009 Alan and Bjoern discussing FACS run output data. This is a data item because it is about the cell population. Each element records an event and is typically further composed a set of measurment data items that record the fluorescent intensity stimulated by one of the lasers.

Editor note:

2009-03-16: data item deliberatly ambiguous: we merged data set and datum to be one entity, not knowing how to define singular versus plural. So data item is more general than datum.

Editor note:

2009-03-16: removed datum as alternative term as datum specifically refers to singular form, and is thus not an exact synonym.

Editor note:

2014-03-31: See discussion at http://odontomachus.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/aboutness-objects-propositions/

Editor note:

JAR: datum -- well, this will be very tricky to define, but maybe some information-like stuff that might be put into a computer and that is meant, by someone, to denote and/or to be interpreted by some process... I would include lists, tables, sentences... I think I might defer to Barry, or to Brian Cantwell Smith JAR: A data item is an approximately justified approximately true approximate belief

Sub classes:

cartesian spatial coordinate datum

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Definition:

A cartesian spatial coordinate datum is a representation of a point in a spatial region, in which equal changes in the magnitude of a coordinate value denote length qualities with the same magnitude

Editor note:

2009-08-18 Alan Ruttenberg - question to BFO list about whether the BFO sense of the lower dimensional regions is that they are always part of actual space (the three dimensional sort) http://groups.google.com/group/bfo-discuss/browse_thread/thread/9d04e717e39fb617

data set

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Definition:

A data item that is an aggregate of other data items of the same type that have something in common. Averages and distributions can be determined for data sets.

Editor note:

2009/10/23 Alan Ruttenberg. The intention is that this term represent collections of like data. So this isn't for, e.g. the whole contents of a cel file, which includes parameters, metadata etc. This is more like java arrays of a certain rather specific type

Editor note:

2014-05-05: Data sets are aggregates and thus must include two or more data items. We have chosen not to add logical axioms to make this restriction.

endogenous data

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Definition:

Endogenous data is a data item whose quantity value is determined by a model.

exogenous data

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Definition:

Exogenous data is a data item whose quantity value is determined outside of a model and is imposed on a model.

measurement datum

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Definition:

A measurement datum is an information content entity that is a recording of the output of a measurement such as produced by a device.

Editor note:

2/2/2009 is_specified_output of some assay?

missing value reason

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Definition:

A missing value reason is a data item that is used to indicate that data is not available and to provide a specific reason explaining why a meaningful value is not available.

Back to the super classes:

information content entity

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Definition:

A generically dependent continuant that is about some thing.

Editor note:

2014-03-10: The use of "thing" is intended to be general enough to include universals and configurations (see https://groups.google.com/d/msg/information-ontology/GBxvYZCk1oc/-L6B5fSBBTQJ).

Editor note:

information_content_entity 'is_encoded_in' some digital_entity in obi before split (040907). information_content_entity 'is_encoded_in' some physical_document in obi before split (040907). Previous. An information content entity is a non-realizable information entity that 'is encoded in' some digital or physical entity.