Added spatio-temporal scale

[timalamenciak]

Added terms for scale (spatio-temporal) and subclasses micro-scale, meso-scale, macro-scale, mega-scale. Addressing issue #1569

[pbuttigieg]

I think we need to find the right superclass for "scale" in PATO, or mint one if there's nothing appropriate present. PATO's 'physical quality' is a fair start.

scale =def. "A physical quality which inheres in a bearer by virtue of its size, extent, or degree relative to other entities."

xref https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scale

and then we can formulate the others like:

'spatiotemporal scale' =def. "A scale which inheres in a bearer by virtue of its extent in space and time."

'geographic megascale' =def. "A spatiotemporal scale which inheres in a bearer that has a spatial extent of 1,000,000,000,000 m² or greater and temporal a temporal extent of 1,000,000 years or greater."

[timalamenciak]

I think we need to find the right superclass for "scale" in PATO, or mint one if there's nothing appropriate present. PATO's 'physical quality' is a fair start.

I'm not sure that a scale is a physical quality. I think that it inheres in a description or observation. An apple doesn't have a scale, but a picture of an apple does. This is the reason why I thought it would fit under qualitative - PATO:0000068:

qualitative=def"A quality of an entity that is descriptive or observational, typically not represented numerically."

[pbuttigieg]

I'm not sure that a scale is a physical quality. I think that it inheres in a description or observation. An apple doesn't have a scale, but a picture of an apple does.

An apple does have a scale - mesoscopic scale. Spatiotemporal scale is a relativistic way of expressing an entity's spatiotemporal footprint, its size through time (a fundamentally physical thing). In that sense, it's a relational quality, and the definition specifies what it's being related to (e.g. lengths, areas, volumes, and time ranges).

I don't think a specifically dependent continuant (like a quality) can inhere in a generically dependent continuant (like a description or observation), at least not in a metaphysical way.

This is the reason why I thought it would fit under qualitative - PATO:0000068:

this class is a very odd one in PATO, an ontology of qualities. It's a strange attempt to represent qualitative and quantitative data types or variables as specifically dependent continuants.

[pbuttigieg]

An alternative is to create spatiotemporal entities e.g (1D time, and 2D space) for each scale category and figure out a relation that expresses that a given ecosystem occupies these immaterial entities

BFO used to have such relations, but they seem obsolete, and their domains are occurrents.

http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000083 (BFO):
occupies spatial region at some time

http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000130 (BFO):
occupies spatiotemporal region

http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000155 (BFO):
occupies temporal region

Their ghosts are still around in various imports like this one

It's possible that RO tried to absorb these in relations like spatially coextensive with and simultaneous with. They don't seem very clear though.

If we choose this way, we'll mint what we need in ENVO

[pbuttigieg]

Another approach would be to create subclasses of PATO's size and duration, although duration is a process quality. Perhaps age is better.

These would be labelled like "geographic megascale age" and "geographic megascale size", and could be applied to material entities via 'has quality' independently, as needed.

[pbuttigieg]

Another approach would be to create subclasses of PATO's size and duration, although duration is a process quality. Perhaps age is better.

These would be labelled like "geographic megascale age" and "geographic megascale size", and could be applied to material entities via 'has quality' independently, as needed.

@timalamenciak I think this is the most approachable way for now, that's also reasonably accurate.

Definitions (which would dbxref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_(geography) ) would look like the examples below.

Note that we should use "landscape [...]scale" as a prefix, as geographic scale is one class of such scales (cartographic being another)

Age

For chronological age subclasses:

'landscape megascale age' =def. "Chronological age which inheres in a bearer by virtue of that bearer existing for at least 1,000,000 years."

Area

For area subclasses:

'landscape mesoscale size' =def. "An area quality which inheres in a bearer by virtue of that bearer having an area of between 1,000,000 and 10,000,000,000 square metres"

[pbuttigieg]

Some corrections and questions

[pbuttigieg]

Not sure what's happening here in the Named Individuals block - could you clarify?

[timalamenciak]

I'm not sure myself, but I believe that this resulted from me improperly importing PATO:0001486

[timalamenciak]

I think that I've addressed all the reviews and hopefully not mucked things up too badly. Ping @cmungall and @pbuttigieg