Solar vocabularies

[Elizabeth Auden]

Hi Rick,

> do we want to define a vocabular basis of words which
> users and apps are expected to stick together in some hopefully
> simple fashion.

I'd like to try this approach first for solar and STP components of the SV
vocabulary. We can start with the object / event / phenomena terms used in
the Lockheed Martin heliophysics knowledge base (currently about 20
solar-specific terms, I think) and in Peter Fox's STP event / phenomena
ontologies used with the Virtual Solar Terrestrial Observatory (I haven't
read the ontologies thoroughly, so I cannot estimate how many terms are
solar specific rather than, say, volcano-specific terms, which are also
included.)

After an initial draft of these terms has been compiled and approved by
the IVOA vocab group, I'd like to propose discussing the list of
solar terms with the Virtual Solar Observatory to see if there are
specific terms their searches incorporate which we've missed.

The "official" list of terms from these two sources will not be large, and
we may find that potential duplicates such as "starspot" versus "sunspot"
are resolved if solar resources are more likely to use "active region" or
a specific phenomenon (filament, flare, wave, etc) instead.

What do you think?

cheers,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth Auden, MSSL
Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking RH5 6NT
Tel: +44 (0)1483 204 276
eSDO Technical Lead, AstroGrid Developer

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007, Frederic V. Hessman wrote:

>> Since AstroGrid is one of the few groups (only one?) with an active solar
>> (and STP) contingent, I'll 'volunteer' Elizabeth Auden (supported by Silvia
>> Dalla) to provide the solar side of the SV. To forestall any concerns about 
>> this possibly delaying the process, I would think the solar terminology 
>> will primarily sit on its own tree or major branch of other trees. And I 
>> think it is important that solar VO apps do not fall behind dark-side ones.
>
> This nicely raises a fundamental question about how the WG plans on 
> approaching the selection of SV tokens (assuming that there is a general 
> acceptance of the idea of SOME vocabulary), something that has already 
> appeared slightly different forms in the list: do we simply want a list of 
> all possible interesting words, assuming that the VO clients and apps will 
> simply choose whatever word is appropriate, or do we want to define a 
> vocabular basis of words which users and apps are expected to stick together 
> in some hopefully simple fashion.
>
> Example: do we want to propagate "sunspot" or do we what to propagate 
> "starpot" and expect that the solar types will - somehow - be able to add on 
> some more information that the "starspot" is on the Sun?  Nowday, it's 
> amazing how much of early solar terminology is being applied to other stars, 
> so we don't need two or more names for the same thing.  This may not be the 
> best example, but one which immediately popped into my head when the Sun was 
> mentioned.
>
> Our original proposal tried to keep the total number of tokens as small as 
> possible by encouraging some form of concatenation (whether trivial ucd-like 
> or fancy OWL-like), a goal I'd like to see kept in the forefront.
>
> Rick
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> ------------------------
> Dr. Frederic V. Hessman     Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE
> Institut für Astrophysik          Tel.  +49-551-39-5052
> Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1         Fax +49-551-39-5043
> 37077 Goettingen                 Room F04-133
> http://www.Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.de/~hessman
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> -------------------------
> MONET: a MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes
> http://monet.Uni-Goettingen.de
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> -------------------------
>
>
>