RE: URIs for quantities and units defined within ISO 80000 and ISO 1000

Dear All,

I have had a very helpful exchange of e-mails with Saruhashi Atsuko of ISO
about making contact with the Technical Committee responsible for standards
for quantities and units. The e-mails are attached below.

It would probably be useful to have a summary for why URIs for quantities
and units are valid, to explain our objectives to those who know nothing of
the Semantic Web. An initial attempt at a summary is attached. Comments
would be welcome.

Best regards,
David

>Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:02:43 +0200
>From: Atsuko Saruhashi <saruhashi@iso.org>
>Subject: RE: URIs for quantities and units defined within ISO 80000 and ISO
1000
>To: 'David Leal' <david.leal@caesarsystems.co.uk>
>Cc: michel.bohms@tno.nl, howard.mason@baesystems.com, david.price@eurostep.com
>
>Dear David,
>
>Thank you for your email. 
>
>Regarding your request, I consulted the TPM for ISO TC 12 and she
>recommended me to contact Mr. Anders J Thor (athor@mech.kth.se). He is the
>Convenor for many WGs under ISO TC 12. And TPM for ISO TC 12 already
>forwarded your email to him, so please contact him directly for further
>discussion. 
>
>Should you need further information, please let me know.
>I hope this helps you. 
>
>Best regards,
>Atsuko
>
>P.S. I will be out of office from 18thPM to 28th(inclusive) and I have a
>limited access to emails. 
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: David Leal [mailto:david.leal@caesarsystems.co.uk] 
>Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 19:00
>To: Saruhashi Atsuko
>Cc: michel.bohms@tno.nl; howard.mason@baesystems.com;
>david.price@eurostep.com
>Subject: URIs for quantities and units defined within ISO 80000 and ISO 1000
>
>Dear Atsuko,
>
>The Product Modelling "incubator group"
>(http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/w3pm/) within W3C was formed a few months
>ago. A W3C incubator group investigates technologies with a potential for
>broad use as part of the infrastructure of the Web.
>
>An initial area of work for the group has been quantities and units on the
>Web. As far as we are aware, this area is not yet covered by any W3C
>recommendation or ISO standard. The basic concepts are defined in the
>ISO/IEC 80000 series, ISO 1000, and by the BIPM. However, these standards
>are not concerned with Web implementation.
>
>The W3C Product Modelling group has suggested an approach to Web
>implementation, but this approach is totally dependent upon an appropriate
>authoritative body, e.g. ISO, IEC, or BIPM, assigning URIs to basic concepts
>such as quantity types:
>- length;
>- thermodynamic temperature;
>- mass;
>- amount of substance;
>- etc.,
>and units:
>- metre;
>- Kelvin;
>- kilogram;
>- mole;
>- etc..
>
>ISO has done preparatory work relevant to this in its URN proposal
>(http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-goodwin-iso-urn-03). A next step could be
>contact between the W3C Product Modelling group, ISO TC184/SC4, and the TCs
>responsible for the ISO/IEC 80000 series and ISO 1000. The objective of the
>meeting would be:
>1) to discuss requirements for referencing quantities and units on the Web;
>and
>2) the assignment of URIs for quantities and units to meet these
>requirements.
>
>This area is of interest to ISO TC184/SC4. Most of the existing SC4
>standards would not use URIs assigned to quantities and units immediately,
>because the existing approach defined within ISO 10303-41 works. However,
>future SC4 standards could take advantage of this. There is also
>considerable expertise on product data on the Web within SC4 which would be
>valuable.
>
>I would be very grateful if you could advise on how to make contact with the
>TCs responsible for the ISO/IEC 80000 series and ISO 1000, in order to make
>progress on this matter.
>
>Best regards,
>David
>
>cc: Michel Bohms, chair of W3C Product Modelling XG
>    Howard Mason, chair of ISO TC184/SC4
>    David Price, co-convenor of ISO TC184/SC4 "Industrial Data on the Web"
>group

============================================================
David Leal
CAESAR Systems Limited
29 Somertrees Avenue
Lee London SE12 0BS
tel:      +44 (0)20 8857 1095
mob:      +44 (0)77 0702 6926
e-mail:   david.leal@caesarsystems.co.uk
web site: http://www.caesarsystems.co.uk
============================================================