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  • From: Bear Kaufmann <bear@ursine-design.com>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [pcplantdb] THINKING OUTLOUD: Attributes & Relationships
  • Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:48:18 -0800

CHEM
From the roots comes a yellow dye (5,9,22,27,44,63,82).
Hydrastis canadensis contains the three alkaloids hydrastine,
berberine (40) and canadine (1,31,58,82,84).
Berberine has been shown to have antibiotic activity (40).
COMR
Roots are easily sold to some drug companies (37).
The commercial product Murine contains hydrastine hydrochloride
and berberine hydrochloride (82).
PERS
I have ingested one tablespoon of powdered root for the flu
two days in a row.
The taste was very bitter and quite unpalatable, never the less
my health improved within two days.

Hi all,

I'm wondering if there's a schema that might be a bit more flexible in terms of the information it contains...and want can be added (easily)..
Basically, table with the fields...:
PlantID, Attribute_Name, Attribute_String, Attribute_Integer, Attribute_Blob, [Source, Rank, User, DateStamp, Context/Locale, Section ]...

Attribute_Name is not highly limited, perhaps something like tags, they emerge from user inputs, and our suggestions...(might be too loose a system, I should think about it more)...There are fields to accept the value, perhaps when a user adds a value, they choose the data type from a drop down, and it goes into that field. The values, like comments, can be ranked, and perhaps culled from the DB if low rank...

This would seem to allow for a very flexible schema, without editing tables...though issues around having a set definition of the term, etc might be an issue. Going a non-tag route, we can just provide the list of terms, and provide the definition of them for people to follow...

Also, regarding relationships...take a look at Page 63 of the Designers Manual...it seems like we might want to include a system like that...
A --> B, A (benefits, neutral, harmed), B (benefits, neutral, harmed)... in real life there is a spectrum of levels, so a 10 point -5 to +5 system might be better...

A few cents, take or leave...
I'll be out of town for a few days...

Cheers,
Bear





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