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pcdb - [pcdb] D'Aoust's case for robust flexible relationships

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Subject: Permaculture Database

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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: pcdb <pcdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [pcdb] D'Aoust's case for robust flexible relationships
  • Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:41:18 -0700


or something of that sort, and then fill the 'attribute' table with
'nitrogen' or 'full sun' or what have you. (I can see huge problems with
my example, like the fact that there's no way to specify the exact
amount of water something needs, but I'm just using it as an example of
simplicity and abstraction being able to create very complex and
flexible interactions.)

How about PRECISE but FLEXIBLE

Because we cannot define exactly how much water something needs we divide all things into groups based on how they act in relation to water. Taxonomies again

water relations - (inundation tolerance, drought tolerance, yield impact)

saturation tolerance (intolerant of saturation, tolerates dormant saturation, tolerates short growing season saturation, tolerates permanent saturation) (might include a note on adaptation type -- aerenchyma etc..)
drought tolerance (intolerant of drought, tolerates some drought, tolerates severe drought)
yield impact (yield minimally affected by drought, yield strongly affected by drought, yield prevented by drought).

Drought tolerance and inundation tolerance are two different sets of adaptations, and so should not be considered in the same taxonomy.

If these attributes become an endless set of duplicative and overlapping classes THEN we are in real trouble.

The trick is normalizing the data so that you don't have a muddy taxonomy, and every object fits into (or at minimum straddles) a class boundary. Different people from different places are going to have different labels, but trends will occur, and the data can be analyzed (80% of people from temperate conifer forest that were not in bottom land said their apple tree yield was strongly affected by drought, while bottom land dwellers said their trees were minimall affected by drought... but not so for those poor drought stricken aussies :)




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