measure

Measure microformat

Currently this microformat is in exploratory stage. Contributions should focus on real examples from the Web, existing formats/encoding of measures.

The problem

Measures (e.g. weights, sizes, temperatures) occur frequently on the Web, they are constituted of a value a unit-measure and, in scientific and technical contexts, an experimental uncertainty. These 3 elements should be marked-up consistently across websites so that they can be easily identified, and acted upon (export, compute, convert) in collaborative distributed applications.

Unit-measures differ from locale to locale (e.g. Fahrenheit vs. Celsius, pound versus Kilogram), making comparison and matching of offerings difficult.

The Measurement microformat will enable unambiguous description of physical quantities and thus provide a solid ground for data sharing and automation in many areas.

Preliminary, tentative Schema

• root element; i.e. microformat name -required
  • Physical Quantity at stake -required, optionally better defined with a rel-tag attribute
  • Measured Value -required
  • Observational Error -optional
  • Unit Measure; SI or Derived SI units -required
  • Order of Magnitude -optional, provides standardized output for values (exponential notation)

Related microformats

• hcalendar can provide a complete quantitative description of a natural event (for example an earthquake) occurring at a specified time (dtstart/dtend) and location (embedded geo), by just embedding measured physical quantities in the 'descrition' span.
• job-listing can use time measure for specify per what period of time the salary is for.
• hlisting product dimensions; weight/mass; time period (as above).
• directions-examples can use length measure for mileage and time to go from one point to the next.
• recipe-examples can use weight, volume and time measure for ingredients and preparation time.
• currency can be viewed as a measurement unit, or as a component of a measurement unit, as in $ per hour.

Contributors

• Guillaume Lebleu
• Andy Mabbett
• Luca Postpischl
• Manu Sporny

References

• Measurement in scientific/technical contexts (Wikipedia)
• Scientific notation for Physical quantities (Wikipedia)
• International System of Units (SI)
  • (Wikipedia)
• the Semantic ChemicalWeb (GoogleEng presentation, Peter Murray-Rust)
• the New e-Science (SlideShare, David De Roure)
• Wikipedia's "convert" template

See also

• measure
• measure-formats
• measure-examples
• measure-brainstorming
• currency