Appearances Ontology Specification

The appearances ontology is a collection of classes, instances and properties that encode knowledge about a person apperance, sex, gender and preferences.

1. Introduction

Appearances is an ontology that grew out of the need to record personal appearance details about individuals while taking into account errors of perception and translation between various diffferent standards. Originally it was meant to record physical caracteristics of Great War soldiers from their medical files, but it became evident that the resource was also useful for other purposes.

2. About this document

This document is a human readable version of the ontology that does not document all of the data structures within the ontology. Keep in mind that when all else fails, nothing can replace the ontology source.

2.1 A note on colors

Color is complex and ambiguous thing. Most of the physical attributes reported on in this ontology do not have a consistent color. Determining color using some of the scales can require specialised hardware or reference color cards that can be expensive. Futhermore, not all of the scales used to measure hair, eye or skin color are accurante even by experts familliar with the scale. Users of this ontologies should use the terms that are most familiar with in other to avoid ambiguity.

When possible a <htmlColor> tag is used to markup an html color code that can be used for representation purposes. This is not an actual reference color.

2.2 Labels, values, terms and names

As with other Muninn ontologies, the <foaf:name> represents the name of the term in context while the <rdfs:label> represents a disambiguated name. As opposed to classical schemas, the ontology represents multiple aspects of a standard, such as an object's name, its class and the actual encoding value within a database.

    
  <EyeColorFBI rdf:about="EyeColorFBIBLU">
   <foaf:name>BLU</foaf:name>
   <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Blue</rdfs:label>
   <rdf:value>BLU</rdf:value>
  </EyeColorFBI>

Hence in the above RDF fragment, the FBI reference for blue eyes is represented. <EyeColorFBI> is the class for FBI eye colors, EyeColorFBIBLU is the instance for blue eyes, Blue is the human-readable name (<foaf:name>) of the color and BLU is the encoding used (<rdf:value>) for the instance in the database.

As opposed to a simple schema, the use of the EyeColorFBIBLU url determines not only that the person has blue eyes, but that this is according to the standards of the FBI (which does not differentiate between Blue Gray, Dark Blue or Light Blue). This is an important distinction in that the instance not only determines the color value, but the specific set of colors that the eyes are not.

2.3 Observed and self-reported values

There exists a difference between personal information that is reported by the person and observed by an outside party. Depending on the context, one may be preferable to another. The distinction between both is recorded through the use of the Observation and SelfReported classes.

2.4 A note on measurements, datatypes, units and scales

There has been some contraversy on the appropriate means of specifying units of measurements within ontologies. These have included the explicit specification of the unit as part of the property semantics, the creation of new datatypes which have additional unit semantics or the use of a special ontology that represents units of measurements. This ontology makes use of explicit, unit-specific data properties in decimal inches and meters that are sub-properties of the generic property.

3. Listing of ontology terms:

5. Ontology use cases

5. Ontology use examples

5.1 Examples

5.1.1 Simple Person

 

<foaf:Person rdf:about="">
 <foaf:name>Jane Doe 1</foaf:name>
 <appearances:hasGender rdf:resource="SimpleGender-F"/>
 <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="HairColorRCMPWhite"/>
 <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="SimpleEyeColorBrown"/>
 <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="SkinColorSimpleOlive"/>
</foaf:Person>

5.1.2 Jennie Irene Hodgers, A Union soldier of the American Civil War

    
 <foaf:Person rdf:about="">
  <foaf:name>Albert D. J. Cashier</foaf:name>
  <foaf:nick>Jennie Irene Hodgers</foaf:nick>
  <foaf:birthday rdf:datatype="Date">18431225</foaf:birthday>    
  <foaf:deathday rdf:datatype="Date">19150910</foaf:deathday>    
  <appearances:hasSex rdf:resource="SexTypingXX"/>
  <appearances:hasGender rdf:resource="SimpleGender-M"/>
  <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="SimpleGender-M"/>
  <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="White Skin"/>
  <graves:hisRemains rdf:resource="">
  <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="Albert Cashier at Wikipedia"/>  
  <mil:heldRank rdf:resource=""/>
 </foaf:Person>
 <graves:Cemetery rdf:about="">
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Sunnyslope Cemetery (Saunemin, USA)</rdfs:label>
 <graves:siteName>Sunnyslope Cemetery</graves:siteName>
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about="">
   <geo:lat>40.890012<geo:lat>4
   <geo:long>-88.411016<geo:long>
  </geo:Point>
 </graves:hasLocation>
 <gn:locatedIn rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/4910644/"/>
 
 </graves:Cemetery>

5.1.3 Cathay Williams, A Union soldier of the American Civil War

    
 <foaf:Person rdf:about="">
  <foaf:name>Cathay Williams</foaf:name>
  <foaf:birthday>
   rdf:datatype="Date">18431225</foaf:birthday>    
  </foaf:birthday>
  <foaf:deathday rdf:datatype="Year">1892</foaf:deathday>    
  <appearances:hasSex rdf:resource="SexTypingXX"/>
  <appearances:hasGender rdf:resource="SimpleGender-M"/>
  <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="SimpleGender-M"/>
  <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="Dark Skin"/>
  <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="Cathay Williams at Wikipedia"/>  
  <mil:heldRank rdf:resource=""/>
 </foaf:Person>

5.1.4 Wanda Gertz von Schliess, A Polish soldier of the Great War

    
 <foaf:Person rdf:about="">
  <foaf:name>Wanda Gertz von Schliess</foaf:name>
  <foaf:birthday>
   rdf:datatype="Date">18960413</foaf:birthday>    
  </foaf:birthday>
  <foaf:deathday rdf:datatype="Date">19581110</foaf:deathday>    
  <appearances:hasSex rdf:resource="SexTypingXX"/>
  <appearances:hasGender rdf:resource="SimpleGender-M"/>
  <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="SimpleGender-M"/>
  <appearances:hasAppearance rdf:resource="White Skin"/>
  <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="Wanda Gertz at Wikipedia"/>  
 </foaf:Person>
 <graves:Cemetery rdf:about="">
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Powązki Military Cemetery (Warsaw, Poland)</rdfs:label>
 <graves:siteName>Powązki Military Cemetery</graves:siteName>
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about="">
   <geo:lat>52.258333<geo:lat>4
   <geo:long>20.953056<geo:long>
  </geo:Point>
 </graves:hasLocation>
 <gn:locatedIn rdf:resource="756135"/>
 
 <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="Powązki Military Cemetery at Wikipedia"/>
 </graves:Cemetery>

6 Translation across standards.

Appearances:

Skin Color Standards and References

Hair Color Standards and References

Eye Color Standards and References

7. Cross-reference for Appearances classes and properties

Class: appearances:Appearance

URI: http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/appearances#Appearance

in-range-of:: appearances:hasSexualPreference; appearances:hasRomanticPreference; appearances:hasEntertaimentPreference; appearances:hasSexualAversion; appearances:hasRomanticAversion; appearances:hasEntertaimentAversion; appearances:hasAppearance

No detailed documentation for this term.

[1]	J. Brownlee and Royal Society of Edinburgh. On inheritance of hair and eye colour. In Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1911. [ bib \| http ]
[2]	J. M. Seddon, C. R. Sahagian, R. J. Glynn, R. D. Sperduto, and E. S. Gragoudas. Evaluation of an iris color classification system. the eye disorders case-control study group. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 31(8):1592-1598, August 1990. [ bib ]
[3]	William Robert Wilde. An Essay on the malformations and congenital diseases of the organs of sight. John Churchill, Princess-Street, Soho, London, 1862. [ bib \| http ]
[4]	J. Pétrequin. Sur les diverses couleurs de l'iris et leurs proportions dens nos climats. Annales D'oculistique, 10:120-125, 1843. [ bib \| http ]
[5]	W. J. B. RIDDELL. Studies in the classification of eye colour. Annals of Eugenics, 11(1):245-259, 1941. [ bib \| DOI \| http ]
[6]	J. GRIEVE and G. M. MORANT. Records of eye colours for british populations and a description of a new eye-colour scale. Annals of Eugenics, 13(1):161-171, 1946. [ bib \| DOI \| http ]
[7]	Robert R Ogle and Michelle J Fox. Atlas of human hair microscopic characteristics. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fla., 1999. [ bib \| .html ]
[8]	David A Mackey, Colleen H Wilkinson, Lisa S Kearns, and Alex W Hewitt. Classification of iris colour: review and refinement of a classification schema. Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology, 39(5):462-471, 2011. [ bib \| DOI \| http ] Keywords: albinism, eye colour classification, heterochromia, iris colour, pigmentation

Appearances Ontology Specification - 0.1

An ontology about sex, gender, skin, eye and hair colour.

Working Draft — 15 November 2012

Abstract

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. About this document

2.1 A note on colors

2.2 Labels, values, terms and names

2.3 Observed and self-reported values

2.4 A note on measurements, datatypes, units and scales

3. Listing of ontology terms:

5. Ontology use cases

5. Ontology use examples

5.1 Examples

5.1.1 Simple Person

5.1.2 Jennie Irene Hodgers, A Union soldier of the American Civil War

5.1.3 Cathay Williams, A Union soldier of the American Civil War

5.1.4 Wanda Gertz von Schliess, A Polish soldier of the Great War

6 Translation across standards.

Appearances:

Skin Color Standards and References

Hair Color Standards and References

Eye Color Standards and References

7. Cross-reference for Appearances classes and properties

Class: appearances:Appearance

Class: appearances:EthnicityUKCensusCode

Class: appearances:EthnicityUKICCode

Class: appearances:EyeColor

Class: appearances:EyeColorFBI

Class: appearances:EyeColorGrieveMorant

Class: appearances:EyeColorICCS

Class: appearances:EyeColorMartinSchultz

Class: appearances:EyeColorNebraskaDMV

Class: appearances:EyeColorPetrequin

Class: appearances:EyeColorRiddell

Class: appearances:EyeColorSimple

Class: appearances:EyeColorWilde

Class: appearances:Gender

Class: appearances:GenderSimple

Class: appearances:GenderStrict

Class: appearances:HairColor

Class: appearances:HairColorAtlas

Class: appearances:HairColorDyed

Class: appearances:HairColorFBI

Class: appearances:HairColorNatural

Class: appearances:HairColorNebraskaDMV

Class: appearances:HairColorRCMP

Class: appearances:KinseyScale

Class: appearances:Nationality

Class: appearances:Observation

Class: appearances:Person

Class: appearances:Race

Class: appearances:Religion

Class: appearances:RiddellColor

Class: appearances:SelfReported

Class: appearances:Sex

Class: appearances:SexISO5218

Class: appearances:SexTyping

Class: appearances:SkinColor

Class: appearances:SkinColorFitzpatrickType

Class: appearances:SkinColorSimple

Class: appearances:SkinColorVonLuschan

Class: appearances:macroEthnicity

Property: appearances:hasAppearance

Property: appearances:hasArmMeasurement

Property: appearances:hasArmMeasurementInches

Property: appearances:hasArmMeasurementMeters

Property: appearances:hasBandMeasurement

Property: appearances:hasBandMeasurementInches

Property: appearances:hasBandMeasurementMeters

Property: appearances:hasBodyMeasurement

Property: appearances:hasChestMeasurement

Property: appearances:hasChestMeasurementInches

Property: appearances:hasChestMeasurementMeters

Property: appearances:hasEntertaimentAversion

Property: appearances:hasEntertaimentPreference

Property: appearances:hasGender

Property: appearances:hasHeightMeasurement

Property: appearances:hasHeightMeasurementInches