General structure of FrNonMetricTraits - RDFBones/FrNonMetricTraits GitHub Wiki

Recording non-metric traits on human skulls is regarded as an investigation in the framework of RDFBones because the actions are carried out to obtain a clearly defined output, i. e. presence data of non-metric traits. Each instance of Investigation.FrNonMetricTraits corresponds to the examination of a single human skull. If a research project aims at documenting the non-metric traits observed on n skulls, the project comprises n investigations.

Each investigation has four sub-processes:

• Investigation planning
• Investigation execution (known as study design execution)
• Drawing a conclusion
• Documenting

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Investigation planning

A FrNonMetricTraits investigation always starts with the planning phase. In this phase, researchers agree to carry out a FrNonMetricTraits investigation on a human skull. They specify why this skull should be examined, which non-metric traits are assessed and so on. For further information see investigation planning.

Investigation execution

In the next step, the research plan is executed. First, the relevant skeletal material, i.e. a human skull, is screened to check which non-metric traits could be observed. Afterwards, the assays are carried out on the selected material. For further information see study design execution.

Drawing a conclusion

Most investigations end with a conclusion which gives an answer to the formulated research question or refers to the tested hypothesis. But in case of FrNonMetricTraits, there is no testable hypothesis and therefore no conclusion. A FrNonMetricTraits investigation is carried out just to document non-metric traits. Using these data sets for ancestry estimation, for instance, requires another extension. However, there is a class Conclusion.FrNonMetricTraits since the RDFBones software assumes that every investigation has its conclusion. In this way, the GUI (graphical user interface) of the software can adapt generically to each extension. Thus, Conclusion.FrNonMetricTraits is just a dummy-class (see conclusion for a network graph).

Documenting

The documenting class relates an investigation to published articles or to books or scientific reports about this investigation. For these documents, an instance of one of the subclasses of bibo:document is created which is then referenced by the object property isMentioned. See documents for further information.