Request for Modification (RFM) for the UCD vocabulary towards UCDList v1.6

This page summarises the steps for Modifications and Updates proposed in the UCD List Maintenance recommendation. The UCDListMaintenancePage summarises the past and current RFMs.

The third (on going) iteration for the Request for modifications of UCD terms is summarized in the following content.

These terms are submitted for evaluation to the UCD science committee (see details in the Maintenance Specification document).

UCDList v1.6 Request For Modifications, from Jan 2024 to now

Proposed RFMs

Still in discussion from RFM 1.5

• Proposed term: pos.moc
• Proposed description: Multi-order coverage
• Prefix: S
• Rationale: This term is used to tag a parameter containing a MOC (of any type, e.g, temporal, spatial, both, or any future MOC types)
• Used-in: EPNcore-2.0
• Discussion:The closest term available is pos.contour, but it doesn't seem adequate for multi-order coverage.

• a VOTable field is tagged with "pos.moc", in this case, the xtype attribute must be present to tell what is the encoding of the MOC
• "pos.moc" is in the EpnCore "measurement_type", to advertise the content of the product. Could be used with "dataproduct_type", to tell which axes are in the MOC (e.g., 'im' for classical MOC, 'mo' for STMOC, 'ts' for TMOC...)
• A VOTable field with URLs pointing to MOC products. The UCD would be "meta.ref.url;pos.moc"

• Proposed term: pos.projection
• Proposed description: Geometric projection
• Prefix: S
• Rationale: This term is used to tag a parameter containing the projection in use, or to identified parameters that have been projected onto a map (map projected products).
• Used-in: EPNcore-2.0
• Discussion: The current UCD List contains `pos.lambert` which is a specific projection type, which can't cover all the needs for geometric projection tagging.

Sci-UCD Discussion: during EPN-TAP RFC review, MarkTaylor proposed to have Q prefixes for both pos.moc and pos.projection.

• Proposed term: time.period.oscillation
• Proposed description: Period of pulsation of a body (similar to solar pulsations or oscillations)
• Prefix: Q
• Rationale: This term is used to measure periods in oscillating phenomena.
• Used-in: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/487/3/3523/5512602
• Discussion: This term was proposed actually by Ada Nebot to consider oscillating phenomena on sky objects and cover possible time measurements used in these studies. This is a first term proposal for addition concerning oscillating stars, etc ...

BC [2023-06-22]: no objection, but ML to discuss again with Ada.

• Proposed term: stat.histogram
• Proposed description: An array-like object with counts or ratios in bins
• Prefix: P
• Rationale:
• Used-in:

BC [2023-06-22]: what about using `stat.distribution` which would be more generic (with possible child `stat.distribution.cumulative` or `stat.distribution.histogram`) ?

BC [2024-03-21]: pending , needs more discussion

Proposed RFMs - suggestions for datasets issued in the science domain of gravitational waves

• Proposed term: stat.confidenceLevel

• Prefix: P
• Rationale: GW studies produce maps of the sky with regions showing detection likelihood at particular confidence level . Such a confidence level can be a selection criteria for a map, or a dataset in general.
• Used-in: Gravitational waves catalogs
• Discussion:

• Action: Addition

• Prefix: P

• Action: Modification
• Prefix: Q

• Proposed term: phys.inspiralSpin

• Prefix: Q

• Used-in: LIGO Virgo Gravitational waves detection
• Discussion:
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravitational_wave_observations#List_of_gravitational_wave_events

• Proposed description: Related to false alarm or false positive detection
• Prefix: Q
• Description: Used to evaluate the rate of false alarm in detection problems.
• Rationale:Needed for support of catalogs of events detection in various multi- messenger data collections.
• Used-in: Gravitational waves detection (LIGO, Virgo) and in event detections more generally.
• Discussion:
  • Dataset examples:
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravitational_wave_observations#List_of_gravitational_wave_events
    • Vizier catalogs on GW

BC [2024-03-21]:Proposed solution: Accept

• Proposed description: Related to missed or false negative detection
• Prefix: Q
• Description: Used to evaluate the rate of missed or false negative detection.
• Rationale:Needed for support of catalogs of events detection in various multi- messenger data collections.
• Used-in: Gravitational waves detection (LIGO, Virgo) and in event detections more generally.
• Discussion:
  • Dataset examples:
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravitational_wave_observations#List_of_gravitational_wave_events

• Proposed term: phys.adu

• Prefix: P
• Description: The raw data samples, often referred to as analog-to-digital-units (ADU). They are not converted yet into physical units. In other words, the transfer function of the instrument has not been applied.
• Rationale: This term would be useful to refer to raw data. This term was mentionned during the preparation of the ObsCore for Radioastronomy extension. The first atom word ('phys.') could be something else (like 'meta.').

• • Dataset examples:
    • cassini_rpws.epn_core table (on voparis-tap-maser TAP server), containing raw, calibrated and derived products.
• Discussion [2024-03-21]
  • in the ObsCore Radio extension (as of this date): "In the current UCD vocabulary (UCD1+ controlled vocabulary - Updated List of Terms Version 1.5) there appear to be no primary words suitable to describe raw SD data. o_ucd=phot.flux.density, which fits well for appropriate data, does not seem appropriate, since the single dish measured quantity is expressed in raw counts coming from the digitisation of a voltage signal generated in the receiver chain by the incoming electromagnetic field. Further discussion on o_ucd is ongoing within the Semantics WG."
  • A proposal could be to use the secondary word "stat.uncalib" to indicate the "raw" status of the quantity, but a primary UCD word must be used, such as "phot.count", or "phys.current" (or "phys.voltage" which doesn't exist yet)
  • Conceptually the "stat.adu" is referring to the output of an analogue-to-digital sampler.
  • If we add "phys.voltage", a solution would be phys.voltage;stat.uncalib

• • New term: phys.voltage
  • Prefix: Q
  • Description: Electric potential difference over a distance or measured by an instrument.

• Proposed term: phys.pulseHeight or phys.pulse.amplitude

• Prefix: Q
• Description: In event-list data product obtained in X-ray or Gamma-ray, the need to characterise the raw measure provided by the detector has appeared. A similar requirement was formulated for radio data as well.

• • [2024-03-21] Existing UCD for pulse: "src.var.pulse" and for amplitude: "src.var.amplitude" (but with E prefix, which should be changed Q to have this word applied to any other primary word)

• • proposed solution: * "src.var.amplitude;src.var.pulse;stat.uncalib"

• Proposed term: obs.atmos.humidity
• Proposed description:
• Prefix: S
• Rationale: Ambient conditions measure various physical parameters at telescope site to monitor turbulence, seeing, etc.
• Used-in: ESO FITS keywords for observations at Paranal , etc .

Proposals from J. Berthier , IMCCE, Paris Observatory

Summary for iteration UCDList1.5 to UCDList1.6

UCD proposal applied as changes for UCDList1.6

UCD proposals rejected and solved

UCD proposals not solved yet --> for next step