QUDT Release v2.1.39

Apologies! Release v2.1.39 was published before I hit 'git push' on the updated schema and vocabulary files, so they still contained the earlier release number in the metadata. This is the re-release of v2.1.39 with the correct metadata.

Updates include:

• Added quantitykind:StrainEnergyReleaseRate supporting mechanical fracture (thanks @mgberg)
• @berrisfordjohn was very productive rooting out errors this month. Thanks for all your efforts @berrisfordjohn!
  • unit labels
  • the descriptions distinguishing GibiBIT-related and GigaBIT-related units
  • ampere per square second distinct from ampere squared per second
  • replacing some non-ascii hyphens with ascii hyphens
  • correcting the quantity kinds and language tags for unit:GM-PER-CentiM-BAR and unit:GM-PER-MilliM-BAR
  • removing erroneous plurals from several labels
  • correcting a number of incorrect symbols
• Prompted by @glow-mdsol, we now have a systematic approach for handling "equivalent chemistry" units, still found in biochemistry. The key is not to define new units, but rather new quantity kinds. This is discussed here.
• We cleaned up the skos:broader hierarchy for SpecificEnergy so that relevant values of applicableUnits are generated by our algorithm.

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the coverage and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.38

Continued growth this month.

Updates include:

• Tweaked the LaTeX descriptions of some units
• Added qudt:exactMatch for units that share the same UCUM code
• Split the SHACL validation rules into two sets:
  1. Rules to ensure the consistency of the QUDT graphs
  2. Rules to ensure the correct use of QUDT by users
     As described in the README here, users are able to easily skip running the consistency checks and just validate proper use of QUDT. This greatly speeds up validation.
• Added the quantity kind CO2Equivalent (inspired by @glow-mdsol )
• Fixed an erroneous reference to udUnitsCode for PINT_US-PER-DAY (thanks @glow-mdsol )
• Added a handful of new units (thanks @mgberg)
• Added unit:TeraW-HR-PER-YR (thanks @JurekMueller)
• Added units to publish the flow of pollution caused by factories on a yearly base, as required by EU-laws (thanks @gezever)
• Updated the qudt:symbol values to reflect some commonly used symbols (such as "a" for year (annum)). (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Added units supporting the Swiss National Forest Inventory (thanks @ahles)

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the coverage and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.37

This month's updates include two global updates:

1. All numeric values are now stored as both xsd:decimal numbers of "infinite" precision, and as scientific notation numbers for ease of reading by humans. The scientific notation numbers are interpreted as xsd:float by many languages, that have a limited precision (typically no more than 16 digits). The scientific notation values are found using relation names with "SN" at the end, such as qudt:conversionMultiplierSN and qudt:valueSN. Thanks to @fkleedorfer for his generation and validation routines supporting this.
2. All LaTex strings now use a new delimiter, "$" instead of "\\(" and "\\)". This is to support some new internal tooling for generating the QUDT web pages at https://qudt.org.

Other updates include:

• Added more Units to the vocabulary (who knew what a BREWSTER is?) (thanks @fkleedorfer and @mgberg)
• Added placeholder references from QuantityKinds that lacked links to dimension vectors, using qkdv:NotApplicable. This is so that the SHACL validation doesn't raise flags, not to imply that none of them need dimension vector references eventually.
• Speaking of placeholders, thanks to @mgberg many Units that had been pointing to quantitykind:Unknown are now pointing to actual QuantityKinds.
• Cleaned out some ill-formed dimension vectors that had somehow found their way into the vocabulary.
• More corrections to some of the numerical values, thanks to new validation routines written by @fkleedorfer. (Thanks!)
• Mappings are provided using qudt:siExactMatch to the newly announced SI Digital Framework, for those entities that have been defined so far. Thanks to @dr-shorthair for populating the links.
• Fixed some qudt:symbol values (thanks @mgberg)
• Added some UCUM code aliases to show denominator units as "/<some unit>" as well as "<some unit>-1". An example is "A.h.kg-1" and "A.h/kg".

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the coverage and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.36

This month's updates include:

• Added values for the qudt:iec61360Code relation to provide references to the full catalog of IEC units and quantities (corresponding to QUDT Units and QuantityKinds). This resulted in a significant increase in the number of QUDT Units, QuantityKinds, and DimensionVectors.
• Validated and healed errors in conversionMultipliers, references to DimensionVectors and QuantityKinds for the new Units and QuantityKinds (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Added AttoSEC and FemtoSEC (thanks @sgarrettroe)
• Fixed the formatting of some conversionMultipliers (thanks @stuchalk)
• Added a variety of new Units and QuantityKinds, fixed language tags and descriptions (thanks @mgberg)
• Updated URI names containing decimal numbers to use "dot". Examples include DimensionVectors with square root exponents used in non-SI systems.

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the coverage and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.35

An appeal to the QUDT community

Help us maintain and grow QUDT.org, a vital resource for standards in units of measure and data interoperability. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we rely on donations to cover our monthly operational costs. Every contribution, big or small, makes a difference and is tax-deductible in the USA.

Donate Today and support our mission.

Why Your Support Matters:

• We're a 501(c)(3) public charity nonprofit dedicated to providing semantic specifications for units of measure, quantity kinds, dimensions, and data types. Our work is crucial for enhancing data interoperability and specification of information structures.
• Operational Costs: It costs approximately $100 per month to keep our services and web pages active.
• Entirely Volunteer-Driven: While our passionate volunteers drive QUDT, operational expenses are a reality.
• Tax Benefits: As a 501(c)(3) organization, your donation to QUDT.org is tax-deductible in the USA.

Make an Impact with Your Donation

Your contribution, no matter the size, is vital. It ensures the continued availability and growth of the QUDT ontologies, an invaluable resource for the community.

Ready to Contribute?

Please consider making a donation today and help us keep moving forward.

Thank you,
The QUDT Team

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This month's updates include:

• Added clarifying information in the README file about importing QUDT into other ontology libraries with some tools (notably Protégé). See Issue #842. (thanks @vChavezB)
• Fixed some errors in unit:MHO (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Much like last month, a bunch of either missing or erroneous conversion multipliers were detected and fixed by @fkleedorfer using some new Java routines developed in his qudtlib Java repository.
• Added unit:R_man (Roentgen equivalent man) (thanks @fkleedorfer)

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the size and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.34

Attention Protege Users

We have tweaked the OWL schema such that it loads without error in Protege 5.5.0. It is as simple as using "load from URI" and typing http://qudt.org/2.1/vocab/unit. Many thanks are due to @MilosDrobnjakovic for sleuthing through the Protege errors to diagnose the issues. (This was actually in the 2.1.33 Release, but the email announcement got out without mentioning it). The Readme file has been updated to reflect this.

qudtlib-java

A huge thank-you is due to @fkleedorfer who, using his excellent qudtlib Java repository, created a routine to detect and repair errors in the references to dimension vectors. He found 36 such cases.

Other updates include:

• Removed some skos:broader relations from unit pairs that are declared as qudt:exactMatch (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Migrated all our SHACL validation tests to collections/COLLECTION_QUDT_QA_TESTS_ALL-v2.1.ttl (http://qudt.org/2.1/collection/qa/all)
• Added quantitykind:Unknown and dimension vector qkdv:NotApplicable for cases where either the qk value has not been researched, or a dimension vector value doesn't make sense.
• Fixed some invalid HTML strings (thanks to @gtfierro)
• Fixed some invalid Latex rendering
• Added some units for the construction domain (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Added a bunch of missing UCUM codes (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Deprecated unit:MicroG-PER-CentiM2 in favor of unit:MicroGM-PER-CentiM2 (thanks @fkleedorfer)
• Added some units supporting measurement of pollution levels as required by EU law (thanks @gezever): unit:TONNE-PER-YR, unit:KiloTONNE-PER-YR, unit:KiloGM-PER-YR

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the size and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.33

Attention Protege Users

We have at last tweaked the OWL schema such that it loads without error in Protege 5.5.0. It is as simple as using "load from URI" and typing http://qudt.org/2.1/vocab/unit. Many thanks are due to @MilosDrobnjakovic for sleuthing through the Protege errors to diagnose the issues)

Other updates include:

• Fixed some alternate labels (thanks @Zack-83)
• Updates to some of the symbols and labels (thanks @mgberg)
• Made the Prefixes graph visible to the SystemOfUnits graph
• Tightened up some of the SHACL constraints
• More new units (thanks @fennibay and @mgberg

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the size and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.32

Three global updates:

• Added a "closed world constraint" SHACL validation to ensure that all vocabulary instances only use QUDT properties defined for their class. This has a positive impact even on those using the OWL schema since it resulted in cleaning up both OWL and SHACL schemas.
• We decided to return to using scientific notation, but only for very large (>10^5) and very small (<10^-5) values. While this issue has come up before, we currently believe the ability to express numbers without many zeroes outweighs the small errors (typically in the 4th decimal place or smaller) introduced in calculations. Users should be aware, of course, that critical applications should always look to authoritative sources for numbers such as conversion factors and constant values, such as ISO or NIST.
• Introduced three new concepts: unit:UNKNOWN, quantitykind:Unknown and qkdv:NotApplicable. It became apparent that these "unknown placeholders" are needed by applications that need to have an entry in a field but either it is not yet known, or it is an abstract concept that has multiple possible correct values. This way, for example, it becomes possible to enforce the constraint that every qudt:Unit has an associated Quantity Kind, even though sometimes there is no named quantity kind in existence (or at least known to our community).

Other updates include:

• Many tweaks to the OWL schema to enable smooth loading of the ontology/vocabulary set into Protege (almost done) (thanks @MilosDrobnjakovic). Once this is complete, we will publish notes in the wiki on what steps to take to load Protege.
• Fixes to the value and uncertainty for ElectronGFactor (thanks @mgberg).
• New quantity kind, SpecificSurfaceArea and supporting units (thanks @mgberg).
• More units linking to ShearModulus (thanks @mgberg).
• Removed the erroneous quantity kind "Refectance" and merged its properties into "Reflectance"; added more associated units (thanks @mgberg).
• Fixed the symbol for Angstrom (thanks @dr-shorthair).
• Added a variety of units related to IU (International Unit) and KAT (Katal) (thanks @jimkont).

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the size and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.31

We have retired the use of owl:sameAs to reduce churning of OWL reasoners. All such equivalencies are now represented by qudt:exactMatch.

Other updates include:

• Some new units and quantity kinds supporting chemistry, such as KAT-PER-L. (Thanks @glow-mdsol)
• Fixed our rounding error value for the DEG_F conversion offset (Thanks @matiascognite)
• Fixed a variety of errors with labels, skos relations among some quantity kinds, plus some new quantity kinds (HydraulicPermeability, SpecificPower, ChemicalConsumptionPerMass... (Thanks @mgberg)

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the size and capabilities of QUDT!

QUDT Release 2.1.30

Announcing a new expansion of our URI naming rules, inspired by @rami-alloush in Discussion #735. Specifically, he needs a new unit for thousands of cubic feet. The problem is that according to our prior rules, unit:KiloFT3 is interpreted as (KiloFT) raised to the power 3 - i.e. a cube 1 thousand feet on a side, which is 10**9 cubic feet, not the 10**3 cubic feet that is desired. This existing interpretation is described in our wiki here under Rule 6. To meet the newly identified need, we now also support the interpretation of unit:Kilo-FT3 to mean that the exponent is applied before the prefix Kilo. This expanded use of the hyphen is explicitly documented in the updated Rule 6 in the wiki. unit:Kilo-FT3 is the first unit to be included in our units vocabulary using this additional interpretation (thanks @rami-alloush).

Other updates include:

• Ensured dcterms:description always has a value, even if it is just a copy of qudt:plaintextdescription, because the HTML pages for individual concepts use that field in their generation.
• Cleaned up other formatting details such as typing non-Latex strings as rdf:HTML
• Refactored quantitykind:Viscosity so that it is no longer an ambiguous skos:broader version of quantitykind:DynamicViscosity, quantitykind:KinematicViscosity and quantitykind:MolecularViscosity. That approach was just confusing people. Instead, quantitykind:Viscosity is defined to mean the commonly interpreted meaning of quantitykind:DynamicViscosity, and has a qudt:exactMatch relation to that URI.
• Added the 2022 BIPM updated prefix definitions (Quecto, Quetta, Ronna, Ronto), thanks to @DocMT.
• Fixed some typo errors and omissions (thanks @glow-mdsol, @connorjcantrell)
• Added some new energy and power units (thanks @connorjcantrell)
• Explicitly declared qudt:exactMatch relations between commonly used (but ambiguous) units and their explicit versions. Examples include unit:OZ, which is commonly used to mean unit:OZ_M (i.e. mass), but of course there is also unit:OZ_F (force) and unit:OZ_VOL (volume, in both US and UK variants). This will allow for automated disambiguation, rather than having to read the description, when using the "ambiguous" form.

And as always, a big thank-you to all of you for bringing many of these issues to our attention, and even better, for providing submissions to extend the size and capabilities of QUDT!