Analyte role is currently defined to inhere is molecular entity or atom. What about cells, virii for which concentration, count, titer or fraction is measured. In those cases it would seem e.g. the cell is analyte and the blood evaluant.
Discussed on the OBI developer call 2016-02-22. The developers on the call agreed that "analyte" usually refers to chemicals (see, for example, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analyte), and is not general to any thing for which "concentration, count, titer or fraction is measured". We don't want to change the definition of "analyte role".
However there might be room for a parent term for "analyte role" that would apply to cells and viruses. In the standard glucose measurment example, it's useful to distinguish the analyte role that inheres in the glucose molecules from the evaluant role that inheres in the blood sample (of which the glucose molecules are a part). See https://github.com/jamesaoverton/obi-experiment/blob/master/glucose.jpg
On the call we brainstormed names for such a parent role. Chris suggests "the entity being measured". I (James) am worried about making such a new role sufficiently distinct from "evaluant role" and "participant under investigation role".
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Look like there's a word: "Measurand", so "Measurand role"? Target is also used, but it is used in many more contexts so would be easy to get wrong. Note this article allows analyte to be a cell.
Because of the importance of blood tests, it might be worth adding something along the lines of blood measurand role (or pick a better name).
From Wikipedia:
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence or amount or the functional activity of a target entity (the analyte). The analyte can be a drug or biochemical substance or a cell in an organism or organic sample.[1][2] The measured entity is generally called the analyte, or the measurand or the target of the assay. The assay usually aims to measure an intensive property of the analyte and express it in the relevant measurement unit (e.g. molarity, density, functional activity in enzyme international units, degree of some effect in comparison to a standard, etc.).
I kind of like "measurand". It's suitably ugly, so I think people will be more likely to use it carefully.
But those two linked sources differ on whether the measurand is a property/quality (dependent continuant) or material entity (independent continuant). I think that the former would allow for a stronger distinction with evaluant. On the call Gully raised this question of measuring properties of things vs measuring the things themselves, and I think he's also in favour of the properties approach.
On the other hand, our community of ontologies is much better with material entities than dependent continuants (in my opinion), perhaps because individuation conditions are usually easier for material entities.
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Can't be the property because roles inhere in material entities and because it isnt broad enough - sometimes the measure is the count of the measurand. I dont think this poses a problem for measuring qualities - information about a quality of x is information about x, and there is adequate mechanism to distinguish the cases without needing it specified in the def of measurand. Note that in the case of analyte assays sometimes you are measuring the material but sometimes a relational quality such as concentration.
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On the call: Support for creating the measurand role. We should evaluate the broader impact, in the context of measuring concentrations etc. as part of the assay re-evaluation exercise. Jie will update this tracker item
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Discussed on the OBI developer call 2016-02-22. The developers on the call agreed that "analyte" usually refers to chemicals (see, for example, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analyte), and is not general to any thing for which "concentration, count, titer or fraction is measured". We don't want to change the definition of "analyte role".
However there might be room for a parent term for "analyte role" that would apply to cells and viruses. In the standard glucose measurment example, it's useful to distinguish the analyte role that inheres in the glucose molecules from the evaluant role that inheres in the blood sample (of which the glucose molecules are a part). See https://github.com/jamesaoverton/obi-experiment/blob/master/glucose.jpg
On the call we brainstormed names for such a parent role. Chris suggests "the entity being measured". I (James) am worried about making such a new role sufficiently distinct from "evaluant role" and "participant under investigation role".
Look like there's a word: "Measurand", so "Measurand role"? Target is also used, but it is used in many more contexts so would be easy to get wrong. Note this article allows analyte to be a cell.
Because of the importance of blood tests, it might be worth adding something along the lines of blood measurand role (or pick a better name).
From Wikipedia:
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence or amount or the functional activity of a target entity (the analyte). The analyte can be a drug or biochemical substance or a cell in an organism or organic sample.[1][2] The measured entity is generally called the analyte, or the measurand or the target of the assay. The assay usually aims to measure an intensive property of the analyte and express it in the relevant measurement unit (e.g. molarity, density, functional activity in enzyme international units, degree of some effect in comparison to a standard, etc.).
See also:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/measurand
https://sisu.ut.ee/measurement/51-measurand-definition
"the thing being measured" is ambiguous - could be the evaluant, could be the material part, could be some property of that part
I kind of like "measurand". It's suitably ugly, so I think people will be more likely to use it carefully.
But those two linked sources differ on whether the measurand is a property/quality (dependent continuant) or material entity (independent continuant). I think that the former would allow for a stronger distinction with evaluant. On the call Gully raised this question of measuring properties of things vs measuring the things themselves, and I think he's also in favour of the properties approach.
On the other hand, our community of ontologies is much better with material entities than dependent continuants (in my opinion), perhaps because individuation conditions are usually easier for material entities.
Can't be the property because roles inhere in material entities and because it isnt broad enough - sometimes the measure is the count of the measurand. I dont think this poses a problem for measuring qualities - information about a quality of x is information about x, and there is adequate mechanism to distinguish the cases without needing it specified in the def of measurand. Note that in the case of analyte assays sometimes you are measuring the material but sometimes a relational quality such as concentration.
On the call: Support for creating the measurand role. We should evaluate the broader impact, in the context of measuring concentrations etc. as part of the assay re-evaluation exercise. Jie will update this tracker item
The discussion of assay harmonization also discussed analyte role:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kdagAOA9yCuSeyQqpUWXVARXuagjyBXSlG6NRwp9nJ0/edit#
See also #675 (now closed) but about scattered molecular aggregate.