GAZ Project

From Genomic Standards Consortium

Homepage for the GAZ ontology project

[edit] GAZ Sites

• GAZ Sourceforge site
• Gazetteer Tracker
• GAZ-Working Plan]

[edit] Related Sites

• EnvO Project
• The Open Biomedical Ontologies

[edit] Data Links

• CIA World Fact Book
• A WHO site (that requires free registration) of 1st and 2nd order administrative divisions of countries.
• Statoids: Administrative Divisions of Countries
• United States Counties
• Wikipedia Table of Administrative Divisions
• Enclaves & exclaves
• Wikipedia Transcontinental nations
• Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names
• Internet geographical names from S. Africa
• Geographical names from NGA
• Geonames (USA) from USGS
• Geographical names from UK
• Geographical names from Arizona State University
• World Database of Protected Area, e.g. National Parks
• UNEP ISLANDS Web Site
• Coral Reefs Database
• Lakes database
• ISO-3166
• Mines database
• Oceans & Seas
• Mountains & mountain ranges
• NODC Sea Names search
• Seamounts
• Seamounts
• Vocanoes
• Caves
• Antarctic names from UK
• Antarctic names from USGS
• Australian Antarctic Names
• UTexas Map Collection

[edit] Contacts

• Michael Ashburner: ma11@gen.cam.ac.uk
• Lynn Schriml: lynn.schriml@gmail.com

[edit] Curation Rules

1. Definitions.

 Definitions should be of the form "A X in Y", e.g. "A lake in Ontario . . . ". 

2. Lengths will be recorded metric measurements or will be converted to their metric equivalents. We will use the following abbreviations 100 km, 1000 m, 2000 km2, 3000 m2, 100m3 etc.

3. Synonyms: Add a synonym type string after the synonym name, enclosing it in curlies {}. So far these are used:

   * {language: }
   * {former name}                 - may be followed by a date or date range,
                                     e.g. {former name: <1975} or {former 
                                     name: 1705-1975}, a colon separator being
                                     used.
   * {colloquial name}
   * {alternative name}            - this will be deleted when we have checked all synonyms.
   * {spelling variant}            - including transliteration variants and word order variants.
   * {formal name}                 - usually only used for nation states.
   * {abbreviation}
   * {lapsus}                      - used for clear spelling errors.
                                     The source of the misspelled word can follow 'lapsus',
                                     e.g. {lapsus: GenBank:AE1234567}.

For {language: } add the language, i.e. "synonym_term {language: Welsh}. A term that is transliterated from a language is considered to be in that language.

4. In terms do not use abbreviations, i.e. "Saint", not "St." or "St", "Mount", not "Mt." It is good to add the abbreviated form as a synonym, as a {abbreviation}.

5. As a general rule capitalize terms such as 'River', 'Lake', 'Mountain'. i.e. 'Ohio River', not 'Ohio river'.

6. Word order. In English, at least, word order for features can vary, i.e. Lake Omo, vs. Omo Lake. Try and add the inverse order to that used in the term as a synonym {spelling variant}.

7. Disambiguation. Places are not generally disambiguated, ie. we do _not_ use Cambridge, MA vs. Cambridge, England. The reason is that a term's parent supplies the context unambiguously. Exceptions are made where two terms are identical _and_ are sibling terms.

8. Dates: Date format is yyyy-mm-dd. For entities that are no longer extant, e.g. the USSR, add "begin_date: yyyy-mm-dd" and "end_date: yyyy-mm-dd" lines in Comments.

[edit] Presentations

• EnvO/Gaz ISMB v1 poster: posted 6/25/2008