Re: genomic locus

> On Dec 18, 2017, at 5:00 AM, PostgreSQL - Hans-Jürgen Schönig <postgres(at)cybertec(dot)at> wrote:
>
> maybe this one is also helpful: https://wiki.postgresql.org/images/1/1b/Postbis_pgcon_eu_2012.pdf <https://wiki.postgresql.org/images/1/1b/Postbis_pgcon_eu_2012.pdf>
> it seems they have put a lot of work into that.

Yes, that is a curious piece of code and I will give it a test, although it is not related to the problem at hand. It is about representing sequences, while I am struggling to create a convenient representation of loci.

I liked the slide show you linked. It touched on a pertinent subject (although again, not related to loci). Just last week, I attempted to help a relative who works on a microbiome project to sort through the guidelines about the encoding of altitude, elevation, and depth thought up by somebody at EBI without much regard for their usability. We haven’t had much success in sorting that out because the guidelines were obviously written for other people to follow; their practical application resulted in total confusion.

For example, is this definition redundant or contradictory:

"The altitude of the sample is the vertical distance between Earth's surface above sea level and the sampled position in the air”

Is that AGL or AMSL? Why not use a dictionary definition? Because of stuff like that, I treat all products by biologists with suspicion, until proven workable — especially stuff developed by consortia of multiple institutions.

Anyway, thanks for the link.

—Gene