Of Taxonomies, Biology, and Moneyball

Baseball and biology are not commonly found in the same conceptual space. Neither do you find taxonomy associated with baseball, but in recent news these connections were made. Grant Bisbee, editor of “Baseball Nation”, digresses into the arcane as he laments the coming of the “He’s In the Best Shape of His Life” season. This is the time of year baseball writers must assess the prospects for the coming season, and clichés and hyperbole reign. The dubious practice of evaluating the physical condition of players runs rampant as spring training begins. With tongue in cheek, Bisbee tries to shape a taxonomy to classify this spring ritual. His would be the taxonomy of the “In the Best-shape Stories”.

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Pumas and Cougars and Snails, OH MY!

When you use a thesaurus for indexing context covering multiple disciplines, the need for disambiguation of terms is increased. This fact of thesaurus life was well illustrated in a presentation at this year’s DHUG (Data Harmony Users Group) meeting. The presentation, by Rachel Drysdale, Taxonomy Manager of the Public Library of Science (PLOS), was titled “The PLOS Thesaurus: the first year.”

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Taxonomic Technology in a New Market

This past week, Access Innovations has been hosting the annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting, which has included a variety of presentations. We presented a case study titled “Proven Technology in a New Market: the Data Harmony Suite of Products — A Game Changer in the Medical Claims Compliance Space.”

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Information and Data Governance/Management – Adding Ideas From Complementary Disciplines

After critical business information has been identified at a high level and a focal has been assigned, best practices from complementary disciplines can be incorporated. Identify the main subjects for a business specific controlled vocabulary. Each company or organization develops its own language for talking about what it does. Like all languages, organizational languages are based on a common way of seeing and thinking. A technology or farm machinery company may use alphanumeric designations to identify thousands of products. An entertainment firm may use cryptic acronyms in discussing thousands of events or programs. An agricultural organization may talk about plans and events as they relate to “the harvest.” Even within one company, the language varies between departments. A finance department is likely to have a language that is different from the language used in research or operations departments.

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And We’re Off!

Today is the first day of a week full of training, information sharing, and networking at Access Innovation’s 10th Annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting. A full-day overview of the Data Harmony software suite takes place today to provide a solid foundation for deeper understanding of the core meeting sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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