[DDI-SRG] [DDI-CDG] The dataset movie (fwd)

[I-Lin Kuo]

Hi Reto,

I have a couple of questions about the movie, some of which may overlap 
with the
ones I asked you at IASSIST

1. What is a "cat" in the sense of "This is a cat" remarks on slide 44, 91?
2. The linking concept for comparisons works well in the case that you 
analyzed,
the time and geography dimensions in the repeated cross-national survey with a
standard. Looking at it more closely, it works well for the following reasons:
  a. In the space dimension, there is a standard that all the studies are
compared to. Thus the pairwise linking concept works.
  b. In the time dimension, there is a natural ordering via time, so no 
standard
is necessary in this case, unlike the geography. The natural time ordering
determines a natural direction for the linking.

  - Q: What happens in the space dimension when there is no standard? In that
case, what should the link source and targets be (and in what direction?), or
is a different comparison mechanism more appropriate, perhaps a bidirectional
link or some other comparison mechanism? Perhaps this is Ingo's assignment?
  - Q: You added additional coordinates "comp" and "integrated" on the time and
space dimensions. What happens when there is more than one integrated dataset
or semi-integrated ( I think Eurobarometer produces some intermediate
integrated datasets before the  final?). I don't think these semi-integrated
datasets should be necessarily given different time coordinates as then they
lose their connection with the original one-time datasets.
  - Q: In slide 132 "The country datasets appear to grow like the branches of a
christmas tree" I understand that for each variable, there is only at most one
link whose source is that variable. This does not seem sufficient to capture
all the comparisons information that might be desired. For example, if 
there is
a variable V1 in T1/C3 which differs from the T1 standard but is 
identical with
the variables V1 in T2/C3, T3/C3, T4/C3, that information is not captured in
the implicit process which you have described, as adding those links 
would then
result in a graph which no longer resembles a Christmas tree. And it 
seems to me
you would want to capture that information in order to properly synthesize a
cumulative time slice/longitudinal dataset for C3.
    So, it seems in order to capture this information, the process must be
further complicated. Yes/no?


Quoting Wendy Thomas <wlt at pop.umn.edu>:

> A number of you were at the Edinburgh conference and saw an abbreviated
> version of the material previded here by Reto. He asked that I share this
> with you.

-- 
I-Lin Kuo
Programmer/Analyst II
ICPSR