[COAS-List] New Model for ObservationValue

[Tim Brinson <tim@protocol.com>]

At last week's COAS meeting we reviewed and updated the model for
ObservationValue (the basic value types for observations).  I have
broken this into four diagrams that can be viewed at:

	http://www.protocol.com/engineering/corbamed/coas/uml3/obsval.pdf

First note that this is only the model for ObservationValue and its
subtypes.  Tom Culpepper is working to update the Information Model for
the more general Observations.

The first diagram in the document shows the first level of subtypes from
ObservationValue.  The last three diagrams then look at the next level
which are subtypes of Blob, PlainText and Measurement.

In reviewing this you should realize this is a high level Information
Model as opposed to what it would look like on as an implementation.  We
have been pretty relax on the subtyping semantics as the inheritance
could mean slightly different things for the various cases.  For example
on an implementation level most of the subtypes of Blob would not exist
since the MIMEHeader is where it indicates the particular type of Blob
being passed.

Gunther, I am particularly interested in your thoughts on this.  I
reallize the work you are doing for HL7 3.0 is solving a slightly
different problem but there seems to be a lot of overlap with our work. 
I am interested to learn about any new developments you have made in the
last few months.


Regards and Happy Holidays,

Tim Brinson
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