= Person Registry =
This is the master place to store all Person details.

== Ontology ==

This is an ontology draft for "Personal Data for Disaster Management" (suggested for implementation in the data model):

  * [http://ontology.nursix.org/sahana-person.owl "OWL Source"]
  * [http://ontology.nursix.org/sahana-person.png "Class Tree Diagram"]

''(still under development, see the OWL source for version information)''

This ontology defines four axes for the construction of "Personal Data" relations:

  * '''Appearance''' - forms of appearance (of persons)
  * '''Distinction''' - classes for operational distinction (assigned features)
  * '''Evidence''' - classes of data sources
  * '''Finding''' - classes of findings (observed or derived features)

Every data set implements at least one class (aspect) from each axis (may even be implicitly, e.g. in case of the appearance aspect).

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Q: How to handle the entity relationships with the extra data needed?

Options:
 * Polymorphic Associations: http://www.fleegix.org/articles/2008-01-03-rails-polymorphic-associations-and-migrations
  * Single Many-to-Many Reference Table which includes a 'type' reference for which sub-table it refers to.
 * A Many-to-Many table for each 'type'.
 * Single-Table Inheritance: http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_thread/thread/d9715e7b751c1e56
  * A single table containing all information, with unnecessary information ignored.

Q: Including system users? (BluePrintAuthenticationAccess)
 * currently we automatically add new registrations as people as well.

This then feeds these other Modules:
 * Disaster Victim Identification
 * Disaster Victim Registry: http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php?id=doc:dvr:english
 * Missing Person Registry: http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php?id=doc:mpr:english
 * Volunteer Management: http://www.cs.trincoll.edu/hfoss/wiki/User_Guide_for_the_VM_Module

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BluePrints
BluePrints