Metric spaces for interoperable and searchable quantitative data on the web

Many thanks to all supporters of this group. There has been a long incubation period, but I hope we can now begin. Let me first explain why I have made this proposal: Quantitative data are very important. It would be useful (e.g. for decision support) to make quantitative data searchable on the web. So we need a data structure for identified and searchable (multidimensional) quantitative data. Metric spaces are a natural means for this because all elements of a metric space have a well defined distance. So it is possible to sort the search result according to distance (similarity search). Moreover it is possible to nest definitions (reuse existing definitions as parts of new definitions).

In http://numericsearch.com/wwdomainspaces.pdf nestable metric spaces are called “Domain Spaces” and described in detail. They can be defined by all web users according to their domains of interest. I propose this to start a discussion about the best approach. Feel free to ask questions and to make suggestions. Everyone who is interested is welcome to join the group.