Lexicon · Tools and roadmap
Parameter
Fully specified name: Parameter (concept)
A quantity characterizing a model or relationship in a stated context.
- Scope note
- Reusable values need units, source, conditions, uncertainty, and version.
- Synonyms
- None recorded as true synonyms in this context.
- Monograph
- Model-ready knowledge exchange (planned; brief only)
- External mappings
- None recorded. In W0 no mapping to SNOMED CT® or any external authority is asserted for this entry. A future mapping record will carry source system, identifier, version, relation type, evidence, author, confidence where meaningful, and review state.
- Formal status
- Editorial entry only. It is not part of any released ontology and a prose edit here changes no formal definition.
Draft. This entry is an unreviewed draft. Its sources have not been checked by a named person and no domain reviewer has approved it. Treat every claim as provisional.
Notes
A parameter is a quantity that characterizes a model or a relationship: a binding affinity, a transfer rate between compartments, a clearance, a half-life, an absorbed fraction. The word is used differently across fields. In mathematics and modeling a parameter is a quantity held fixed while variables change. In statistics it is a property of a population estimated from a sample. In clinical speech "parameters" often means any measured values. A record should say which sense applies.
A number on its own is not a reusable parameter. To move from one study or model to another it needs its units; the conditions under which it was measured or estimated, including biological system, method, and population; the source that reported it; its uncertainty, whether an interval, a standard error, or a qualitative grade; and a version, because sources are revised. Model exchange formats such as the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) give parameters a formal place with units and identifiers, which makes them portable between software tools, but the scientific qualifiers still have to be supplied by the author.
For NucLex a parameter is a record attached to an interaction or a model, never a loose value in prose. The publication does not supply reusable parameter values; where a value appears in an illustration it is synthetic and labeled as such. The concept defines what a reusable value would have to carry.
Related entries
Sources consulted (1)
- SBML. What is SBML. https://sbml.org/documents/what-is-sbml/