irregularity
Enable an agent to recognise, assess and respond to irregularity by recording what lacks a fixed principle or rate, against which expectation, and within what observational limits.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
5 bundles · 9 layers · 14 findings · 27 questions
Meaning and reference Establish what irregularity means in this assessment and what regularity would look like.
Assessed sense
Identify the bearer, aspect and interpretation to which the judgment applies.
Aspect-specific irregularity
Record whether the claim concerns intervals, rate or organisation, without extending it to every property of the bearer.
- What exactly is irregular: occurrence times, rate, spacing or adherence to an organising principle? definition
- Which aspects of the same bearer remain regular or have not been assessed? boundary
Reference selection
Make the expected principle or rate and the authority for choosing it explicit.
Reference and its origin
Record whether regularity is defined by an imposed schedule, a proposed rule, past observations or another stated convention.
- What fixed principle, interval or rate would make this observation count as regular? definition
- Who or what supplied that reference, and where is its justification recorded? provenance
- Would another defensible reference change the judgment? boundary
Departures and patterns Describe the observable form and degree of departure from regularity.
Interval and rate variation
Assess the spacing of occurrences separately from rates calculated over windows.
Unequal gaps and windowed rates
Record event intervals and windowed rates so that an average does not conceal the variation being assessed.
- What are the observed intervals between successive occurrences, and in which units? measurement
- How do calculated rates change with the size and placement of the counting window? measurement
- What variation exceeds the stated tolerance for regular occurrence? boundary
Organising rule departures
Assess where and how an arrangement or sequence departs from a specified principle.
Departure location and magnitude
Record the positions, sizes and grouping of departures rather than treating every irregular pattern as equivalent.
- Which observations fail the proposed organising rule, and by how much where a magnitude is meaningful? measurement
- Are departures isolated, clustered, alternating, drifting or distributed throughout the assessed extent? measurement
- Does a repeating pattern of departures suggest a different regularity that should be tested? boundary
Observation and alternatives Test whether apparent irregularity survives scrutiny of observation conditions and alternative descriptions.
Observation adequacy
Assess coverage, precision and segmentation of the evidence.
Coverage and resolution limits
Record whether missing events, rounding, detection thresholds or short observation spans could account for apparent departures.
- How were occurrences or positions captured, and which observations may be missing or imprecise? provenance
- Does the irregularity judgment persist across plausible corrections and changes in resolution or observation extent? measurement
Alternative explanations
Separate observed variation from claims about randomness or the absence of any rule.
Unidentified rule versus no rule
Record tested alternatives and distinguish failure to identify a principle from a justified claim about the limits of possible principles.
- Could a changing schedule, overlapping regular sequences or a deterministic variable-interval rule account for the observations? boundary
- Which alternative rules have actually been examined, using what evidence? provenance
- What further observation would discriminate among the remaining interpretations? action
Judgment and response Turn a qualified irregularity assessment into an appropriate decision.
Classification boundaries
Record the decision threshold and keep descriptive irregularity separate from neighbouring judgments.
Tolerance and interpretive limits
State when variation warrants the label and what additional evidence would be needed to classify it as a fault, anomaly or violation.
- Why is the selected tolerance appropriate for this task and observation precision? boundary
- What independent criterion, if any, makes this irregularity a defect, anomaly or rule violation? boundary
Response and reassessment
Connect the assessment to practical consequences and explicit review conditions.
Consequence-based response
Record whether the observed variation calls for accommodation, monitoring or investigation, and when that choice should be revisited.
- Which observed or anticipated consequence justifies accommodating, monitoring or investigating this irregularity? action
- What change in departure magnitude, distribution or evidence would trigger reassessment? action
- What reference, observation limits and unresolved alternatives must accompany the communicated judgment? provenance
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of irregularity this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of irregularity this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of irregularity this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of irregularity this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of irregularity this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of irregularity this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Cross-cutting context
- Entry kind
- noun.attribute
- Plane
- XCT
- Domain
- XCT.QLT
- Facets: substance
- abstract
- Facets: origin
- conceptual
- Facets: agency
- inert
- Facets: mobility
- not-applicable
- Facets: scale
- not-applicable
- Facets: affordances
- observable
- Other names and narrower kinds
- inhomogeneity, unregularity, fitfulness, jerkiness, intermittence, intermittency, spasticity, unevenness, variability, rockiness, ruggedness, hilliness
What it is Filled
Irregularity is the quality of a pattern, process, or sequence that does not conform to a specified regular rule, constant rate, or uniform spacing of occurrences.
In scope
- The arrangement, sequence or process described as irregular and the aspect being assessed
- The fixed principle, rate or interval pattern used as a reference
- Observed departures, their magnitude and their distribution
- Dependence of an irregularity judgment on scale, observation window and tolerance
- Evidence supporting the judgment and limits on interpretation
- Conditions for monitoring, investigating or accommodating irregularity
Out of scope
- Complete models of the objects or processes that exhibit irregularity
- Randomness and stochastic mechanisms as independent concepts
- Legal violations, procedural noncompliance and moral wrongdoing
- Disease diagnoses or equipment fault diagnoses
- Statistical outlier detection methods as standalone models
- Geometric shape descriptions unrelated to an assessed organising principle
Why it exists Filled
Enable an agent to recognise, assess and respond to irregularity by recording what lacks a fixed principle or rate, against which expectation, and within what observational limits.
Distinguishing features Filled
- Ask whether occurrences have unequal spacing or a changing rate: a sequence can be sparse yet regular if its intervals remain fixed.
- Ask whether the judgment concerns recurrence or organisation rather than mere unusualness: an uncommon pattern may still be regular.
- Ask whether unpredictability has actually been established: unequal intervals alone do not show that a sequence is random or lacks a deterministic rule.
- Ask whether the apparent departure persists after accounting for measurement precision, missed observations and the chosen observation window.
- Ask whether a relevant rule was violated: describing a pattern as irregular does not by itself establish defect, harm or noncompliance.
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Treat an irregularity as proof of fraud or fault without investigation.
- Flag people as suspicious based on irregular but lawful behaviour.
- Hide irregularities in safety or financial data.
- Smooth or delete irregular readings without recording it.
Only with a human decision
- Acting against a person or account because of a detected irregularity.
May
- Detect and report departures from an expected pattern or rate in data it is authorized to analyse.
- State which rule or rate the irregularity is measured against.
Moral aspects Filled
- Anomaly flags can wrongly target people with unusual but innocent lives.
- Hidden irregularities in safety data can cost lives.
Who is affected
- People flagged by systems
- Auditors
- Users of the data
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody: a quality of patterns; the owner of a dataset answers for what is flagged.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- oewn-04731092-n - registry parent class
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.irregularity
- Open English WordNet: oewn-04777450-n
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
- Bearer and assessed aspect: Reference to a sequence, process or arrangement and its timing, rate, spacing or organisation
- Interpretation of irregularity: Unequal intervals; variable rate; departure from a specified organising principle; no principle established within the investigation
- Reference regularity: Named principle, expected interval, expected rate or comparison pattern, with its origin
- Assessment extent: Observation start and end, spatial extent or index range, with resolution and relevant units
- Departure magnitude: Deviation from the reference in native units or a named dimensionless measure
- Distribution of departures: Isolated; clustered; alternating; drifting; widespread; unresolved
- Assessment tolerance: Permitted deviation in native units or relative terms, with justification
- Assessment state: Supported within stated limits; provisional; contested; insufficient observations
Plane XCT: no invented physical properties.
Recognition not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Irregularity is an abstract quality established by comparison with a rule or baseline rather than a thing with its own visual identity.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- Compare observed intervals, rates or arrangements with an explicit reference regularity.
- Locate departures and describe their magnitude and distribution.
- Reassess irregularity under different windows, resolutions and tolerances.
- Investigate whether missed observations or overlapping regular processes explain the appearance.
- Choose whether to monitor, investigate or accommodate the variation according to its consequences.
- Communicate the judgment with its reference, evidence and unresolved alternatives.
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- False positives that lead to unfair suspicion.
- Missed real faults when irregular readings are discarded.
Standards and interfaces not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
No single standard, law or official classification applies to irregularity as a general quality across domains.
Context of use required Filled
- Irregularity is encountered when observed timing, spacing, shape or behavior departs from an expected pattern.
- It is used in monitoring, quality assessment and data analysis to describe departures that require interpretation against a stated rule or baseline.
Sources Filled
- Open English WordNet 2024, synset oewn-04777450-n - sense and gloss of the concept
- Wiktionary: irregularity - word senses and usage
Open questions
- Which reference works and disciplinary uses distinguish irregular intervals from the broader absence of a fixed principle, and where do their definitions disagree?
- Does the registry intend spatial and organisational irregularity to fall within this entry, and how should those uses connect to neighbouring quality models?
- Which operational measures are appropriate for different bearers, and under what assumptions can their results be compared?
- What observation coverage and uncertainty treatment are sufficient to support an irregularity judgment in each intended application?
- How should the model represent sequences that follow a deterministic rule but have unequal intervals, especially when users disagree about whether they are regular?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-irregularity/spec.json