# BEMO Governance Manual

## Scope

This manual governs metric identifiers, definitions, hierarchy, computational specifications, mappings, validation, releases, and deprecation.

## Roles

- **Scientific domain curator:** reviews scientific meaning and scope.
- **Methods and statistics curator:** reviews formulas, rubrics, uncertainty, thresholds, and validation.
- **Ontology engineer:** reviews identifiers, hierarchy, axioms, imports, and logical consistency.
- **Data and provenance curator:** reviews source traceability and immutable snapshots.
- **Release manager:** runs validation, records changes, and signs releases.
- **Governance board:** approves stable terms and breaking changes.

## Lifecycle

`Candidate → Under review → Validated → Stable → Deprecated → Obsolete`

A source metric may be mature while its BEMO computation profile remains candidate. These statuses must never be conflated.

## Mandatory release gates

1. Unique stable identifier and preferred label.
2. Formal genus-differentia definition where feasible.
3. Definition source and provenance.
4. Parent class and no unresolved logical contradiction.
5. Computation profile with explicit formula status.
6. Missing-data, uncertainty, threshold, and normalization policies.
7. Applicability and exclusion criteria.
8. At least one positive and one boundary test.
9. Independent reviewer approval.
10. Validation report with no unresolved errors.

## Formula governance

An exact formula may be marked approved only when its operands, units, scale, aggregation, normalization, thresholds, missing-data treatment, and uncertainty propagation are completely defined and externally validated for the intended use. Generic numerical weights are prohibited unless justified and versioned.

## Deprecation

Identifiers are permanent. Deprecated terms retain their IRIs, definitions, and provenance and must identify a replacement when one exists.

## Versioning

- Patch: non-semantic metadata or documentation corrections.
- Minor: backward-compatible terms, profiles, mappings, or constraints.
- Major: meaning changes, incompatible computation changes, or hierarchy changes affecting inference.

## Conflict of interest

Reviewers must disclose financial, professional, intellectual-property, or authorship interests relevant to a metric.