Human OS / Research Atlas
Methodology
Publication and methodology standards for the Human OS Research Atlas, including versions, figure rules, civil time, and derivative-data obligations.
What the atlas is
The Research Atlas publishes original investigations under the imprint Human OS / Research Atlas. An investigation is a research record with a stable identifier, stated methods, and the files required to stand behind it.
Essays in Insights are a separate body of work. The atlas is not an evidence file for claims in The Human OS Manual, and it is not a visual companion to the book.
Records, identifiers, and versions
Each investigation has an identifier of the form HOS-RA-### and a stable URL slug. The slug stays in place if an essay title or the site navigation changes.
A record carries a version and a changelog. The publication date is set only when the record is released. Until then the status is unpublished, and the record has no public URL.
What publication requires
A published record states its question, methods, metrics, limitations, sources, licenses, validation, and data availability. A machine-readable record file is written beside that record only after publication.
A derivative database is described as a repository download only when that file is in this repository and a download path exists. A record may also be published when that database is offered free of charge on request, under its license, through a public contact route. The request is the access route. It is not a public download.
Claim limits
The atlas does not assign a DOI unless one exists. It does not describe a record as peer-reviewed unless an external review has taken place.
A validation note reports what was compared and what that comparison does not establish. A finite discrepancy on a set of cases is not a global error bound.
Figures
Figures use the original image files. A display copy may be made for the web from those pixels. The original filename remains the full-resolution file. The atlas does not replace a missing original with a generated or approximated map.
Each figure has an accessible description. A value that sits outside the numeric scale is defined beside the figure. Where a sunrise map uses gray, gray is outside the numeric scale. It is not permanent darkness, and it is not zero light.
A published file path is never replaced in place. A correction adds a new filename. The previous file stays at its existing URL.
Civil time
When an investigation assigns local civil time, it names the boundary source and the clock rules.
The sunrise calculations used the comprehensive, oceans-inclusive time-zone polygons from Timezone Boundary Builder release 2026e, together with IANA 2026e civil-time rules.
Data, licensing, and derivative databases
Research and visualization in the atlas are copyright of their investigators unless a record says otherwise. Where a derivative spatial or time-zone database is offered, the license is the Open Database License 1.0. A file in this repository is a download. An offer on request is a contact route, and it is not a download.
Linking to the upstream database, its license, or the OpenStreetMap attribution does not satisfy the derivative-database access requirement.
Code, notes, and image files are a separate archive. They do not meet a database-access obligation. The atlas does not reconstruct a location database by sampling or tracing a map image.
Corrections
A correction increments the version and adds a changelog entry. The new file uses a new name. Readers of an older path still reach the file that path originally identified.