The Unified Code for Units of Measure (the UCUM) is a system of codes for unambiguously representing measurement units to both humans and machines.
The code set includes all units defined in ISO 1000, ISO 2955-1983, ANSI X3.50-1986, HL7 and ENV 12435, but explicitly and verifiably addresses the naming conflicts and ambiguities in those standards to resolve them. It provides for representations of units in 7 bit ASCII for machine to machine communication, with unambiguous mapping between case-sensitive and case-insensitive representations.
A reference open-source implementation as a Java applet is available.
References
- "UCUM", Regenstrief Institute (2008)
- "The UCUM", version 1.6 (2005)
- Schadow G, McDonald CJ et al.: "Units of Measure in Clinical Information Systems", JAMIA 6(2); Mar/Apr 1999; pp.151–162
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