Slope, intercept and unit fields should be mandatory in the Tag creation or edit page

[xhoenner]

Based on https://github.com/aodn/aatams-content/issues/44#issuecomment-264318081 the slope, intercept and unit for sensor tags should be made mandatory in the Tag creation or edit page, otherwise raw sensor values can't be transformed into meaningful values.

In short:

• if transmitter_type IN ('TEMPERATURE', 'PRESSURE', 'ACCELEROMETER') then slope, intercept and unit can't be null
• if transmitter_type IN ('PINGER', 'RANGE_TEST') then slope, intercept and unit must be null.

Also related to #338.

[xhoenner]

@bhasin85, relates to #361

[xhoenner]

Based on the sensor type, unit should also be automatically pre-filled.

[xhoenner]

Also worth addressing #375 when working on this issue.

[bhasin85]

@xhoenner I thought it was covered in #382

[xhoenner]

thanks @bhasin85, I don't think it's been covered by #382. The latter was about constraining tag type (e.g. PINGER or SENSOR) based on code map values. The present issue is about constraining users to enter slope/intercept values when registering or editing sensor tags.

[MPagel]

I respectfully disagree that this should be a mandatory field.

If such a requirement were ever to inhibit a researcher from uploading animal metadata*, valuable information may be missing from the detection history. Not only does the presence of a sensor tag when alternated with the master tag indicate that a fish is in the vicinity of a receiver, adding to the number of detection hits which should in turn decrease the likelihood that your legitimate transmission filtering algorithm improperly tosses real data, but also the ADC numbers themselves still hold some weight. Firstly, slope and intercept values may be, at some future point, be procured (e.g. from VEMCO) even if not "now". Secondly, all ADCs are related by a linear function to the final transformed value. The change from 22 to 33 is half of that from 33 to 55, which will be reflected in the post-transformed data as well. So, there is still some value to having the pre-transformed values even if the slope and intercept are still not known to the database.

*at least two scenarios that I see:

1. either because of lack-of-knowledge of their tag specs from studies in past years or
2. because they have a reason to "embargo" release of that information.

[xhoenner]

Thanks @MPagel for your input, we're aware this change will require more info from users but we're not expecting that it will deter them from registering their tags. Researchers can always ask VEMCO to retrieve slope/intercept info from tags used in the past, and they already have the ability to embargo their tag metadata through our web app if need be.

The majority (over 90 %) of sensor data stored in our database has not been processed. Having slope/intercept values for sensor tags won't modify those pre-processed data but merely give users the ability to convert those to meaningful physical measurements.