Should parameters of a Unit Operation be case insensitive or case sensitive? Please note that the Methods & Tools integrated document does not make any mention of case sensitiveness or case insensitiveness for Parameters or for other naming. There is no reference to case sentiveness or case insensitiveness in the Parameter Common Interface specification.

Case insensitiveness is imposed in Thermo specs for property names. This may be considered as a kind of reference within the CAPE-OPEN standards, a reference that could serve for other items of the CAPE-OPEN standards.

Are parameters at the same level in the CAPE-OPEN specification as properties so that one may based a policy on parameters on a policy adopted for properties?

Parameter names are not defined in the CAPE-OPEN specification while thermodynamic property names are defined in the Thermo specification (either 1.0 or 1.1). In fact entire sets of thermodynamic "property" names are defined in the specification document. There is a definition of what each property is, meaning a definition besides each property name.

For chemical compound names, these are not defined in the CAPE-OPEN specification and there is no rule on case sensitiveness/insensitiveness about them.

CAPE-OPEN is a syntaxic interface standards and not a semantic one: the meaning of each name is entirely known only through the name. Parameters are accompanied by a dimensionality that should allow to manipulate, up to some extent, a parameter value. It does not give information on the detailed meaning of a parameter but it gives some information, if the parameter wants to do so, on its contents. Properties are not accompanied by a dimensionality because this kind of information is contained in the name of the property through the documentation accompanying each name.

From the above I see major differences between "properties" and "parameters". These differences do not point to enforcing case insentiveness for parameters on the basis that it is enforced for property names. Some other reason needs to be found to force case insensitiveness on parameters. I would welcome discussion on such reasons.

For compound IDs the general consensus appears to be case insensitivity. It would not hurt for the thermo spec to be specific about this. "Phase information" - hence presumably also phase identifiers - are documented to be case-insensitive.

I would opt for parameter IDs to also be case insensitive and that the parameter spec is adapted accordingly.