In a simple, probably characteristic of the smaller countries, fewer ministerial portfolios would probably be justified. The many attempts to reduce the set of values to 5 to 10 should be seen as a decomplexification which conceals variety required for practical policy making. By contrast, a useroriented process approach is required to display and work with value information. Information needs to be held so as to permit this. The concern is to elaborate a methodology that challenges any tendency to lock into a particular pattern, excluding the possibility that other patterns may usefully carry alternative sets of meanings.
Polyhedral nets provide a useful transitional structure between matrices and spherical mappings.
Of interest is the indication of alternative meanings for a word as an overlay on any such structure 6. Pursuing the logic of this structural mapping, at this level there is the possibility of recognizing the existence of an ordered set of complementary mappings. Structurally this is exemplified by the periodic table of basic polyhedral structures. The whole exercise is confronted by a heritage of ambiguity and confusion in the use of words to denote values. The information needs to be held so that these challenges can be explored, without expecting immediate and simplistic solutions.