1 technical projects ecoinformatics international technical collaboration seattle, washington, usa...
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Technical Projects
Ecoinformatics International Technical Collaboration
Seattle, Washington, USAJanuary 26, 2010
Bruce BargmeyerLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryandBerkeley Water CenterUniversity of California, BerkeleyTel: +1 [email protected]
EITC Technical ProjectsWork Group
WG pursues information exchange, collaborative R&D, & collaborative activities under umbrella of EITC
Met as part of the EITC Strategic Planning meeting in Copenhagen, March 2009
Met after the Ecoterm meeting in Rome in October 2009 Holds telecons monthly (more or less) during the year. Individuals hold more frequent telecons on specific
activities
Some Tech. Proj. WG Activities
Ecoterm GEMET Terminology Standards Array Abu Dhabi initiative Collaborative R&D Metadata Registry and Semantics Management Web deployment SciScope, Eye on Earth Standards
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ECOTERM V WORKSHOP
Ecoterm started meeting in 2004 with the focus on the identification and implementation of best practices related to environmental terminologies and knowledge organization systems on the Web.
This meeting was held at U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy, 5-6 October 2009 attended by approximately 30 people from 18 organizations and 8
countries both in-person and virtually. Presentations are on the Ecoinformatics web site
Agreement: Ecoterm product/service to be developed is a federated approach to accessing terminology and knowledge organization systems in the area of the environment that would allow them to be accessed, interchanged, and used in traditional indexing and search approaches, as well as semantic web applications.
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Ecoterm V Workshop
In order to achieve this, there are several requirements which must be addressed. A common way to find these resources Common descriptions (metadata) for these resources so that others (especially systems) can
know how to use them Common Web services to provide external access and consistent functionality Unique IDs at the system and concept/term level to clearly and uniquely establish the links An approach that will work globally An approach that is based on open standards An approach that can be implemented by organizations somewhat independent of one
another, since the Ecoinformatics International Technical Collaboration, while based on an international agreement, does not have an extensive governance structure or funding support
An approach that can begin as a prototype but is robust enough to grow into a useful product/service
Technologies that are being used by other communities so that this effort can link to initiatives in other disciplines that may eventually be relevant to the environment
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Ecoterm V Workshop
Technical approach SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) would be used
to publish the thesauri and other terminology systems The SKOS files would also be published as linked data Complement this with voiD files which are used to describe RDF
resources in a linked data environment. A simple umbrella web page would be created to aid in the
management, promotion, and access to this network of linked data
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GEneral Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus (GEMET)
Created by EEA A thesaurus of 5,000+ concepts with expression in 23 languages INSPIRE initiative gives new impetus, GEMET is included in
legislation. Extend GEMET –
Ecoterm action EPA update? EEA invests in the translations and some to advance to SKOS. EPA and UNEP have written letters of support to China MEP to
encourage development of Chinese translation (with help of Wuhan University)
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Technical Projects WG Activities
Terminology Work underway by EPA, USGS, EEA
Standards Array Initiated at EITC Strategic Directions meeting
in Copenhagen, March 2009 Scope described during this meeting Work Underway, Technical Projects WG will
spend a half day (Thursday) on this.
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Technical Projects WG Activities
Abu Dhabi initiative Introduced in this meeting. We will pursue it
further in the Tech. Proj. WG meeting on Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday and, Thursday
Collaborative R&D Have developed a proposal outline, looking for
funding possibilities
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SciScope
Developed in collaborative effort between Microsoft Research, Berkeley Water Center (UCB), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
EITC leadership wanted demo of how semantics management – terminology, ontologies, and metadata – could be used to help prepare indicators and assessments.
SciScope demonstrates capabilities that help users to discover, evaluate, and access water data for analysis, presentation, indicators, assessment, ….
SciScope shows the use of a water ontology, linked to water “variables” (data elements), with metadata descriptions, and an easy to use geographic interface.
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Broad Use Case: Semantics Management - Linking Ontologies, Models, Metadata and Data
ID Date Temp Hg
A 06-09-13 4.4 4
B 06-09-13 9.3 2
X 06-09-13 6.7 78
Name Datatype Definition Units
ID textMonitoring Station Identifier
not applicable
Date date Date yy-mm-dd
Temp numberTemperature (to 0.1 degree C)
degrees Celcius
Hg numberMercury contamination
micrograms per liter
Register, curate, interrelate and manageSemantics.
Data
Metadata
Biological Radioactive
Contamination
lead cadmiummercury
Chemical
Ontology
Model
Data sources…
USGS
EPA
CIMS
TCEQ
NADP
Source: Bora Beran
What are we after?
A search engine that creates a unified view over multiple heterogeneous data repositories allowing scientists to discover and retrieve data in a simple and intuitive way. In technical terms: A searchable metadata repository/aggregator An ontology based interface for data discovery Links to metadata describing the available data A mediator (semantics/syntax/structure) A light-weight web GIS
Adapted from: Bora Beran
Data retrieval
SciScope currently hosts only metadata.Data are requested on the fly from the
original publisher using web service wrappers written specifically for each data source.
Data are reformatted to provide a unified view over the repositories.
What is behind SciScope?
Source: Bora Beran
Knowledge Base
Relationships are stored as RDF triples in a relational database
Supports transitive, symmetric and inverse properties
Inferred statements are pre-computed
What is behind SciScope?
‘Escherichia coli’ same-as ‘E. coli’‘E. coli’ is-a ‘Indicator Organism’
‘Nitrogen’ is-a ‘Macronutrient’‘Macronutrient’ is-a ‘Nutrient’‘Hypoxia’ isMeasuredUsing ‘DissolvedOxygen’‘Hypoxia’ isRelatedTo ‘Eutrophication’
Source: Bora Beran
Inference
Transitive‘Nitrogen’ is-a ‘Macronutrient’‘Macronutrient’ is-a ‘Nutrient’
Inference: ‘Nitrogen’ is-a ‘Nutrient’ Symmetric‘Hypoxia’ isRelatedTo ‘Eutrophication’
Inference: ‘Eutrophication’ isRelatedTo ‘Hypoxia’
Inverse‘Macronutrient’ is-a ‘Nutrient’
Inference: ‘Nutrient’ isBroaderThan ‘Macronutrient’
Source: Bora Beran
Geographical Features Catalog
Collection of features such as dams, aquifers, geologic formations, watersheds, sensors
Based on data and maps from USGS, EPA, National Atlas
What is behind SciScope?
Source: Bora Beran
SciScope.org
SciScope provides access to observations from approximately 1.65 million sensors in the US adding up to 358 million observations.
Tutorials1. Managing map layers2. Setting layer transparency3. Browsing geographical features4. Drawing polygons5. Search and data retrieval
Code available for download at: http://sciscope.codeplex.com
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SciScope
Demos given to EITC in December 2008 & March 2009 EPA Office of Environmental Information Computational Methods for Water Resources (Conference) Japan Construction Information Center (JACIC) Japan Life Cycle Data Management (LCDM ) Forum Open Forum on Metadata Registries, Seoul Korea June, 2009 Ecoterm V, Rome, Italy, October, 2009 Earth Sciences Information Partners, Winter Meeting, January, 2010 Many online accesses at SciScope.org …
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SciScope & Eye on Earth
Usability for end usersDemonstrates utility of the underlying
technologies and standardsAlready descried at this meetingQuestion: how can Eye on Earth and
SciScope play together?Topic of Technical Project WG meeting this
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Technical Projects Activities
Metadata Registry and Semantics Management ISO/IEC 11179-3 is in Final Committee draft Considerable work on Ontology: ISO/IEC 19763
Metamodel Framework for Interoperability Wuhan University leading work on several standards.
We will hear from Rong PENG in the Technical Projects WG
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Acknowledgement
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation, under Grant No. 0637122 and by USEPA. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or USEPA .
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