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Workshop onScience on the Semantic WebBuilding a New Generation of

Environmental Information Systems

Nabil R. Adam and Yelena Yesha(UMBC)Rutgers University

CIMIC/MERIbNewark, New Jersey

Oct. 24, 25, 2002

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The Context

• Motivation– Digital Government Conference, LA May 2002

• Panel discussion on SW (Moderated by Joel Sachs)

– Interest from the research community– Expressed needs for

• Better management and easy access of information from different domains, environmental science, biology, medical, etc. that is available on the Web

– SW presents potential solution

Digital Meadowlands

Digital Meadowlands

Maps

MonitoringStations

Satellite Imagery

Interactive Maps

ProcessedSatellite Images

Reports EnvironmentalParameters

3D visualization

Fly-by/ Drill-down

Aerial Photos

UsersUsers

NASA Supported Remote Sensing Center

Current• MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging

Spectroradiometer (250 m)• AVHRR (Advance Very High Resolution

Radiometer (1000 m)• Landsat 5 and 7 (30 m)• Radar (Shuttle Imaging Radar,SIR-C) (12.5 m)• ASTER ((Advanced Spaceborne Thermal

Emission and Reflection Radiometer) (15 m)• AISA Hyperspectral sensor (2.5 m)• High Resolution Aerial Photography (0.5 m)

Planned• MISR (Multi-angle imaging

spectroradiometer: 250 m, 4 bands• Ikonos: 1 m panchromatic, 4 m

multispectral; 4 bands• QUICKBIRD: 0.6 m panchromatic,

2.5 meter multispectral; 5 Bands• Radarsat:15 m, Band C• IRS: 23 m, 4 bands

Acquire and process one of the most comprehensive satellite image archives for the Meadowlands District to observe natural and man induced phenomena of natural and urban areas and their impact on global change

The District will be observed from space daily at 250 m ground resolution and bi-weekly at 15 m resolution

Parameters observed include: land use, vegetation patterns surface and air temperature and ozone

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Information Sources

• Include• A Library of a large variety of Documents

– Scientific Publication– Guidelines and Regulations– Measurements and Impact Studies

• Documents contain Text, Tables, Pictures, Drawings and Maps

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Visualization Drill-down

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The user community

• Municipal, state and federal government management/analysts dealing with :

– land monitoring, water resources management, transportation, land use and urban planning and environmental hazards monitoring issues

• Researchers, faculty, graduate students in a variety of disciplines including biology, ecology, geology, environmental science, and IT

• K-12 Educators and students

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Current Situation

• Easier access to the information and accumulated knowledge would allow – The scientific community, governmental

organizations and the general public a much higher utilization of the available information

– This could lead to a better understanding of interrelationships and dependencies of many environmental aspects and allow for more timely reactions

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New Technology -- SW

• The Semantic WEB is an emerging technology that, we hope, will eventually allow the system to answer user questions directly, not just return document(part)s or references to documents, e.g.– Where are high Chromium concentrations on the

surface and at greater depths in the Hackensack Meadowlands

– What heavy metals are in sediments on the surface and in greater depths in the Hackensack Meadowlands

– What influence on species can be expected in case of heavy metal pollution instances

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Summary of European Commission – NSF Strategic Research

WorkshopResearch Challenges and Perspectives on The

Semantic WebScientific coordinator and editor: Jérôme Euzenat

Organizational coordinators: Jean-Eric Pin and Remi Ronchaud

France 2002

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Goal

• “a web talking to machines”,

– i.e. in which machines can provide a better help to people because they can take advantage of the content of the Web. The information on the web should thus be expressed in a meaningful way accessible to computers.

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Why Is IT Important

Expectations are very high for the semantic web because information overload currently

• Reduces the usability of the web and the lack of interoperability between web services is an obstacle to realizing its best promises.

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Possible Definition(s)

The SW can also be thought of as • An infrastructure (not an application) for

supplying the web with formalized knowledge in addition to its content.

• How far the formalization should go? No consensus; the range includes– metadata schemes, e.g., Dublin Core

metadata markers– full-fledged logical representation

languages.

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Research Issues – Languages and Reasoning Services

• Languages and inferences– Multiplicity of languages– Different reasoning services– As with languages, different reasoning services are required

by– different applications. Examples of different reasoning services

are:• querying consequences of a domain description,• checking for consistency,• matching between two separate descriptions,• determining the degree of similarity between descriptions,• detecting cycles and other possible anomalies,• classifying instances in a given hierarchy,

– Identity– Modularity

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Research Issues - Infrastructure

• Infrastructure• Localization and identification of

resources• Knowledge protection• Robustness, safety, and trust

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Research Issues - Ontologies• Ontology acquisition from multiple primary sources (texts,

multimedia, images) by• means of learning techniques,• Ontology comparison, merging, versioning, conceptual

refinement, and evaluation,• Formal ontological principles as a basis for a unified

conceptual modeling• methodology• Theoretical issues about identity,• Libraries of foundational ontologies simplifying the

documentation of basic ontological• choices,• Development of specific ontologies in strategic domains:

information and information• processing, social entities, social co-operation and

interaction.

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Research Issues – Human Factors

• Designing next generation application development environments,

• Understanding the use of metadata,• Supporting collaborative, emergent consensus

and “lightweight” semantic collaboration• Maintaining and analyzing history• Controlling information overload.

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Related Initiatives

• NSF “digital library” initiative and UE-ERCIM DELOS network of excellence in• “digital libraries”. The PITAC report on “digital libraries: universal access to human• knowledge” lists as its first recommendation “support expanded digital library

research• in metadata and metadata use, scalability, interoperability, archival storage and• preservation, intellectual property rights, privacy and security and human use.• EU IST C-Web project on “community webs” which produces a platform for• supporting communities on the web (with formal ontologies and RDF annotations).• MIT Oxygen and EU Ozone projects on ambient intelligence and ubiquitous• computing.• — EU IST key action line on “new methods of work and electronic commerce”

including• “organizational knowledge management” and “electronic government”.• — Industrial initiatives in the domain of e-commerce, such as UN and OASIS ebXML,

or• web services, such as UDDI.• — UK research council “e-Science” program, EU IST “grid technology and their• applications” cross-program theme and GEANT project.• — The EU IST Advisory Group (ISTAG) has proposed integration projects as new• instruments for the 6th framework program. Among the possible integrated projects

are• “dependability, trust, security and privacy” and “community memory/sharing of• knowledge”.

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Objectives -Identify Characteristics Common to Environmental Information Systems

• What are the data sources?• How is data stored?• What products are created?• What queries are supported?• What standards exist or are being developed?• What problems are encountered?• What are the limiting factors?

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Objectives - Articulate a Semantic Web Vision for Environmental

Information Systems

• Which existing limitations can be overcome with a semantic web approach?

• What are sample architectures?

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Objectives - Identify Barriers to a Semantic Web Approach

• Ontology Complexity• Ontology Heterogeneity• Scalability of Knowledge Bases/reasoning

engines • Access/trust Issues

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Objectives - Articulate a “to-do” List for Building a SemWeb E.I.S.

• What ontologies need to be developed?• What ontologies need to be mapped?• What software is needed?

– Reasoning engines– Harvesting agents– etc..

• ?

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Objectives - Evaluate the Maturity of Semantic Web Technologies, as

Applied to Environmental Science

• What can be deployed now? – One year out?– Five years out?

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Objectives - Conduce Future Collaboration

• Sharing of data.• Testing of applications and tools. A distributed testbed for environmental IT. Development of joint ontologies to facilitate

interoperability.

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Objectives - Special Issue of International Journal on Digital Libraries

• White paper to come out of workshop discussions.

• Opportunity to publish relevant research results in the context of semantic web for environmental science.