temsis — a transnational system for public information and environmental decision support

Environmental Modelling & Software 15 (2000) 235–243www.elsevier.com/locate/envsoft

TEMSIS — a transnational system for public information andenvironmental decision support

Ralf Denzer*, Reiner Gu¨ttler, Patrik Houy, TEMSIS Consortium1

Hochschule fu¨r Technik und Wirtschaft, Goebenstr. 40, 66 117 Saarbru¨cken, Germany

Abstract

TEMSIS — Transnational Environmental Management Support and Information System is intended to be a tool for transnationalco-operation between the communities in the German–French urban agglomeration, Moselle-Est/Stadtverband Saarbru¨cken. Its mainobjective is to integrate existing information platforms of local environmental authorities in Germany and France, to support infor-mation exchange and thus strengthen the co-operation which is necessary to solve common problems. An important aspect is toinform the public very early if planning activities start, to create intensive discussions among all involved participants and thus tomake decisions transparent. This methodology completely conforms with the EU guideline of 1990, which allows all citizens freeaccess to environmental information. The project is funded by the Telematics Applications Programme of the European Community.The content of this paper was carried out in co-operation with all partners of the project. This article sets the focus on the descriptionof the distributed architecture and on the integration issues in the project. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The demonstration region for the TEMSIS project isthe Saar Rosselle Region which is constituted by thetransnational urban agglomeration of Saarbru¨cken andMoselle Est. For the past 25 years radical changes to theregion’s industrial structure have been taking place. Thisindustrial past has left these regions with a number ofserious environmental problems; the communities onboth sides of the border have been meeting for a numberof years to discuss their common problems and develop-ment. Any decisions concerning new industrial develop-ment, e.g. Swatch Car Production near Sarreguemines ornew public transportation systems will have environ-mental impacts as well as social impacts on the regionas a whole without regards to the national frontier.

The metainformation service navigates the user

* Corresponding author.E-mail address:[email protected] (R. Denzer).

1 Further project partners in the TEMSIS consortium are: BerndHoffmann and Uwe Kleffner, Stadtverband Saarbru¨cken, Germany;Josef Burgard, Deutsches Forschungszentrum fur Ku¨nstliche Intellig-enz, Saarbru¨cken, Germany; Rene Momper, Marie de Sarreguemines,France; Heinrich Humer and Gerald Schimak, Austrian ResearchCenter Seibersdorf; Christian Marchionini, ARGOPOL, France; RalphPfannkuche, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme, Germany.

1364-8152/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S1364-8152 (00)00009-8

request to the relevant network resource and database.The service provides a component which knows aboutthe network it should use and another component whichhas information on how and where it can access data inwhich database.

Finally the TEMSIS Web server will generate webpages to present the data. It can be accessed either bythe Internet or a direct ISDN connection for special pub-lic stations.

Data from different environmental databases will beconnected to the system. It is planned to integrate theGerman and French air quality databases of their airquality measurement systems in the Saar RosselleRegion to provide continuous data (see Fig. 1).

To prepare the decision by local authorities, usually anenvironmental impact statement will be necessary, andcitizens have to be informed about the various projectsand their impacts.

All these requirements can only be met if there areefficient tools to quickly gather the information frommany diverse sources, e.g. local or regional environmen-tal information systems. To reach these goals, a trans-national network between these systems will be createdwithin the TEMSIS project. Over such a network thelocal/regional environmental authorities and the publiccan easily discuss environmental developments or eventswhich need immediate or long-term actions. Environ-

236 R. Denzer et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 15 (2000) 235–243

Fig. 1. System Components.

237R. Denzer et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 15 (2000) 235–243

mental view points can be introduced into the decisionprocesses as early as possible. Applying advanced tele-communication technology to environmental problemswill strengthen the decision making process and thus cre-ate a considerable social impact. The TEMSIS projectstarted at the beginning of this year and is funded by theEuropean Union.

2. Summary of objectives

The main objective of the TEMSIS project is thedevelopment of a so-called “demonstrator” as a complexdistributed support and information system providingusers with access to a well defined reservoir of environ-mental information and to interpersonal desktop collab-oration services.

The use of this distributed system will be through twotypes of infokiosks, an “administrative version” and a“public version”. These infokiosks offer the users easyaccess to the information gathered in the distributed sys-tem, “hiding” all network activities from the users. Inaddition, decision making needs the cooperation of dif-ferent authorities and experts to get reliable information.In particular, the different transnational laws andinterpretations have to be taken into account. Many dis-cussions among the expert groups will be necessary toget a common understanding.

Of course, in order to achieve this central objective,different sub-objectives have to be achieved first, like

O identification of user requirements and elaboration ofcorresponding user profiles including reference cases;

O selection of data types and data sources to be con-sidered;

O selection of technical infrastructure and functions tobe used.

The project is a user driven one and consequently it isvery strongly related to specific user needs of a hetero-geneous user group. At the moment the above mentionedusers will be communities participating in the ‘Interkom-munale Arbeitsgemeinschaft’

O regional public bodies;O citizens and citizens groups;O and later enterprises as users of environmental data

and as publishers of eco-audits.

The user requirements have been described in detail inGuttler (1997).

3. Tools

The following tools are used in the project:

O a geographical information system (WinCat, providedand extended by Siemens-Nixdorf);

O a teleconferencing and telecooperation system (I-View, provided and extended by Siemens);

O a metainformation system and a database server,including navigation components for end users (a spe-cialized database implementation, developed byAustrian Research Center Seibersdorf, including


FORMULA, a high-speed storage and retrieval sys-tem for time series data);

O an integration tool providing the communicationinfrastructure as well as the access to the decentral-ized data sources (SIRIUS, developed by the Environ-mental informatics Group at HTW).

These tools all work together to achieve end user needs.The basic system architecture follows principles of openenbironmentaql information systems, which have beenpublished many times before [Denzer, 1995].

The end user presentation component is distinguishedinto type “A” and type “P” infokiosks. Within the “P-kiosk” we actually investigate the possibilities of theworld wide web in conjunction with new methods likeJava applets programming. The “A-kiosk” will comprisea desktop conferencing system supported by additionaltelecooperation functionalities. Special implementationswill allow moderated multipoint telecooperation sessionsusing a central multipoint conference unit (MCU) and atelecooperation server.Additionally we will integrate heterogeneous dataextracted from geographical information systems (GIS)for land use and land use planning.

Fig. 2. A-Kiosk navigator.

4. Integration issues

Integration of distributed, interdisciplinary data is dif-ficult for various reasons. The main problems integratingsuch systems are (Denzer and Gu¨ttler, 1995)

O the systems are heterogeneous;O the systems are operated autonomously by different

authorities;O the systems change dynamically.

To overcome these integration problems, sophisticateddistributed software systems on an advanced communi-cation infrastructure are needed. Metainformationdescribing the syntax (storage types, structures), as wellas the semantics (the actual meaning of items as well asaggregates of information) of the data is a key aspectfor the solutions. The different systems were to be inte-grated in the demonstrator, e.g. were not designed forthe purpose of interacting with other systems. To achievethis we want to leave the existing systems as they standand cover up the functionality needed for the integrationin the distributed system by the development ofadditional sub-systems. An information exchange sys-tem, which we call information service, has to be


developed based on a distributed metainformation sys-tem. To achieve this every node of the network has tooffer a local metainformation server which in most caseshas to be developed within the TEMSIS project.

One problem of the data sources is that they are onlyavailable in the original language. To generate infor-mation in the required language there is a tool in theserver. With this tool the creation of the environmentalimpact statement can be supported by generating textstatements about the environmental situation, dependenton the actual data.

5. The metainformation system

It has been said before, that metainformation is neededto integrate different systems. In the context of TEMSIS,we can see clearly how metainformation applies to inte-grate information from various sources. The principletypes of metainformation (navigational metadata, seman-tical metadata, syntactical and structural metadata) areused throughout the system. We would like to describethese using the end users perspective.

It is possible to provide several views on data withthe catalogue. So the information could be ordered byinstitutions, by topics or by geographical references. Thesearch for specific information in the system is madeeasier by the catalogue. To find the right data and tointerpret them correctly the TEMSIS server providessemantic metadata for every object type, which eithercome from the data sources or may be generated byimport programs, if it is possible. Semantic metadataprovide information that describes the content of theactual databases. This is exactly the sort of informationthat the user is interested in, if he wants to verify whichdata are useful for his purpose. It is not the task of theinformation service to provide data conversion ormetainformation generation.

5.1. TEMSIS navigator

A central component for end users comprises the vari-ous navigators implemented in the context of TEMSIS.Fig. 2 shows a draft for the A-kiosk navigator.

The left-hand side of the navigator shows the datacatalogue of the TEMSIS server. This data catalogue isa tree-structured inventory which can be considered atable of contents. It is used by end users as navigationalmetainformation in order to browse the information andto locate information of interest.

Once an object of interest has been located, the usersees the semantical metainformation on the right handside of the navigator. This metainformation describes themeaning of the object and gives additional information,how this object can be interpreted. Inherently, the useralso sees syntactical metainformation, because he will

see the data types here as well. Structural metainform-ation is not displayed. It is inherently existent, becausethe TEMSIS metainformation model usesone structurefor metainformation and does not allow different struc-tures (this structure is so flexible, that users do not evensee this).

In addition to the semantical metainformation for anobject, a couple of links can be attached to it. Theselinks are shown on the bottom right-hand side of Fig. 2.They model relationships between objects and thus canbe used to navigate between them.Once an object has been selected, it will be displayed inthe right navigator window, or an application will belaunched to display the object.

5.2. Levels of information

The TEMSIS information model can be divided intotwo different levels with different goals and focuses.

The first level is the “navigation level”, in whichinformation and objects are designed to structure the het-erogeneous system of environmental data. This helps toestablish a common view for application and infor-mation objects.

The second layer is the “factual information level”,which describes a special topic of information (e.g. videoconferencing, measurement data). The specification andimplementation of this layer is specific for the objectclass.

5.2.1. Navigation levelTo establish a common view for information objects

and applications an object oriented approach is used. An“object” in this sense is a special instance of a personor thing with special properties and functionalities.

Examples: Person DENZERInstitute HTWdSData source S02FinFStationFXYZ

Classes are a schema for objects with similar propertiesand visualization methods.

General classes can be diversified by the mechanismof “subclassing”, where all the properties of the parent-class are inherited by the subclass; special properties canbe overruled. The aim of this step is to find similar infor-mation objects, which can be collected into special“classes” of information.

Examples: PersonsInstitutesData sourcesCatalogue objects

Each information class has a set of “properties” and“methods” assigned.


Examples: PersonsProperties: Name

AcronymTitle…

Methods: Display propertiesPrint descriptionActivating a viewer…

5.2.2. Using relationships for navigationBetween classes of information several possible

relations (association classes) can be defined.

Examples: Class PERSON has relation “belong to”class INSTITUTE

These association classes are possible links betweenclasses, which means that a link between an object ofone class (instance of a class) and an object of anotherclass can be established.

Examples: A person DENZER “belongs to” aninstitute HTW.

This structure of objects and links between objects isused by the “navigator”, which is described later.

The main purpose of the navigator is to integrateobjects of different types and different applications intoone application.

5.2.3. Factual information level (secondary accesslevel)

Besides the “properties of the object”, further infor-mation must be defined or referenced in the informationsystem. Because of the fact that these data are not ofcommon interest, but are only used when specified (notby the navigator), the definition of these entities is notso hard bounded to the object–link model above. These“secondary information levels” are optimised for theapplication using this information, which is not access-ible by the navigator.

Example: data used by FORMULAdata used for Wincatdata used for Video Conferencing

Data in the secondary information level are accessiblethrough the “Object-ID” defined in the primary accesslevel.

5.3. The navigator for the A-kiosk

5.3.1. Tasks of the navigatorOn the surface, the navigator is the tool which pro-

vides support by finding relevant environmental infor-mation. Therefore, it has to fulfil the following tasks:

O display the main categories available (factual data,organisations, persons);

O display subcategories to all main or subcategories (air,water, institutions, names);

O display properties and values of selected main or sub-categories;

O display relationships and links of a selected item (asadditional navigation information);

O display a description of the selected item;O provide search mechanism;O provide search mechanism;O provide search results.

In depth, the navigator is the integration platform of allenvironmental information as well as all the differentapplications used within the TEMSIS system. The navi-gator will even allow one to start applications like Win-CAT, Videoconferencing, Word, Excel or the time-ser-ies module.

The content of the navigator is formed from the infor-mation in the metadata objects of the database. Theseobjects contain information about themselves(properties) and also reference the factual data (values).Additionally, these objects contain information abouthow they are linked together (relationship) with otherobjects. From all these data an information network isgenerated, which is difficult to understand and not whatwe understand to be user-friendly by far. In order topresent this highly complex network much more effec-tively and in a more user-friendly format, we will trans-form it into a tree structure and display it coupled withsymbolic icons (see the left window of the navigatorfigure).

5.3.2. User interfaceAs most of us, especially the users, are familiar with

common directory structures (used in the file managerof several Windows (95, NT, etc.) applications) wedecided to lay out the main navigator window in thatway (see the left window of the navigator figure). Thisenables the user to click through the hierarchical treeand get alongside (in the right window) the informationabout properties, values, relationships, as well asdescriptive information about the selected item at thebottom window of the navigator.

The relationship window informs you about the linksand relations between the objects (items). Thus, you canget an idea as to which other main or subcategories yourcurrent item is targeted. The user will be able to usethese links to jump to one of these relationships in whichhe is mainly interested (as in the Internet).

To start a search, a “search button” will be includedin the menu. The results are presented in a flat list inthe main left window.


5.3.3. How to navigate and orientateThere are four different ways:

O navigate within the tree;O navigate by filter;O navigate by relations (parent–child);O navigate by links.

Navigation within the tree should be the common wayto find relevant environmental information. The user willhave the possibility to expand or shrink a subtree byclicking on a plus/minus icon, in order to get better over-views.

Navigation by filter means that the user is providedwith a mechanism to search:

O by category (object class);O by name (object name);O by areas (rectangle, bounding box);O temporal (begin and end of existence);O by content (free text search in object name, content

of properties, content of description);O by owner.

Navigation by relationship, means that a special relation-ship exists, called the parent–child relationship, whichcan by chosen by the user, either to step forward to oneof the children of the current item (and position) or tostep back to one of the parents.

Navigation by links allows one to jump to referenceditems (objects), which are totally in another context tothe current selected item. The methods used here are toallow only jumps forward (as in the Internet) over sev-eral steps. This can help to quickly find the appropriateinformation, but cuts off the way back! This is becausethe system itself will never be able to find a way backif you have jumped several times from one context toanother (parents problem).

One idea we have, which we may discuss on futureTEMSIS functional extensions, is to provide a buttonwithin the navigator called “show context”. It will raisea separate dialogue(box) allowing the user to choosefrom one of the main categories (second level nodes inthe tree) of the same context as the current item (object).

Another idea is to find the shortest path from the rel-evant main category to the current item and to expandthe relevant tree nodes on the path.

For both ideas, functions will be defined in order to beprepared for the future, but they will not be implementedduring the TEMSIS project period.

6. System architecture

The TEMSIS project integrates data from several sys-tems. They have different structures and they are created

for various purposes. The task of the information serviceis to provide the methods for the data transport in theTEMSIS network. The data sources have to make con-versions because all data from every information systemhaving a different structure. The server provides a cata-logue and metadata for the actual data.

The catalogue has the following purposes:

O Information about available data:1.1. get an overview about available data;1.2. in particular navigation through the available

data of the institutions.O Preferential treatment for choice of activity from dif-

ferent institutions near the border area.

Another task of the information service is to provide thekiosks with information from the database. Toimplement the visual display of the data and metadatain the navigator, some functionalities have to be offered,which obtain both the catalogues and the objects withtheir attributes, if the server inquires.

These functionalities are so conceived that there areno differences between catalogues and their content.Generally, both of these possible differences are unitedand mentioned as objects in the future. For the adminis-trative completion of the navigator, there is one differ-ence between the organising node and the end node.

7. Tasks of the metainformation service

The information service has two parts in the architec-ture of the TEMSIS system: interface 1 and interface 2.These work as essential communication interfaces in theTEMSIS project. The first is between the kiosks and theTEMSIS server and the second is between the TEMSISserver and the data sources. The tasks of the informationservice differ according to the interface:

Tasks of the information service regarding interface1:

O Provide the next level in the catalogue (up and down).O Supply the metadata to every catalogue node

(attributes, links, etc.).O Provide the assignment from objects to icons, appli-

cations etc. (class information).O Provide the object description.

Apart from these functionalities of interface 1, two otherexternal access possibilities exist:

O ODBC (e.g. for WinCat).O FORMULA (for time series).

Tasks of the information service regarding interface 2:


O Request data from data source (GET).O Send data to data source (PUT).O If necessary, generate catalogue entry and metadata

(if it is possible).

A port of the SIRIUS system provided by HTW is usedfor both interfaces. This system has been discussed manytimes before. We refer to (Denzer et al., 1995).

8. Project state

At the time of writing this article, we are at the stageof integration tests. The first running demonstrator isscheduled for fall 1997 and at HICSS-31, the overallsystem can be discussed.

References

Denzer, R., Gu¨ttler, R., 1995. An overview on integration problems inenvironmental information systems. ICCI, University of Trent,Canada.

Denzer, R., Gu¨ttler, R. SIRIUS, 1995. Saarbru¨cken informationretrieval and interchange utility set. In: International Symposiumon Environmental Software Systems 1995 (ISESS 1995), Malvern,PA, June. Chapman & Hall.

Further reading

Burgard, J., Schweitzer, J., 1993. CLE: cooperative learning in a dis-tributed multimedia environment. In: Proceedings of the IFIP TC3Third Teleteaching Conference, Tele Teaching 93, Trondheim,Norway.

Schimak, Humer, H., Denzer, R., Knappitsch, E., 1994. The ozonenetwork for Austria — technical concept of a distributed environ-mental information system. In: Hiltz, L.M. et al. (Eds.) Informatikfur den Umweltschutz, 8. Symposium, Metropolis, Hamburg., pp.89–96.

Schmidt, T., Schweitzer, J., Weber, M., 1994. A framework forsynchronous telecooperation. In: Proceedings of the lntenationalWorkshop an Advanced Communications and High Speed Net-works, IWACA, Heidelberg.

Schweitzer, J., Schneider, G., Maus, H., Dietel, C., Scheller-Houy, A.,1996. Concepts for a flexibilisation of workflow management sys-tems with respect to task adaptable solutions. In: ProceedingsAAAI-96 Workshop “All in Business”, Portland, OR.

temsis — a transnational system for public information and environmental decision support

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