Architecture for Electronic Field Guides

Robert A. Morris

Robert D. Stevenson

UMASS-Boston

Electronic Field Guides

• Why are we interested in semantic processing

• What do we do now

Semantically based discovery

1. In what semantic categories does the provider metadata place the provider data?

2. In what semantic categories does the application place the query subject?

3. To what semantic categories does processing the ontology expand 1 and 2 and thereby inform the application which providers to query?

A discovery scenario

• What is the scientific name of the flower whose common name is Alpine Lily?

• Issues– What is a scientific name?– What is a flower?– What is a common name?– What is a lily?– What is an Alpine Lily?– What is an alpine lily?– Who says so?

Alpine Lily is

• Lilium parvum – CalFlora, CalAcademy– www.blackdown-lilies.org.uk– enature.com

• (also: Fairy Lily, Sierran Tiger Lily)– ("Sierra Tiger Lily" in USDA Plants hence ITIS hence GBIF

COL)• Lloydia serotina

– USDA Plants hence ITIS hence GBIF COL– Gresham(OR) School Steen Mountain Checklist (1995)– ("Alp lily" at www.fs.fed.us)

Alpine Lily

Lilium parvum

© 2000 John Game

From CalFlora

Lloydia serotina

©? Betty FordAlpine Garden

Concepts varyConcept Taxonomist

meansField naturalist means

Novicemeans

Scientific Name ICZN, ICBN, … ICZN, ICBN, … A latin name

Common Name NA Local usage Whatever field guides say it is

Flower Part of an angiosperm

Part of an angiosperm or an angiosperm

A flowering plant or part of a flowering plant

Lily Species in Liliaceae family

Species in Liliaceae family

Species in Lily family

Alpine Lily NA Lloydia serotina;

Lilium parvium

Lloydia serotina;

Lilium parvium

alpine lily NA Lily that grows in an alpine setting

???

Simple novice semantic web

AnimalPlant

Flower Mammal

Taxon

is-a is-a, deduced by rule

CalFlora

USDA Plants

MSW

ITIS

serves

Where to find prototype

• http://lionhead.cs.umb.edu/wsdemo– Work of Hui Dong– Select "Integrated Scientific Name Service"

• Generally: http://www.cs.umb.edu/efg

Goals of the EFG Project

• ID and descriptive data services on the web

• No assumptions about structure of characters or character states

• Biologist should be free of informatics professionals

• Participate in federations of (biodiversity, neuroscience, ...) data sources

Query EngineServlet

Presentation Layer XSLT Engine

(Xalan)

Bac

k E

nd (

OS

tore

)

http GET

xmlinternet java

java

query formulation

POST

JDOM

html,specialized XML,...

servlet forwarding

Architecture of a UMASS Boston Electronic Field Guide

EFG Web Services

• Provide – descriptive pages

• Idiosyncratic but simple schema• TDWG SDD Schema (alpha .01...)

– Interactive and machine mediated remote or local identification tools

– Metadata (Darwin Core?)– Georeferenced checklists (collaboratively with digital

gazetteers (ADL DG)– recording of field observations

EFG Web Services

• Query schema– cgi prop1=value1&prop2=value2..– regular expressions (more or less) on

prop=value atoms– digIR (TDWG Access to Biological Collections

Data, Initial protocol for GBIF Electronic Catalog of Names). Designed generally but implemented for specimen collections data applications.

EFG plans and projects

• Elaborate on multimedia keys• Semantic discovery• K12 field Guide Production• Trusted access control, filtering, and integration,

e.g. protect geolocations of endangered species• Ontology of invasive species, especially

geographically based (cf. gazetteers)• Integrated common/scientific name services

Hermathena oweni Schaus (Riodinidae)© 2000 William Haber

from UMB EFG Project