Transcript SW Eng in Forestry

Network for a European Forest Information Service
NEFIS
Alex Fedorec, Greenwich University, UK
Jarmo Saarikko, METLA, FI
Risto Päivinen, Andreas Schuck & Tim Green, European Forest Institute, FI
Frontiers in Forest Information
The Impact of Changing Technologies
Oxford Dec 2005
What is NEFIS?
Network for a European Forest Information Service
Accompanying Measure in the EU 5th Framework Programme 2002-2005
(Contract No. QLK5-CT-2002-30638)
General objectives were to build on and continue activities initiated in the
‘European Forest Information System (EFIS)’ project and to maximise the
value of existing data and databases by:
• coordinating ongoing efforts to create forest information systems and
services
• supporting development of harmonised standards and procedures for
data provision by data providers at regional, country and international
levels
• increasing the usability of available data and databases by the
European citizens.
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NEFIS Partnership
• European Forest Institute
• European Commission, DG JRC, Institute for
Environment and Sustainability – Land
Management Unit
• International Union of Forest Research
Organisations
• Dresden University of Technology – Forest
Biometrics and Computer Sciences
• Frauenhoffer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der
angewandten Forschung e.V.
• Finnish Forest Research Institute
• Inventaire Forestier National
• Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute –
Dept. of Forestry
• Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet – Dept. of Forest
Resource Management and Geomatics
• University of Greenwich – School of Computing
and Mathematical Sciences
• Regione Dell’Umbria – Servizio Programmazione
Forestale
• Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali
• Centre Tecnologic Forestal de Catalunya – Forest
Policy and Rural Development Dept
• Hungarian State Forest Service (SFS)
• Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest
Products, BFH
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About Data and Information
• Is more data needed or
have we reached information overload?
• Is some important data/information missing or of too low
accuracy?
• Are current resources/information fully utilised and used efficiently?
• Lack of data/information is not necessarily the problem
but their use and application
• Do we know where to find what information/data?
• Users incl. decision makers are often
not aware of existing information or do not use it
• How accessible is existing information really?
• In which way should information and data be made available?
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Specific Tasks
1. Review the state of the art in the technical development of
information services
2. Develop metadata standards and controlled vocabularies
3. Suggest unified and operable methods for communication
between different Internet-based forest information service
activities
4. Publish a follow-up version of the currently available EFIS
prototype
5. Test the EFIS using regional, national and international data
sets
6. Evaluate the service from the users’ and data providers’
perspectives
7. Develop strategies for development of the service
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Some Results of NEFIS
• Metadata schema (based on Dublin Core)
• Suggestion for a Forest Markup Language (FML)
• Controlled vocabularies 12 themes, 4 developed further
• Prepared sample datasets and metadata available through the
EFIS system
• Technical review and UML description of an extended EFIS
• Demonstration package: Resource Discovery and Visualization
Toolkits
• KnowledgeBase http://www.nefis-kb.info/
• Utilisation by the European Commission: EFICP, INFORS
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Scope and Challenges of NEFIS
International/national
Gov. agencies, NGOs
Databases
Land use planners,
Mgrs, Silviculturalists
Docs
News media,
Public sector
XLS
Files
X
Commercial, financial,
Forest/timber industry
HTML
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Consultants, Modellers,
Researchers, Education
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Side Notes
Published result of one task becomes input dataset for
another. “One person’s output is another person’s input”
National Inventory → JQ report → Eurostat DB → FRA → MCPFE Report
(Similarly one person’s data is another's metadata)
Much information held in weakly structured documents.
Lack metastructure to fully exploit explicit (codified)
knowledge or extract tactic (unarticulated) knowledge.
Crucial issue:
Why would someone want to use this system?
• Resource user?
• Information provider?
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Technical Review – UML Modelling
UML – The Unified Modelling Language (ISO/IEC 19501)
Objectives
• “Produce a consultative UML review of EFIS model and
extend it to incorporate new information types, relationships
and processes,
• Build on outputs of other projects such as EFIS, GFIS and
results from other work packages of the AM.
• Develop understanding of O-O paradigm applicability to
European forest information
• Identify system and user requirements
• Scope technical possibilities and infrastructure”
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Why UML? - UML in the Ontology Spectrum
Daconta, M.C., et.al., 2003
Strong semantics
Modal Logic
First Order Logic
Local Domain Theory
OCL – The UML
Object Constraint Language
DAML+OIL, OWL
UML – The Unified Modelling Language
Conceptual Model
RDF/S
XTM
Is subclass of
Extended ER
Is disjoint subclass of
with transitivity
property
Thesaurus
ER
Schema
Taxonomy
Relational
Model
Has narrower meaning than
Is subclassification of
Minimal hierarchic
knowledge to rich consistent
and meaningful knowledge
Weak semantics
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UML Modelling Cont’d
Approach
• Identify and partition key user groups and application
domains
• Elicit sample use cases and story lines from example
applications, e.g.
UN-ECE/FAO Global Forest Resource Assessment & TBFRA 2000 (Regional FRA)
MCPFE Criteria & Indicators for Sustainable Forest Mgt
Forest Products Production and Trade Flows
Land Use & Land Cover Change for UNFCCC
• Commonalities factored to identify generic use cases,
desired features, kernel classes, packages etc.
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Example Use Case 1
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NEFIS Generic Use Case
NEFIS System
Support Kernel
«uses»
Resource,
Document &
Content
Management
Check guidelines
«uses»
«uses»
«extends»
Validation is done off-line
System simply provides
contact and comms support
Validate Dataset
«uses»
«extends»
publish source
information
locate and
retrieve dataset
Get agregate
dataset
«uses»
«uses»
«extends»
Transform dataset
«uses»
MetaData Registry
and Repository
Mgt System
Top Package::client
Analyse, visualise,
transform aggregate
«uses»
Top Package::Provider
Application
Tool
Repository
«extends»
Metadata Mgt
Subscriber
Regististration
«uses»
«extends»
Browse Forest
Information
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Subscriber
workflow,
task & role
management
«extends»
Task & Role
Management
«uses»
Top Package::NEFIS admin
Portal Management
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Identification of Key Elements
• Metadata management: Not just resource discovery Normalisation and control of ontology database required to
ensure semantic interoperability at all levels
• Content management central to dynamic control and
delivery
• Task and role choreography and support, facilitate and
enhance usability (success predicated on high quality
publish & subscribe tools)
• Maintenance of tool and standard component repository
Note technical review revealed each of these elements is
enabled by web services and service-oriented-architecture
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Technical Review - Changing Technology
Within the short life of the NEFIS project we have seen the rapid
growth of:
• new pattern and model driven techniques for analysis and
architecting complex or large scale information systems
• open-system standards, exploitation of metadata and
middleware protocols to support resource location and
interoperability in highly distributed heterogeneous systems
• component-oriented and web-service tools and technologies
to implement these systems
• RAD tools for sophisticated GUI development
We are also seeing emerging
• grid and autonomic infrastructures to optimise execution
• agile methods to manage the development process
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NEFIS Service-Oriented Deployment
« WWW »
CLIENT
*
«internet»
Visualisation,
Analysis &
Reporting Toolkits
Central Services
Metadata DB /
Domain Ontology
Central Resource
& Document DB
«intranet»
Tool Repository &
Forest Model
Archive
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Resource Locator &
Vortal Services
Access & Authorisation Mgt
Resource Browser
NEFIS SERVER
UDDI
API/Registry
Task & Role
Management.
Content
Management
Metadata
Management
PROVIDER SERVER
*
«internet»
Publication Tools
Harmonisation
Tools
Published Services
*
Provider Systems
Raw Databases
and Information
Archiving and
Hosting Services
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NEFIS Metadata Based on DCMI Element Set.
NEFIS extensions and modifications ()
Suggested FML provides an XML schema reflecting this
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Controlled Vocabularies: Themes and Terms
• Facilitate cataloguing and accessing of NEFIS metadata
records and underlying datasets
• Developed from data sets provided by the NEFIS partners
• Based on a generic standard and existing recognized
vocabularies: CABI thesaurus, AgroVoc, NAL Keyword
lists developed for 12 themes:
Forest inventory (incl. growth & yield)
Forest products and trade flows
Silviculture (incl. forest nurseries)
Vegetation (or forest or land) types
Non-wood goods and benefits
Maps and geo-referenced data
Forest fires
Forest health
Rural development
Forestry institutions
Forest operations
Field experiments
Lists further developed further for the themes in bold
(e.g. to include definitions, equivalents in other languages etc)
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Data Preparation and Data Provision
Objectives
• to identify the datasets (sub-national, national
& international) for input to the EFIS
• to prepare metadata records using the
proposed metadata schema
• to provide and prepare sample datasets
available through the EFIS system
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Demonstration Package
Consists of:
• Resource Discovery (RD)
• in which the proposed NEFIS metadata schema is implemented
• New Visualisation Toolkit (VTK) functionalities,
• support of spatial time series data;
• tools for dynamic aggregation of grid (raster) data;
• some new visualisation techniques
• Data retrieval:
• Implementation of simple system for retrieval of data from data
tables from distributed and remote sites, collation of the data,
and processing into a format that can be used by the VTK
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Demonstrator Package
Search
Metadata
Utilise
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Data
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Example VTK Visualisations
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NEFIS KnowledgeBase
http://www.nefis-kb.info/
Structured repository for deposit, storage and access of information and
metadata relevant to forest information systems, with emphasis on NEFIS
recording:
• outputs from NEFIS WPs
• other forest IS/services development initiatives (e.g. GFIS, EFIS) and
other relevant projects
• relevant software resources and documentation
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Summary & Conclusion
pan-European FISs have vast and expanding volumes of distributed information,
are heterogeneous, highly changeable, have huge range of potential user types
and applications.
The changing technology discussed in NEFIS potentiates
• Wrapping and support of legacy systems
• Interoperability and transparency of information
• Provision of future-proofed scalable architectures
More importantly it enables
• Location and retrieval of (just) the right data and information
• Provision of the information in the right form for the task
Challenges are
• Provision of quality publish/subscribe tools
• Ontology not only for resource discovery but semantic interoperability
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Thank You!
further information:
www.efi.fi/projects/nefis
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