Proof of concept study of the Socio-Ecological Research and Observation oNTOlogy (SERONTO) for integrating multiple ecological databases.
Nicolas Bertrand, Herbert Schentz, Bert Van der Werf, Barbara Magagna, Johannes Peterseil, Sue Rennie
Abstract
ALTER-Net is a network of excellence for Long-Term Biodiversity, Ecosystem and Awareness Research spanning 24 institutions in 7 European countries. The aim is to develop an integrative research framework in biodiversity research and monitoring to address biodiversity issues at a European scale.
A key objective is the development of a framework for distributed data, information and knowledge management. The major challenge in achieving this objective is the provision of consistent data access and querying across multiple institutions and diverse data types.
Semantic approaches to data integration are seen as an enabling mechanism to carry out integrated socio-ecological science at a global scale. The Socio-Ecological Research and Observation oNTOlogy (SERONTO) has been developed building upon Umweltbundesambt’s (Federal Environment Agency – Austria) experiences in developing a semantic database system for managing environmental data.
To validate the development of SERONTO and its uses for future data integration, a proof of concept study was conducted. The scope of the proof of concept was to test:
• The feasibility of mapping relational databases to SERONTO and
• The querying of the connected database(s) from the ontological view of SERONTO
The requirements for accepting the proof of concept were:
• The databases must have different structures and must have been developed independently of SERONTO;
• The databases must feature reference lists (e.g. species lists);
• The database structures must not be altered as a result of the integration work;
• New concepts may be imported into SERONTO as and when required and
• The databases must contain data relevant to Long Term Ecological Research (e.g. vegetation surveys, records of species occurrences, measurement of biotic and abiotic components).
For the proof of concept, we used OntoStudio™ (1), the reasoning language F-Logic(2), and a platform for managing connectivity to the databases, semantic mappings and queries.
Results have been encouraging and demonstrate that SERONTO can be combined with F-Logic to query ecological data in disparate databases.
The poster describes our approach and the results of our proof of concept.
References:
1. http://www.ontoprise.de/de/en/home/products/ontostudio.html
2. Kiefer, Michael, Georg Lausen, and James Wu. 1995. Logical Foundations of Object-Oriented and Frame-Based Languages. Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, 42:741-843.
A key objective is the development of a framework for distributed data, information and knowledge management. The major challenge in achieving this objective is the provision of consistent data access and querying across multiple institutions and diverse data types.
Semantic approaches to data integration are seen as an enabling mechanism to carry out integrated socio-ecological science at a global scale. The Socio-Ecological Research and Observation oNTOlogy (SERONTO) has been developed building upon Umweltbundesambt’s (Federal Environment Agency – Austria) experiences in developing a semantic database system for managing environmental data.
To validate the development of SERONTO and its uses for future data integration, a proof of concept study was conducted. The scope of the proof of concept was to test:
• The feasibility of mapping relational databases to SERONTO and
• The querying of the connected database(s) from the ontological view of SERONTO
The requirements for accepting the proof of concept were:
• The databases must have different structures and must have been developed independently of SERONTO;
• The databases must feature reference lists (e.g. species lists);
• The database structures must not be altered as a result of the integration work;
• New concepts may be imported into SERONTO as and when required and
• The databases must contain data relevant to Long Term Ecological Research (e.g. vegetation surveys, records of species occurrences, measurement of biotic and abiotic components).
For the proof of concept, we used OntoStudio™ (1), the reasoning language F-Logic(2), and a platform for managing connectivity to the databases, semantic mappings and queries.
Results have been encouraging and demonstrate that SERONTO can be combined with F-Logic to query ecological data in disparate databases.
The poster describes our approach and the results of our proof of concept.
References:
1. http://www.ontoprise.de/de/en/home/products/ontostudio.html
2. Kiefer, Michael, Georg Lausen, and James Wu. 1995. Logical Foundations of Object-Oriented and Frame-Based Languages. Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, 42:741-843.