Interoperability & Knowledge Sharing

1. Interoperability& Knowledge Sharing Advisor: Dr. Sudha Ram Dr. Jinsoo Park Kangsuk Kim (former MS Student) Yousub Hwang (Ph.D. Student)

2. Project Goals • Identify and resolve various semantic conflicts. • Facilitateinteroperability among distributed, heterogeneous data sources. • Enableknowledge-based information sharing. • Allow users to query and access large information space through a conceptual interface. • Provide theoretical and practical solutions that enable decision-makers to analyze and solve geographicallyrelatedproblems at the level of complexity required for credible solutions to real world management concerns.

3. USM* System Architecture

4. Web-based Semantic User Interface

5. Accessing Spatiotemporal Data • Metadata Access • Example query: “Display all different types of fuels about which data is available.” • The browser uses the metadata dictionary and mapping dictionary. • Metadata and Data Access (Spatial Queries) • Example query: “Display all counties where each type of vegetation is found.” • The data accessor uses the metadata dictionary, mapping dictionary and metadata directory, and calls proper data access object wrappers. • Data Access • Example query: “Show a particular county about which vegetation data is available.” • The data accessor uses the metadata dictionary, mapping dictionary and metadata directory, and calls proper data access object wrappers. Mediators will perform necessary conversions and resolve (or inform) the semantic conflicts. • Access to Output from Simulation • Example query: “How fast is the fire spreading and which area will be affected by it?”

6. Constructing Semantic Conflict Resolution Ontology (SCROL)

7. Mapping the Ontology to Semantic Model

8. Technologies Under Development • Mediators • software modules that exploit encoded knowledge (domain knowledge). • provide methods to access and integrate data from multiple databases. • facilitate interoperability and information sharing among disparate information sources. • Ontology • An explicit specification of the concepts and their relationships. • Facilitates knowledge sharing and reuse. • Metadata • to capture the intension (including structure, integrity rules and meta-properties) of the database schema. • Mediators use metadata and ontologies to provide interoperability. • Ontology and metadata are stored in a common repository and manipulated by description logic based operators.

9. Contributions and Future Direction • Users can easily understand the contents of underlying databases through the formal semantic model (USM*). • Users do not need to learn to program using the GIS commands. • Data can be accessed in terms of what the user understands. • Development of tools that assist in modeling and accessing geospatial objects and facilitate semantic interoperability and knowledge sharing. • Future Direction: In addition to spatiotemporal data, the tools will be expanded and tested on various application domains, such as web-based databases, digital library, data warehouses, etc.