Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics - BDEI - Towards an Operational Semantics of Biological Diversity: Integrating Structure and Function in a Web-accessible Knowledge Base

EIA-010931 Villa，Ferdinando马里兰州大学环境科学中心BDEI：走向操作语义多样性：整合结构摘要理解生物多样性的动态需要新的方法和不同学科之间的整合。由于数据和模型采用的不同（通常是非正式和简单化）语义之间的碎片化和缺乏可操作性，开发有关生物多样性的统一知识体系变得困难。不同的代表性范式需要概念和技术的整合，以重组知识体系，使新的想法、理论和更高层次的范式浮出水面并得到检验。在IEE/UMD正在开发的软件和概念框架的基础上，我们建议开发和部署一个可通过网络访问的数据库，在这个数据库中，时间和空间上明确的生物多样性数据将与动态模块化模型共存，潜在地集成多个建模范例并自动强制它们的兼容性。底层软件引擎所使用的基于XML的基础设施将使我们能够采用可扩展的表示数组来存储数据和模型（模块），并将它们透明地、自动地链接在一起。集成将通过称为域的明确的横切抽象发生，域代表每个模块所看到的世界的各个方面（如时间或空间），并由模拟引擎处理以解决与不同尺度或代表性范式相关的冲突。

EIA-010931Villa, FerdinandoUniversity of Maryland Center for Environmental SciencesBDEI: Towards an Operational Semantics Diversity: Integrating StructureSummaryUnderstanding the dynamics of biological diversity requires new approaches andintegration between different disciplines. The development of a unitary body ofknowledge about biodiversity is made difficult by the fragmentation and lack ofinteroperability between the diverse - and often informal and simplistic - semanticsadopted for data and models. Different representational paradigms require conceptual, aswell as technical, integration to enable reorganizing the body of knowledge and enablenew ideas, theories, and higher-level paradigms to surface and be tested.Building on software and conceptual frameworks being developed at IEE/UMD, wepropose to develop and deploy a web-accessible database where temporally- andspatially- explicit biodiversity data will coexist with dynamic modular models,potentially integrating multiple modeling paradigms and automatically enforcing theircompatibility. The XML-based infrastructure used by the underlying software engine willenable us to store data and models (modules) adopting an extensible array ofrepresentations, and to link them together transparently and automatically. Theintegration will happen through explicit cross-cutting abstractions called domains, whichrepresent various aspects of the world (such as time or space) as seen by each module,and are processed by the simulation engine to resolve conflicts related to different scalesor representational paradigms.