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

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。由于数据和模型所采用的各种（通常是非正式的和简单的）语义之间的碎片化和缺乏互操作性，使生物多样性的统一知识体系的发展变得困难。不同的表征范式需要概念上的，以及技术上的整合，以重新组织知识体系，并使新的想法、理论和更高层次的范式浮出水面并得到测试。在IEE/UMD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网络可访问的数据库，其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，潜在地集成多种建模范式并自动执行它们的兼容性。底层软件引擎使用的基于xml的基础结构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），并透明地、自动地将它们链接在一起。集成将通过称为域的显式横切抽象来实现，域表示每个模块所看到的世界的各个方面（如时间或空间），并由仿真引擎处理以解决与不同规模或表示范式相关的冲突。

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.