Convergence Accelerator Phase I (RAISE): Knowledge Open Network Queries for Research (KONQUER)

NSF融合加速器支持以团队为基础的多学科努力，以应对国家重要性的挑战，并在不久的将来展示可交付成果的潜力。这个融合加速器第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响和潜在的社会效益正在开发新的工具，使研究人员能够在多个不同的科学领域进行更准确，更明智的研究。最初的努力将提供研究工具，以解决国家关注的问题，如健康;重新使用和研究公众已经通过联邦政府授予的赠款资助的数据;并改善科学，技术，工程，数学和医学方面的培训。 该团队包括与生物医学，社会，地球科学和气候科学领域的研究人员的合作伙伴关系，并整合了数据网络基础设施工作的广泛专业知识，包括：DataMed，以前由美国国立卫生研究院大数据知识倡议资助的生物医学发现指数;数据发现工作室，由美国国家科学基金会资助的地球科学发现指数（NSF）; Pangeo是由NSF和NASA资助的气候科学发现和集成平台。 在第一阶段，该项目将开发一个原型搜索引擎，称为KONQUER（知识开放网络搜索引擎），它将连接这些不同的数据类型，并促进跨集成数据集的查询。该项目最初的重点是生物医学，地质和气候科学领域;然而，该技术可以扩展到未来的其他科学学科。技术进步产生了大量数据，但以有意义的方式查找和分析这些数据往往具有挑战性。 现实世界的科学问题跨越多个领域。 例如，“2016年加州中央谷的降水量是否导致山谷热病例数量增加？“要回答这个问题，需要来自医疗保健，地理位置和气候科学的数据。 然而，研究人员传统上只在一个领域接受培训，不熟悉其他学科的数据资源，即使他们知道其他数据源，数据的结构也可能非常不同，所有这些都会减缓发现的过程。KONQUER被设想为能够整合各个科学领域的数据发现索引，并将使用自然语言处理工具（如Google搜索）来分解问题并从相关数据源中检索信息。 为了实现这一目标，项目团队将扩展DATS（数据标签套件）元数据格式，以便地理/气候和科学/生物医学数据集可以以兼容的格式进行索引，开发自动索引管道，并开发可以查询和排名索引数据的搜索引擎。由此产生的KONQUER工具将加速和改变研究和信息检索，使新的假设和发现跨越学科界限成为可能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The NSF Convergence Accelerator supports team-based, multidisciplinary efforts that address challenges of national importance and show potential for deliverables in the near future. The broader impact and potential societal benefit of this Convergence Accelerator Phase I project is developing new tools to allow researchers to conduct more accurate, informed research across multiple, disparate scientific domains. The initial efforts will provide research tools that address national concerns such as health; re-use and study of data that the public has already funded through federally awarded grants; and improving training in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. The team includes partnerships with researchers from biomedical, social, geo-science, and climate science fields and integrates extensive expertise from data cyberinfrastructure efforts including: DataMed, a biomedical discovery index previously funded by the National Institutes of Health Big Data to Knowledge initiative; Data Discovery Studio, a geoscience discovery index funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF); and Pangeo, a climate science discovery and integration platform funded by NSF and NASA. During Phase I, the project will develop a prototype search engine, called KONQUER (Knowledge Open Network Queries for Research) that will connect these disparate data types and facilitate queries across the integrated datasets. The initial focus of the project is on biomedical, geological, and climate science fields; however, the technology can be extended to cover other scientific disciplines in the future. Technological advancements have generated a large volume of data, but finding and analyzing those data in meaningful ways is often challenging. Real-world scientific questions cross multiple fields. For example, "Did the precipitation levels in California's Central Valley in 2016 cause an increase in the number of Valley fever cases?" To answer this question, requires data from health care, geolocation, and climate science. However, researchers are traditionally trained in only one field and are not familiar with the data resources of other disciplines, and even when they are aware of other data sources, the data may be structured very differently, all of which slows the process of discovery. KONQUER is envisioned to be a data discovery index capable of integrating various scientific fields and will use natural language processing tools (like a Google search) to decompose questions and retrieve information from the relevant data sources. To achieve this goal the project team will extend the DATS (DAta Tag Suite) metadata format so that geo/climate and science/biomedical datasets can be indexed in compatible formats, develop a pipeline for automated indexing, and develop a search engine that can query and rank the indexed data. The resulting KONQUER tool will accelerate and transform research and information retrieval so that new hypotheses and discoveries are possible across disciplinary boundaries.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.