KDI: A Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity: Building and Evaluating a Metadata-based Framework for Integrating Heterogeneous Scientific Data

9980154复杂性（英语：Complexity）是生物系统的一种固有属性，它源于地球的物理、化学和生物成分之间的直接和间接相互作用。 生物多样性是生物复杂性的生态表现形式，包括在生物组织的所有层面，包括个人、种群、社区和生态系统中产生的动态系统的结构和功能属性。 在社会对环境的关注和技术进步的推动下，专注于复杂生态系统的科学家产生了生态数据的爆炸式增长。 然而，由于这些数据在空间上的分散性、结构和语义上的极端异质性以及复杂性，它们在很大程度上是不可访问的，这阻碍了大规模的综合研究。本项目将以生态系统功能和生物多样性之间的关系调查为试验平台，将分布式和异构的生态信息源整合到一个基于标准的、开放式架构的知识网络中。 该网络将扩展元数据表示的最新进展，并提供从分布式，自治数据存储库的产品概念复杂的访问。 作为知识网络的一部分，PI将创建新的工具，用于发现检索，解释，整合和分析数据，这些数据将允许测试与生物复杂性有关的多种假设。该项目还将采用创造性的方法，为专业人员和学生提供信息学和生物复杂性方面的教育，推广和培训。

9980154ReichmanComplexity is an inherent property of biological systems that arises from direct and indirect interactions among the earth's physical, chemical, and biological components. Biodiversity, the ecological manifestation of biocomplexity, includes the structural and functional attributes of dynamic systems that arise at all levels of biological organization, including individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems. Catalyzed by societal concerns over the environment and facilitated by technology advances, scientists focused on complex ecological systems have generated an explosion of ecological data. However, broad-scale and synthetic research is stymied because these data are largely inaccessible due to their spatial dispersion, extreme structural and semantic heterogeneity, and complexity.Using investigations of the relationship between ecosystem function and biodiversity as a test bed, this project will integrate distributed and heterogeneous ecological information sources into a standards-based, open architecture, knowledge network. The network will extend recent advances in metadata representation and provide conceptually sophisticated access to products from distributed, autonomous data repositories. As part of the knowledge network, the PIs will create new tools for discovering retrieving, interpreting, integrating, and analyzing data that will allow testing of multiple formulations of hypotheses that pertain to biocomplexity. This project also will employ creative approaches to education, outreach, and training in informatics and biocomplexity for professionals and students.