Technical note: Harmonising metocean model data via standard web services within small research groups

Abstract. Work over the last decade has resulted in standardised web services and tools that can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of working with meteorological and ocean model data. While many operational modelling centres have enabled query and access to data via common web services, most small research groups have not. The penetration of this approach into the research community, where IT resources are limited, can be dramatically improved by (1) making it simple for providers to enable web service access to existing output files; (2) using free technologies that are easy to deploy and configure; and (3) providing standardised, service-based tools that work in existing research environments. We present a simple, local brokering approach that lets modellers continue to use their existing files and tools, while serving virtual data sets that can be used with standardised tools. The goal of this paper is to convince modellers that a standardised framework is not only useful but can be implemented with modest effort using free software components. We use NetCDF Markup language for data aggregation and standardisation, the THREDDS Data Server for data delivery, pycsw for data search, NCTOOLBOX (MATLAB®) and Iris (Python) for data access, and Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service for data preview. We illustrate the effectiveness of this approach with two use cases involving small research modelling groups at NATO and USGS

Development of a Web-Based Geographical Information System for Interactive Visualization and Analysis of Container Itineraries

The paper describes an advanced prototype of a web-based geographical information system for user-friendly, interactive and efficient visualization of containers travelling over the world. The prototype uses ConTraffic Oracle Data Base (DB), where more than 300 000 container’s events are archived daily. The DB contains currently around one billion container movements. In addition, geographical data about the used locations/ports was collected and stored in the same DB on which the prototype is implemented. The prototype system provides users with container traffic information for specific date range, presented in interactive geographical and tabular mode. As a result, the prototype makes efficient visualization for easy visual analysis of container movements and status. The system used in this study gathers in quasi real-time online data from open sources, processes and stores it in DB. Using the proposed GIS application the user can access any time the DB and review on a map the itinerary of a specific container in specific date range, interact with the geographical presentation to receive specific details for the container for the used ports and review the itinerary details in interactive tabular presentation.JRC.G.4-Maritime affair

Attribute refinement in a multigranular temporal object data model

Temporal granularities are the unit of measure for temporal data, thus a multigranular temporal object model allows to store temporal data at different levels of detail, according to the needs of the application domain. In this paper we investigate how the integration of multiple temporal granularities in an object-oriented data model impacts on the inheritance hierarchy. In the paper we specifically address issues related to attribute refinement, and the consequences on object substitutability. This entails the development of suitable instruments for converting temporal values from a granularity to another.Science Foundation IrelandIrish Research Council for Science, Engineering & Technolog

Contexts as explicit parameterization of ontology driven methods

In the recent Computer Science literature, contexts have been proposed mainly to formalize context dependent background knowledge. In this paper we discuss the importance of the application of contexts as explicit parametrization of methods exploiting the knowledge encoded in ontologies. We propose a context formalization suitable to improve the flexibility of ontology driven methods like semantic similarity and granularity. Herein, we detail in particular the context parametrization for semantic granularity. The user scenario pertaining to the exploitation of a repository for industrial design product models is discussed to illustrate the proposed formalization.Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering & Technolog

Spatio-temporal multi-granularity : modelling and implementation challenges

Multiple spatial and temporal granularities are essential to extract significant knowledge from datasets at different levels of detail: they enable to zoom-in and zoom-out a dataset, enhancing the data modelling flexibility and being instrumental to boost the analysis of information. Implementing granularities poses several interesting problems. Specifically, in this paper we analyse the issues involved by enhancing a data model and a query language with spatio-temporal multi-granularity, and we figure out efficacious solutions to address all of them. In our exposition, we investigate proper representations for the spatial and the temporal domains; then we conceive an appropriate design for granules and granularities, and for multi-granular values. In particular, mutual relationships among granularities and how they affect granularities design is discussed according to their influence on data access and considering the application of multi-granular conversions. Afterwards, we dedicated to the design of multi-granular spatio-temporal conversions, discussing the multiple ways in which they affect data usability and envisaging how the design of a multi-granular model and query language may guarantee such an fundamental property, reducing uncertainty on the represented values, combining concepts like topologically consistent transformation, probability distributions, invertibility and quasi-invertibility properties. In our discussion, we are influenced on our previous work on multi-granularity. Especially, we expose some of the considerations that guided the design of a multi-granular spatio-temporal model we already proposed as extension of the ODMG data model. In this paper, we describe also some relevant details of a demonstrative object-oriented prototype realized on top of ObjectStore PSE Proj, and of an object-relational prototype realized on top of ORACLE. Both prototypes, even exploiting different characteristics of the underlying data models, prove the effectiveness of the proposed design solutions.Science Foundation Irelan

Context enabled semantic granularity

Presented at the 12th International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES 2008), Zagreb, Croatia, 3-5 September 2008In this paper we propose a powerful ontology driven method that eases the browsing of any repository of information resources described by an ontology: we provide a flexible semantic granularity method for the navigation of a repository according to different levels of abstraction, i.e. granularities. The granularity is explicitly parameterised according to the criteria induced by the context.Science Foundation Ireland; Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering & TechnologyConference detailshttp://kes2008.kesinternational.org