Towards design patterns for ontology alignment

scharffe2008aInternational audienceAligning ontologies is a crucial and tedious task. Matching algorithms and tools provide support to facilitate the task of the user in defining correspondences between ontologies entities. However, automatic matching is actually limited to the detection of simple one to one correspondences to be further refined by the user. We introduce in this paper Correspondence Patterns as a tool to assist the design of ontology alignments. Based on existing research on patterns in the fields of software and ontology engineering, we define a pattern template and use it to develop a correspondence patterns library. This library is published in RDF following the Alignment Ontology vocabulary

Emissions of major gaseous and particulate species during experimental burns of southern African biomass

Characteristic vegetation and biofuels in major ecosystems of southern Africa were sampled during summer and autumn 2000 and burned under semicontrolled conditions. Elemental compositions of fuels and ash and emissions of CO2, CO, CH3COOH, HCOOH, NOX, NH3, HONO, HNO3, HCl, total volatile inorganic Cl and Br, SO2and particulate C, N, and major ions were measured. Modified combustion efficiencies (MCEs, median = 0.94) were similar to those of ambient fires. Elemental emissions factors (EFel) for CH3COOH were inversely correlated with MCEs; EFels for heading and mixed grass fires were higher than those for backing fires of comparable MCEs. NOX, NH3, HONO, and particulate N accounted for a median of 22% of emitted N; HNO3emissions were insignificant. Grass fires with the highest EFels for NH3corresponded to MCEs in the range of 0.93; grass fires with higher and low MCEs exhibited lower EFels. NH3emissions for most fuels were poorly correlated with fuel N. Most Cl and Br in fuel was emitted during combustion (median for each = 73%). Inorganic gases and particulate ions accounted for medians of 53% and 30% of emitted Cl and Br, respectively. About half of volatile inorganic Cl was HCl indicating significant emissions of other gaseous inorganic Cl species. Most fuel S (median = 76%) was emitted during combustion; SO2and particulate SO42−accounted for about half the flux. Mobilization of P by fire (median emission = 82%) implies large nutrient losses from burned regions and potentially important exogenous sources of fertilization for downwind ecosystems

Strong impact of wildfires on the abundance and aging of black carbon in the lowermost stratosphere

Wildfires inject large amounts of black carbon (BC) particles into the atmosphere, which can reach the lowermost stratosphere (LMS) and cause strong radiative forcing. During a 14-month period of observations on board a passenger aircraft flying between Europe and North America, we found frequent and widespread biomass burning (BB) plumes, influencing 16 of 160 flight hours in the LMS. The average BC mass concentrations in these plumes (∼140 ng·m$^{-3}$, standard temperature and pressure) were over 20 times higher than the background concentration (∼6 ng·m$^{-3}$) with more than 100-fold enhanced peak values (up to ∼720 ng·m$^{-3}$). In the LMS, nearly all BC particles were covered with a thick coating. The average mass equivalent diameter of the BC particle cores was ∼120 nm with a mean coating thickness of ∼150 nm in the BB plume and ∼90 nm with a coating of ∼125 nm in the background. In a BB plume that was encountered twice, we also found a high diameter growth rate of ∼1 nm·h$^{-1}$ due to the BC particle coatings. The observed high concentrations and thick coatings of BC particles demonstrate that wildfires can induce strong local heating in the LMS and may have a significant influence on the regional radiative forcing of climate

Correspondence patterns for ontology mediation

scharffe2007aInternational audienceNo abstract available

Correspondence patterns for ontology mediation

scharffe2007aInternational audienceNo abstract available

Internal consistency of the IAGOS ozone and carbon monoxide measurements for the last 25 years

International audienceThe In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS) is a European research infrastructure that equips the Airbus A340/330 with a system for monitoring atmospheric composition. The IAGOS instruments have three different configurations: IAGOS-Core, IAGOS - Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapor by Airbus In Service Aircraft (IAGOS-MOZAIC) and IAGOS - Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container (IAGOS-CARIBIC). Since 1994, there have been a total of 17 aircraft equipped. In this study, we perform an intercomparison of about 8000 landing and takeoff profiles to compare the O3 and CO measurements performed from these different configurations. The collocated profiles used in the study met various selection criteria. The first was a maximal 1 h time difference between an ascent or descent by two different aircraft at the same airport and the second was a selection based on the similarity of air masses based on the meteorological data acquired by the aircraft. We provide here an evaluation of the internal consistency of the O3 and CO measurements since 1994. For both O3 and CO, we find no drift in the bias amongst the different instrument units (six O3 and six CO IAGOS-MOZAIC instruments, nine IAGOS-Core Package1 and the two instruments used in the IAGOS-CARIBIC aircraft). This result gives us confidence that the entire IAGOS database can be treated as one continuous program and is therefore appropriate for studies of long-term trends

Earth System Chemistry integrated Modelling (ESCiMo) with the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) version 2.51

Three types of reference simulations, as recommended by the Chemistry–Climate Model Initiative (CCMI), have been performed with version 2.51 of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts – Hamburg (ECHAM)/Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) model: hindcast simulations (1950–2011), hindcast simulations with specified dynamics (1979–2013), i.e. nudged towards ERA-Interim reanalysis data, and combined hindcast and projection simulations (1950–2100). The manuscript summarizes the updates of the model system and details the different model set-ups used, including the on-line calculated diagnostics. Simulations have been performed with two different nudging set-ups, with and without interactive tropospheric aerosol, and with and without a coupled ocean model. Two different vertical resolutions have been applied. The on-line calculated sources and sinks of reactive species are quantified and a first evaluation of the simulation results from a global perspective is provided as a quality check of the data. The focus is on the intercomparison of the different model set-ups. The simulation data will become publicly available via CCMI and the Climate and Environmental Retrieval and Archive (CERA) database of the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ). This manuscript is intended to serve as an extensive reference for further analyses of the Earth System Chemistry integrated Modelling (ESCiMo) simulations