Oceans of Tomorrow sensor interoperability for in-situ ocean monitoring

The Oceans of Tomorrow (OoT) projects, funded by the European Commission’s FP7 program, are developing a new generation of sensors supporting physical, biogeochemical and biological oceanographic monitoring. The sensors range from acoustic to optical fluorometers to labs on a chip. The result is that the outputs are diverse in a variety of formats and communication methodologies. The interfaces with platforms such as floats, gliders and cable observatories are each different. Thus, sensorPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Applying OGC sensor web enablement to ocean observing systems

The complexity of marine installations for ocean observing systems has grown significantly in recent years. In a network consisting of tens, hundreds or thousands of marine instruments, manual configuration and integration becomes very challenging. Simplifying the integration process in existing or newly established observing systems would benefit system operators and is important for the broader application of different sensors. This article presents an approach for the automatic configuration and integration of sensors into an interoperable Sensor Web infrastructure. First, the sensor communication model, based on OGC's SensorML standard, is utilized. It serves as a generic driver mechanism since it enables the declarative and detailed description of a sensor's protocol. Finally, we present a data acquisition architecture based on the OGC PUCK protocol that enables storage and retrieval of the SensorML document from the sensor itself, and automatic integration of sensors into an interoperable Sensor Web infrastructure. Our approach adopts Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) as alternative serialization form of XML or JSON. It solves the bandwidth problem of XML and JSON.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A Survey of OB / GYN Physicians' Training & Current Practice Patterns in Breast Care

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94493/1/tbj12028.pd

NeXOS A1: Smart hydrophone integration into the sensor web enablement framework

The integration of marine sensors systems into marine observation platforms such as gliders, cabled observatories and smart buoys require a great deal of effort due to the lack of standardization and diversity of architectures used in marine technologies. The NeXOS project addresses this issue proposing the adoption of the SEISI architecture (Smart Electronic Interface for Sensor Interoperability). This paper presents a case of use of this architecture, integrating the A1 Hydrophone developed within the NeXOS into a Smart Buoy using the OGC Sensor Web Enablement framework.Postprint (author's final draft

A sensor web architecture for integrating smart oceanographic sensors into the semantic sensor web

Effective ocean and coastal data management are needed to manage marine ecosystem health. Past ocean and coastal data management systems were often very specific to a particular application and region, but this focused approach often lacks real-time data and sharing/interoperating capability. The challenge for the ocean observing community is to devise standards and practices that enable integration of data from sensors across devices, manufacturers, users, and domains to enable new types of applications and services that facilitate much more comprehensive understanding and analyses of marine ecosystem. A given kind of sensor may be deployed on various platforms such as floats, gliders or moorings, and thus must be integrated with different operation, and data management systems. Simplifying the integration process in existing or newly established observing systems would benefit system operators and is important for the broader application of diverse sensors. This paper describes a geospatial “sensor web” architecture developed by the “NeXOS” project for ocean and coastal data management, based on the concepts of spatial data infrastructure and the Sensor Web Enablement framework of the Open Geospatial Consortium. This approach reduces the effort to propagate data from deployed sensors to users. To support the realization of the proposed Next generation Ocean Sensors (NeXOS) architecture, hardware and software specifications for a Smart Electronic Interface for Sensors and Instruments (SEISI) are described. SEISI specifies small lower-power electronics, minimal operating system, and standards-basedresearch software to enable web-based sharing, discovery, exchange, and processing of sensor observations as well as operation of sensor devices. An experimental scenario is presented in which sensor data from a low-power glider with low-bandwidth intermittent satellite communications is integrated into the geospatial sensor web using the NeXOS architecture.Postprint (author's final draft

Estimation and Validation of Land Surface Broadband Albedos and Leaf Area Index From EO-1 ALI Data

The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) is a multispectral sensor onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) satellite. It has similar spatial resolution to Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), with three additional spectral bands. We developed new algorithms for estimating both land surface broadband albedo and leaf area index (LAI) from ALI data. A recently developed atmospheric correction algorithm for ETM+ imagery was extended to retrieve surface spectral reflectance from ALI top-of-atmosphere observations. A feature common to these algorithms is the use of new multispectral information from ALI. The additional blue band of ALI is very useful in our atmospheric correction algorithm, and two additional ALI near-infrared bands are valuable for estimating both broadband albedo and LAI. Ground measurements at Beltsville, MD, and Coleambally, Australia, were used to validate the products generated by these algorithms.This work was supported in part by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant NCC5462 and by funding provided by the Australian Federal Government to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Rice Production, Project 1105

Ocean data product integration through innovation-the next level of data interoperability

In the next decade the pressures on ocean systems and the communities that rely on them will increase along with impacts from the multiple stressors of climate change and human activities. Our ability to manage and sustain our oceans will depend on the data we collect and the information and knowledge derived from it. Much of the uptake of this knowledge will be outside the ocean domain, for example by policy makers, local Governments, custodians, and other organizations, so it is imperative that we democratize or open the access and use of ocean data. This paper looks at how technologies, scoped by standards, best practice and communities of practice, can be deployed to change the way that ocean data is accessed, utilized, augmented and transformed into information and knowledge. The current portal-download model which requires the user to know what data exists, where it is stored, in what format and with what processing, limits the uptake and use of ocean data. Using examples from a range of disciplines, a web services model of data and information flows is presented. A framework is described, including the systems, processes and human components, which delivers a radical rethink about the delivery of knowledge from ocean data. A series of statements describe parts of the future vision along with recommendations about how this may be achieved. The paper recommends the development of virtual test-beds for end-to-end development of new data workflows and knowledge pathways. This supports the continued development, rationalization and uptake of standards, creates a platform around which a community of practice can be developed, promotes cross discipline engagement from ocean science through to ocean policy, allows for the commercial sector, including the informatics sector, to partner in delivering outcomes and provides a focus to leverage long term sustained funding. The next 10 years will be “make or break” for many ocean systems. The decadal challenge is to develop the governance and co-operative mechanisms to harness emerging information technology to deliver on the goal of generating the information and knowledge required to sustain oceans into the future

Successful Blue Economy Examples With an Emphasis on International Perspectives

Careful definition and illustrative case studies are fundamental work in developing a Blue Economy. As blue research expands with the world increasingly understanding its importance, policy makers and research institutions worldwide concerned with ocean and coastal regions are demanding further and improved analysis of the Blue Economy. Particularly, in terms of the management connotation, data access, monitoring, and product development, countries are making decisions according to their own needs. As a consequence of this lack of consensus, further dialogue including this cases analysis of the blue economy is even more necessary. This paper consists of four chapters: (I) Understanding the concept of Blue Economy, (II) Defining Blue economy theoretical cases, (III) Introducing Blue economy application cases and (IV) Providing an outlook for the future. Chapters (II) and (III) summarizes all the case studies into nine aspects, each aiming to represent different aspects of the blue economy. This paper is a result of knowledge and experience collected from across the global ocean observing community, and is only made possible with encouragement, support and help of all members. Despite the blue economy being a relatively new concept, we have demonstrated our promising exploration in a number of areas. We put forward proposals for the development of the blue economy, including shouldering global responsibilities to protect marine ecological environment, strengthening international communication and sharing development achievements, and promoting the establishment of global blue partnerships. However, there is clearly much room for further development in terms of the scope and depth of our collective understanding and analysis

Globally consistent quantitative observations of planktonic ecosystems

In this paper we review the technologies available to make globally quantitative observations of particles in general—and plankton in particular—in the world oceans, and for sizes varying from sub-microns to centimeters. Some of these technologies have been available for years while others have only recently emerged. Use of these technologies is critical to improve understanding of the processes that control abundances, distributions and composition of plankton, provide data necessary to constrain and improve ecosystem and biogeochemical models, and forecast changes in marine ecosystems in light of climate change. In this paper we begin by providing the motivation for plankton observations, quantification and diversity qualification on a global scale. We then expand on the state-of-the-art, detailing a variety of relevant and (mostly) mature technologies and measurements, including bulk measurements of plankton, pigment composition, uses of genomic, optical and acoustical methods as well as analysis using particle counters, flow cytometers and quantitative imaging devices. We follow by highlighting the requirements necessary for a plankton observing system, the approach to achieve it and associated challenges. We conclude with ranked action-item recommendations for the next 10 years to move toward our vision of a holistic ocean-wide plankton observing system. Particularly, we suggest to begin with a demonstration project on a GO-SHIP line and/or a long-term observation site and expand from there, ensuring that issues associated with methods, observation tools, data analysis, quality assessment and curation are addressed early in the implementation. Global coordination is key for the success of this vision and will bring new insights on processes associated with nutrient regeneration, ocean production, fisheries and carbon sequestration

The Ocean Best Practices System-Supporting a Transparent and Accessible Ocean

The development and deployment of best practices are playing increasingly important roles in supporting ocean observing. By their nature, well-adopted and reviewed best practices facilitate interoperability, reproducibility and enhance the quality of data and information products. To be effective, best practices must be easy to discover, access and adopt. Unfortunately, a wealth of best practices is undigitized, buried in local repositories or scattered on the web. To reduce this fragmentation and to help meet the urgent and existential global challenges rapidly approaching (see, for example, UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development), the IOC-UNESCO Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS) has been created. The OBPS was recently described from an ocean research perspective [1]. In this paper, we describe the system's underlying technology and its core mission to enable content discovery and management through fine-scale indexing via text-mining and ontology-based semantic search tools. This relies on the reuse of well-adopted community thesauri and ontologies linking knowledge across the marine domain, through to the Sustainable Development Goals. We have implemented a constellation of software modules around the core OBPS repository (OBPS-R) to create a new, powerful, and extensible resource to accelerate best practice co-development, discovery, and access through intuitive user interfaces. While the system is operational, there are still many areas where further development can enhance the support of ocean observing. We address these in this paper and we invite the broader community to contribute to our common mission's open source codebase as well as creating and contributing ocean best practices to the OBPS