On sharing EO concepts via ontology

1
On sharing EO concepts via ontology

• Ontology and Terminology for Earth Observation

S. D'Elia, A. Della Vecchia, M. Iapaolo -
ESRINC. Carlino, M.Iacovella, C.M. Scalzo, F.
Verdino - Epistematica
Speaker Chiara Carlino
2
Context

• High amount of data
• Many different systems used to store and exchange
  information
• Need of interaction between specialized knowledge
  fields
• Different knowledge
• Different vocabularies
• Different expertises

3
About Earth Observation

• Need to share knowledge between
• Earth Observation experts
• Knowledge about EO resources
• Distributed in different systems
• Earth Observation potential users
• Knowledge about applications

4
OTE Approach

• Ontologies
• To formalize and fix domain-specific knowledge
• To map concepts from one domain into another
• Terminologies
• To provide a common ground
• To disambiguate and fix meanings
• Include definitions and lists of synonims and
  related terms

5
Ontology / Terminology
Terminology
Classification
Information Domain
Information Domain
Product Category
EO
Product Type
Information Domain
(1..)
Format
Product Category
Service Category
(1..)
Product Type
Processing Category
Sensor
Sensor
Mission
Mission
Multi domain
EO only
6
Ontologies (1)

• Earth Observation ontologies describe
• EO product types
• Sensor they come from
• Missions they pertain to
• Some more general grouping for product types
• E.g. SAR Medium Resolution

7
Ontologies (2)

• Application domains ontology describes
• A general structure of some domains where EO
  products are useful
• Marine and coastal environment
• Fire risk
• Ice and Snow
• Organized as a graph
• Called Information Domain

8
Ontologies (3)

• Used technologies and tools
• Protegè to create OWL ontologies
• Protegè OWL API to manage them inside software
  prototype
• Racer Pro to enact automated reasoning

9
Information Domain Ontology sample
environment
security
marine environment
fire risk
ice and snow
coastal environment
offshore environment
operational oceanography
snow monitoring
sea ice monitoring
ship monitoring
snow melt
ship location
ice thickness
10
Mapping

• EO products

Marine environment
Operational oceanography
Medium resolution SAR products
Ship monitoring
11
Integration with other systems
Information Domain
KEO
SSE
EARTH OBSERVATION
???
12
Adding KEO and SSE
Terminology
Classification
KEO
SSE
Information Domain
Information Domain
Information Domain
Information Domain
Feature Label
Product Category
EO
pertainsTo (0..)
pertainsTo (0..)
basedOn (0..)
Product Type
Information Domain
hasInput
(1..)
Format
Product Category
Product Type
Processor
Service
generatedBy
Service Category
(1..)
Product Type
hasOutput
Processing Category
pertainsTo (0..)
pertainsTo (1..)
has
Sensor
Sensor
Mission
Format
Mission
Processing Category
Service Category
Multi domain
Shared
EO only
13
OTE Software Prototype (1)

• Two Web Services that provide access to
  Ontologies and Terminologies
• Such Web Services can be used for programmatic
  access and search (on terminologies and
  ontologies) by other systems
• A Web Application, leveraging these WSs, will
  allow users to
• perform a text search over the terminology
  database, to find what they are looking for
• navigate the information domain conceptual graph
• when a user finds the desired concept, he/she may
  view related EO resources, sensors and missions.

14
OTE Software Prototype (2)
Web Application
Browser
Terminologies
Web Services
Other System
Ontologies
15
OTE Client (1)
16
Conclusions

• Through ontologies we explored a feasible way of
• Standardize and share knowledge
• Model the mapping between User Domains and EO
  Products Domain
• Simplicity has been preferred over complexity
• Developed a small and stable set of concepts
• The defined ontology may be expanded and refined
  to express more complex knowledge
• Making Ontologies and Terminologies accessible
• Developed web services in order to allow the use
  of the terminologies and ontologies by other
  systems, also developed a client demonstrator
• Future work
• To improve Information Domain ontologies in order
  to explore others user domains
• To improve EO ontologies in order to better
  exploit the developed EO/Information Domain
  mapping

17

• Thank you
• for your attention

Chiara Carlino, c.carlino_at_epistematica.com
Epistematica s.r.l., viale Tiziano 80, Rome
(Italy) www.epistematica.com