What is Superimposed Information

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Harvesting Information to Sustain our
Forests Creating an Adaptive Management
Portal NSF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT
PROGRAM www.cse.ogi.edu/forest
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Partnership
Co-Project Directors
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Details
On July 1, 2001 Oregon Graduate Institute ?
School of Science Engineering of the Oregon
Health Sciences University ? Oregon Health
Science University
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Presentation

• Project/Partnership Structure and Experience Lois
  Delcambre
• Application Context Progress to DateTim Tolle
• Metadata to Exploit Rich StructureMat Weaver

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Team Members _at_ Oregon Graduate Institute
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Additional Team Members _at_ Oregon Graduate
Institute
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Other Additional Team Members _at_ Oregon Graduate
Institute
Dave Hansen Undergraduate students
On-site High school apprentice
Kinley Campbell Emily Langston
Jordan Wirfs-Brock
High school apprentice
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Advisory Board
Co-Inventor of the Topic Map Model
Michel Biezunski
President, IUFRO, Oxford Forestry Institute, Dept
of Plant Sciences
Jeff Burley
USDA Forest Service, Pacific NW Region
Robert Devlin
Sustainable Northwest
Martin Goebel
MD, Asst. Professor, Division of Medical
Informatics and Outcomes Research, OHSU
Paul Gorman
Executive Director, IMFN Secretariat
Fred Johnson
Chief, Office of Technical Support, Forest
Resources, USDI Fish and Wildlife Service
Monty Knudsen
Communications Director, USDA Forest Service, PNW
Research Station
Cynthia L. Miner
Science Advisor, USDI, National Park Service
Regina Rochefort
Staff Scientist, Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory
Mark Whiting
Forest/environmental expertise
Computer science expertise
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A Predisposition for Collaboration
science culture Tim has a PhD
application-motivated research interest in seeing
results applied
Understood by all parties researchdevelopmentap
plication
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Predisposition Safeguards
why 3 years? ..trouble with my C
drive programmers!
simplifying assumptions narrow
focus deployment?!
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Tactics

• Academics tag along with Tim.
• Field tripsto Rainier National Park, OSU,
• Monthly, all-hands lunches
• Guest spotsat research meetings
• The coffee shop around the corner

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About Choosing Partners
Its a miracle
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Presentation

• Project/Partnership Structure and Experience Lois
  Delcambre
• Application Context Progress to DateTim Tolle
• Metadata to Exploit Rich StructureMat Weaver

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Project Focus The Adaptive Management Area Progra
m Learning to Manage Managing to Learn
Test Areas
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Adaptive Management Areas

• Cooperative program of USDA Forest
  Service USDI Bureau of Land Management USDI
  Fish and Wildlife Service
• Goal is to facilitate cooperation among all
  stakeholders in the forest lands (land owners,
  loggers, citizens, public groups, )

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Government Partner Activities Understand the
client requirements and opportunities
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Cle Elum and Wenatchee
Rainier NP
Eugene and Corvallis
Roseburg
Star RS and Applegate Watershed Center
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What kind of information?
Reports and study results
Maps
Decisions
Data summaries
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Initial Focus

• Concentrate on documents of all sorts
• Support land/resource manager
• Support information seeking whats known about
  this place? whats been done in similar
  situations?
• Support handling information requests (FOIA)

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Government Partner Activities Provide Scenarios,
Sample Documents, Brainstorm How We Want to
Search for Information
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Search For
Forest types
Species, especially listed species
Plant communities
Plant associations
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Search for Activities
Research
Tree planting
Thinning
Burning invasive species
Stream restoration
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Search based on planning stages
Assessments
Decisions
Surveys
Research and administrative studies
Monitoring
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Search by Other Topics

• CLIMATE
• HABITAT
• TRAILS
• ARCHEOLOGY
• COMMUNITY ASSISTANCE
• PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

• FACILITIES
• RECREATION
• ROADS
• SOILS
• HISTORY
• WILDERNESS

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Government Partner Activities Identify,
Evaluate, Select Controlled Vocabularies for
Topics of Interest

• About 18 to 20 domains of interest
• Multiple controlled vocabularies for a domain
  in widespread use (e.g., location)
• Scientific evaluation in progress
• In-depth engagement of field participants

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Examples from Controlled Vocabularies
Theme Keyword Forest Resources
Broader Terms Agricultural resources Renewable
natural resources Related Terms Agroforestry
Forestry Logging Timber Tree crops Trees
Narrower Terms Forest biomass Forest
management Forest productivity Non-timber
forest resources Old growth forests Reforestatio
n Riparian forests Silvicultural
systems Slash (logging) Tree farms
From CERES/NBII Thesaurus Partnership Project
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Kingdom Plantae Subkingdom Tracheobionta Di
vision Coniferophyta Class
Pinopsida Order Pinales Family
Pinaceae Genus
Abies Genus Cedrus Genus
Larix Genus Picea Genus
Pinus Genus Pseudotsuga Genus Tsuga
Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas Fir)
Photo credit Charles Webber, California Academy
of Sciences
Source Integrated Taxonomic Info System
http//www.itis.usda.gov/index.html
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• Forestry
• - Forestry Production (General)
• Natural Regeneration
• Artificial Regeneration
• Harvesting and Engineering
• - Forest Management
• - Forest Mensuration and Description
• - Forest Products (General)
• Wood
• Composite and Reconstituted Wood
• Pulp and Paper
• Chemicals
• - Forest Injuries and Protection
• Forest Fire Management

Source Agriculture Network Information Center
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Example CV Vegetation Glossary
Assemblages - Vegetative communities that
assemble themselves based on specific site
conditions, etc Canopy Cover - The proportion
of ground that is occupied by the perpendicular
projection down on to it of the aerial parts of
the vegetation... Deciduous Vegetation -
Associations in which deciduous woody plants
generally contribute ? 75 to total dominant
plant cover. Evergreen Cover - Vegetation
classes where ? 75 of the vegetation consists of
trees or shrubs having leaves all year.
Needle-leaved - A plant with slender, elongated
leaves e.g., pine and fir trees. Source
Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) National
Vegetation Classification Standard
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Presentation

• Project/Partnership Structure and Experience Lois
  Delcambre
• Application Context Progress to DateTim Tolle
• Metadata to Exploit Rich StructureMat Weaver

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Metadata Architecture

• Document Scope
• Explicit document metadata
• Document Proxies
• Terms
• Properties
• Enhanced superimposed metadata

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Document Scope
Digital
Non-Digital
Metadata Document Proxies
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Terms

• Values in traditional metadata become explicit
  terms

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Properties

• Fields in traditional metadata become explicit
  properties

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Explicit Metadata
Parley Pratt
Editor
Author
Wenatchee National Forest
Cle Elum Ranger District
Location
Environmental Assessment
Purpose
NEPA
Interstate 90
Keyword
Snoqualmie Pass
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Enhanced Metadata
Parley Pratt
Editor
Author
Wenatchee National Forest
Cle Elum Ranger District
Spatial Cont.
Additional superimposed information is
represented by associating terms with other terms
via properties .
this is useful for representing structured
controlled vocabularies, etc.
Location
Environmental Assessment
Concept. Cont.
Purpose
NEPA
Interstate 90
Keyword
Snoqualmie Pass
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Super Enhanced Metadata
Contributor
Editor
Author
Parley Pratt
Wenatchee National Forest
Explicit properties are hierarchically related
allowing for flexibility in the degree of
precision Find documents where Parley Pratt is
a contributor.
Cle Elum Ranger District
Spatial Cont.
Location
Western Hemlock
Environmental Assessment
Concept. Cont.
Purpose
NEPA
Interstate 90
Keyword
Snoqualmie Pass
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Super-Duper Enhanced Metadata
Contributor
Editor
Author
Parley Pratt
Wenatchee National Forest
Cle Elum Ranger District
Spatial Cont.
Species
In addition to hierarchical structure between
terms, other information may be represented by
associating terms with terms via properties.
This supports enhanced searching such as
similarity search.
Location
Western Hemlock
Environmental Assessment
Concept. Cont.
Purpose
NEPA
Interstate 90
Keyword
Snoqualmie Pass
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Prototype Demonstration
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Existing Approaches
Knowledge Representation
Information Retrieval
Metadata
Digital Libraries
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Metadata Formalism

• A five-tuple

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Metadata Formalism

• Query Helper Functions

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Metadata Formal Query
prop LOCATION Pcnt 0 (do not include any
child properties)
term Wenatchee_NF Tprop spatial_containment
(find associated terms using this
property) Tcnt (include all associated terms)
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Next Step Enhance Query Language

• Allow the user to specify
• which properties/relationships to traverse
• which direction to traverse properties/relationshi
  ps
• how many iterations of implicit searching
  (possibly dynamically)

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Next Step Develop User Interface

• Allow intuitive browsing of object framework for
• Entering metadata
• Searching metadata
• Intuitively display results
• Why was a particular document selected?
  Illustrate the relationship(s) between the
  explicit query term and the implicit query term

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Conclusions

• Simple prototype already implemented
• very positive response from potential users
• Overall effectiveness of Metadata will be
  determined by user evaluation

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What is Superimposed Information?

• data placed over existing information sources
  to
• highlight
• annotate
• elaborate
• select
• collect
• organize
• connect
• reuse
• information elements
• often to support new applications, beyond the
  original

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Examples of Superimposed Information

• Non-electronic examples
• Commentaries on religious texts, law, literature
• Concordances, citation indexes
• Electronic examples
• Your bookmark file in your web browser
• RDF metadata

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Why work on it now?

• Broadening range of digital information
• Accessibility/addressability to base information
• Reference (e.g., URL) can be resolved quickly
• Addressing at various levels of granularity
• Emerging Standards RDF, Topic Maps, Xlink
• Emerging Applications
• Third Voice, Multi-Valent Documents, ...

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The superimposed and base layers with marks
Superimposed Layer
marks
Base Layer
Information Source1
Information Source2
Information Sourcen

Focus building generic technology
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Superimposed Applications
superimposed application
base application1
web browser (with extra functions such as
annotation)
...
base application2
enhanced base layer application
simultaneous use of base and superimposed applicat
ions
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Project focuses on the Adaptive Management
Areas USDA Forest Service USDI Bureau of Land
Management USDI Fish and Wildlife Service