Transcript Web Sevices and NEFIS : Part 1

Web Sevices and NEFIS : Part 1
School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
University of Greenwich
Keith Rennolls
Frances Lee
Moh Ibrahim
Alex Fedorec
Acknowledgements: Tim Richards, Chair, NEFIS WP3
Gill Windall, Liz Bacon, Kevin McMannus, Alun Butler, UoG:
1
Web Services and NEFIS
Part 1:
General and Contextual Issues
Part 2 :
Interoperability and Architecture
2
Web Services : What are they?

Various connotations
General term relating to web services
 Specific term
as used by:






Microsoft
Sun
IBM
HP
W3C
3
Web Services:
Simple Specific Usage
SOAP
W
S
D
L
RDF
XML
HTML
Language 1
Op.Syst.1
Hardware 1
Platform 1
HTTP
SOAP
UDDI
RDF
XML
HTML
Common
W
S
D
L
Language 2
Op.Syst.2
Hardware 2
Different
Platform 2
4
TheWS “Stack”
Turner et.al. (Oct. 2003). Turning Software into a Service. IEEE Computer
5
WhyWS for EFIS & NEFIS ?


EFICS,1989, the European Forest Information and Communication
System, (Council Regulation(EEC) No. 1615/89) had as its objective
to “collect, coordinate, standardise and process data concerning the
forestry sector and its development …to facilitate the implementation
of decisions taken at national and regional level concerning the
forestry sector …taking into account existing information systems”.
The EFI EFICS Study, 1997, was commissioned “to analyse in detail
the statistical sources of forest resources in the EU…and to draw up
proposals for obtaining data which is mutually compatible and
comparable, so as to be able to establish a reliable and consistent
database at the European level”.

6
EFIS++ User Groups
(See EFICS and EFIS reports for actual surveys & analysis)








EU pan-European land-use planners.
National and Regional (sub-national) land-use planners
and forest managers.
Trans-national environmentalists and conservationists.
Forest and Environment researchers: data mining and
model building.
Local forest managers (sub-sub-national).
Local Authority land-use and landscape planners (subsub-national).
Educational users: Schools, Colleges and Universities.
Individual personal users; business or recreation.
7
EFIS functionality

Catalogue function; node of GFIS.



Searchable register of Forest Inf. Objects.
DC, XML, WS OK
Distributed Database (ddb)


Metadata for dbb …WP2 ???
Interoperable data access…



WS Federation, Grids, etc…Moh!
…of mutually compatible and comparable data
…for processing, analysis and decision support



Aggregation,
Comparison,
Modelling and Forecasting.
8
PROBLEM 1

The data in national databases (i.e. Forest
Inventories) are NOT consistent or compatable.


Forest area; dbh; volume-to; productivity class….
Well known to EFICS (89, 97) which looked at :

Harmonisation


Standardisation


(adoption of common standards - very expensive)
(adjustment/scaling of data to compatibility – not easy)
CONCLUSION:
Data-access interoperability is not enough,
by itself.
9
SOLUTION

Standardisation models required to:



Empirical Data is required.



Convert National inventory data to a common
flexible STANDARD
Convert between different National standards
Too expensive?
Use of Heuristic Modelling Patches in NEFIS
demonstrator? (From EFICS data???)
Need a Standards Conversion Toolkit (SCTK)
10
PROBLEM 2


All the national databases have different
base-dates.
Hence,
the national databases are base-date
inconsistent.
11
SOLUTION?






National Inventory up-dating models are
needed.
Equivalent to Inventory-based forecasting
models.
Forest Inventory Forecasting Toolkit?
Not Easy!!!
Expensive!
Localised or Centralised?
12
PROBLEM 3

Where do the standardisation
and up-dating processes fit
within the EFIS++ ddb
interoperability middleware?
13
SOLUTION(S)

In the central EFIS ++ processing engine?



Possible.
This may be complicated, and very slow.
Possible alternative solution:
Construct a centralised standardised and
updated Data Warehouse of European Forest
Inventories.




Re-freshed only periodically
High quality
Fast access
Easy to analyse, model and mine.
14
Ultimate Aim: Decision Support

Support Tools Needed


GIS: EFIS’s Common GIS fine.
Statistical Analysis: Tabulation
EFIS facilities limited.
 Access to generic open-source facilities needed



R …open source : SOAP : D(COM) .. Excel-Add-in.
Data Visualisation
EFIS Visual Toolkit good
 Need access to other facilities possibly needed.

15

More Support Tools Needed


RS image analysis tools
Enhanced Decision Analysis functionality


Already done.
Data Fusion Tools
Fusion of imagery over time and space
 Fusion of hierarchical data
 Fusion of forest models for mapping and
forecasting.


Data Mining Tools: access needed.

Already done.
16
Interoperability of Access to Tools

Interoperable access to distributed
databases needs a suitable architecture.


Federated WS?  Part 2.
Interoperable access to Analysis Tools also
needs a suitable architecture.

Grids?  Part 2.
17