An Information Semantics Approach for Knowledge Management and Interoperability for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is built on current international cooperation efforts among existing distributed earth observing and processing systems. The goal is to formulate an end-to-end process that enables the collection and distribution of accurate, reliable earth observation (EO) data, information, products, and services to both suppliers and consumers worldwide. EOs are obtained from a multitude of sources and require tremendous efforts and coordination among different governments and user groups to come to a shared understanding on a set of concepts involved in a domain. Semantic metadata play a crucial role in resolving the differences in meaning, interpretation, and usage of the same or related data. Also, the knowledge about the geopolitical background of the originating datasets could be encoded in the metadata that would address the diversity on a global scale. In distributed environments like GEOSS, modularization is inevitable. In this paper, we describe the need for an information semantics-based approach for knowledge management and interoperability between heterogeneous GEOSS systems. Further, considering the magnitude of concepts involved in GEOSS, we explore the possibility of using modular ontologies for formulating smaller interconnected ontologies.      

A highly parallelized framework for computationally intensive MR data analysis

Object

The goal of this study was to develop a comprehensive magnetic resonance (MR) data analysis framework for handling very large datasets with user-friendly tools for parallelization and to provide an example implementation.

Materials and methods

Commonly used software packages (AFNI, FSL, SPM) were connected via a framework based on the free software environment R, with the possibility of using Nvidia CUDA GPU processing integrated for high-speed linear algebra operations in R. Three hundred single-subject datasets from the 1,000 Functional Connectomes project were used to demonstrate the capabilities of the framework.

Results

A framework for easy implementation of processing pipelines was developed and an R package for the example implementation of Fully Exploratory Network ICA was compiled. Test runs on data from 300 subjects demonstrated the computational advantages of a processing pipeline developed using the framework compared to non-parallelized processing, reducing computation time by a factor of 15.

Conclusion

The feasibility of computationally intensive exploratory analyses allows broader access to the tools for discovery science.     

GEOSS Architecture Principles and the GEOSS Clearinghouse

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is composed of diverse component systems contributed by members and participating organizations of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). To enable these diverse components to interoperate, the GEOSS Architecture embodies principles given in the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan and Reference Document. A basic principle is adoption of international standards and common interoperability arrangements, as seen in the contributed facility known as GEOSS Clearinghouse. GEOSS Clearinghouse acts as a cross-cutting discovery tool, encompassing all registered GEOSS components and external catalogs as well. Together, the GEOSS Architecture and GEOSS Clearinghouse enable GEO members and participating organizations to cooperate in realizing GEOSS. The resulting system of systems is simplifying access to resources for any and all users, including decision makers across the GEO Societal Benefit Areas. This paper explains key GEOSS Architecture principles and how GEOSS Clearinghouse applies international standards and interoperability arrangements.      

PVES: Powered Visualizer for Earth Environmental Science

In this paper, we propose a powered visualizer for earth environmental science (PVES) which can accommodate three-dimensional (3-D) datasets. Though a data integration system called the Information Fusion Reactor for Earth Environmental Science (IFRES) is being developed at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, PVES is a part of the IFRES contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Three key functions are implemented. The first is a rather naive function that allows users to visualize 3-D raw data through Virtual Reality Modeling Language. Second, the user can specify an arbitrary curve over the 3-D dataset and then visualize its cross section. This has been proven to be very powerful for 3-D analyses of flow phenomena. Third, users can easily specify various kinds of related data in IFRES to overlay on the cross section. This function also helps users to understand the flow phenomena deeply through the fusion of information. Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) data and its reanalysis data are provided as examples of applicable data in this paper; AIRS data is a satellite sensor product, and reanalysis data is a type of model outputs. We also present some observations extracted with the PVES and confirm effectiveness and usefulness of PVES.      

Using Architecture Modeling to Assess the Societal Benefits of the Global Earth Observation System-of-Systems

An enterprise architecture for the Earth Science activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was developed to assist in assessing the capacity of scientific instruments in meeting the needs of society. It can also help them develop the right investment strategies and help scientists and engineers in their planning for system development, especially for complex space-based environmental sensors. This architecture model can be easily extended to the Global Earth Observation System-of-Systems (GEOSS). In fact, it was constructed with GEOSS in mind to ensure that NASA's observation systems can be readily mapped into the GEOSS structure. The architecture contains about 3000 elements that are involved in earth science research: observation sources, sensors, environmental parameters, data products, mission products, observations, science models, predictions, and decision-support tools. The science models use observations from the space-based instruments to generate predictions about various aspects of the environment. These predictions are used by decision-makers around the world to help minimize property damage and loss of human life due to adverse conditions such as severe weather storms. The architecture is developed using both traditional and nontraditional systems engineering (SE) tools and techniques. This paper will describe additional methods needed for the SE toolbox.      

Design Principles and IT Overviews of the GEO Grid

As the Earth's ecosystem is a spatially and temporally complex system by nature, it is not sufficient to observe such events and phenomena locally; problems must be solved on a global scale. Therefore, the accumulation of knowledge about the earth in various forms and a scientifically correct understanding of the earth are necessary. The authors have been leading the “Global Earth Observation (GEO) Grid” project since 2005, which is primarily aimed at providing an e-Science infrastructure for the worldwide earth sciences community. In the community, there are wide varieties of existing datasets including satellite imagery, geological data, and ground sensed data that each data owner insists own licensing policy. Also, there are so many related projects that will be configured as a virtual organization (VO) enabled by Grid technology. The GEO Grid is designed to integrate all of the relevant data virtually, again enabled by Grid technology, and is accessible as a set of services. In this paper, first we describe design principles of the GEO Grid that are determined based on accommodating users requirements for publishing, managing, and using data. Second, software architecture and its preliminary implementations are specified where we take the Grid computing and Web service technologies as the core components that comply with a standard set of technologies and protocols. In addition, GEO Grid has been recognized to contribute to GEO or Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) as a part of the Japanese government's commitment.      

基于虚拟仪器和CORBA的分布式电能质量监测系统

提出了一种基于虚拟仪器和公共对象请求代理体系结构(CORBA)技术的分布式电能质量监测系统实现的框架结构,实现对电能质量指标的测量和监控。系统由在线监测模块、数据传输、中心监控站和远程诊断中心等组成,实现了数据采集、分析处理、诊断和报警等功能。数字测量仪器采用实验室虚拟仪器开发平台LabVIEW软件开发,实现硬件测量功能。网络通信中采用CORBA技术实现异构环境下中心控制站与各监测仪之间的远程访问和控制。系统仿真和现场测试均表明该系统能够基本实现电能质量各项指标的监测和分析功能,并具有实时性好、可靠性高、开发成本低等特点。     

传感器观测服务中异构感知数据的接入与管理

传感器观测服务（SOS）是传感器网络整合框架（SWE）的核心服务之一,用于管理多源传感器观测数据,并向终端用户提供数据服务。开放地理信息联盟（OGC ）制定了向SOS插入观测数据和从SOS获取观测数据的规范,但SOS不具备自适应处理不同接入方式、不同数据传输协议的异构传感器的能力。当通过SOS管理多源传感器观测数据时,必须接入传感器、解析来自该传感器的观测数据,并将其转换为满足SOS规范的数据格式。设计了一种异构传感器观测数据接入SOS的技术方案,从传感器注册、接入网选型、数据接收与解析、插入文档生成与数据插入等方面论述了方案的实现过程。以穿戴式心率监测传感器监测数据接入为例实现了心率监测传感器监测数据在SOS中的管理,表明该技术方案具有可行性,为异构传感器接入SOS奠定了基础。     

厂站监控系统中高可用数据库中间件的设计与实现

电力系统对数据存储可靠性有极高的要求,设计并实现了一个高可用数据库中间件MultiDbGate。它通过对连接和访问的动态维护和调度,屏蔽了底层连接、多数据库、双网等问题的复杂性,可以提供廉价而又简单的数据库服务,具备高可用性和可扩展性。介绍了中间件MultiDbGate的结构,分为单数据库接口、连接池、作业调度和日志服务4个模块。单数据库接口模块是对活动数据对象(ADO)的封装;连接池模块是中间件的核心,可以让不同的应用共享连接,并屏蔽了底层的分布式架构;作业调度模块是管理模块,响应应用的请求;日志服务模块通过日志重写保证数据一致性。中间件MultiDbGate已经在某电网的多个220kV变电站监控系统工程应用,效果良好。     

基于智能用电互动服务平台的智能家庭能效管理系统设计

为了实现电力用户与电力公司双向互动,满足电力用户多元化、互动化的用电服务需求,设计并实现依托于智能用电互动服务平台的海量信息数据和多元化服务,完成面向电力用户的智能家庭能效管理系统设计.本系统是以智能用电互动服务平台为系统支撑,构建智能电表、智能家庭网关、智能交互终端、智能插座和智能电器为依托,支持光伏发电、分布式电源、电动汽车充电等系统或设备的接入,结合阶梯电价、有序用电、家庭能耗指数等节能指标,形成电力公司与电力用户能源与信息同步的新型供电关系,为电力用户提供经济高效用电模式为综合体的智能家庭能效管理系统.系统设计具有标准接入、信息共享、高可靠性等优点,将在智能电网与电力用户之间发挥重要作用.     

A best-effort approach to an infrastructure for Chinese Web related research

The design of the infrastructure for Chinese Web (CWI), a prototype system aimed at forum data analysis, is introduced. CWI takes a best effort approach. 1) It tries its best to extract or annotate semantics over the web data. 2) It provides flexible schemes for users to transform the web data into eXtensible Markup Language (XML) forms with more semantic annotations that are more friendly for further analytical tasks. 3) A distributed graph repository, called DISGR is used as backend for management of web data. The paper introduces the design issues, reports the progress of the implementation, and discusses the research issues that are under study.     

面向电力用户的一种通用互动服务平台设计

为了支持电力用户与电力公司实现双向互动,满足电力用户多元化、互动化的用电服务需求,设计并实现了面向电力用户的通用互动服务平台.首先,根据智能用电服务系统整体框架,提出互动服务平台软件架构,为电力软件系统3、4区系统的接入提供设计标准和理论依据.其次,根据平台服务对象,设计平台的主要功能和服务内容.最后,详细介绍平台物理部署结构、安全防护接入方案和互动形式.本平台采用开放式的系统架构设计,具有标准接入、信息共享、高可靠性等优点,将在智能电网与电力用户之间发挥重要作用.     

A Conceptual Framework for Assessing the Benefits of a Global Earth Observation System of Systems

The aim of the Global Earth Observation System-of-Systems (GEOSS) is to improve the information available to decision makers, at all levels, relating to human health and safety, protection of the global environment, the reduction of losses from natural disasters, and achieving sustainable development. Specifically, GEOSS proposes that better international cooperation in the collection, interpretation, and sharing of Earth observation information is an important and cost-effective mechanism for achieving this aim. While there is a widespread intuition that this proposition is correct, at some point the following question needs to be answered: how much additional investment in Earth observation (and specifically, in its international integration) is enough? This leads directly to some challenging subsidiary questions, such as how can the benefits of Earth observation be assessed? What are the incremental costs of GEOSS? Are there societal benefit areas where the return on investment is higher than in others? The Geo-Bene Project has developed a “benefit chain” concept as a framework for addressing these questions. The basic idea is that an incremental improvement in the observing system (including its data collection, interpretation and information-sharing aspects) will result in an improvement in the quality of decisions based on that information. In turn, this will lead to better societal outcomes, which have a value. This incremental value must be judged against the incremental cost of the improved observation system. Since in many cases there will be large uncertainties in the estimation of both the costs and the benefits, and it may not be possible to express them in comparable monetary terms, we show how order-of-magnitude approaches and a qualitative understanding of the shape of the cost and benefit curves can help guide rational investment decisions in Earth Observation Systems.      

Data management and analysis for high-throughput DNA sequencingprojects

The rapid advances in molecular biology have begun to shift many of the bottlenecks in genome research from the laboratory to the data analysis facility. The pace at which this has occurred creates a situation in which software development always has to catch up with the flow of data. Since such large-scale processes were not anticipated, the analysis infrastructure has not been fully established. Furthermore, most systems that have been built were designed by the biologists who collected the data. More recently, computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers have taken an interest in this problem. This has had a positive effect, since it has created a tight synergy between the informatics and the biology. Several principles affected the design of the system developed at TIGR. Each of the sample preparation, sequencing, and analysis steps had to be managed, scheduled, and tracked. This information had to be made readily available to those who needed it for carrying out their tasks. Different skill levels of the users had to be taken into account. The degree of human intervention at each step had to be evaluated and built into the design. A mixed processing environment of Macintosh and Unix platforms had to be integrated. Most importantly, the system had to save time, reduce error, and ensure uniformity of the analysis and quality of the results. In the authors' experience, the tools they have built work well because of their early decisions as to which systems to use for development. The authors settled on a robust relational database management system (Sybase) and a portable development environment (C, C++)     

基于网关的远程数据采集系统设计

本文提出一种基于网关的数据采集系统设计方案,它以网关作为数据采集系统和Internet的接口,并以无线方式实现了测试数据从数据采集系统到网关的传输。开发了Web管理软件,并通过修改WEBSERVER(Boa)源代码,实现了多用户安全认证机制。该系统改变了传统的信息处理技术,可以很好地实现现场信息共享。     

电力监控系统跨平台集成方案的研究与实现

在对异构系统信息集成模式分析的基础上,重点研究电力监控系统中的数据库跨平台访问技术,实现了异构环境下的分布式应用互联.电力监控系统的数据库访问服务经过中间件因特网通信引擎IcE的封装,对外提供通用的接口,在多种开发环境下,通过接口描述可以透明调用数据库访问服务,实现了异构系统之间共享类库的应用,同时解决了异构系统的互操作问题.     

浅析基于物联网智能家电的通信安全评估方法与实践

物联网技术的发展及物联网在家电产品中的应用,实现了家电产品的智能化,即智能家电,能够为消费者提供更加舒适便捷的生活环境。与传统家电相比,智能家电除了实现产品基本使用功能外,还具有环境感知、信息传输、数据处理,甚至互联互通等特点,为此,智能家电不仅要考核电气安全还需考虑物联网安全,物联网安全一般分为终端安全、通信安全、服务端安全等。本文研究物联网智能家电的通信安全,具体研究以无线局域网WLAN网络接入方式的智能家电设备在以太网的通信安全问题,利用一些软件工具通过抓包、重放等评估方式,探析数据在传输中可能存在的安全问题,并针对这些安全问题,提出了一些对策和建议。     

Internet-based monitoring and controls for HVAC applications

Significant advances in Internet and computer technology have made it possible to develop an Internet-based control, monitoring, and operation scheduling system for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. The proposed system architecture includes such features as control, measurement, networking, and reporting. This article addresses issues in architecture selection, electronics, embedded processors and software, and Internet technologies. This article also proposes an Internet-based HVAC system architecture that combines Web technology, networking, and functions of direct digital control. The proposed system also includes technologies needed for supporting real-time digital thermostat control, data gathering, remote access and occupancy control, light sensing control, and views of the history of HVAC utilization. This system enables users to make cost-effective energy decisions and quickly identify trouble spots of HVAC systems to minimize system down time     

Designing and Using Software Tools for Educational Purposes: FLAT, a Case Study

Educational software tools are considered to enrich teaching strategies, providing a more compelling means of exploration and feedback than traditional blackboard methods. Moreover, software simulators provide a more motivating link between theory and practice than pencil-paper methods, encouraging active and discovery learning in the students. The use and development of educational software is a field that has grasped the attention of teachers and researchers from different disciplines and theoretical frameworks in the last few years. In this paper, the authors present SoftwarE for Learning Formal languages and Automata theory (SELFA), an educational software simulator tool, designed to improve the quality of teaching in Theory of Computation courses. The aim of this tool is to make it easier to teach and to learn the main concepts of this subject, whose level of abstraction makes both activities difficult. The main advantage of this tool over other software tools designed with the same purpose, is that it has been developed using web technologies. This allows the user to collect and analyze data on how and when a student or group has used the tool. These numerical data can then be used to evaluate the student's work.      

Application of a system with distributed architecture for information acquisition and processing in tasks of active–adaptive voltage control in distribution electric grids

An active–adaptive control system for power grids with distributed architecture of data acquisition and processing is considered. The advantages of the proposed control principle are compared with commonly used methods. A domestic apparatus—a programmable recording bay controller (PRBC)—is described. This hardware was designed to measure the basic electrical parameters and create distributed systems for data acquisition and processing. The procedure is considered of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) by the SONATA system based on a multicore distributed architecture having high reliability and supporting a rigid real-time mode. A full-function full-scale model of active–adaptive voltage control system (AAVC) was set up using proposed software and hardware. The AAVC makes it possible to use the results of calculating–measuring procedures to select a corresponding on-load tap-changer (OLTC) on the actual voltage levels in the nodes of distribution grid. This approach to centralized voltage control in distribution grids makes it possible to ensure the required level of voltage in the greatest possible number of power consumers owing to prediction of voltage change. The effect of emergencies (random failure of control equipment) during the operation of an active–adaptive voltage control system is analyzed. A qualitative evaluation of the effect of faults on regulation quality and choice of OLTC connection is carried out. It is shown that, for undisturbed operation of an active–adaptive voltage control system, additional diagnostic tools, backup, and data loss compensation are needed.