A gentle introduction to the Species Profile Model Robert A. Morris Department of Computer Science UMASS-Boston Doesn’t talk as fast as Greg Whitbread

Species Profile Model An extension of the TDWG LSID RDF Vocabularies (“lsid vocs”) Designed by Roger Hyams with input from a small GBIF workshop in 2007 Adds named classes of objects representing 37 biological concepts Supports, but doesn’t specify, controlled vocabularies for use with those concepts

SPM Advantages Lightweight (with suitable tools) way to say stuff about a Taxon(Concept) in such a way that –producer and consumer software can “agree” about the domain of discourse (e.g. Description, Cytology, Phenology, Ecology, LifeCycle, Reproduction,...) –can represent attributes either in plain text or with controlled vocabulary (or both) –can extend TDWG LSID vocabularies to encompass existing controlled vocabularies (with care)

SPM Advantages Lightweight (with suitable tools) way to say stuff about a Taxon(Concept) in such a way that –supports data integration –supports machine reasoning (presently) –can express context of assertions about taxa, e.g. : Callithomia hezia has larval host plant Lycianthes sanctaeclarae throughout Central America More ubiquitous than you think: RSSAnnotea Adobe XMP

SPM Disadvantages RDF technology harder to master and support than XML Schema

RDF Triples –(Subject, Predicate, Object) –Stack of sublanguages, progressively more expressive, but the last (“OWL Full”) is logically incomplete and computationally intractible (i.e. scales exponentially) –Next to last (“OWL DL”) is quite good for machine reasoning –Several expressions, including RDF/XML, not meant to be human readable, but mostly are.

(c)W3C

See also SPM lsid vocs

InfoItems Biology Description –Size Cytology Physiology Molecular Biology Ecology Conservation Distribution Use Evolution TaxonBiology TrophicStrategy Cyclicity Dispersal Migration LifeCycle Reproduction Growth Life Expectancy

InfoItems Genetics Associations Diseases Habitat Behaviour PopulationBiology GeneralDescription DiagnosticDescription LookAlikes Key Morphology Management ConservationStatus Legislation Threats Trends Procedures

SPM Applications Data integration Quality assurance via machine reasoning Hypothesis testing, assertion comparisons,....

IPR Quercus ilex rotundifolia (c) Valter Jacinto 0_3fc76697d0.jpg?v=0 cc by-nc-sa licensed RDF stack (c)W3C used with permission Cartoon fruit from Microsoft PowerPoint images web library. Permission unknown.