International cooperation and technology transfer

Fras, Mojca Kosmatin

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Persistent identifier:: 856490555

Author:: Fras, Mojca Kosmatin

Title:: International cooperation and technology transfer

Sub title:: Ljubljana, Slovenia, February 2 - 5, 2000 : proceedings of the workshop

Scope:: VI, 163 Seiten

Year of publication:: 2000

Place of publication:: London

Publisher of the original:: RICS Books

Identifier (digital):: 856490555

Illustration:: Illustrationen, Diagramme

Language:: English

Usage licence:: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Publisher of the digital copy:: Technische Informationsbibliothek Hannover

Place of publication of the digital copy:: Hannover

Year of publication of the original:: 2016

Document type:: Monograph

Collection:: Earth sciences

Chapter

Title:: A MAP-BASED WEB SERVER FOR THE COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA. G. Guariso, M. Ferrari, D. Macchi

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

78 Initial date Final date File format File location Comment Relations. These values are organized in a number of different relational tables depending upon the specific "entity type". For instance, for an entity of type "municipality" the "position" is in fact a collection of point coordinates representing its borders. For a measurement station the position slot is only a pair of coordinates. The same is true for the slot "relations" which defines the entities that are connected in some way to the one at hand (for instance, a lake has a relation with the inflowing river). Obviously, several different data sets may belong to the same entity and they may also belong to different data categories. For instance, a measurement station may collect flow data as well as air temperature or oxygen concentration. The “comment” field can be used to supply all additional information to the data set, such as methods of measure, data reliability, code for missing data, etc. The entity type is the only attribute that must be chosen within a specified value set: municipalities, mountain communities, parks, lakes, rivers, measurement stations. Extensions of this set imply a revision of the system, while for all the other sets (for instance, data categories or file formats) they can be easily expanded by the system administrator since their possible values are also stored in specific database tables. The definition and use of the attribute "relations" requires some more details. The entity types are organized in a hierarchy, which, together with the geographical location, automatically defines a certain number of relations between entities. Such a hierarchy is sketched in figure 4. For instance, a mountain community is automatically related to the municipalities that constitute it or a river is related to the park through which it flows. However, the entity at a higher level in the hierarchy are related with all the entity at a lower level, while the reverse it is not true. Entities at the same level are related only to those adjacent or included. The system administrator can also force other relations in specific cases. The existence of such relations among entities is of great importance for data retrieval. If a user is looking for air quality data in a certain community, he or she will be able to see all those collected by the individual municipalities, even if they are not directly in relation with the community as a whole. On the contrary, if the user looks specifically for the data in a certain municipality, that means he or she is not interested in the rest of the community and thus such data will not be provided. Note that air quality data are normally associated to measurement stations, but they can be found looking for a municipality since they have a relation of inclusion with it. 4. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The architecture of the system is very simple and based on two different figures: users and administrator (fig. 5). Fig. 5 - Structure of the system Each of them has dedicated programs either in the client (the users) or in the server (both the users and the administrator) side of the computer implementation. The user can search for environmental data sets by preparing a query to the metadata base using the interface. He can search by selecting a geographical position (within a given distance from a point, whose coordinates are either entered numerically or by clicking the mouse on the map), by data categories, by time period or by a combination of these attributes. He can preview the data.sets found and decide whether or not to download them. He or she can also submit new data sets to the system. For this purpose, a frame with the metadata specification must be filled and the file containing the data set is uploaded to the server. Finally, the user can also suggest the creation of a new measurement station, by defining its position and name. Both these last possibilities require the intervention of the administrator. He is notified of the user’s request, must analyze the information submitted by the user and control that all the necessary definitions have been correctly supplied. Obviously, he is not responsible for the correctness or completeness of the data, which are entirely under control of the data provider. It is, on the contrary, a task of the administrator to check if the relations automatically established by the system for the new data set are correct or if other should be added.

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