Extracting and providing knowledge within an object-centered scientific information system for atmospheric research

The paper deals with an object-centered scientific information system for the extraction and preparation of scientific knowledge. A knowledge representation system (KRS) based on description logics (DL) is considered to be the basis for the construction of a terminological knowledge base. It is based on a conceptual description schema defined for the metadata needed in order to provide explanations and/or justifications to scientific results. The central element of the knowledge base is the concept and not the rule. Rules are characteristic for the concepts and not for the inference engine. Concepts are also structured due to courses of events which are conceived as mappings between locations and situation types. Locations are conceived in terms of space and time for the concepts related to scientific discipline (atmospheric research) and those related to the domain of the scientific experiment concerning its execution environment (measurement and data processing conditions). In the case of processing conditions, space refers to the data transformation steps. Situation types are regarded as relations holding between individuals (measurement, atmospheric or process parameters) in a certain situation type. The object-oriented KRS addresses the underlying components dealing with the process model, the time-series measurements, the file (mass) storage system. The coupling will be achieved according to an object-oriented integration technology (CORBA) and its implementation standards.